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"derivatives", "power users") should not be adopted as a general strategy but rather delegated to the respective teams (mobile, KDE, etc.) which are interested in adopting them.

we could make a -say- two years investigation time, after what we will see how many people are interested in each team and correct accordingly

any strategy have to change quite often, any one that *cut* can't go back

No-one has the resources to be first-rate at everything, so we must choose where to focus to achieve world leading status in those areas. This, explicitly or implicitly, means "cuts". A strategy that changes often is a tactical or operational plan (i.e. the implementation plan of a strategy), not a strategy. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

* Pavol Rusnak [2010-06-22 10:43]:

On 06/22/2010 10:37 AM, Administrator wrote:

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No-one has the resources to be first-rate at everything, so we must choose where to focus to achieve world leading status in those areas. This, explicitly or implicitly, means "cuts".

Thanks! At least some from debaters really understand the motivation behind strategy creation.

Oh, I understand your motivation very well, and reading through your proposals I believe it is a grave mistake which will achieve exactly the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. -- Guido Berhoerster -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

jdd schreef:

Le 22/06/2010 10:42, Pavol Rusnak a écrit :

...

On 06/22/2010 10:37 AM, Administrator wrote:

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No-one has the resources to be first-rate at everything, so we must choose where to focus to achieve world leading status in those areas. This, explicitly or implicitly, means "cuts".

Thanks! At least some from debaters really understand the motivation behind strategy creation.

wrong.

nobody said *where* we lack power. We did all this already for several years. Where do we need to cut and why do we need to cut?

nobody said that!!

jdd

Well, if you ask me, i would say, we would not want to 'rush' 'too many' changes at a time, because than it is more difficult to see what exactly influenzes what, and thus more difficult to 'repair'. That would promote stability. Also we would not want to throw away our old shoes: sax2, before we have new ones: kernel-modules-((what was the exact name?) being not ready for many gpu's.. fi. If we do these things, testing becomes nearly impossible, a lot of extra work, MOST IMPORTANT: fun is lost, and many negative side effects: (working os's lost from menu.lst fi.) -- Enjoy your time around, Oddball, aka M9. OS: Linux 2.6.27.19-3.2-default x86_64 Huidige gebruiker: oddball@AMD64x2-sfn1 Systeem: openSUSE 11.1 (x86_64) KDE: 4.2.1 (KDE 4.2.1) "release 103" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

* Martin Schlander [2010-06-22 10:53]:

But you do not address the problems we're trying to solve.

1) Provide a clear and unique identity for openSUSE and a good answer to the question "Why openSUSE?"

openSUSE already has a numerous strengths: * it provides a good compromise between stability and up-to-date packages (as opposed to Ubuntu and Fedora where there is a focus on the latter) * its community still has sufficient technical capacity (as opposed to Ubuntu which is increasingly unable to deal with bugs) * hurdles for contributions are exceptionally low (through the Build Service) * it is easy to create derviative distributions (through the build service) * it offers a superior KDE desktop, still it offers a good GNOME and LXDE desktop experience as well, you don't have to switch distributions if you want to switch desktops etc. etc. It certainly has weaknesses as well, see the SWOT analysis for a many more point. Now failing to communicate the *existing* strengths and addressing the weaknesses is a very different issue.

2) Create focus and direction for the project and make more effective use of our limited resources

I agree that the strategy shouldn't be *too* exclusionary, but in targetting everyone, we'd almost be targetting noone :-)

No, we should target those for whom we can provide something. If there is a group of people interested in making openSUSE more attractive to developers then the target audience should include developers. Parts of the project (e.g. the LXDE desktop) already depend entirely on voluntary contributors working on what they like and consider important. -- Guido Berhoerster -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

* Martin Schlander [2010-06-22 12:10]:

Tirsdag den 22. juni 2010 12:01:32 skrev Guido Berhoerster:

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* Martin Schlander [2010-06-22 10:53]:

...

I agree that the strategy shouldn't be *too* exclusionary, but in targetting everyone, we'd almost be targetting noone :-)

No, we should target those for whom we can provide something.

Exactly. And openSUSE is very good at providing powerful advanced things, that let powerusers be productive - but openSUSE is not very good at making things that are very simple and intuitive for computer illeterates. In fact, I think most of the engineers probably couldn't spot a usability disaster if it was staring them right in the face :-|

Well, firstly I don't think openSUSE usability is actually that bad and secondly I think it doesn't require that many resources to address deficiencies which might make openSUSE difficult to use by less computer literate users if we find out about them. And usability doesn't mean dumbing down like Ubuntu (e.g. providing "Computer Janitor" style programs or interactive first-use assistants for screen). I think openSUSE has more of a problem communicating its strengths within and outside the project (i.e. marketing). -- Guido Berhoerster -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Tirsdag den 22. juni 2010 12:35:12 skrev Jan Engelhardt:

On Tuesday 2010-06-22 12:01, Guido Berhoerster wrote:

...

* Martin Schlander [2010-06-22 10:53]:

...

But you do not address the problems we're trying to solve.

1) Provide a clear and unique identity for openSUSE and a good answer to the question "Why openSUSE?"

openSUSE already has a numerous strengths: * it provides a good compromise between stability and up-to-date

packages (as opposed to Ubuntu and Fedora where there is a focus on the latter)

I can't notice the up-to-date things in Ubuntu either. Which is ok given they focus on the first impression experience instead.

Lots of the stuff in Ubuntu is pretty old taken directly from Debian unstable - but they've also been very eager to push pulseaudio, grub2 and some things like that on people - even in their LTS versions. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

...

I agree that the strategy shouldn't be *too* exclusionary, but in targetting everyone, we'd almost be targetting noone :-)

No, we should target those for whom we can provide something.

Exactly. That's the point of the strategy - defining: to whom we can provide something of value; and what we're going to provide that's worth our time, effort, resources to provide. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

...

...

...

I agree that the strategy shouldn't be *too* exclusionary, but in targetting everyone, we'd almost be targetting noone :-)

No, we should target those for whom we can provide something.

Exactly. That's the point of the strategy - defining: to whom we can provide something of value; and what we're going to provide that's worth our time, effort, resources to provide.

Yeah, but focusing on attracting developers does not preclude striving for becoming the best KDE distro for end-users as long as there are people interested in working on it. There are many voluntary contributors who work on a certain area of their personal interest and who will not suddely move to work on a different area. In the worst case we will just lose these people.

No-one is asking people to move. Members of the community will do what they want to do.

You cannot simply redistribute resources at will within the project, this might be how it works in corporate entities (that is among paid (Novell) employees) but certainly not among voluntary contributors. This seems to be a fundamental misconception prevalent in the whole debate.

The strategy is also about creating a platform / distro / image that will attract the contributors. If we are the best in the world (or amongst the best) in an area then the best contributors in that area will come. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org