On Saturday 03 July 2010 12:19:09 jdd wrote:

Le 03/07/2010 15:20, Rajko M. a écrit : ...

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I vote for name "Core member" as it describes what current "member" is and avoids permanent confusion that we had with additional meaning that we gave to word "member".

why not?

Why not what? :) (question is to short, so I can't know what you refer too) ...

no, it's already too difficult to know who can be member or not!

Why is that? To me criteria who can be a (registered) member are clear. Make your name stick out of crowd, and you are candidate to be a (registered) member.

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In small projects where everyone knows everybody, there is no need for formal recognition. With project of openSUSE size, with 12164 people that found time to create entry in https://users.opensuse.org/ and 426 that applied for membership and are approved there is no chance that everyone knows everyone, so there is a need for formal recognition.

may be, but who knows who do a job? we lack evidences

Who is around can pick enough evidence of activity. Also, by current definition of (registered) membership there are some names that deserve recognition for past activity, but can't be considered members right now. That is another part of attribution that is not solved.

jdd

-- Regards Rajko, -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday July 4 2010 00:55:03 Rajko M. wrote:

On Saturday 03 July 2010 12:37:11 Jan Engelhardt wrote: ...

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But since you cannot quantify as to whether they do that, they should really be called Registered Member instead.

"Registered member" is OK for voting. Being contributor and real person, is enough for that.

"Core member" must show more in some of our activities, with quantity, quality and persistence. We can call it "Leading member", but that has connotation that we don't need. Lead is in workplace hierarchy here above workers, and has some commanding capability.

I'm totally against creating different levels of "members" since that just will open a bottomless can of worms why X is "only" a "member" while Y is a "super member" but X does more than Y, at least in the opinion of X or perhaps Z. Also it reminds me too much of that forum style by rating people based on their post count (which doesn't say anything most of the times). If you contribute in one way or the other and contribute enough you can apply for membership which gives you e.g. the right to vote. IMHO it really isn't necessary to make more fuss about it.

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Language nitpick: "Distinguished Contributor".

Right :) (distinctive and distinguished are easy to be confused)

"Distinguished contributor" would be someone that has no continuous activity, but when is active we can see that.

Which just leads to having some definition for being a "Distinguished contributor" which needs to draw the border to being a "normal member" - as in it doesn't bring anything but just enlarges the problem. IMHO people contribute cause they like to do so. If they contributed enough they can apply for membership. And if they get declined now they can continue contributing and reapply later and then get admitted. I just don't see any problem with this and IMHO this whole discussion how to call it is somehow ridiculous and unnecessary - which is why I would like to suggest to rename "member" to "potato" and be done with it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday July 4 2010 03:51:23 David Haller wrote:

Hello,

On Sun, 04 Jul 2010, Stephan Kleine wrote:

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On Sunday July 4 2010 00:55:03 Rajko M. wrote:

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On Saturday 03 July 2010 12:37:11 Jan Engelhardt wrote: ...

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But since you cannot quantify as to whether they do that, they should really be called Registered Member instead.

"Registered member" is OK for voting. Being contributor and real person, is enough for that.

"Core member" must show more in some of our activities, with quantity, quality and persistence. We can call it "Leading member", but that has connotation that we don't need. Lead is in workplace hierarchy here above workers, and has some commanding capability.

I'm totally against creating different levels of "members" since that just will open a bottomless can of worms why X is "only" a "member" while Y is a "super member" but X does more than Y, at least in the opinion of X or perhaps Z. Also it reminds me too much of that forum style by rating people based on their post count (which doesn't say anything most of the times).

If you contribute in one way or the other and contribute enough you can apply for membership which gives you e.g. the right to vote. IMHO it really isn't necessary to make more fuss about it.

ACK.

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Language nitpick: "Distinguished Contributor".

Right :) (distinctive and distinguished are easy to be confused)

"Distinguished contributor" would be someone that has no continuous activity, but when is active we can see that.

Which just leads to having some definition for being a "Distinguished contributor" which needs to draw the border to being a "normal member" - as in it doesn't bring anything but just enlarges the problem.

IMHO people contribute cause they like to do so. If they contributed enough they can apply for membership. And if they get declined now they can continue contributing and reapply later and then get admitted.

I just don't see any problem with this and IMHO this whole discussion how to call it is somehow ridiculous and unnecessary - which is why I would like to suggest to rename "member" to "potato" and be done with it.

I think: leave it as it is. Or rename "Member" to "Lizard". That shouldn't evoke too much confusing associations in the context, at least not those of "member". "potato" would be okay too, but makes me think of debian. Has *buntu had a "lizard" version yet? Too bad, chameleon is such a long word, as the contributions of the "members" come in all sha[dp]es, too, and it's the actual mascot (who named it "Geeko" anyway? ;). Oh, "Geeko" also has an appeal.

