Oh, that’s easy! I’ve been talking about this for a long time — and it’s specifically why I’ve pushed for having IoT as a Fedora Edition. Editions are designed to address a distinct, relevant, and broad use-case or userbase that a Fedora Edition is not currently serving. I believe IoT is a particularly important use case for bringing students and non-IT-background hobbyists into open source (and computing in general, really).
I’ve told this story before: I got excited about computers because my elementary school classroom had them available — two beautiful Apple ][ computers in the hallway outside every classroom, with a small selection of software and a stack of “Teach yourself BASIC” books. I could play Moon Lander or Oregon Trail, and those were fun, but the programming books felt like I could make them do anything. And, basically, I could: there really was very little in the most sophisticated computer game available that one clever person couldn’t replicate.
And this was true not just with Apple, and for a number of years. Games like Commander Keen and Duke Nukem (the original 2D game, not the horrific 3D mess) were basically one-person creations. A lot of time and work, sure, but, you could do that. Even the original Doom — a five-person team.
Fast forward to me trying to teach Scratch in an after-school program when my daughter was in 3rd grade. Way more powerful than the systems I worked with — and a lot easier to do cool things quickly. And a few of the kids had fun … but the overall reaction was “yeah, okay, I made a line move — now, I want to make something like Fortnite. Tell me how!”
Software has come so far and become so complex that the baseline for doing something interesting is off the charts. Computer games routinely have production budgets exceeding all but the most blockbustery movies. Anyone who has that feeling of “I, by myself, can make this computer do anything!” will soon hit reality — and maybe just give up.
But — IoT is different! You can set up Home Assistant or ESPHome, and build useful little sensors and devices programmed with CircuitPython or Arduino that do actual cool useful stuff, and actually can do it better than off-the-shelf home automation. Or you can run a model railroad. Or make a clock that tells where your family is rather than the time. Or so many other things. The world of possibility is there again.
We need that, and we need to tap into it and connect to Fedora. In fact, this is important enough that I’m open to making it a stand-alone Objective next to one more focused on laptops and desktops.