Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 0:12 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
In reply to: Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget) by bojan
Parent article: Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

There is cognitive dissonance at play here when you ignore the part where the same money is funding GNOME Shell default mode as well.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 0:34 UTC (Tue) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

Red Hat made it clear to the devs that "modern" (LOL!) was not anywhere near usable enough to make it into RHEL7, after even so many years of development. They laid down the law. Red Hat has a responsibility to their customers to shield them from their Fedora children.

But the developers are still valuable enough to retain. Red Hat would prefer them not to leave in a snit.

You can try to argue against that. But isn't this all pretty obvious?

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 0:37 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (7 responses)

No cognitive dissonance at all. They paid some folks money to go do things. These folks came back with a result. Red Hat said, sorry - our users are not going to be subjected to this (overview UI).

In the real world, occasionally when you fund something, you get a lemon. It happens. So, when you get handed that lemon, what do you do? You make lemonade (read: Gnome Classic).

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 0:43 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (6 responses)

If your assumptions are correct, they should only fund classic mode going forward. I doubt that.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 0:58 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (5 responses)

What a completely disingenuous comment.

If some random YouTube reviewer that didn't understand what classic mode was wrote that, I would say fine - the guy doesn't know any better. But you know better, because, as you pointed out out on these very pages, classic mode is just a bunch of extensions thrown together, so that the UI looks a bit like Gnome 2 (and this is what we are talking about here - the UI paradigm shipped by default in RHEL7).

In terms of the platform development, the horse has bolted. Gnome 3 is the new platform (the one Red Hat are behind anyway), so they have to work with what they have (i.e. paid to be built). Saying "only fund classic mode going forward" is a complete nonsense statement for an openly and dedicatedly open source company like Red Hat. And you know it.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 1:05 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (4 responses)

Aha, now you begin to see my point. Red Hat is a dedicated open source company and it is foolish to say money talks and only commercial enterprise customers matter. Commercial validation is important but community is relevant to the conversation as well.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 1:15 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

Your point is that what Red Hat decided to ship as a default UI in RHEL7 is not a reflection on the value of the new, overview based UI. I completely disagree with that point. It is a value statement. If they saw great value in this new paradigm (which they helped finance), they would be happy to shout from the rooftops that they "nailed it". Hey, Microsoft sure did that with tiles.

Red Hat will continue to finance open source because they think they can get what they want cheaper that way. This, however, does not mean that everything they get a as a result will be to their liking. Or that they will risk exposing their _paying_ customers to it. This is where money talks.

Of course, you know all this. You are just trying to defend you position with disingenuous statements now.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 1:18 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

"Your point is that what Red Hat decided to ship as a default UI in RHEL7 is not a reflection on the value of the new, overview based UI"

Not all all. I explicitly said commercial validation is important but the focus on only that is too narrow and reeks of proprietary vendors and you need to understand and ack the community value as well.

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 1:44 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (1 responses)

What you actually wrote is this (i.e. exactly what I paraphrased above):

> If they didn't think the default mode for GNOME Shell was useful, they wouldn't be funding it.

Clearly, based on a alternative default UI choice in RHEL7, default mode (overview paradigm) is not what they find useful. Otherwise, they would be promoting as the "best since sliced bread, what Microsoft did with tiles, kinda thingy".

Red Hat discloses RHEL roadmap (TechTarget)

Posted Jun 18, 2013 1:49 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I understand your argument but find it a sad and narrow perspective. I am just reminded of Solaris and CDE. Hopefully the Linux community on the whole has a broader view of things.