The Great Panda Debate
After a number of good looking re-design mockups for the Fedora front page featured a cute panda drawing, a passionate debate heated: some people are in love with the cute critter and others are offended to be associated with something warm, fuzzy and lovable. I say: resistance is futile, here are some evidence:
Already Panda iz in ur computer, developing Fedora (along with his sidekick Hello Kitty, but unfortunately HK is not, and can't ever be, our trademark):
![[panda fedora]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sM5jIfjj1HAiJ3u6keMpeXbaGpScabm4O0Bs3N-7TLW2PXAIGv8JvQy9tPTJeiv8kyQ4C7XRGTgPoycSSGuazyHNh8hvq2BPUkpONkaOnVbXXkdWl3r546WOILM0V1D0AwZUZmnvV4fvjP-A_MP35ytA=s0-d)
They already got hold of our fearless leader:
![[panda fedora]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ufJgKqNMKKy53sxCXZIFbadDtC93uPHtbnoBcNHoAh1TFZa1_Y1DL3NpGRJfaYdo5zSxhYYrNpBglkjBALoafmByaQWtbGs0VWjwlmJus04kNTn3OtqUVzTgYGTri3N_PHDujqxx9Uf6EGMDjLJ3lD-g=s0-d)
...and strongarmed Tux:
![[panda fedora]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vbMoDyIop2H0UmnYs4S3UUSK7qiAh_J2JctVc6dkr034PZ84c5zQ8I8Q9xV2aR_kP1wC3Ww2XXk9vg8GqJUerwReKEjDNhP0Jx6sMHdxpNrWK8NetjiOw9pnSzq6WaEm9Jl0b8dhqdI1KayDyYvkuR=s0-d)
Bad news: if you don't behave, they have fearsome fangs and claws:
![[panda fedora]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s0-ZZYV-C3XLdhia-NYIzZWENBQPJHERCBUe7YkctSP1w-WyEkQd4Jz_vr57_JwYToNSKl3PedgNqA8ytIxaKUT4cuqe5mdKnZ1rawbnp2ehmv-RBJpCp7_Yhu7xGtBLf5DnUtNwIRrbi-Lv8D9MEZjg=s0-d)
But when needed, know how to party hard:
![[panda fedora]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_spx4vJ22_lmlEst39fy1qaK2GZVXZZzf-erABGQmYxjr883JPJBYBOAyF9sfNlu7ok2pnFTYrB_2ZEBCm_yJ09I-HU3YN3o0QmxxqFrcOLDUDJM4ixpfJX-OuXFtSKoVkLF1pa6TngSPX44jh9Q5v_DQ=s0-d)
So what's your stance on pandas? For myself, I know I should get some free time, a piece of paper and a pencil and start my hand getting used at drawing the guy :D
Posts
I believe the other post summed it up, we don't want to work on a teddy bear distribution, and we believe (currently) without LTS releases Fedora is /not/ suitable for end users. If we want to focus on end users, and the people who /work/ on it want to, we need to make that a priority first before we change who we are advertising to.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, we have a voting system that should be used before agreeing to have a mascot. If folks want one, we can then put /what/ to a vote, and then vote on community summitted artwork by a third vote. It affects too many people unwillingly if we become represented by a panda.
Until we start to focus on desktop end users exclusively, and work in concert (not sure we can even /do/ that), it seems somewhat dishonest to pitch to them that way. The 6-month release cycle is just painful for them, and we drop security updates way too soon. Really, Fedora is a development hub, as it stands.
one thing about pandas I didn't consider before, but noticed with the picture of Tux - they are both black & white... Tux has an orange beak though.
ReplyDeletewho is "we"?
ReplyDelete@Michael DeHaan: we tried to develop a mascot a couple of years ago and learned It was not wanted. But a cute critter on the website is not a mascot.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we must have a scary (spartan) website to drive the users away.
Preupgrade makes the release cycle much less scary to the average Joe. Yes, it's not bulletproof yet, but it apparently works better than anything else available. We are gathering stats this cycle to help us make some better decisions about how to push users to this choice.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing disingenuous about encouraging end-users to try Fedora through a more attractive site. (I'll stay out of the panda debate for now.) I think we should be encouraging our various spin owners to be a little more focused on their respective target audiences through policy packages that provide an environment conducive for those people. That goes for Desktop, KDE, FEL, and so on.
Preupgrade is nice, but buried, and has some glitches. For instance it doesn't warn about space that it needs well -- so it may glitch during upgrades after reboot. All things that can be fixed, true.
ReplyDeleteFurther, if that's the case we need to be shipping it by default and somehow dynamically turning it on when available.
We is Fedora.
Buried? Nope! It's installed by default, and PackageKit automatically pops up a notice when the next release is available.
ReplyDeleteAgreed about the warnings -- I had a long call with Seth Vidal, James Laska, and Jonathan Blandford about preupgrade and the need for it to do some sanity tests before wasting the user's time. Default installations now should generally provide everything preupgrade needs -- space in /boot, notably.
I think the LTS argument is creaky; lots of people use short-life distros capably, which you can see from our statistics and whatever other distros are claiming this month. We are already working on automation that would allow us to avoid update problems like the D-Bus debacle. We're no longer living in a day where you pull down a DVD, install, and pray that things work OK. The default download of a Live spin is truly no strings attached and we need to make that easier for anyone to do.
Next up, we need some upgrades to LiveUSB Creator and a page that helps people transition to Fedora more painlessly using a more writable medium.
The position on the panda conciliadora.En always my case does not attract me much like an animal, I prefer a cute monkey.
ReplyDelete