I've been told that "lizard" is no option cause the chief of those "Ku Klux Klan" bastards is called "dragon" and therefore there certainly will show up some moron sooner or later that draws some dependency from openSUSE to KKK. Point being that whole "how to call it " discussion is just ridiculous cause it will just end in stuff like the last proposal to use philosophers as code names. I don't remember what was exactly suggested back then but that dude apparently was called a fascist by some - and I certainly don't care to continue that discussion, or if it was right or wrong - but it simply resulted in too much arguments and the idea getting dropped. IMHO just leave it as it is since "member" of $project isn't that mistakable if you aren't trying hard to do so or just give it some random name that doesn't have to do anything with anything - like "potato" since you can't insinuate a potato anything besides not liking its taste so that discussion dies once and for all. Sooo, either stick with "member" (I'm still waiting for some reason why "member" is wrong ....) or call it "potato" (just to have some name) and be done with it. Another option would be to allow everyone to make up ones own name - like "Evil Overlord" but then we would to have to define the "class" of those who could define their own name ...... You see where this is going? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday July 4 2010 05:52:09 Rajko M. wrote:

On Saturday 03 July 2010 18:30:08 Stephan Kleine wrote:

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On Sunday July 4 2010 00:55:03 Rajko M. wrote: ...

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"Registered member" is OK for voting. Being contributor and real person, is enough for that.

"Core member" must show more in some of our activities, with quantity, quality and persistence. ...

I'm totally against creating different levels of "members" since that just will open a bottomless can of worms why X is "only" a "member" while Y is a "super member" but X does more than Y, at least in the opinion of X or perhaps Z.

Sincerely I would live rather with a lot of contributors that sometimes have above problem, and deal on case by case basis, than without many contributors and no problems, as it is now.

Right, and that's why we are currently having a discussion about if "member" is the proper wording? (as in it is apparently already too hard to define some basic levels)

It is easy to miss that when Joe introduced Ambassador program number of active contributors jumped a lot. Problem is that lack of ideas what exactly to do with new people left many without direction and they left. Small thing, calling somebody openSUSE ambassador attracted a lot of people. Nothing to learn from this?

Point simply being is that you have the right to "vote" on certain targets of the project and that right should be exclusive to people who proved they are interested in said project by contributing. There is nothing that prevents anyone from joining but the lack of contribution. If you have some people wondering in what way they could contribute then fix the wiki page since there are loads of ways.

In the first post I mentioned that majority needs lead and visible incentives to be active. If we don't give them, someone will.

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Also it reminds me too much of that forum style by rating people based on their post count (which doesn't say anything most of the times).

If you did not notice they had two ratings, one is by number of posts, the other is reputation, which is given by other users. In the new interface they have Rate This Thread, but personal rating, reputation, disappeared.

I am aware of that but it doesn't make it less retarded (and no, this isn't targeted at our forum but general forum style). To make it short: 1. any X class "contributor system" is plain retarded IMHO since it doesn't matter to the people who contribute. 2. if you start it I am out (but that is just me personally)

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If you contribute in one way or the other and contribute enough you can apply for membership which gives you e.g. the right to vote....

Voting is just one thing that motivate people, but not all nor many.

And the other things that motivate people in your opinion are what?

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"Distinguished contributor" would be someone that has no continuous activity, but when is active we can see that.

Which just leads to having some definition for being a "Distinguished contributor" which needs to draw the border to being a "normal member" - as in it doesn't bring anything but just enlarges the problem.

The intention is not to make people comfortable with "all are equal" status and do nothing. Whether you contribute, or not, you get your openSUSE download. What is your reward for more effort that you put in a distro? None.

So what? The download is provided for free and the mere fact that you download anything doesn't mean you contribute anything. Besides that all people are not equal. Some part contributes and therefore is a member or has the right to vote and the others haven't.

Distinguished, registered, core members get promotional DVDs, small presents, SLE, slx products, access to services, more publicity, formal recognition in shape of awards for accomplishments, travel expenses, that other don't. This is a bit more incentive to do more then it is now.

Right, that's why people e.g. got their free boxes for 11.2 as they got it for earlier versions? How about starting to revert the cut down of free boxes for people contributing to factory and then we see for the rest - as a start. I fully agree that some motivation wouldn't harm but that has nothing to do with the current subject.

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IMHO people contribute cause they like to do so.

In ideal world that is so. In real you get what you pay for. No rewards, no activity.

I think you are misunderstanding something here ...

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If they contributed enough they can apply for membership. And if they get declined now they can continue contributing and reapply later and then get admitted.

