X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Let's not get over-dramatic. Fedora decided not to break users' systems. They didn't decide to cancel upgrading to 7.1. They didn't decide that xorg 7.1 will never be in Fedora Core 5, ever. They just aren't shipping it now, but I bet that when the binary drivers are available it will be pushed out as an update. Users who want it now can get it. Users who don't want it have working systems. This is not a question of Fedora abandonning its principles. They aren't going to start shipping the binary drivers, or the mp3 codecs, or any of those other products that users arguably want but violate, in some way, the politics of Fedora/RedHat.

Consider this: pushing xorg 7.1 into yum's updates will force people to upgrade, since it's a cumbersome task to manage this update process and somehow exclude xorg. Furthermore it means that Fedora will stop supporting xorg 7.0 and this may leave non-upgrading users vulnerable to security problems. But by NOT pushing xorg everyone who has a working Fedora system gets to keep using it, and anyone who wants xorg 7.1 can get it somewhere else (like, FC6 or fedora development).

Frankly I'm glad that Fedora made the decision that causes the least harm to their users. And I think it's clear that this stance is the proper stance, no matter what the cause of the delay is, whether it's lack of a popular binary driver, or some other incompatibility that is outside of Fedora's control. This is what a responsible distro does: it packages quality software together, and coordinates and manages the releases to maximize the user's productivity and convenience. So I say Thank You to the Fedora developers.