[NTLUG:Discuss] Giving Up On FEDORA

Greg Edwards greg at nas-inet.com
Wed Jan 6 14:07:54 CST 2010


Ted Gould wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 10:39 -0600, Greg Edwards wrote:
> 
> I think that his issue is with your use of "in the beginning."  I think
> that RH still has a lot to do with putting Linux on the map per se.
> While it's impossible to compare "contributions to Open Source" (I think
> at one time Oracle had a metric that put them on top) -- RH continues to
> be a major contributor.
> 
> 		--Ted

In Red Hat's early days they led the way on installers that the average 
Joe could successfully use, compared to others.  Slackware was doable, 
but not as easy.  There were a zillion books with so-called easy to 
install versions, but RH was by far the easiest.

After the IPO they started moving towards the tech savvy community 
(developers) at the expense of general users.  IMO, the Fedora split 
moved at lightening speed away from the general user and is now an 
unfriendly distro.  I'm not saying that Fedora isn't adding to Linux and 
the OSS community at the engineering level.  And, RHEL has expanded the 
advantages and strengths of Linux over any of the Redmond offerings for 
the enterprise.

I just can't put RH in the camp that is interested in the desktop user 
anymore.  Microsoft may have a poorly engineered product, but they 
continue to keep a hold on the technology illiterate business owner and 
consumer markets.  Linux will never compete at a serious market share 
level with MS until it "just works" without having to hack at it. 
Unfortunately, too many times Linux advocates are not tolerant of 
general users.  General users out-number us by a whole lot.  If we want 
Linux to take over the world we need them on our side.  As long as we 
keep perpetuating an image of arrogant elitists, we will keep losing the 
war.


--
Greg E



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