That is another point that we should change. Now we wait until someone apply and get bunch of applications from people that got it wrong and then when application is declined we expect that they stay with a project. I don't think so.

So make it clear to them what is required in the first place. If they move elsewhere cause their application has been declined cause they didn't do anything cause they considered being a member mandatory for contributing then there is certainly some communication failure but it has nothing to do with the idea of being a member. Also the requirements are clearly stated.

Proactive approach will be more successful, at least it will make wait list non existent. When you see someone contributing then approach him and offer registration. If offer is declined then good. Leave door open and let him/her apply when he/she feels ready.

Right, that certainly sounds objective </irony>.

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I just don't see any problem with this and IMHO this whole discussion how to call it is somehow ridiculous and unnecessary - which is why I would like to suggest to rename "member" to "potato" and be done with it.

From packaging perspective I can't see any difference, but from social there is a big one.

Right, so fuck packaging and all go social since that would help .... I am still waiting for your reasoning why: 1. "member" is bad in the first place (besides some "forum member" can misunderstand it). 2. creating different levels of "membership" would do more good than harm. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2010-07-04 01:30, Stephan Kleine wrote:

On Sunday July 4 2010 00:55:03 Rajko M. wrote:

Which just leads to having some definition for being a "Distinguished contributor" which needs to draw the border to being a "normal member" - as in it doesn't bring anything but just enlarges the problem.

Absolutely. I'm not sure than having different classes of "members" would be a good idea.

IMHO people contribute cause they like to do so. If they contributed enough they can apply for membership. And if they get declined now they can continue contributing and reapply later and then get admitted.

I just don't see any problem with this and IMHO this whole discussion how to call it is somehow ridiculous and unnecessary - which is why I would like to suggest to rename "member" to "potato" and be done with it.

Mmm... I'm openSUSE Potato Carlos... Does it sound right? :-? :-p I'm for choosing something different from "member", but not quite for having subdivisions :-) - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" GM (Elessar)) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkwwZkoACgkQU92UU+smfQUGPACfV5KbQH9YvsVXZbjApy3cQm4C 3i4An3qkgXX3UA8wVTAGyJeFKQKsc1R5 =fQda -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Domingo, 4 de Julio de 2010 06:01:26 jdd escribió:

Le 04/07/2010 12:45, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

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I'm not sure than having different classes of "members" would be a good idea. Sometimes we need to know where we should ask for help to get inside knowledge or know how or background....

we already have * board members (elected) Keep it that way

* members (co-opted) Senior or Most Valued Contributors Members (regular contributors without regards the area: research, development, marketing, press, art, IT infrastructure, documentation, statistics, metrics, etc.

* ambassadors (self designated) Ambassador Members. It should be monitored and must be guided to align with the Project objectives and goals. Most probably it is a workgroup than a category.

and, unformal: Fans, Junior or Associates Members to openSUSE Project (new testers, newcomers, irregular participants, etc. )

team members (wiki, testing, members selection...) moderators (1 for mailing lists, but several for wiki or forums, co-opted) contributors (people who help) people with Novell account... necessary to write in some supports (bugzilla or forums...) people using the open medias (mailing-lists, newsgroups...) buyers (buy a box) unknownusers (download stuff)

These groups will work as work group at matrix project organization and these members have mobility among groups (one person could be member at different work groups simultaneously)

(did I forget something? probably)

isn't this enough??

You will only need three big membership categories for the openSUSE project and community: 1) entry level; 2) merit recognized or middle level; 3) elected board Other memberships are work groups but not a differentiated membership categories. Don't you think it is easier for all and less overhead? My 0.01 -- Ricardo Chung a.k.a. amonthoth openSUSE Ambassador for Panama http://en.opensuse.org/User:Amonthoth http://es.opensuse.org/Usuario:Amonthoth http://twitter.com/amon0thoth1 http://www.opensuse.org/en/ http://es.opensuse.org/Grupos_Locales_de_Usuarios -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

On Saturday 03 July 2010 12:37:11 Jan Engelhardt wrote: ...

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But since you cannot quantify as to whether they do that, they should really be called Registered Member instead.

"Registered member" is OK for voting. Being contributor and real person, is enough for that.

"Core member" must show more in some of our activities, with quantity, quality and persistence. We can call it "Leading member", but that has connotation that we don't need. Lead is in workplace hierarchy here above workers, and has some commanding capability.

Uh, "to lead" can also just mean "to be in front". "leading" !== "Leitender". -- Per Jessen, Zürich (21.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 04/07/2010 10:33, Andreas Jaeger a écrit :

Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here?

