rpmfusion based spin

[Andreas Thienemann]

Rahul,

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

We're getting rapidly off-topic here, but I'll state my general opinion of 
the current state and attitude of fedora and most likely not contribute to 
this OT thread any further. Let's hope I won't pull a Bryan Smith having 
to reply to myself. :-)

> >>> Define "works". 
> >> Works for me and I am using it on a regular basis for the usual tasks.
> > Single user desktop, I suppose?
> Yes and otherwise as well.

Something "working" only for single user desktops is considered broken.
It is a complete surprise to me how this focus on single-desktop to the 
detriment of multi-user machines slipped into our distribution.
 
> >> Make sure you have the latest updates and file bug reports otherwise. 

Uhhh. No. Sorry. I've grown older since I started using Linux ages ago.  
I'm already having too little time to do all the things I'd like to do,
there's no way I'm going to file bugs for .*Kit programs anymore. It's
just not worth it. I'm not any longer wasting time to file bugs against
non-working, ill-designed software which was slipped into the distribution
replacing a perfectly working, universal system with something bolted onto
the system as a GTK-frontend needing X11 to even start up supporting only
a subset of the earlier available features.
I've seen it too often lately that bugs referring to features which were 
previously working and after the inclusion of one of the .*Kit tools 
suddenly broke beeing closed. While I just get a fuzzy feeling over 
the WONTFIX tag being applied to such bugs together with the explanation 
"You don't need this feature" I have an equally sweet spot for the 
increasingly common "Yes, we know this. Will be fixed in one of the next 
releases".

WTF? You're knowingly breaking stuff which worked before in order to push 
your half-baked "solution"?

Nice example: Bridging? Who would ever need this. Or why the hell would we 
_EVER_ need networking before logging in a user under gdm.

WHO THE FUCK is replacing working stuff with broken crap in our
distribution?

Have we really reached the point where we need something like our RHEL 
product management to veto software inclusion which breaks existing stuff? 
Regression is a serious problem in RHEL but it seems that fedora happily 
charges ahead and pisses of it's experienced users expecting more then the 
ubuntu experience from their systems.

> > I am using vanilla FC9
> Without the updates?  There was a number of issues fixed in the later 
> updates. Anyway, if you aren't running it at all, no point discussing it.

See above, why are updates needed to restore previously working 
functionality? Something in our development process seems to be severly 
broken. I've been working with computers for a long time now and I 
unquestionally accept the need for updates. Hell, my own tools need 
updates as well.
But shoving broken cruft down our users throats should not be the fedora 
experience we strive for.

PackageKit, NetworkManager, PulseAudio, ConsoleKit, DeviceKit,
gnome-power-manager are all perfect illustrations for my cases above. It
seems camel case and the Kit monicer are increasingly serving as warning
signs to stay away. Why is that? And is that the state we want things to
be?

Go talk to some of our own base os developers. There's lots and lots of 
love for our desktop team going round... If this rant should be over the 
top, sorry, I've been hanging out the last year with these guys... It was 
an eye-opening experience about the sorry state of our desktop stack and 
by extension our future direction.

regards,
 andreas

I think I should put this up as a blog post for better circulation... /me 
goes to ponder...