Re: Fedora and New projects

[Muhammad Alkarouri <malkarouri at yahoo dot co dot uk>]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Seems I am not able to explain myself clearly.

 --- Youcef Rabah Rahal <rahal at arabeyes dot org> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED
MESSAGE-----
> 
> [...]
> 
> On Monday 10 May 2004 17:46, Muhammad Alkarouri wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > In Fedora you _HAD_ the assurance. If you get it on time in the schedule,
> > it will be included. And we need to get it right, better than get it wrong.
> > For some time we based our logic on (Persian is on anaconda). It turns out
> > that Persian will not make it to the final release, and because of a minor
> > bug(IMHO).  Though they were nearer to including it.
> 
> Let me say that again: we did not base our work on an inclusion in FC2. That 
> was _not_ the aim on March 12th (starting date) because it was simply too 
> late. And we did not base our logic on a comparison with Persian.
> 

I mean, basing things on chronological order:
- In Fedora, you (= everybody) has the assurance that if the project is done in
schedule, it will be included. I have seen the attitude in fedora-trans-list,
and believe me, Alan Cox there is pushing for Welch more than all of Arabeyes
is doing for Arabic, as an example. (Not sure if Alan Cox is less of an
institution than Arabeyes, anyway). This is by project definition, before we
even go to work.
- We started work on Fedora translation. I have witnessed that start, and
mention of FC2 was not on the agenda at that time.
- After a considerable size of work was done, it seems plausible that we try to
catch FC2.
- We start bugging Fedora for inclusion of Arabic translation.
- A good reply from Fedora (we need at least a test release in which Arabic
features).
- Ossama gives a side note in an e-mail. Right to left is already tested and we
probably already have fonts tested in Fedora. See
http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/May/msg00020.html.
- After some time I use this as an example today in the message replied to. The
logic that right to left and fonts are tested in Fedora is now rejected, as the
fonts fail to pass the test. So we are one step _further_ in the logic that
Arabic should be included.

> [...]
> 
> > > and with Fedora I think we simply missed the boat entirely with regard to
> > > deadlines and thought we could pressure inclusion if the work was
> > > completed.
> >
> > Exactly, which is not professional attitude enough for an institution like
> > Arabeyes.
> 
> No & No :-) Please refer to my previous email (strange, some paragraphs of 
> your email contradict each other ! :-).
> 

More explanation: Pressure inclusion if the work was completed after Fedora
declared that they will not include anyone (no need for conspiracy theories) is
not professional and is not like Arabeyes. I stand by my words.
I apologise, however, for making it seem like we had a promise to do things at
some time and didn't deliver.

> I have no problem in accepting critics ;) 

That's why I am taking the liberty:)

> But the example of Fedora is the 
> wrong one. If we need to settle, question ourselves and find what is wrong 
> with schedules/plans etc we need to talk about something else. What we need 
> to remember about Arabic in FC2 is that there was a very small last-minute 
> chance for Arabic to be included (again, which was not the plan) and then 
> that did not happen. That being said, we need to put FC2 behind us and look 
> forward now :---> FC3, which is (and has always been) the plan :)
> 

Seconded. Hurrah for FC3

Salam,
Muhammad Alkarouri

A shameless plug: please everyone notice the difference in attitudes between
distros:
- Debian: stable is too out of date, but is rock solid. Releases are out when
they are ready. Testing is usually more updated than Fedora and Redhat.
- Mandrake is usually more up to date than Redhat/Fedora. Redhat people say
this is because they want true tried and tested packages. Fedora seems to get a
little more updated, or that's the plan.
- Fedora/Redhat distros usually have some small deviation from normal packages.
A favourite example is the KDE situation. <secret>This usually makes Arabic
support arrive a little late in Redhat than other packages. Fedora is getting
much better at this.</secret>

Munzir and I had a lot of discussions on these kinds of things. Results: he
still uses Mandrake, I still use Fedora. Chances are that Mandrake may get full
Arabic enabled two days before Fedora. I wouldn't kill myself on those two
days, though.



	
	
		
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