It's very dificult to know what one particular people do for openSUSE. We can do, if he work on mailing list/wiki/forums. But there are many other places. Examples: do members have to: * speak english? how can we estimate non english activity? * work on the net? How can we estimate the field (entreprises, install fests, demo dvd spreading, teaching relatives)? * work specifically for openSUSE? Some very active people of upstream applications ask for membership. they work being GPL'd are used anuwhere. How can we know if they are openSUSE active fans? may be they coded this only for openSUSE on the beginning? Adding the fact than presently only a handfull of members work on the registration process! not enough! There should be at least one active registrator on any langage, known to be so, and the candidate instructed to send him they "registering evidences" jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-support-the-Linux-Documentation-Project/3720... http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-fan-page-of-Claire-Dodin/106485119372062?v... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 04/07/2010 21:50, Andreas Jaeger a écrit :

That sounds to me that our membership process (and note I'm one of those that is responsible for its launch) is too complicated,

that's not the word I would use. Too complicated for whom? May be already active members should spend some time scanning the openSUSE medias for active non members people, and ask them to be candidate? May be some part of this could be automated. Make a script to scan all the openSUSE archives (mailing lists, forums...) and compare the names/e-mail of the participants to the real members. then sorting this by number of posts and giving links to the threads, we could go and see if there is not a potential member there there could be two steps. Having self designated "ambassadors" don't make me feel confident. using a script as described, we could identify users writing frequently (so we can beg using openSUSE), then ask them if they want to be ambassadors (without any other condition). Then we could make members only from the ambassadors. like this we would have to choose members in an identified list, much easier to follow (become member after a given time of ambassador activity?) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-support-the-Linux-Documentation-Project/3720... http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-fan-page-of-Claire-Dodin/106485119372062?v... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 2010-07-04 at 21:50 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

On Sunday 04 July 2010 10:43:25 jdd wrote:

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Le 04/07/2010 10:33, Andreas Jaeger a écrit :

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Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here?

It's very dificult to know what one particular people do for openSUSE. We can do, if he work on mailing list/wiki/forums.

But there are many other places. Examples:

do members have to:

* speak english? how can we estimate non english activity?

No, they don't have to IMO - but how will they then apply?

Actually, we have seen people apply in the past in their own language and we end up having to try to then translate. Of course, if we don't know what language it is, then we're stuck unable to use any kind of translation. :-) Then, next step is we try to contact someone in that region (e.g. Indonesia) who has a lot of knowledge of the community in that area and ask that person to vouch for that person. But yes, we don't really do much in reaching out to other language-based openSUSE Community folks to appeal to them to apply. Their contributions certainly do matter, even if its only seen in their region/language. But I guess on the flip-side of the coin, if they cannot communicate in English, how can they exercise their right to vote if our primary established language is English? I'm not saying to exclude those, but obviously closing the gap needs to happen in this particular focus. :-/ Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 20:23 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

On Wednesday 07 July 2010 18:51:12 Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

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how can they exercise their right to vote if our primary established language is English?

By proxy, or changing voting to be multilingual. Currently that will stretch translators even more, but then it can help growing community and bring in more multilingual people to openSUSE.

-- Regards Rajko,

That's not what I meant. Sure its easy enough to provide ballots in multiple languages. But its not easy for people to campaign for Board in multiple languages. English is the de facto way that we campaign and communicate with each other and make ourselves known to each other. Therefore, it is a challenge for someone of a different language who doesn't know English to follow with those discussions and campaign efforts. Therefore, how can they exercise their right to vote, meaning how can they be able to come up with meaningful decisions about who is the best candidate for their vote? That's a big challenge. But I'd love to see it figured out somehow. I just don't have the answers to that one. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 08 July 2010 01:37:16 jdd wrote:

We have to build some international network of members that can give us clues.

Exactly what I got in mind talking about translation. There is a lot of people that don't use English, or not enough to be involved in discussion, but they are good minds and skilled. Person with skills in some field useful for openSUSE will avoid to discuss any topic, just because it can't express thoughts the way he/she is used to. Building international network can help us to access such people. -- Regards Rajko, -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

