Flock 2025 Scaling Fedora Ready Through Community Contributions

All right. Could I make a request that we start to close the doors in the back to get some of the noise down? Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, folks, for being here and coming right back after the lunch and not going into the food coma. Uh I wanted to say before I start this presentation, this is actually not my work that I'm presenting on. We had a uh speaker, she was actually my outreachy intern last year. Her name was is Rosalind Bassi. Uh she's based in Nigeria. We tried to bring her here, but for various visa-related challenges, it's it's a hard thing to do. So, I am giving this on her behalf since she could not be here because this is actually a really exciting and uh really kind of big topic that we've opened up in the community. And Rosalind and the folks that we've worked with like Joseph Gayoso, who's also not here, you may have seen him last year at Flock if you were there in Rochester. This is a big project that has actually been has been a vision for quite some time and really started to come together last year. So, what I'm going to be talking with you about today is uh a little bit on what the program is and what it's not, what we've done in the last year, a little bit on why it matters both from a user perspective and a vendor perspective, and how you can even contribute and get started today. So, I have to pull up these notes here as I go. So, to debrief on some of the common challenges that we're here having here. How many of you have tried to like look up before you buy a new laptop like Linux support for the laptop? Like you you spend time trying to find a laptop. Like that's Okay, for the recording, that's basically the whole room. Whenever because we're at a Linux community, when we're going to buy something, you want to make sure that Fedora or whatever distro you're running is going to work. But, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, that's kind of hard to do. Uh there's not a whole lot of info that's out there unless vendors are are doing that work. And even when they are doing that work, sometimes it's not obvious or it's not clear where to find it. And there's an inconsistent user experience when you do guide by a laptop and then it's actually, you know, got some hardware bug or kernel issue and your performance is miserable and it's definitely not a personal experience for me at all. Um so, you know, there's lots of challenges that we, as end-user consumers buying personal hardware to run our favorite operating system on, it's not the easiest thing in the world. So, however, we are living in a changing world and we actually have quite a few vendors, hardware vendors out there that are doing the legwork to make their hardware a first-class experience for Linux desktops, Linux operating systems. So, this is where we start to talk about Fedora ready. So, out there in the world, we have all these vendors that are doing various efforts with various levels of communication and awareness. So, we had this idea, which I'll really credit to Joseph Gayoso. This is really his his baby that he had the vision for. And this is I The idea behind it is a promotional program that helps anyone be able to recognize devices that work well with Fedora Linux. And there's various levels of support that we have in that, which I'll talk about. But, in short, what is Fedora ready? It is a public list of tested, compatible devices. It's a resource for users, vendors, or even advocates who want to promote Linux usage in the in the market. And my favorite part, it's community-driven. However, what it is not, and we need to be very clear about this, it's not a certification. We're not certifying anyone. There's not like a rigorous like set of criteria that you're checking off. We do have some guidelines, and that's what we do. You have to meet these guidelines to be listed. We'll talk a little bit about that, but it's important to know that this is not like a an official legal certification that we as Fedora are providing. Also, the other challenge, which kind of relates to the community-driven piece, is this is not a full-time team. We have several volunteers who are working on this and helping review new requests. Like I'll talk about one of our new vendors who actually just sponsored Flock this year, Nova Custom, and how we onboarded them as our most recent joiny to the program. Um, but it's an important thing to remember that this is a community approach for running this program, and that's why you're going to find out exactly how you can get involved as well. So, why does it matter? I've kind of actually touched on these things a little bit already, but let's talk about it from the vendor perspective. So, you're the vendor that's, you know, spending the time to either make sure your platform supports Linux, or many of the vendors that you'll see actually exclusively do Linux, and that's like all they do. So, for the vendors, it helps them get some recognition for the work that they're doing. And sometime many times actually going upstream, working on the Fedora the Linux kernel, making sure that their hardware is tested and supported. So, for the vendors, what does it do? It helps the end user Linux community increase trust that like you're going to buy if you're going to spend, you know, thousands of euros or dollars on a device, you want to make sure that you're not going to have a sub-par user experience. So, for the vendors that do are are taking pride in that, it's easier for you as a consumer to trust them. There's more visibility for the work that they're doing both in terms of the support, but often times the actual upstream engagement that these vendors are doing. And of course, alignment with open-source because everything we run, except for the wireless drivers, I guess still, are free and open-source software on Fedora. So, it's actually, you know, you can't rely on necessarily proprietary drivers or tools to make a Fedora Linux a supported experience, which is also kind of like one of the cool parts about it. For users, I think that part is pretty clear given how many Linux end-user consumers we have in the room by that show of hands. You don't have to do as much guesswork of like, you know, spending the time to try to research, oh, like is this particular chip and motherboard or whatever hardware configuration, is this going to work with the newest version of the kernel that Fedora is shipping? Cuz you know how much we love to update the kernel during the release cycle, unlike other distributions, which is a