Fedora philosophy (was ATI video comes out of the closet)

[Les Mikesell]

Ed Greshko wrote:
>>>
>>> I'll preface what I am going to say below by repeating what I've already
>>> said which I thought was quite simple.
>>>
>>> "When making a choice to use RHEL the client *did not* first
>>> experiment with
>>> or try out Fedora."  Period, end of story.
>> OK, then I guess you don't have experience with the situation I am
>> trying to describe.
> 
> No.  It seems that the people I work with are much more experienced and or
> informed.

I don't get it. I thought you said they weren't experienced with Fedora. 
  Are they or aren't they?

>> _IF_ your client had experience and expertise with fedora,
>> perhaps going back to the RH versions before the fedora split, would you
>> take into account the fact that using RHEL on the server side would take
>> no extra training on either the admin or operators parts?  But maybe
>> places like that don't call consultants.
> 
> That is a mighty big *IF* you have there.  As I already said, the type of
> clients I work with know not to compare/use Fedora as a basis for their
> decisions. 

What do you mean by 'know not to compare'?  FC3 and FC6 were virtually 
identical to the cuts of RHEL at the corresponding times give or take an 
  application version or two.  If you are considering a deployment on an 
upcoming RHEL release, fedora is as close as you are going to get to 
that code base for testing prior to the release.

 > I'm sorry to say that is *fact*.  If you can't deal with that, I
> can't help you.

I don't know about 'dealing' with it.  I don't understand it.

>> That's sort of like saying that if you have the resources you could
>> assemble a fleet of custom built cars from parts and maintain them
>> yourself instead of driving standard models.  Yes it could be done. It's
>> just not a good idea, and not something most places should have to do.
>> Especially with free software where it should only have to be done once
>> and everyone should be able to copy it.
> 
> ????  It is done only once...by the IT staff.  As a matter of fact, in the
> places that I've done work each desktop is not updated by using RHN
> directly.  They use the Red Hat Satellite Server to deploy and update and
> control software distribution.  And the updates are not placed on the
> satellite server until vetted by the IT department.
> 
> It is also done via automated processes since not everyone should have to
> know how/when to update their systems.  That is not their primary function
> in life.  It seems you think everyone should be a sysadmin?

Not at all.  I'm saying that no one should need to be a sysadmin because 
the distribution should be usable as is.   That fact that this concept 
seems foreign to you shows just how badly those distributions miss the 
mark. And everyone certainly shouldn't need to be sysadmins on wildly 
differing distributions just to be able to use linux on both their 
desktops and their servers.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com