AJ, What do you think about we create a kind of openSUSE certifications path? While people will getting success through the path to achieve a kind of openSUSE Master Certification, they will also obtaining different levels of access and privileges (merits) inside the whole openSUSE project. Take a look at the http://www.novell.com/training/certinfo/cle/roadmap_10.html and see if this shows up some ideas about openSUSE Certifications! This can help us to achieve two points. First, will help us to better understand our users/contributors activities and difficulties. Second, could help openSUSE users/contritutors to increase in numbers. Most young guys from schools and new university levels are looking for some certifications that can they to be better viewed and positioned to the IT/Business market. Also we can provide a kind of certifications for trainees. rsrs - To be honest, I do not really believe this line, but as we are having a kind of brainstorm - this is the right time and place to shoot some craziest ideas. ;-) . Let's start to fly and Imagine someone needs a Trainee certification for their marketing course in their University, and they need that certification to get their University Conclusion Course Certification as a Marketing Leader. We can provide a kind of Marketing openSUSE Trainee Certification for release each candidates we delivery. Who wishes to apply for openSUSE Marketing Trainee certification must submit papers to be analyzed by the marketing team. As you said, we currently have the following benefits for membership participants: * lizards.opensuse.org blog account * IRC opensuse.org cloak * @opensuse.org mail alias * Right to vote the openSUSE board - and perhaps participate in other votes We can provide this ones + some others MOTIVATIONS that we can start to talk in another threat. Backing to the openSUSE certification path... I believe a kind of different certifications for different purposes can help us to gain more contributors, users, members... * openSUSE Certification for Educational * openSUSE Certification for Developers * openSUSE Certification for Ambassadors * openSUSE Certification for Marketing Professionals * openSUSE Certification for Project leaders in opensource ecosystem * openSUSE Certification for Trainee Programs * openSUSE Certification for ISV's * openSUSE Certification for Government * openSUSE Certification for Educational Technical Centers - associated with LPI - just like Novell previous agreement with LPI http://www.lpi.org/eng/certification/lpi_and_novell_partnership and http://www.novell.com/pt-br/BR/news/press/novell-and-linux-professional-inst... * openSUSE Certification for A11y * openSUSE Certification for kids and retired ones Of course not all of my examples could be possible or at least makes sense, but I believe some can be useful and can help others to push another idea on how to obtain more users, contributors and members to the project. Some countries (I believe most part) are playing some specific BIDs for opensource solutions/providers to acquire some opensource services and deliverables to the government usage. If we have some specific certifications provided by openSUSE project - we could be better viewed by BID's writers. At least here I live, the people hired by the government or state, LOVES to spend the contributors money (our money) doing courses and getting some certifications, because this is the only thing they will not lost or leave to the next ones. If they have the opportunity to run a BID for a kind of network management solution - think nagios - for any purpose, and some company like my competitors runs with debian+nagios services + training + Documentation + transfer skill for 10 $ and I run the same BID providing the same solution as my competitor placed but with openSUSE + openSUSE ANY KIND of CERTIFICATION for the same 10 $. WOW tha't is the plan - nd if the government decision makers choose openSUSE as linux platform, quite sure they will push their MAGIC SOLUTION using openSUSE ECOSYSTEM to the decision makers of educational, financial, infrastructure, health-care, decision makers of the States and Cities. best luck CarlosRibeiro

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Andreas Jaeger 04 Julho, 2010 >>> I'd like to do a bit out of the box thinking on this one and see the $member discussion in a broader context as well.

Currently the benefits of membership are: * lizards.opensuse.org blog account * IRC opensuse.org cloak * @opensuse.org mail alias * Right to vote the openSUSE board - and perhaps participate in other votes we do Do we want to open up all of this and open it up so that everybody can sign up and can get these benefits - or a part of it? This might be good from a marketing perspective since more people would call themselves $member and use their openSUSE org mail alias etc. Or do we want to continue giving these benefits based on merit? Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here? Btw. how do other projects handle this? What names are Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. doing in this regard? Can anybody register and have these rights or to which is it bound? Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 05 July 2010 02:57:27 Carlos Ribeiro wrote:

What do you think about we create a kind of openSUSE certifications path? While people will getting success through the path to achieve a kind of openSUSE Master Certification, they will also obtaining different levels of access and privileges (merits) inside the whole openSUSE project.

Take a look at the http://www.novell.com/training/certinfo/cle/roadmap_10.html and see if this shows up some ideas about openSUSE Certifications!

This can help us to achieve two points. First, will help us to better understand our users/contributors activities and difficulties. Second, could help openSUSE users/contritutors to increase in numbers. Most young guys from schools and new university levels are looking for some certifications that can they to be better viewed and positioned to the IT/Business market.

Also we can provide a kind of certifications for trainees. rsrs - To be honest, I do not really believe this line, but as we are having a kind of brainstorm - this is the right time and place to shoot some craziest ideas. ;-) . Let's start to fly and Imagine someone needs a Trainee certification for their marketing course in their University, and they need that certification to get their University Conclusion Course Certification as a Marketing Leader. We can provide a kind of Marketing openSUSE Trainee Certification for release each candidates we delivery. Who wishes to apply for openSUSE Marketing Trainee certification must submit papers to be analyzed by the marketing team.

