> High time for Fedora to remember that its value proposition is packages produced by packagers and not all the other stuff that takes the limelight and silently depends on the packages that are publicly and continuously disparaged. Fedora leaders did not manage to replace packages but they did manage to discourage packagers.

I feel like Ubuntu approaches this issue the other way round, which seems to work much better. That is: add all the proprietary software, drivers, fads, filesystems, AI and everything else you think your customers want _on top_ of the community core (Debian). Do contribute to the community core but keep hot-button "interferences" to a minimum. Fork some components when needed. Don't when you can upstream changes.

I'm not saying everything is perfect in Ubuntu-land, far from it. But that basic approach/angle looks much more sound. In fact, this "downstream" approach is is how the vast majority of commercial products use open-source in general, not just Linux distributions.

When Ubuntu needs to experiment with something new, they don't need to design a "new innovation cycle" or some fancy new "sandbox process". They just go and do it - like any company using open-source does. Zero "bikeshedding" getting in the way. Then, if and only if the experiment was successful, they can consider submitting parts of it upstream and let the bikeshedding start. But now the proposition has been battle-hardened first.

I realize this downstream approach does not apply well to infrastructure changes like Forgejo but it does seem to apply to pretty much everything else. Even with Forgejo: has IBM already been using it in anger internally?

The puzzling thing is: Fedora seems to already supports all kinds of spins, variants and what not. So why can't IBM just leverage that existing "downstream" infrastructure instead of upsetting non-IBM contributors and driving some to leave?

Pretending I'm an IBM customer, where can I download the IBM-stamped Fedora spin with all the AI and proprietary goodies that IBM believes I want? Does IBM not want my money? I'm aware RedHat is also a distro that I can buy but I'm not a datacenter sysadmin. I'm a software developer who wants the cutting edge stuff. I like Ubuntu but I find them a bit slow with AI and what not.