Dear Zonker, first of all, sorry for the poor quoting in this email, I just copy and pasted it from the archive, because I did not receive it. Still I feel this topic _very_important_, so I reply ;-)

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ZMD (10.1+10.2), KDE 4.0 pushing (11.0), and non-working kbluetooth, cd-burning, compiz, amarok2 etc. (11.1), constantly changing updater applets (every release from 10.0->11.1) and other major risktaking and blunders in recent years are not what I consider "designed for humans".

Sorry that you feel that way. I think that some people would agree that some features fell flat, but I'm going to suggest that if you want to have a productive discussion about this a slightly less confrontational tone (not to mention, starting the discussion in a relevant thread rather than hijacking another discussion) would help.

I don't see why someone that points out some issue has to be labelled has "too confrontational", whatever that means. A community is confrontational in nature, and it grows thanks to that, and not because everyone agrees on everything. The decisions taken as examples by Martin were the cause of a major pain for us old users and for all the newcomers, not to talk about the users they alienated. This cannot be fixed by good marketing, because good marketing works if you listen to users and satisfy their needs, and I have to say some important step was done or is being done for 11.2. But I still think there is too much emphasis on marketing something, without knowing what this something actually is (see discussion on focus, later). I would also like to add that if a critics comes from a strong contributor and long term user like Martin, it should deserve a better consideration. I don't think anybody has fun to point problems, but neglecting them is worse. After all, if we are still doing this kind of discussions is because at a certain point the connection between developers/decision makers and community was lost at least in part. What Martin said in substance is that an inconsistent marketing is of no real use, and I believe it can actually cause damage. It is always better to be honest and realistic.

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And if openSUSE is actually supposed to be productive, working, easy to use and gaining marketshare beyond geeks, then development decisions/priorities should reflect those goals.

No disagreement here. And I think that you'll find with 11.2 that some of the decisions we've already made (and will make) mean that openSUSE 11.2 will be better all around than previous releases. (Which is not to say those were poor releases...)

It is what we all want, and in different ways and with different ideas (probably too many, and not coordinated) are trying to do. But I think it will take time to re-build the trust relationship between "insiders" and community after the past experiences. Which of course doesn't mean we won't try. We would not be here to hammer you so much if that were the case!

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A while ago a discussion about distribution focus was being prepared, which filled me with hope that something would be done which really mattered, but nothing has happened so far... I'd like to see http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Distribution_Focus

Let me see what we can do on this topic...

I had big hopes too about the Focus discussion, especially because the idea came from inside Novell, and this was interpreted by me as the will of finding a sort of agreement to match the needs of both (N and community). I don't know the reasons why this discussion didn't actually start, it might just have been delayed. But I really think that having a main goal for the project is vital. It is vital to the community, because it gives a clear idea of where the project is going, and it is vital also for not contributing users (I know someone is not interested in them, but I think they're key to spread openSUSE and attract new contributors), so they can actually decide if openSUSE fits their needs, and eventually decide to use it and take part to its life. Moreover, and from some discussion on IRC I think someone is missing this point, having a main goal for the project doesn't mean neglecting everything else. In my view providing a good core distributions for desktop usage, with easy installation, configuration and an acceptable level of stability can contribute to make "linux for everyone" more than trying to make everyone happy. If the base works (and is not made by a kernel alone :P), people will start to use it and to build on it. On this, we can actually learn something from a certain "nine letters" partner. ;-) I look forward to know more about the focus discussion _soon_ (and I promise gentle reminders if it will be forgotten or if it will be postponed to "after 11.2", because it would mean "not ready for 11.3" :-)) Best, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org