On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 4:13 PM, Andreas Tunek <andreas.tunek(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2016-11-14 14:01 GMT+01:00 Stephen Gallagher
<sgallagh(a)redhat.com>:
> On 11/13/2016 01:46 PM, Ms Sanchez wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 11/11/16 14:33, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
>>>
>>> Just to address this specifically, I am referring to Apple's penchant
for
>>> stuffing their machines with hardware from vendors that don't play well
with
>>> open-source (for example, switching to wifi-only devices and shipping
Broadcom
>>> chipsets with no open-source drivers). Then also playing games with their
>>> bootloader system so that we have to go through lots of hoops to trick it
into
>>> letting us install.
>>>
>>> Apple's entire business model is predicated on the idea that they know
best and
>>> you should only ever run software on their devices that they have provided
to
>>> you... at a substantial percentage for themselves. They do whatever they can
at
>>> a technical level to enable this.
>>>
>>> (Note: I'm not attempting to vilify Apple here. Their devices are
usually
>>> sturdy, well-constructed and certainly attractive. They are however a
company
>>> trying to make money and they have a certain business model that is largely
>>> dependent on *not* enabling us.)
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Apple's business model is based on selling you a golden cage. They are
entitled
>> to do that and we are entitled to dislike it.
>
> Certainly. My point is that I don't feel that we are necessarily responsible for
> working around their antagonism either. Yes, it would be nice if Fedora
> supported all hardware ever made. But the simple truth is that Apple tries very
> hard to make it *not* work. They have a vested interest in that.
>
> So I assert that while support for Apple hardware is desirable, I don't believe
> that the lack of it should prevent us from shipping Fedora for all the other
> hardware that we do support.
>
>
If you stop supporting certain hardware right before release due to a
regression bug you set a very troublesome precedent. It not only means
that the work people did developing and testing the features where
wasted, it also means that Fedora can toss out any feature at any time
if there is a bug. And that is not a very stable OS to use and
contribute to.
If the features were developed and tested during the creation of the
release, why would they fail criteria at the last minute? You are
making a good argument to not throw away something because "people
don't like it", but in the context of this discussion there seems to
be a distinct lack of resources actually doing the work. It may be
perfectly justifiable to do a release anyway under that premise.
Also, there is a large difference between shipping a release that
works on a majority of hardware with the goal of fixing it where it
doesn't after, and "stop supporting certain hardware".
Lastly, support is a very loaded word, particularly in the context of
a community driven project. We actually do not have an x86 equivalent
of the ARM supported-boards list, so it's completely random as to what
laptops and desktops are tested and prioritized. That might be
something to focus on going forward.
josh