cool part of Fedora, but hard to support from a hard If you're a hardware vendor, you've got to be working with the newest changes in the kernel for Fedora Linux to really run well on your platform. And it makes it easier to choose Fedora-friendly devices. For Fedora, again, broader adoption, happier users, a stronger ecosystem. Like for all you folks that are looking out there to buy something for your personal use that can use Fedora, we're helping make that easier kind of as a service both to our vendors and our users. So, for Fedora, it makes it easier to help bring more people in without necessarily having to do it the old way of going to an installathon or getting help. You don't have to be an expert or even an a novice to do this. You just can buy the laptop preconfigured out of the box. We've actually had some stronger relationships with the vendors as an impact of as a part of this as well. I mentioned previously, our newest member of Fedora ready, Nova Custom, actually is a sponsor of Flock this year. And we have a relationship with them. I see a number of Framework devices here in the audience. And we have, although we We really have a like a a monetary relationship with Framework. They their their Linux team and the Fedora quality assurance team have a pretty like tight relationship. Like we communicate fairly regularly with the Framework devs and the Fedora quality folks on like hardware support knowing that oh, you know, there's going to be some next generation thing that Framework's working on and they'll let us know a little bit early so we can try to test some of that stuff or they can test some of that stuff actually. And actually the cool part of this too is that by having this program, it's actually encouraging vendors to prioritize Linux compatibility which I think as I'll talk about with one of ours in a little bit uh like with a Lenovo, I think that's actually been a really helpful thing for their you know, when this Lenovo being kind of on the other end of vendors, a huge company with like lots of different hardware, not all of it has that Linux support behind it. Um for them it helps promote that like Linux is actually a priority for the you know, the folks that the team at Lenovo that's doing the Linux kernel development and firmware development. Like even internally at Lenovo, it helps them have a little bit of leverage of like hey, like the Linux community is not all a bunch of like freeloaders and you know, this kind of this kind of perception. So, what have we done so far? Kind of looking at the last year as I mentioned this has been a vision for some time but is really kind of come together thanks to the work largely I think to Rosalind honestly with her internship last year. She was really instrumental in pulling this all together. We worked with all the different hardware vendors. I should have probably read this before or refreshed this before I came on stage but I'm pretty sure that's Lenovo, Framework, Slimbook, and now NovaCustom are our four vendors we're currently working with. So, what Rosalind did um with those vendors is work with all of them to actually assess well, actually we come up with different tiers of support. Like how well tested and integrated it is or whether it'll just like work well or it's actually been like tested and supported by you know, like the framework team who's you know, putting all their kernel regression tests against Fedora and stuff like that. Um so she worked with all these different vendors to actually like work with them to understand what are you doing today to actually make sure that Fedora Linux runs well on your hardware. Like what are you what steps are you doing and and what level of support are you willing to are you as a company giving for your hardware around this Linux stack? Um so she did all this great work of actually developing a list that you can now find on the Fedora Docs website for all of these vendors that actually lists all their devices uh that support Fedora Linux. Uh for the ones like Slimbook and Framework and NovaCustom, there's not like a huge amount cuz they don't have a ton of like different options. For Lenovo, which has like hundreds and thousands of different hardware configurations, it's pretty long list for that one, but it gives you that resource and that was part of what took a while to actually build and we were working with Mark Pearson at Lenovo, um Wessel at NovaCustom, uh I I I I'm not as close with the Framework and Slimbook folks, but I know we have I think it's Alejandro at Slimbook, and I think it's Matt at Framework. Um so we've built this kind of relationship with them with just also like knowing like what are you doing around Fedora and like how what is that internal story look like at your company? Uh we developed a vendor enrollment process or really Rosalind developed a vendor enrollment process, which was part of that criteria of like I mentioned we're not a certification program, right? It's not like there's a level of certification that we are providing as Fedora, but we do have requirements that to show up and to have your your company's hardware listed here, you need to meet these requirements and make sure that they align with the values and criteria for Fedora. We've also onboarded early vendors. So actually that was kind of like even before Fedora ready really existed, we had that relationship at least with Lenovo and Framework and Slimbook. We've been talking with them forever and like we've been having conversations for quite some time. But they were kind of our early test group, the first group, first set of vendors to help us We had a lot of feedback back and forth on like, you know, here's our version of what we're thinking for this. What do you think about it? Is this useful for you? We had a lot of dialogue with the vendors to actually shape this process so it was something that both worked for the Fedora community, but also was something that was useful and helpful for the hardware vendors. We've also built initial documentation around the program as well as a branding kit, which is something I'll talk a little bit about with the advocacy piece in a minute. Uh so, part of that also included a one other thing just to mention as part of that branding kit, we actually had a trademark request that went to the Fedora Council. This is kind of a big thing as it takes a little bit of legal or time and review. So, we actually have this really cool logo on this branding kit and things that you can actually use. I see a hand from Matthew really quick. That was basically it. >> Um This is also if you