>> I agree with most everything said > Not quite evident to understand in this quite controversial discussion! > > I cant keep my tong away from my cheek - sorry. The real point for my > reply is: I am getting more and more confused with the ultimate goal > pursued by Mageia: > > - (1) Does Mageia define its profile and then develops sales arguments > for how to sell the distro? > or > - (2) Does Mageia make a list of sales arguments and then designs the > distro that goes with these arguments? > > Probably it is a mix of both - but there should be a clear priority. I > had understood Mageia to be a community distro, i.e. no question, (1): > shape the distro according to the needs of the community - and then (OK, > plan beforehand) see how to hook more "customers". I believe in the > solidity of the community behind Mageia and its opinions - what this > community judges right has a large probability of being "right" - why > forget this achievement and base judgement on opportunity (afraid, my > tong again ...) >
It's this idea of "community" that has been the bane of virtually all Linux distributions. It's part of the reason that we have failed to conquer the desktop. If Android were a "community" mobile distribution, it would not be in the position that it currently occupies. Instead of focusing on the needs of the community, why not start thinking of building a distribution for main stream users. Think about how successful companies design their products. Think about what has made Apple so successful. It's vision and foresight. It's knowing what people need and building it, before they even realize that they need it. The whole idea of listening to thousands of opinions on how a distribution should be designed stymies real progress, especially when most of those opinions are not based on a real understanding of the subject matter. You get a group of people who have a certain degree of expertize in their field, and get them to design and build a product. In this particular case it should be very easy. Just look around. There are hundreds of distributions that we can co-opt features from and then make them better. We do not need a thousand opinions to do that. -- Fini Decima