It's brainstorming, so I should not comment on it ;) but since you asked in the first line... If you force people to have such a certification before they contribute, it's the wrong way IMO since it would have the opposite effect of attracting people to contribute. On the other hand, having good training material for contribution and using the openSUSE distribution would be great. So, material to e.g.: * explain how to setup a new computer * explain how to build a package with the openSUSE Build Service * explain how to report a bug We have some of that in the wiki but offering it as training is an interesting idea, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

Le dimanche 04 juillet 2010, à 10:33 +0200, Andreas Jaeger a écrit :

I'd like to do a bit out of the box thinking on this one and see the $member discussion in a broader context as well.

Currently the benefits of membership are: * lizards.opensuse.org blog account * IRC opensuse.org cloak * @opensuse.org mail alias * Right to vote the openSUSE board - and perhaps participate in other votes we do

Do we want to open up all of this and open it up so that everybody can sign up and can get these benefits - or a part of it? This might be good from a marketing perspective since more people would call themselves $member and use their openSUSE org mail alias etc.

Or do we want to continue giving these benefits based on merit?

I'd keep that based on merit for various reasons: + it's a way for the project to thank contributors, and I think this is valuable + anyone with one of the above benefits will be seen as representing openSUSE in some way. And it's a sad truth that it's easy to abuse those benefits if we open them, with "abuse" being something like being highly disrespectful of everything or just being negative towards our project all the time. So it's also a way to have a minimal control on who gets an opensuse.org address/blog/cloak/etc.

Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here?

I think the fact that it's named "member" is indeed contributing to creating this confusion: a newcomer might want to become a member just because he wants to feel part of the community. So finding a new name for this (which is the goal of this thread) might be worth it.

Btw. how do other projects handle this? What names are Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. doing in this regard? Can anybody register and have these rights or to which is it bound?

Debian: I guess the closest thing is Debian Developers (see http://www.debian.org/devel/join/index.en.html) Fedora: I'd say Fedora Contributors. For example, to get a fedoraproject.org mail address, people have to sign the CLA (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses/CLA) and be a member of another group. So the CLA is the minimal stuff. Ubuntu: Ubuntu Members (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 2010-07-04 at 10:33 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

I'd like to do a bit out of the box thinking on this one and see the $member discussion in a broader context as well.

Currently the benefits of membership are: * lizards.opensuse.org blog account * IRC opensuse.org cloak * @opensuse.org mail alias * Right to vote the openSUSE board - and perhaps participate in other votes we do

Do we want to open up all of this and open it up so that everybody can sign up and can get these benefits - or a part of it? This might be good from a marketing perspective since more people would call themselves $member and use their openSUSE org mail alias etc.

Or do we want to continue giving these benefits based on merit?

Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here?

Btw. how do other projects handle this? What names are Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. doing in this regard? Can anybody register and have these rights or to which is it bound?

Andreas

We seem to lately get into big hashouts on naming strategies here and elsewhere and it deters us from the ultimate issue. AJ did a good job of trying to bring it back to the heart of the matter, and I'd like to continue on this more deeply with my insights: First of all, that "somebody" mentioned above was me! :-) It pained me to reject those applicants because they took the time to apply, even if they didn't read the instructions carefully, because somehow or another they really want to support or find a way to become more involved in openSUSE. So let's break it down: Our current approved membership is based on merit. If you contribute substantially in one form or another, you can become a member. It is a form of appreciation, and this group of people are contributors. (Perhaps rename openSUSE Member as openSUSE Contributor?) Then we have the rejected ones (I'm not referring to the spam applicants but to those who generally like openSUSE.) These people have not contributed yet and possibly may not yet know how to contribute. What they basically did was download openSUSE media and then say "WOW, I love openSUSE! I want to support them somehow." (Perhaps we call them openSUSE Supporters?) These people presently have no place to express their support except by signing the Guiding Principles. I've always considered the Marketing Team, along with the Community Manager, to be a sort of concierge in the lobby helping to direct people to where they can do some good. We seek out potential contributors, we answer questions to potential contributors and we help connect them to specific teams where they can either a) get started contributing or b) learn the skills to become a contributor. In that same vein, we should be taking the rejected applicants for membership and engaging with them to find out more and see how we can create more contributions. In fact, most, if not all, of our strategy proposals depend on the growth of our contributor base in openSUSE. And we simply cannot wait for potential contributors to come to us, we need to be proactive and find them. This is something we don't do today. All we do is send them a nice thank you note for applying and basically tell them, come back again when you have more. A non-contributor today may be a contributor tomorrow. There's been a discussion in this thread about creating some sort of tiered membership format. I don't agree with that because it simply gives us more overhead and potentially political bickering. instead, I propose we do two separate groups: openSUSE Contributors (or we can come up with a different name for that) with everything just the same, same benefits or even add more benefits down the line as reward for their sustained contributions. openSUSE Supporters - this group would be free-for-all, anyone can join. You can get certain benefits that simply are associated with being a supporter. For example: -- A digital badge you can print out "I <3 openSUSE" -- Automatic subscription to a periodic openSUSE newsletter -- Discount at the openSUSE Store. (Hey, let's face it, the more people we get wearing our shirts, the more walk-around free advertising we get!) -- Early access to the latest openSUSE release. Like maybe one week. (In theory, what we'd really be doing is pushing back our actual release by one week, and again in a marketing effort, give people a sense that they have early access to openSUSE and will excitably talk about openSUSE before the rest of the world does.) Now we have two distinctive groups that take the two most common perceptions of what "member" means. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 20:18 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

