Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #461: Approve Fedora logo usage for laptop "special editions"

Project Discussion
1

@tuxedocomputers filed Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #461. Discuss here and record votes and decisions in the ticket.

Ticket text:

3 Likes
2

Tuxedo is a great little company, and what’s not to like about lasered Fedora logos? After all, anyone could stick any Fedora logo on any box.

As regards to an approval, I seem to recall that the bare bones they use target Windows gamers, which is why Tuxedo has to do the heavy lifting for the support of some components (fans/thermal, keyboard). That work does not seem to be done upstream, and not all users were happy with the old daemon. The new control center is electron based. The repo has binary rpms (including anydesk??), I didn’t find srpms or spec (emphasisis on “I” …).

Glad I don’t have to decide :wink:

3

This might be the biggest sticking point.

Is everything in this repository open source? Are the drivers kernel-level?

This is probably problematic for advertising it as Fedora Workstation. How hard would this be to change?

4

Yes. Our stuff is on Github as well:

Changing would take quite some time. But we could change the advertising to “…powered by Fedora” or something similar.

5

For the sake of simplicity, especially if the adjustments you guys made to Fedora are logistical or hardware support reasons, I’m in favor of adjusting how it’s advertised so folks don’t think it’s Workstation.

One option is to highlight the slightly different variant by doing what we did with the Asahi remix and just style is as the Fedora Tuxedo Remix or Fedora Tuxedo Spin. By highlighting that it’s running a particular spin, it begs the question of what’s different. Then we can answer that question in the marketing material with the answer “pretty much Fedora Workstation but with x, y, and z changed.” Because it’s a Fedora spin, they know it’s still Fedora just slightly tweaked.

That’s assuming it qualifies as a spin and that being a spin doesn’t come with other requirements like needing to be listed on the Fedora Project website, which makes things more complicated (though not necessarily bad?)

Edit: To be honest, running a Fedora Tuxedo Spin could give you the option of diversifying your take on Fedora more. Since Workstation already exists, maybe there’s something different you’d like to do. Doesn’t have to happen, but I guess the opportunity exists.

6

Would it be possible to package the control center into Fedora? Or, at least a Copr?

The kernel module is going to be a little more rough. Has there been work on upstreaming this?

I personally lean towards full Fedora branding, but we’ll need to make some special exceptions to do so, and I want to make sure everyone is good with those exceptions (and, of course, they’re in the spirit of Fedora overall!)

Okay, just checking. Assuming we can solve the above, I think we’re okay with “Fedora Linux” with either filesystem — just not necessarily Workstation.

7

There are Coprs for both TCC and tuxedo-keyboard, but they are not affiliated with us. I guess it would be possible but would need further work to be done.
What would be the benefit of a Copr (or even Fedora repos itself) over our custom repo? Either for us or for users?

Not really, it’s a matter of time mostly. Furthermore, it’s GPLv2 licensed and therefor would need re-licensing for sending it upstream.

8

Why not upstream it to the kernel. It can solve many issues.

9

Getting your software in to the main Fedora repo would be helpful to Fedora users of your hardware because it would be included with mass rebuilds, could gain co-maintainers, and can be set up to auto version-watch and have co-maintainers keep it up to date. Basically it would help Fedora users of your hardware.

A Copr repo gets you close to that and leaves more of the ownership on your side, but is ok if you find getting it in to Fedora to be a problem. Looking at the software though, getting this in the main repo seems doable.

The kernel module though is one that should really be upstreamed in the kernel.

I looked at the source and I think you mean GPLv3 licensed (that’s what I saw in the source). It is true, you need to carry the GPLv2 license for software going in to the kernel. But this would be a huge help, not just for Fedora but for all distributions you are supporting on your hardware.

I am hesitant on using Fedora Workstation branding since that is a defined thing and it is not what is going on this hardware. I am more comfortable with Fedora branding that does not say “Workstation”, but under the condition that we get the required software packaged in Fedora and the kernel driver upstream in the kernel.

The ext4 vs btrfs topic only bothers me if the desire is to brand this as Fedora Workstation since Workstation uses btrfs. But we do provide and support ext4 for Fedora installations, so general Fedora branding feels more appropriate.

2 Likes
10

I second that. I bought a Linux laptop from Laptop with Linux not too long ago for my son. They offer installation services for various Linux distributions. Of course, I chose Fedora when ordering. Only to discover that it was installed with ext4 on LVM. I needed BTRFS, so I could setup Timeshift. I ended up re-installing. Not a big deal. But rather an unexpected surprise.

It’s all about managing expectations… :wink:

1 Like
11

I know the goal for this ticket was to get our ducks in a row for an announcement at Flock which seems like a tough timeline to meet at this point. Just following up in case there’s actually just a small thing that needs to be confirmed ahead of Flock.

From a marketing perspective it would have been cool to announce this at Flock, but I don’t think it will be a big deal once we actually announce this offering. I think folks will be excited for it regardless!

12

Hi,

Please file a ticket at Issues - fedora-btrfs/project - Pagure.io so we can better address your automatic installation requirements.

All of the Fedora desktop SIGs agreed to the change to use Btrfs by default, not only Workstation edition.

Perhaps the top complaint about the legacy layout that used ext4+LVM, is when users ran out of space in either / or /home while the other still had plenty of space. Seeing this problem return will surely confuse users and community support members who won’t be familiar with desktop remixes that use significantly different defaults. There are many other examples.

That is to say, we’d like to help resolve the issues that gave rise to deviating from the default. It’s a really different thing when a user knowingly opts into such a deviation from defaults, than when the default is silently changed.

Thanks.

1 Like
13

Discussed in 2023-08-30 Fedora Council meeting in #meeting:fedoraproject.org. No logs due to temporary lack of Meetbot infrastructure.

+4/0/-0

Tuxedo Computers may use the Fedora Remix secondary mark for their laptops, on the basis of their extra software not being available in default Fedora repositories and the Linux kernel tree, but being licensed under proper Open Source licenses. This decision could be revisited on the basis of necessary upstreaming work being done by the vendor to integrate their software into Linux and Fedora thoroughly.

@tuxedocomputers, folks in the meeting were willing to help on the upstreaming of your work. If you want more information on getting that help, please reply here for more clarity on that offer. I think @dcantrell or @bookwar could point you in the right direction on that front.

The Fedora Council ticket on Pagure is now closed.