Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter? [LWN.net]

Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter?

Posted Nov 13, 2008 14:02 UTC (Thu) by kh (subscriber, #19413)
In reply to: Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter? by rahulsundaram
Parent article: Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter?

Excuse me if this changed already and I simply did not notice, but maybe the best thing Redhat/Fedora could do from a marketing prospective is to have an executive at Redhat state they have decided to go after the desktop market.

(The last I remember hearing, Redhat's (then?) CEO said they were avoiding the desktop market altogether... why should anyone then be surprised that there is more enthusiasm for a desktop project from a company who's leader has made the desktop their primary focus?)

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Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter?

Posted Nov 13, 2008 15:11 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I don't Red Hat or Canonical disagrees much on the profitability of consumer desktops

http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/16/whats-going-on-wit...

http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntus_shuttleworth_i_don...

If there is already common understanding in the business prospects, there is then, a common challenge on making it more viable. Red Hat continues to invest heavily in desktop technologies and I am sure there is a commercial interest there for now and in the long term as well. Executive announcements just for posturing won't help.

Fedora release cycles: longer or shorter?

Posted Nov 13, 2008 19:13 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Yes.. The desktop still is critically important for Linux.

Right now Microsoft (according to common wisdom) controls the only viable platform for business desktop. Because of this they get more hardware support, more application support, more everything then Linux.

It fundamentally cripples the ability for Linux to compete in a huge and profitable market, even if your goal is to make money from servers. Microsoft has control of the desktop platform and because of this they are in a position to control how it operates and they use this to their advantage.