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What would a goal look like?

What would a goal look like?

Posted Jul 27, 2007 2:43 UTC (Fri) by kingdon (subscriber, #4526)
Parent article: Fedora's mid-life crisis

What is Ubuntu's goal (in the sense that Fedora is lacking one). The Ubuntu home page says "laptop, desktop and server", so it isn't a subset of those. They haven't picked a single desktop (unless you discount kubuntu, and given that kubuntu packages live in the same archives as ubuntu, I'm not sure what the big difference would be). They aren't out to kill off derivative distributions, or to make it so Ubuntu itself is so broken that you need to be running a derivative. Bill Nottingham mentions some more possibilities: emphasize customizability, the online connected destkop, ports/embedded, more users, etc. Some of these could easily be a team within a larger distribution (a la kubuntu or the Fedora SIGs and projects).

Seems to me that a narrow goal is kind of elusive, especially if you also want to do things like make Fedora volunteer-welcoming or even volunteer-driven. I think I see the value of having a goal (or at least the perception of one :-)), but I'm less clear on how one is supposed to work.


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What would a goal look like?

Posted Jul 28, 2007 19:03 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

What is Ubuntu's goal (in the sense that Fedora is lacking one).

Desktop for non-geeks. If other things don't interfere - they are kept alive, but no more then that. Kubuntu, Xubuntu and other derivatives are good, but they are not priority for Ubuntu team.

They haven't picked a single desktop (unless you discount kubuntu, and given that kubuntu packages live in the same archives as ubuntu, I'm not sure what the big difference would be).

The difference is simple: Ubuntu packages are polished by Ubuntu team, Kubuntu/Xubuntu packages are polished by volunteers. If something breaks in Ubuntu - it's a big deal, if Xubuntu upgrade fails totally... well... shit happens. Kubuntu/Xiubuntu are not priority for Canonical.

I think I see the value of having a goal (or at least the perception of one :-)), but I'm less clear on how one is supposed to work.

It's easy: you declare that you want A, B and also C. Unconditionally. Any change which breaks/worsens A, B and C are not allowed. Actually Fedora already have one such thing: SELinux. If package does not work with SELinux - it's broken and must be fixed. I don't know any other distribution with such a goal (but I'm sure they exist). But this "goal" looks like... too narrow... I think. They need something more exciting as a goal...

What would a goal look like?

Posted Aug 3, 2007 7:30 UTC (Fri) by peschmae (guest, #32292) [Link]

SELinux that *just works* sounds pretty exciting to me ;-)

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