...

There's been a discussion in this thread about creating some sort of tiered membership format. I don't agree with that ... instead, I propose we do two separate groups:

Which in effect will be tiered. You can't avoid that, it is just how many levels is appropriate right now.

No it wouldn't be the same thing. This has nothing to do with a tier or levels. A tier implies you move up the ladder somehow. Being a member of the "openSUSE Supporters" group wouldn't necessarily be a requirement to be a member of the "openSUSE Contributors" group, although it would be a good idea if you could join both. The Supporters group is just simply a place where people can go to say "Hey I support you guys in spirit!" That's all. And we give them some nice things, like a fan club. It's not an activity group and its not something that leads towards eventual promotion to "Contributor" group. Even who manages it would be totally different. The Contributors group would continue to be primarily managed by the openSUSE Board through its Membership team, while the Supporters group would likely be managed by the Marketing team or something like that. Its just a way to further advertise our Project and strengthen the bond with our consumers (supporters.) Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 7/8/10 2:18 AM, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

On Sun, 2010-07-04 at 10:33 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

I'd like to do a bit out of the box thinking on this one and see the $member discussion in a broader context as well.

Currently the benefits of membership are: * lizards.opensuse.org blog account * IRC opensuse.org cloak * @opensuse.org mail alias * Right to vote the openSUSE board - and perhaps participate in other votes we do

Do we want to open up all of this and open it up so that everybody can sign up and can get these benefits - or a part of it? This might be good from a marketing perspective since more people would call themselves $member and use their openSUSE org mail alias etc.

Or do we want to continue giving these benefits based on merit?

Somebody said in the discussion that he felt bad whenever we had to reject a person applying for membership. Why does it happen that people apply that are not active? What can be done here?

Btw. how do other projects handle this? What names are Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. doing in this regard? Can anybody register and have these rights or to which is it bound?

Andreas

We seem to lately get into big hashouts on naming strategies here and elsewhere and it deters us from the ultimate issue. AJ did a good job of trying to bring it back to the heart of the matter, and I'd like to continue on this more deeply with my insights:

First of all, that "somebody" mentioned above was me! :-)

It pained me to reject those applicants because they took the time to apply, even if they didn't read the instructions carefully, because somehow or another they really want to support or find a way to become more involved in openSUSE.

So let's break it down:

Our current approved membership is based on merit. If you contribute substantially in one form or another, you can become a member. It is a form of appreciation, and this group of people are contributors. (Perhaps rename openSUSE Member as openSUSE Contributor?)

Then we have the rejected ones (I'm not referring to the spam applicants but to those who generally like openSUSE.) These people have not contributed yet and possibly may not yet know how to contribute. What they basically did was download openSUSE media and then say "WOW, I love openSUSE! I want to support them somehow." (Perhaps we call them openSUSE Supporters?) These people presently have no place to express their support except by signing the Guiding Principles.

I've always considered the Marketing Team, along with the Community Manager, to be a sort of concierge in the lobby helping to direct people to where they can do some good. We seek out potential contributors, we answer questions to potential contributors and we help connect them to specific teams where they can either a) get started contributing or b) learn the skills to become a contributor.

In that same vein, we should be taking the rejected applicants for membership and engaging with them to find out more and see how we can create more contributions. In fact, most, if not all, of our strategy proposals depend on the growth of our contributor base in openSUSE. And we simply cannot wait for potential contributors to come to us, we need to be proactive and find them. This is something we don't do today. All we do is send them a nice thank you note for applying and basically tell them, come back again when you have more.

A non-contributor today may be a contributor tomorrow.

