Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (328 mails)

["Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 7:21 AM, Vincent Untz <vuntz@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  + end of June: development cycle is too short for many, we miss KDE 4.3
>   => not a good option
>  + July: only possible at the end of July if we want 4 weeks after the
>   integration of KDE 4.3. But it's not the best time to announce stuff
>   from a marketing point of view (although this could be an opportunity
>   to be really visible since there won't be a lot of other things)
>  + August: technically possible, but same issue from a marketing point
>   of view. There might also be an issue with people being away in
>   vacation.
>  + September: good, except that we miss GNOME for only a few weeks. This
>   could be bad if people compare with beta of other distros that will
>   be released at the same time with the latest GNOME
>  + October: only end of October possible if we want 4 weeks after the
>   integration of GNOME 2.28
>  + November/December: ok. Development cycle a bit long, unfortunately.
>
> I'd argue that it's highly important to consider the marketing side of
> things when building the schedule. Building something which is excellent
> from a technical point of view is not enough to have a successful
> openSUSE project.

I like the way you're thinking... ;-)

Let me just say, first, that let's *never* plan a release a week
before Christmas again, Mmmkay?

(Though we haven't failed to get the word out:
http://zonker.opensuse.org/2008/12/19/opensuse-111-coverage/)

For future releases, if we can just rule out anything between the week
before Thanksgiving and, say, January 10th or so, that'd be spiffy.

> Sooo. First, a question: would a release at the end of July or in August
> be possible? I think doing this would clearly mitigate the "we don't
> have the latest GNOME" issue. I'd also like to hear what Zonker thinks
> of promoting a new release during days that are usually really quiet
> from a news perspective (mainly because people are away).

My thoughts, from just the marketing perspective:

July and August - we have major events (assuming the economic climate
doesn't torpedo them...) during those months, and the opportunities
for coverage are really good. We did a push for the openSUSE Build
Service 1.0 in July, and did pretty well, all things considered.

Yes, a lot of people are away on vacation, but by the same token,
they're good months because (usually) little else is going on.

Missing GNOME is bad. I'd *much* rather have a release with new GNOME
+ KDE to talk about. We will get dinged in reviews if we ship an "old"
desktop. (Whether that is right or wrong can be debated separately -
but that's what will happen.)

I much prefer October, with one exception: We want to do the openSUSE
conference in September, and I'd really love to have the latest
release there.

As for the "add-on" idea... if we released 11.2 in time for the
conference, with an update (11.2.1? 11.2.5?) for GNOME, that would
give us an additional chance for a small press bump. If the GNOME team
(and others) is OK with that approach, I certainly have no objection
on the marketing side.

Best,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
openSUSE Community Manager
jzb@xxxxxxxxxx
http://zonker.opensuse.org/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/
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