Subject: Sr. Kernel Engineer - Google, Inc.

Is saying "Yes" the only way to stop getting these ?

So I'm thinking that the only way to stop this madness is to actually go and interview there with the intention of completely bombing the interview.

Post ideas below on how I should fuck up said interview.

Sigh. And so it continues.
I'm actually tired of reading "reviews" like this.

I have no problem with constructive criticism, but it seems rather than file bug reports, the standard procedure these days is to "write a scathing review on the internet". It conveniently means you don't have to bother with those boring things like details, and nicely absolves the 'reviewer' of blame for doing something unsupported.

The installation procedure is inferior to every other desktop GNU/Linux distribution I've used.
translation: "I don't like/understand lvm, and I don't like the defaults so this sucks. Oh, and I can't resize partitions"

you have to hack in the repositories that contain proprietary extras like Nvidia and ATI video drivers, the Adobe Flash and Acrobat Reader programs, the Java virtual machine, and the RealPlayer media application.

Yes. We should start shipping lots more stuff we don't have the source code for, and don't stand a chance in hell of fixing.

Fedora Core 6, like all of the Fedora Cores before it, fails this test miserably -- no support for MP3 or Windows Media files, no support for commercial DVD movies, no support for Atheros or Centrino wireless cards, no Adobe Flash plugin for Web browsers.

Yes. We should definitely break several international copyright and IP laws so that we can watch DVDs, and play mp3s.

(Centrino is slowly getting better btw, and may be 'fixed' in a future FC6 update & FC7 -- as of now, shipping a binary daemon is NOT an option).

Wireless network card support is abysmal
Really ? I'm stunned. What a revelation! Though, if you've experienced the Ubuntu "shove in every wireless driver known to man regardless of its quality/upstream status" mentality, I can understand how people might think this is a "Fedora" thing.

but wireless required adding either the Livna or FreshRPMs repos using the command line, then searching the Add/Remove Software package manager for IPW3945 drivers and firmware. Even after I did that, I still couldn't get the Centrino wireless chip to work correctly in FC6.

Wait, an out of tree driver that you downloaded from a non-official RPM repository didn't work for you? Damn, Fedora sucks!
I'm sure this makes sense on some planet, but here on earth, I'm having a hard time following his logic.

The puny desktop 3D effects configuration program has only two configurable options: cube and wobbly windows.
Anyone would think that this was a work in progress feature or something. What exactly was he expecting? Who knows. As usual, there's no details.

The ATI FireGL V5200 in the Lenovo ThinkPad T60p was not recognized by the Radeon driver. I tried to install the proprietary fglrx driver, but it had problems with the kernel version or wasn't the right package. An Nvidia GeForce 7300GS card required proprietary drivers from the Livna repository to get direct rendering working properly.
Ah, so we're back to the binary driver whining.

hmm, and now we're already at the conclusion.

Fedora's identity has gradually eroded over six releases, finally ending up as a second class clone of Ubuntu.
Because we chose not to shovel random junk into the kernel, choosing instead to do the right thing, and push stuff upstream ? Sorry about that.
Because we didn't make it easy for you to install binary drivers from people happy to misappropriate code I wrote whilst violating its license? Sorry about that.

So what does our reviewer suggest we do about Fedora's problems?

Reclaim your identity : FC6 resembles a less functional Ubuntu.
Maybe because we push our features upstream, which Ubuntu also inherits from?
Or maybe the reviewer forgot to notice the innovation that happened in FC6.
How's Ubuntu's SELinux support these days?
How's Xen working out in Ubuntu ?
To claim there's nothing in Fedora that isn't in Ubuntu is clearly false.

Make it easier to add software repositories.
Work already in progress.

Improve proprietary driver installation.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.
This is completely the wrong answer to the problem. The reviewer is sadly too short sighted to realise this.

Improve network configuration. The network configuration tool is complete junk. It needs to be replaced or dramatically overhauled.
We have this thing called bugzilla. Get to know it, and who knows, changes might actually happen.
Though bug reports like "xyz is junk" isn't particularly helpful. I expect bug content to be a little more useful than the content of this 'review'.


And that's it. In short, this guy is complaining that Fedora isn't Ubuntu, and he's right. It isn't. And it won't be.
For the people prepared to give up their freedoms so that "my xyz works", my answer is "fine, go run Ubuntu". I have no interest or desire to spend my time debugging problems impeded by binary drivers I can't debug.

Ubuntu may be more interested in dealing with tainted kernel bug reports than I will be anyway.

Update: I was informed after writing this entry that Ubuntu does not:
1. Enable ati/nvidia binary drivers by default
2. Enable patent encumbered mp3 or other codecs by default

I stand corrected. It does however still ship freedom impacting things like the binary ipw3945 daemon.

2nd update: Some of what I wrote above was off-base, and unfairly targetted Ubuntu. (Even the previous title "Why Fedora isn't Ubuntu" was perhaps a little over the top. I've made some further edits. Apologies to those who took offence.