look at the Fedora trademark guidelines which we updated recently which is behind the scenes multi-year effort. Um that the Fedora ready mark is listed as a secondary mark like Fedora remix >> So, for the stream Matthew Miller just commented that as part of the Fedora trademark guidelines, the Fedora ready mark fits in as a secondary mark. And we actually had to work on kind of modernizing our trademark guidelines a little bit as part of this process so we could make something like Fedora ready work. So, I'll talk a little bit now about the brand kit. So, this is kind of the part that I think is really cool and as you all as various members of the Fedora community, whether you are you consider yourself wearing the ambassador advocate hat going out to other conferences or meetups or other communities or if you're a speaker, you know, going out to other conferences talking about Fedora. This is something that's really cool because it gives you some resources on both like what is this program? How do you talk about it with different people and we have some of these logo assets and things that you can use, you know, pretty logos, things to put on your slides or to put on social media or whatever kind of approach you take to your your advocacy. So, some of those components is again the brand guidelines document. So, if you've seen the design team's brand book, which I think is Emma and Madeleine, Emma Kidney, Madeleine Peck and a handful of others that have contributed to that. I think Jess Cheetahs as well. Um, this is a thing that covers kind of the whole Fedora brand. We have this Fedora ready guideline which is again more specific requirements about like how you need to write about it. Like we're not a partnership program. Don't call Fedora ready a partner program because that's there's legal things that come when you use certain words. So, like the guidelines will help you know how to speak about the program correctly and accurately, the logos, things you can use and the messaging framework. So, you want to talk about it at a conference, you know, or or a meetup, some things that you can kind of think about there. And uh, if you follow this brand kit, this will help you both kind of support the vendor marketing efforts more specifically around their upstream Linux engagement. Like part of what I'm really happy about with Fedora ready personally is we're not just showcasing hardware, but actually we're showcasing relationships, too. Like we're actually working with these vendors that are showing up in upstream, whether that's by monetary sponsorship, Lenovo and Nova Custom for Flock for example, or whether it's um, with the work they're doing upstream in the Linux kernel to add more support for their hardware. And now Framework is doing some of this cool stuff with RISC-V, so that's also kind of a dynamic there. So, you can help kind of be a part of promoting the open source story of these vendors that actually give a damn about Linux. Uh and strengthening the Fedora ready brand, when you use this, it makes sure that we're communicating about this effort in a consistent way, making sure that uh we're having that same consistent message, no matter where we are talking about this, so there's not confusion about what we're trying to do, and that it's not like you know, that like Lenovo didn't give us $50,000 just to put their name on there, but like they're actually doing work to actually support this and make this plat make their platform work with Linux. And then, of course, trademark compliance, because that's always something you have to think about when you're using logos and marks. So, I want to help you use it appropriately and in a way that no one is going to come in like haggle you when you're when you're not showing things the right way. How to use the brand kit? Similar thing here. Um it's also kind of depends, I think there's some context here is it kind of depends on what your use case is for using this. Now, if you're someone who's a member of the Fedora community going to a conference, and you're going to talk about this or integrate it into some other topic, you don't really need to request permission, you know, if you're a community member. I hope I hope I don't live to regret saying that, but um if you're going to do something more bigger, like you want to organize a a marketing campaign, or you want to actually do some kind of promotional partnership, always start with a trademark or request permission with the Fedora Council, just to rep the idea, especially if it has trademark implications with using the Fedora mark, or you're trying to do something that's not necessarily outlined in the branding kit. So, get that permission, the Council will discuss. Usually, this stuff is pretty non-controversial, like it's we're just want to make sure that you won't have any legal challenges or issues. So, the Council usually wants to help you with this stuff. So, you get the approval, you follow the guidelines, and you create your content, and you go and do the thing. We try to make it as straightforward and easy for you as possible because we want you to be able to go out there and talk about this stuff and share the the work that you can do in upstream or that you can you can benefit from the work that's being done upstream by the vendors. So, the impact that vendors offer, again, kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but vendors are doing this essential work of bringing Linux to mainstream consumer hardware. And if you look at what the space looked like 15 years ago, it's very different landscape than it is today. So, things that this provides, a lot of it is one of those layers of support that we offer is like does the vendor have pre-installs available? So, like for Slimbook and Lenovo, I think Nova I can't remember Nova Custom, they do pre-installs, but like Framework does not do pre-installs, but they support and test Fedora Linux pretty rigorously on their hardware. Which ties into the compatibility testing, making sure that the vendors actually taking appropriate steps to make sure that their hardware is, you know, working with Fedora or the latest version of the Fedora kernel, customer support, you know, again, we do provide support on Fedora through the Ask Fedora channels, but sometimes things are very hardware specific, and lots of the vendors do have various levels of support that they can actually official support they can offer to their Linux users, and then driver optimization, of course, like making sure that the hardware that the vendors are running has been, you know, as optimal of a user