"expected gains in market share"

[Rudolf Kastl]

2006/4/6, Cam <camilo at mesias.co.uk>:
> Eric,
>
> Do you really think that a substantial population of adopters are ready
> and waiting but held back because mp3 isn't in Fedora?

i agree... installing the livna release package and yum installing an
mp3 addon package isnt a really big deal. and also this way we push
superior formats that are free... mp3 is just a suboptimal legacy
format in my eyes anyways.

>
> I think that's nonsense. If you rank potential users by ability, the
> vast majority will not use Fedora because they can't buy a machine with
> it pre-installed;

Lots of users have windows preinstalled and they dont know anything
else or cant imagine that something else that doesnt cost anything can
even be better for their use cases.


> others will not use Fedora because they aren't
> confident about partitioning disks or shrinking NTFS partitions.

You cant do that with windows xp... you need addon tools whereas the
most known and easiest to find tools are proprietary. The win os just
doesent even provide those basic features and i doubt vista will fix
it because they have a tough time to catch up with their desktop to
not look like from 1995. Vector based desktop in vista... i use svg
themes since ages on linux ... also well i dont expect them to develop
lots of additions to the basic os because fixing up the few basic apps
they supply (like gnomemeeting and the directx crash i reported around
8 years ago that is still present in the xp version).

>
> I'm not aware of any vendor that ships Fedora (and IMHO it's not likely
> as a vendor would chose something which would be supported for longer
> than a given Fedora release). Given that other users will have to follow
> technical instructions to burn CDs or perform a network install, they
> will have a level of ability where they are more than capable of getting
> mp3 support through the established methods.

There are how tos. If a person isnt able to follow a simple 3 step
procedure that is well documented with how tos i am asking myself if
the person:

a) should use a computer at all
b) maybe should start learning to read
c) is a member of the intended audience for _any_ software product


>
> I think there are better goals that would increase adoption:
>
> 1. marketing: a 'sampler' live-CD or VMWare image; web based tutorials
> and demos with video showing features

A live cd would definitely help and also show the user if the system
actually does support his hardware and meet his requirements and use
cases. A vmware image would probably just introduce additional bugs
and make linux appear lots slower than it actually is. Sure live cds
are slower than a hd install aswell but theres no host os eating up
ram and cpu power.


> 2. technical improvements: provide email notification through
> thunderbird; provide desktop integration for firefox; any other workflow
>  related improvements

Well i prefer evolution personally. And as for firefox... a new
frontend to the renderer like galeon that does integrate properly with
gnome would be nicer and faster as well as better integrating. I just
dont see that happen with firefox.

> 3. better documentation from a user's perspective - how to do task X
> instead of how to use 'Banshee' (or any other obscurely named app)

Thats two completly different kinds of documentation. Theres
application specific ones and task specific ones. Task specific ones
should probably describe how to achieve a result in multible and as
far as possible task independent ways.

> 4. bling, because people will make the effort to see it, even if it's
> not a productivity enhancement; it also gets you noticed in print. As a
> bleeding edge distro Fedora is well placed to make the most of this.

Bling on by default also requires it to be less buggy and
problematic.Installing bling is nothing but adding one repo yumming
the server, using gdmsetup and choosing aiglx and enabling composite.
Then triggering a gconf switch and done. I think if you cant handle
that at the moment you are also not able to attach gdb and report bugs
upstream properly which is what is required at the moment besides
fixing more drivers up for it and getting bugs squashed.

But yes i agree... the majority of win users can be easily attracted
with nice eye candy that doesent need a dual core cpu (compare vista).

>
> I think any of the above would do more to increase adoption than merely
> including mp3 support.

Looking at mp3 support for me means looking back to nonfree legacy
stuff. i never look back.


regards,
Rudolf Kastl

p.s. as always just my personal opinion

>
> -Cam
>
> --
>
>                                                                      <--
> camilo at mesias.co.uk
>
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