On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>wrote:
> This doesn't mean I'm against doing Big Exciting New
Things in general
> or Fedora.next in particular, but I do want to stand up for the value of
> just keeping your head down (hah, I know, Adam, practice what you
> preach) and doing good, dull engineering work. With your pocket
> protector firmly in place.
This is all very convincing. But you also sent me a convincing message the
other week about Fedora's place on the innovation curve and, basically, the
difficulty of doing all that good dull work while being innovative. Stop
convincing me in different directions -- my head will fall off!
Or, in seriousness, because I don't think they're *necessarily* in direct
conflict, what do you think we should do about all of the above? Our
mission
and branding, including our foundations, tend to steer away from the dull
and towards new shiny. In fact, whenever we do something that could be
characterized as head-down plodding forward progress instead of a bold
leap,
we hear *quite a bit* of sarcasm about the four foundations in the online
chatter.
So I recently had to carefully reread the foundations, and I was surprised
to find the "First" foundation is not nearly as focused on timing as is
generally assumed:
we provide the latest _in stable and robust_, useful, and powerful
free
software in our Fedora distribution.
(emphasis mine)
So, "new shiny"? Yes, please. "Bold leap"? Uncertain.
"Bleeding edge"?
Definitely not.
(It could be argued that when the written from or the Foundations and their
common understanding differs, it's the common understanding that is
correct. I suppose the right way to go about it would be to dig out the
archives of the discussions and Board minutes from that time to accurately
understand the consensus of _that_ time, as opposed to the _current_ common
understanding, which is, I think, primarily formed by the above-referenced
sarcasm.)
Mirek