experience as possible using Fedora Linux and our software stack. So, how does Fedora Ready support vendors? Again, kind of in the reverse direction is that by participating as a vendor in Fedora Ready, we provide some marketing support. We have the social media channels that we have in Fedora, like our LinkedIn and Mastodon, and I guess now we're getting into Blue Sky as well a bit, too. Uh vendor recognition, community visibility, you know, you're going to have this prominent place when we talk about hardware as the Fedora community. And the technical collaboration, which I mentioned like with Framework is a great example. Like we have a a a direct contact, a direct line between the Framework folks and the Fedora quality team. So, oh the slide might not be complete yet. That's okay. How can you contribute and how can you get involved? So, there's a number of ways that you can think about this. And I also encourage you to use your imagination here a little bit. We're still kind of early on in this Fedora ready program and building this out. However, there are some things that we think you can go ahead and start doing or getting involved. You can actually help test and report feedback on some of the devices. This is actually more of a process that we are trying to develop so that way community can also give us feedback that like, "Hey, you know, a vendor has, you know, said that this is supported." And I think in most cases like if there's an issue that you find, actually can have us help us start a great conversation with the vendor like, "Hey, our community is saying that there there's an issue here. What's going on? Can we readdress this?" We can we can actually raise that issue with the vendor as the Fedora community. So, this is one thing that we're hoping to This is probably more future thinking like we want to have a formal process that you all can have as if you have one of these devices or you want to help, you know, test and inform uh on compatibility, you can share that. Another thing is thinking about these these last two are kind of tied together, but in that digital ambassadorship piece or, you know, going to conferences, in-person stuff, too. You can make video reviews talking about the hardware, especially if you're someone who does like do that kind of stuff, like being able to talk about how Fedora ready is um a criteria that, you know, making building that awareness for the wider community cuz we're doing a lot of this inside Fedora, but we want to help grow and expand that message, too. Like, I'd love it if like Ubuntu folks got jealous of the work that we were doing, and then they tried to do an Ubuntu-ready program. Like, I'd call that a success if they started to copy us. Um not to pick on them too much. We We like our Canonical friends. Um also to be an ambassador, this kind of ties into the in-person pieces as well. So, conferences, if you are already doing meetups or local things in your community with Fedora, like, bring this in as a discussion topic. Because you're probably going to have in your local events, you're probably going to find a lot of more user-type personas or user-type folks who may not be aware of this and maybe have the same challenge when I asked you all to raise your hand, you know, looking for that compatibility for your Linux hardware. You can help bridge that awareness and help others know about this resource that's out there for them. Uh content creation best practices following our guidelines. So, again, this is part of kind of fits into the branding kit. Um but when you're thinking about things, like, what are we looking to emphasize or prioritize when we're talking about Fedora-ready? User experience. Like, making sure that if you're buying this that you're going to have a smooth out-of-the-box experience. You're not going to have to fiddle with custom kernel patches and Wi-Fi driver craziness. Like, it's going to be a smooth user experience. The hardware quality has been tested and integrated with the software that we're shipping in Fedora. The community impact, how actually buying this hardware, in many cases, either you know, for the smaller vendors, helps give them a more visibility and even a little bit more market share in the market. And for the larger vendors that have lots of options that don't always support Linux, it helps those folks doing that Linux enablement work get more visibility and highlight their work to support the platform. Practical benefits, real-world users, you have hardware, it works good, you don't have to worry about it. And vendor partnership. Again, mentioning that we're not just really showcasing hardware here, we're showcasing relationships, the partnership that we have with these vendors and companies to actually test and work on this stuff, and sharing that, having that connection with the Fedora community. So, a quick walk-through. I guess this is actually actually kind of the informal process as we work to formalize it over hopefully the next couple of months. But, if you wanted to submit a report, you check if the device is already listed, you can open a ticket in the Fedora marketing team GitLab repository, or you can send us a message in Matrix with your feedback. We'll want to know things like what are your device specs and what are your test results, what kind of user experience were you having, any notes on performance. And then we can work with the marketing team to actually include your feedback on the list, or make sure that we're representing that hardware as appropriately as possible. So, a little bit, last topic on kind of where the program is heading next. So, kind of long-term here, collaborating with more vendors and collaborating with more retail companies as well. That's actually been one that Joseph has talked a lot about. Um I remember for him, part of his vision with this was like he was buying or like, you know, he's walking into a Best Buy in the US and was like, you know, like there's something I I can't remember that story, but he was like basically looking, you know, in the US consumer market of like making it easier so he were to walk into a Best Buy, you can actually find, you know, a Linux option that is off the shelf, ready to purchase. Um so, part of the next steps includes expanding the contributor base, making it easier for people to participate in this program, but also to help empower people to take leadership roles as well, with like working with the vendor relationships that we have, and getting connected into these things. Publishing more reports, like especially where you can purchase a Fedora ready