"Default" spin of Fedora

[Kevin Kofler]

(First of all, sorry for the lack of threading and line breaks in the previous 
reply, I was not at home and my ISP's webmail system is braindead.)

On Thursday 12 June 2008, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Kevin Kofler wrote:
> > * But what desktop? The problem is that there are 2 (even 3 counting your
> > XFCE spin, but unfortunately XFCE is currently not on the DVD either).
>
> As the Xfce spin maintainer, I don't really want my spin to be listed
> very prominently at all. I dare say the Xfce maintainers in Fedora would
> likely agree with me on that.

That's OK, but as one of the KDE maintainers, I _do_ want a spin containing 
KDE to be listed prominently (also considering the market share statistics). 
If live CDs are really the way to go (which I'm not sure of for reasons 
already described elsewhere in this thread), then the GNOME-based Desktop 
Live and the KDE Live spin should be listed equally, not the GNOME one in a 
huge link and the KDE one relegated to a hidden secondary download page. 
Otherwise, the default should be the DVD (and KDE should also be made more 
prominent in the installer, but that's a separate issue).

In case you really want the spin maintainer's opinion: I CCed the KDE Live CD 
maintainer on this mail. Sebastian, it would be great to have your position 
too.

> Choice is fine and dandy but it is utterly confusing for the non-technical
> end users.

That's where we disagree. I think presenting them both options the same way is 
the way to let them pick their own preference, we should not try to think for 
them.

> Anybody who even knows what a desktop environment can very well click on
> the additional options.

Here you're assuming that they even notice that the additional options exist 
at all! If you have a big "Download Fedora now" link with the GNOME live CD 
and some tiny fine print linking to get-fedora, what do you think people will 
click on?

> I do agree with you that additional hints that the desktop spin holds GNOME
> would be a good thing.

At least there's one thing we agree on. ;-)

> > * You're also ignoring the point I raised that software (_desktop_
> > software!) as popular as OpenOffice.org (!!!) is only available on the
> > DVD (and in the repository, but you're well aware of the fact that many
> > users need everything on their media for technical reasons such as (lack
> > of) Internet connectivity).
>
> Sure but the point is that people who *are* downloading it are better
> off not downloading everything on the media when Fedora is going to
> update them fast. People who are redistributing it like say magazines or
> vendors might prefer the DVD image or even specialized everything spins
> instead.

But do you really want to leave new users with the impression that 
Fedora "doesn't have" OpenOffice.org? Because that's what they'll think if 
the live CDs (or even worse, one live CD, the one with no complete office 
suite at all! The KDE Live CD at least has KOffice) are the only visible 
option. (And as I said before, I don't consider fine print to be "visible", 
people don't read fine print.)

        Kevin Kofler