Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)

[Per Jessen <per@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

> On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 20:44 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:
> > I couldn't find a suitable place to add this in the running thread,
> > so I'm starting this one
> >
> > - whilst there seems to be lots of arguments against TrifleMeNots
> > main arguments (possible sale, the MS deal etc),
>
> His original item was about what happens in the case of a possible
> sale. And it was a fair and legitimate question in my opinion, one
> that we quickly tried to reassure him that no changes were imminent. 
> He then changed the discussion to a referendum against Novell for its
> dealings with Microsoft.  These were two completely separate and
> unrelated topics.

The topic was not changed, those were just the arguments.  That's what
I'm getting at - the initial pro-independence arguments were shot down
or rendered invalid, but I didn't see many offering opinions on the
independence itself. I didn't see you offering a shout of support
either.

> We are an upstream project for Novell.  We are not the product of
> Novell.  Even if we split away one hundred percent away from Novell
> and said "No thank you, we never want to talk to you again...
> goodbye!" Novell would still use us as upstream basis for their SLE
> products.  And people around the world won't make the distinction that
> we're independent as long as Novell uses our creations.  So it becomes
> moot. 

If it's a moot point, quite a few people have wasted a lot of words
arguing against it. 
 
> > as far as I can tell,
> > no-one has actually argued against the independence in itself.
>
> No one is arguing against self-reliance.   Self-reliance and
> independence are a different topic than split from Novell.   We can
> still be sponsored by Novell and be independent.  In fact we gave
> several points about how we, as a Project, have worked towards this
> self-reliance in the last year.   Maybe you missed that part of the
> thread? 

Yes, I may have, but as I am a part of the community, I have presumably
been kept well aware of your efforts.

> But in any case, if we want more independence, we need to 
> learn to walk the walk.  More in the community need to step up and do.
> It's as simple as that.

That is the usual song that we (the community) often get. To be honest,
it gets quite tiring, even annoying.  It is not the way to win over
people, IMHO - in particularly not when it comes from Novell community
members.  People will contribute when and as best they can - whining
about the community not pulling their weight is not the way to
convince/coerce them into doing something.  Over the last ten years I
have contributed to/participated in a number of open source projects,
but being asked "to step up to the plate" was never the reason. 

> It simply doesn't make sense.  you can't have one and not the other. 
> What I keep seeing over and over again around here is we put out lots
> of calls for help on this or that project and no one steps up, but
> everyone comments freely on broad discussions like this.

Bryen, that ought to make you, as an openSUSE board member, wonder what
it is we are doing wrong. 

> > Whether or not that is a real risk or not, being more
> > independent wouldn't be that bad, would it?  Seeking infrastructure
> > contributions could even go quite well with a strategy of attracting
> > more developers and contributors (if that is the strategy).
>
> So again, to summarize, there is no argument against independence
> because we're already working towards that. 

I'm not at all convinced that that has been very well communicated (if
at all) to the community at large.  Especially not considering
the "enthusiasm" TrifleMeNots initial question of "And what else needs
to be done for opensuse to gain full independence?" was met with. 


/Per Jessen, Zürich

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