device. Like with Lenovo, like for example, they do have ways in their shop that you can find it, but it's kind of not obvious. So, I think that would be a really helpful thing for Fedora ready. It's just like not necessarily too specific to Lenovo, but like generally like where can you find devices that work with Fedora Linux and purchase them? Uh again, continuing to build more vendor relationships. I also want to give a shout out to Neil Gompa, who I I'm not sure if he's in I don't think he's in the room right now, but he helped build that connection with NovaCustom and actually helped foster them as a sponsor for Flock this year. And I think that was a large part of both from the advocacy and Fedora ready building that stronger relationship with the vendor. Um [snorts] we want to create more social assets to help uh contributors share their testing online. So, if you want to do your own thing as well, you have your own channel or presence or other community, it's easier to bring some of these things there. And in general, improving accessibility of the submission process. So, the goal is to scale with community contributions. So, with that, I invite you to join us. You can hang out in the Fedora marketing team room. That's hash marketing colon fedoraproject.org. Uh or on our GitLab, you can follow us for comments there. Of course, I always feel weird telling people to look at GitLab since like the days are numbered there, but at some point that's going to change, but for now we're on GitLab. Um so, you can also share things like a report or a video or help us spread the word at your next local event or talking with other Linux user users in your local community and your online communities. Help us spread the word about this work and make it easier for people to find devices that support Fedora Linux. So, some final takeaways here before I forget this was a 30-minute slot or I don't know if I'm close to time or if we'll have questions or not. >> You have questions. >> I have Okay, we have time. So, some final takeaways here. Fedora ready makes choosing hardware easier. The program will grow because of community contributors. Your device review can help someone else's purchase journey and there's lots of ways for you to think about getting involved. Small contributions can make a big difference. And like I said earlier, you can use some of your imagination here because we're also kind of early on and we're emerging from basically a pilot of this program and really trying to make this into something big and notable. So, just cuz you haven't seen something, if you had this idea that was in your head of like hearing all of this that you think could really help uh build the awareness or get more people on board with supporting Fedora Linux, come and talk to us. So, with that, let's scale Fedora ready together and I think now would be a great time for any questions or feedback that we have. All right, we got a few already. This is an hour session? Okay. [sighs] >> [laughter] >> Well, then we can start. Who's our mic runner in this room? You got to shout across the internet, Robert. First question for Robert, yeah. You can pass him the mic. >> Uh yeah, I know I can. Um just basic question. How many devices at this point are Fedora ready? >> Let's [snorts] take a look. Uh docs.fedoraproject. Oh, I'm not screen sharing, so this is kind of not as engaging. I I I'll put it in Matrix actually in where we we're in the plenary room. I'll drop this link in the plenary room chat if you're following along here. So, here is the link to the Fedora marketing docs with the overview of the program. The thing that a lot of you are probably curious about is like how does this compatibility list work? That page I just linked in the chat describes uh the criteria that we use and the different categories. So, there's three categories for how we work with the vendors. Fedora is pre-installed, Fedora is supported by the vendor, Fedora may run, which is an indication usually that one that we have some informal assurance from the vendor. Um so, the question was how many? So, looking at the Framework page, and I'll drop this one in the chat as well. Um 1 2 3 4 5. Five devices that, you know, the Framework team is confident and actively tests. It's support It's officially supported by the vendor. Lenovo, I don't even want to try to count this one, but I'm going to put it in the chat anyways. And I see a comment from Mark Pearson, who's our friend at Lenovo in the chat that says that this list is actually not currently up-to-date with Lenovo. So, he has a new task on his list to work with the Fedora ready program to make sure that list is accurate. Thank you, Mark. Um but you can see the Lenovo one. I'll let you count that one, Robert. I I'm I'm too tired. And NovaCustom, they just started with us, so they have two devices that are Fedora pre-installed. I'll put their link in the chat as well. And lastly, Slimbook. Slimbook is the one that's kind of cool cuz they have the the laser engraved Fedora logo on it, the super key. It kind of has that MacBook look, if that's what you're looking for. And they look like they have eight nine devices that have Fedora pre-installed. Some of those look like they're actually EOL devices or not on sale anymore, but it looks like I see four that are currently for sale and supported. So, it gives you a little bit of an idea, like especially for a lot of the smaller vendors who are usually much more focused on supporting Linux as a platform. Kind of makes sense that the team is smaller cuz they're kind of all-in on Linux support. Whereas with Lenovo, there's their Linux firmware team, which has that subset of like not every Lenovo device you buy is going to be a great Linux experience, but when you look at this list, it's supposed to help give you that that context. So, I hope that indirectly answers your question on how many. We have another question. >> Hey, thanks for the talk. I think this is more of a recent effort and do you also plan to look at other architectures like arm? Are you Did you get any of the arm >> Does arm make their own laptops that you can buy as a >> who ship arm based laptops, but >> Well, I would say it's probably those vendors we want to talk with. Like it's cool if arm is interested in this, but then like >> I do not know myself which >> Cuz we're not really talking about CPU. I mean, it's related because it's Linux support, but like let's say as I know your your bias for risk five, like thinking about it like we had a vendor that actually is doing >> mention risk five because it's far away. There