Re: Next version of XD for SuSE 9.1?

On Fri, 2004-05-21 at 17:44 -0400, jack wallen wrote:
> hmmmm well i guess if no binary packages come out of evo2 for FC2 i
> might wind up switching to thunderbird. i just found the FireFox
> calender extension and it's not too bad. 

By the time Evo2 comes out, there might be an FC3.  This isn't so much a
warning as an indication that 1) I don't follow the FC release schedule,
and 2) version numbers tend to increase over time.

> it's not that big of a loss since i can't seem to sync my clie with
> GNOME anymore anyway (gnome pilot sucks these days - does nothing but
> crash - and no one seems to be doing anything about that).

gnome-pilot is admittedly in need of attention.  No argument from me on
that matter.

> i would think that Fedora Core is going to continue where red hat left
> off and a majority of users will migrate from red hat to FC. if that's
> the case wouldn't it make sense that evolution be made available for
> FC2?

One of our concerns with Fedora Core has been that it might turn into
Debian Sid.  We never supported Debian Sid, even in the days when we
were supporting Debian stable.  Community-supported distributions can be
very unstable from a standpoint of third-party software.

You've seen http://www.redhat.com/software/rhelorfedora/ ? Check the
"ISV certifications".

Supporting a distro means several things:

- Somebody here has to get things to build on that distro.  This is not
always a trivial exercise.
- Somebody here has to test those packages before they're released.
Everything we support (i.e. everything other than snapshots,
xd-unstable, and the like) goes through a certain amount of testing
before it's released.  Evolution goes through more testing than some
things we ship (e.g. gnome-games gets a fairly light pass), in part
because we've (historically) charged for Connector, and a certain level
of quality expectation comes with anything that costs money.
- Someone has to provide paid support on the distro in question.  This
means that support staff need access to the distro in question.

None of this scales especially well to large numbers of distros.  Over
time, the number of distros we supported has declined.  Note also that
some of the justification for support of certain distributions, at least
for Evolution, has been Connector sales.  Now that Connector is Free, we
have little financial incentive to provide Evolution binaries at all.
It's worth noting that Red Carpet is available for Fedora Core 1, but
that's effectively a client for Red Carpet Enterprise, which is still a
source of revenue.

> or is this a competition thing? is this SuSE saying "we don't want app X
> to work with distro Y"? 

We don't necessarily want to dedicate scarce resources to building,
testing, and supporting app X on distro Y.  If you care about distro Y,
which we don't support, here's the source.  Have at it.  Patches
gratefully accepted.  We have absolutely no intention of *preventing*
app X from working on distro Y.

Note that we build snaps of Evolution on platforms for which stable
Evolution is not currently available from us (Mandrake Linux 9.2, SUSE
Linux 9.1).  These packages, being snapshots, don't get tested by us
before release, and they're not supported.  We build them because 1) we
actually are interested in making sure that it works on a wide range of
platforms 2) the benefit of getting bug reports from the community on a
wider range of platforms offsets the cost of getting snapshots to work
on those platforms.

> i realize this has been discussed ad nauseum on this list and other
> places but i really don't know if the public (or the media) has had a
> satisfactory (or understandable) answer. i mean let's face it - it looks
> fishy.
> 
> Ximian supports Red Hat
> Red Hat migrates to Fedora Core
> Novell buys SuSE
> Novell buys Ximian
> Ximan no longer supports Fedora Core
> 
> that's how the public views it. 
> 
> from my point of view (the medias) it looks simply as if Novell is
> strong arming Ximian to not support its 'competition'. 

This isn't complete coincidence, and all of these factors are relevant,
but it's not a grand conspiracy.  We used to be distro-neutral.  We're
not distro-neutral any more.  This makes life easier for us in many
regards, and we have reason to be thankful.  It's far easier for us to
have our software integrated into the base OS vs. installed separately
(and nigh impossible to uninstall after the fact).

It's kinda like buying a house and moving out of a rented apartment.

Again, we used to be distro-neutral.  We're not distro-neutral any more.
Nobody should take this personally.  Worst-case scenario: you won't
necessarily have the absolute latest version of Evolution until you
upgrade to the next version of your distro.  In that regard, Evolution
is no different from gcc or X.  The source is out there.  We have no
obligation to provide tested, supported binary packages for specific
platforms.  When it's in our interest to do so, we do so.  When it's
not, others are free to build them.  One of the reasons I'm personally
thankful for Connector getting freed is that it makes it easier for
users of unsupported platforms to use the software.

-Mark Gordon

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