are no risk five laptops yet. >> think about it in the future like especially as this enablement is coming forward with risk five and we have some vendors that are like putting in the effort to support Fedora. >> There is a framework risk five board or actually there is a board. >> Yeah, so actually we might not actually not have just a new vendor for that one. We might actually have framework be one of our first partners there, but like in this example, like being able to promote that of like, "Hey, you as a vendor want to support risk five and Fedora and you're going to sell hardware or you're going to test it even if you're not doing pre-installs, but like you're confident that risk five works on the on the vendor hardware, like let's have a conversation and let's see if we can help you promote your work that you're doing to enable Linux and Fedora on that platform. But I'd say, yeah, vendors not so much like microchip processor words. I don't know if they quite fit in in the at least in the current definition. >> This is a follow-up to that. Is there a plan to extend beyond laptops to like small board computers or other server hardware, embedded devices, that kind of thing. >> Hm. >> That's a really good question. When I When When I What I'm thinking about here is really like workstation versus server, like headless or not headless devices. Like I'd say if it's more of a desktop, even if it's like not a laptop, I think that fits a little more easily cuz we have We kind of know how to test that. We have some criteria in place. It's pretty graphic user interface focused. I think it could be really interesting to kind of flip it, to look at like a server or headless cloud model there, but I think we really That's is where like scaling the program through community contributions would be really helpful because our current team, I would say, probably does not have that capacity to cuz we'd have to revisit the definition and the guidelines, but I'd say it's a good idea. And if there was a vendor out there who wants to have this conversation, they should come and talk to us as soon as they can. So. >> Good idea, but we're just not ready yet. >> Yeah, that's an interesting idea cuz you you have the same problem with SBCs a lot of time cuz you're not sure which one is like am I going to get one that's Fedora is going to work on, right? So, like it's kind of the same problem, but different use case specifically. >> Yeah. The use case makes a lot of sense to me. >> Yeah. >> I think if we could have someone who'd be willing to like rep that perspective and really be a part of the Fedora ready team to help us when a vendor asks us questions. Like if a vendor emailed the team today, like I don't know if we have an easy way to respond to them about that. Like So, if we had someone that could help kind of fill that that gap for us, I think there's definitely a lot of potential to It's a very interesting use case. And I I'd love to see the evolution there. >> So, so my question actually was like for a specific vendor, I don't know if you if anybody's ever reached out to them, but like System76, they tend to do like a lot of Linux based um desktop and laptop computers and I'm just wondering if we've ever had any engagement with them. >> That's a good question. So, as I understand it, they're mostly Pop!_OS. So, like in terms of the three categories we have, that would not be Fedora pre-installed. Now, if they're actually doing work to test Fedora like internally at System76, then we could put them in that uh what is it? The Fedora fully tested? Probably because they're still doing Linux, we could put them under that Fedora may run category, but I don't know, that's kind of the weakest category of Fedora ready. So, it's like if a vendor's really going to get the value out of this, I think they need to have at least some devices in either the pre-install category or like we're testing this, like we're supporting this. And then maybe some additional devices that may run. >> Yeah, I'm just more or less interested to know like do they know about this program and they're not interested or do they not know? >> I would say it's probably at least I have not had any engagement there. So, if there's any System76 folks that would love to talk about this, I'm definitely we're definitely open to the conversation. >> Cool. >> Right, so I have actually two questions. Yeah. >> Hello. >> So, the first one is do the vendors share some statistics with us? Like uh what kind of uh laptops do they sell more? What kind of hardware is preferred by the users? Because that could help us to identify what are the preference of Fedora users. And the second question, uh well, maybe you want to answer that first. >> Yeah, so I think so, I'm just going to read off really quickly. I'm looking at and you know, since we're in this digital world, I'll put this link in the Matrix chat as well. Um, criteria for vendor listing. Vendors are listed under Fedora ready if and this actually kind of ties into the three categories. A vendor is selling a computer with Fedora Linux available pre-installed. That means we have a reputable contact with decision-makers or points of contact in your team. The computer is available for purchase online. If the product is in the pipeline and not ready yet, then we should be in contact in the lead-up to the product's launch to tie our promotional efforts to that moment. So, that's the pre-installed. The second one, if they're officially supporting Fedora Linux as an OS, actually, it's almost the same. We have a We have reputable contact with your company and the Fedora community. Uh if you're working on something that's going to be planned, work with us so we can also co-promote it with our marketing team. The different part here, you need to publicly share which devices have the support for Fedora Linux online. So, the vendor needs to provide that somewhere clearly that they support Fedora Linux in their storefront. >> Yeah, but just to clarify, I meant the statistics about >> How many users >> Yeah, how many how many like >> How many devices sold or something? >> Yeah, something like that. I mean, and then >> interesting evolution of the program. We don't currently have that kind of relationship. I know some of our vendors definitely have some of that data, and maybe we could have more intentional conversations with them. >> They They have the data, for sure. I I don't doubt that. Um but I wanted to know if they share it. Okay. >> Yeah, that would be a really interesting collaboration point cuz it would help Fedora to have that data, and it would probably help them to be able to market their their Linux support much better, too. >> And And then the the second question was uh you mentioned situations where they let us know what is going to be the next thing, so we are able to test whatever. Do we do the same thing when a Fedora change uh for a soft a software change is proposed for the next Fedora release that heavily interacts with any hardware, whatever, do we notify them? >> Okay, that's actually a great question, and I think this is an important thing, too. So, for that compatibility list, when we list the support, what we're putting on there is what version of Fedora Linux the vendor supported at the time of the release of that device. So, if you look at a lot like the Lenovo one is probably a great example on here. You'll see a lot of devices that have tested distro. Like there's one certified for a 38, 39, 37. And what that means is like that's the earliest release that was tested and like the team really provided that support for that version. Like they built that that a or that generation of the laptop to support that version. It gets harder because also we do so much change in Fedora to like it creates more work for the Fedora ready folks to be able to especially for Lenovo's list where it's tons of devices. Like every release, oh have you tested all 100 of these devices with the last change set for for the release. So, it's it's a good question, but I'd say like the model that we take is really like on time of launch did the what did that generation device support or what was tested. So, it does have a you know, I think if we were more like like an enterprise Linux or like long-term support version or probably be a someone we'd want to revisit, but I think in the way that Fedora works and how fast we change I think doing it this way where we're just basically promising what version is supported at time of release is I think that the sustainable way of doing it. Does that make sense? >> Yes, I I was I guess the thing that they share with us with the the next generation things or their side is I think it makes sense for us to share also all Fedora like in the future. >> Oh, well >> And so, if you're preparing for the future. >> Well, I I >> USB drivers, network drivers >> It's a good question and um I think like for the testing piece, like we'd want to uh Can you can you ask the reframe the question? Also, I want to say it clearly for the the the stream. >> Do we share what are going to be the future changes in Fedora in terms of software and hardware? >> The question is do we have a relationship with the vendors to share upcoming changes in Fedora Linux so that they're aware of the changes happening in Fedora as they're getting ready to certify or to test their next generation of hardware? So, I would say well, one I mean I don't know of any like smoke-filled rooms with people smoking cigars about the future of Fedora. So, a lot of like what we're doing is kind of out there already. And I mean, it's nothing that we're There's nothing that's secret that the vendors can't find just by paying attention. And I will say a lot I do think a lot of the vendors are tapped in on that already. But I do think that's a potential area for growth is like using that vendor relationship. Like if we know there's going to be a pretty seismic thing that's going to impact like a certain architecture stack or, you know, certain hardware configuration that oh, all the slim book stuff is going to be impacted by this or we have a reason to think that that's a that would be a really cool place to grow. I think make that relationship more valuable both for Fedora and for the vendors. So, it's a nice idea. Um I'd love to see that be part of the the evolution of the program. >> just like a periodic reminder of like, "Hey, these are the ones I got accepted and the change done lines over, you know, just make sure this isn't going to affect you, right?" >> Yeah, automation for that would be really cool. And I don't think be that hard thinking about it cuz we already have all this various stuff with the wiki pages and the change wrangling. So, it's an interesting idea. It's a very interesting idea. >> What about [clears throat] Dell and HP or any other major laptop vendors? >> Hello, I I would love to come and talk with the HP and Dell person who I hope is watching this or listening to this. Or if any of you have those connections, like I just personally I don't think it's a lack of interest, but like with those bigger vendors, like Lenovo for example, we've had this very close relationship, which I would probably say is in many ways related to the Red Hat connection with Lenovo because for for the folks that don't know, like this is a laptop that Red Hat gives me, and it pre- actually recently now was pre-installed with Fedora Linux, and that's like company issued laptop. So, like we have this relationship with Lenovo already, and it was kind of easy to transfer kind of the work the people doing the upstream work on Lenovo into the the community space, like Mark Pearson's been really great to work with, and he's been on it. He's been engaged in this space. So, if there were someone from these other vendors, HP and Dell, and they are doing work to support Linux, or even Fedora Linux more specifically, or have pre-install options, like they should absolutely come and talk with us and look at the enrollment process that we have on the documentation page, which will give them those like steps that they as a vendor need to do to initiate that conversation. I know they do, and that's why I think I would love to find the person who could help be the uh the Mark Pearson of HP and Dell, because I I I love Mark a lot. I give him a lot of love cuz he's just been really great to work with, and I think a lot of our vendors, like we have that really positive working relationship with. So, I think the door is open for someone from HP or Dell to come, but again, like the a lot of the the connections we've had are like when we were starting this program last year and working with some of the basically was Lenovo, Slimbook, and Framework that were kind of our early adopters for this. We had those community connections already cuz they were showing up in our upstream, like the Framework people were already talking to the Fedora quality team before this Fedora ready thing even was in place. So, we had that advantage with those vendors, but as part of this process of kind of moving it from a pilot phase and really trying to take this take this program to production, now would be a great time for someone from those places if they wanted to work with the Fedora community and get some of that community marketing support for their Linux upstream work, I'd love to hear from them. >> So, I I know the answer for System76 at least as of a long time ago um and I think it's probably still true today. They So, they make Pop!_OS, their own you know Debian Ubuntu derived uh operating system and I actually talked to them when they were in the process of designing that and they really wanted to have control over the kernel um both when updates come out and what how this things are what you drivers are included they what um sometimes drivers that we wouldn't include in Fedora Linux for various reasons, they wanted to have complete control over that and so that's part of the reason they decided they needed their own Linux um operating system entirely. Um and you know, maybe things have changed there that would be awesome cuz they're great people. It would be really nice to have them involved, but I think that they're kind of have their own path there. Um and a similar answer may apply to some number of the other vendors that were mentioned recently in a question, just saying. >> And that's why like for System76 specifically like they could probably fit into that Fedora may run category, but I feel like that's kind of like the weak sauce part of Fedora ready. Like if you really want to leverage the full benefits of the program, like I really feel like having at least some other devices in those other categories will help you more than just Fedora may run. Brendan? >> Okay, going back to the embedded board question. I think the difference between many embedded boards and laptops is just whether there's a battery and a screen attached. They generally do have video outputs on them. Oh, yeah, and a keyboard. Hopefully. I mean, I I attached my System76 keyboard, but that No pop-outs required. Uh So, last year at DevConf.CZ, there was this, "Hey, let's talk about what's going on in Fedora. Like, what can we improve on? What's going on?" And Neil Gompa said this thing that just it broke my heart cuz it was true. It was that we didn't do a good job with the ARM project back in the day because most people didn't have gravitons in their in their houses. And most people actually do have embedded boards. And actually getting support for those is really hard. And And we don't really do a good job of that in Fedora. So, if we can somehow bridge this thing into how we handle embedded boards, that that gives Fedora to a lot of people that can't have it right now cuz we can't test it right now. >> Mhm. It's a good comment. It does. It's dusty, and there's a lot of opportunity for the Fedora ready program here. And I I agree. Question from right up here? >> Uh yeah, if I'm buying a phone today, I'm looking how long it will be supported. Uh For example, if it is less than, let's say, 4 years, it's not interesting to me. Is there anything like that in the Fedora Fedora program? >> I I really think that the answer to this is something that would make Fedora try to make Fedora be something it's not. Like, I think if you really want that guarantee that you're going to have like 4 or 5 6 years of support, then you probably need to run an enterprise Linux operating system that has that long of an L like supported life cycle. Like, for example, with Lenovo stuff, a lot of that stuff came out of the fact that like before Red Hat had a Fedora Linux corporate standard build, it was rail. So, a lot of the testing at Lenovo and I'm pretty sure they still do some testing on rail. If Mark is listening in the chat, he can drop a comment in there. Um, but uh, I think that it's just that's a really hard challenge and with how much change that we have in Fedora, like if we were updating every 4 years, like I think it'd be easy, but we're updating every 6 months and sometimes sometimes it's smaller changes and sometimes it's huge and massive stuff. Like think of like the back in the day with system D or genome 3, like that might not be as an easy kind of change to support. So, it's a good question, but I feel like just fundamentally the way that Fedora works, we're just it's it's not feasible for the program. So, that's why we've taken the approach of like on release and like really like we do the vendors that are really testing their support, like I do think you would get a lot of years of support from it because they're actually giving a damn about the hardware support and usually doing that work upstream in the Linux kernel itself. So, I'd feel more optimistic, but like I don't think we can say that like you are going to get 4 years of support unless the vendor themselves say that. Like I don't think we can put that on them for Fedora ready. Any last Oh, we got a hand all the way over here. >> Could we get some stickers to show off our Fedora ready laptops? >> Mm. So, uh my friends at uh Slimbook and Framework, if you would like to sponsor our Flock conference next year and send us some of your swag so we can put it on the stick on the table out here with the Well, we actually should have some of the Lenovo stuff here, too. Um, but also like you might have seen we have like Lenovo custom discount codes on the swag table. So, I'd say that if uh this is a great opportunity for our vendors listening that there are people who want your stuff here and you should sponsor Flock so you can give them your stuff and you don't have to Yeah, come and talk to us. So, to answer your question, no, I don't have them right now. I'm sorry. But you can get $100 off your Nova custom order using the coupon code on the the swag desk. All right, last question. >> Uh just another comment. Uh Roslyn, if you're watching the recording, this is awesome. Thank you for doing this. >> this is going to be my ending. If we can get a huge round of applause for Roslyn and all of her work on Fedora ready. >> [applause] >> Because uh between the team of me, her, and Joseph, like me and Joseph have been pontificating about this and talking about it for a long time and it wasn't until Roslyn came in on her internship and did the hard work and talked with the vendors and built the criteria for this program. So, honestly, none of this would have been possible without Roslyn. Thank you, Roslyn, and I think that's a great way to end this talk. So, thank you all for joining and being a part of this and I hope you take some of the things you've learned to go and spread the good word of the Fedora ready program out there in your communities or on the internet. Thanks for being here and have a great rest of your Flock. >> [applause]