There's been a discussion in this thread about creating some sort of tiered membership format. I don't agree with that because it simply gives us more overhead and potentially political bickering.

instead, I propose we do two separate groups:

openSUSE Contributors (or we can come up with a different name for that) with everything just the same, same benefits or even add more benefits down the line as reward for their sustained contributions.

openSUSE Supporters - this group would be free-for-all, anyone can join. You can get certain benefits that simply are associated with being a supporter. For example: -- A digital badge you can print out "I<3 openSUSE" -- Automatic subscription to a periodic openSUSE newsletter -- Discount at the openSUSE Store. (Hey, let's face it, the more people we get wearing our shirts, the more walk-around free advertising we get!) -- Early access to the latest openSUSE release. Like maybe one week. (In theory, what we'd really be doing is pushing back our actual release by one week, and again in a marketing effort, give people a sense that they have early access to openSUSE and will excitably talk about openSUSE before the rest of the world does.)

Now we have two distinctive groups that take the two most common perceptions of what "member" means.

Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member

The most sensible plan I've seen through this discussion of strategy. It accomplishes a couple of things important. One a means to recognize people who really do the work and a way for those who simply want to support what we are doing. Neither category is exclusive of the other. I also like the early release idea. A simple way to build some excitement about about the upcoming release. Think viral marketing: Let others bring the message via blogs etc. Just my 0.02 Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Satoru,

...

Our current approved membership is based on merit.  If you contribute substantially in one form or another, you can become a member.  It is a form of appreciation, and this group of people are contributors. (Perhaps rename openSUSE Member as openSUSE Contributor?)

IMHO, we will make the same mistake again if we use the word 'Contributor' as a name for 'specifically distinguished contributors who have brought a continued and substantial contribution to the openSUSE project'.

One of the biggest reason why 'member' is not a good name for such contributors is, the word 'member' is a general noun and used in various contexts.

Refer to 'openSUSE:Community' page, for example. http://wiki.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Community

There's a mention: "... Some people think that anybody using openSUSE is a *member* of the community. Others think that being a *member* requires some sort of involvement: subscription to a mail list, registration as wiki editor through the Novell login, helper in the forums, regular use of an openSUSE IRC or other active involvement. In fact, if you think you are a *member*, want to be a *member*, ask if you are a *member*, then you probably are one :-)."

This mention is starkly inconsistent with our existing membership.

The word 'contributor' also is a general noun and used in various contexts in our community as 'person who contribute to openSUSE (or, any other upstream projects)'.

Everyone who contributes to openSUSE is a 'contributor', whether (s)he is applied or not. Renaming 'Member' to 'Contributor' will just make another problem - there will be 2 kind of contributors, contributors who are applied by Board and who are not yet applied.

Maybe we could just add a label like 'approved contributor'. -- Greets Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

(2010/07/09 9:14), Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

I appreciate the comments you've made and your points are very valid in this email. No opposition from me. But the point of my injection into this thread was to get us to stop focusing on "NAME" and focus on "FUNCTION".

Let's debate the functionality of the group(s) as I have proposed. Then after we get that figured out, then a naming convention will fall in naturally.

OK. Let's get back on the track. A question that's been on my mind is: "Is 'Member' an honorable title for 'specifically distinguished contributors who *once brought* a continued and substantial contribution to the openSUSE project'?" In other words, the title 'Member' and the benefits that come with are 'token of openSUSE project's sincere appreciation for their contributions'? If the answer is 'Yes', giving too much authorities to Members may not be a good thing. Authority and duty, or, powers and functions should be inextricably linked, that is, authority should be given not to a person but to a role. You know, Board is a role. Therefore, Board members may have special privileges in order to fulfill their responsibilities. That is very reasonable. Same can be said for Forum moderators, Wiki sysop, members of some teams, etc. - they have both privileges and responsibilities. Once (s)he leaves his/her position, those privileges should be removed. On the other hand, Members will have their benefits for eternity, even if they won't contribute to openSUSE anymore, because there's no reconfirmation procedure for existing Members. What we really need is not a hierarchy, but a set of roles. So, I'd propose: * Each Team and local community will elect a leader (or leaders). * The leaders will assume responsibility for maintaining the list of *active* members in their Team/community and reporting the statistics of their Team/community regularly. * Those *active* members will be considered "openSUSE Advocates (this can be replaced with a better name later ;-))" and have right to vote Board members. Advantages of this system are: * Board members don't need to verify and sort out applicants for membership. - I think this is a very important point, because the current system - only Members who are approved by Board can elect Board members - is a little bit inconsistent. * We can always figure out who are the *present* active contributors. * It will be much easier for contributors who are not good at English to become "openSUSE Advocates", because they can explain how and what they contribute to openSUSE to leaders of their local communities in their own languages. What do you think ?

I refer to my mother's most favorite quote that I often have repeated to others.... "Form must always follow function."

Please tell your mother that someone who live in far east Japan respect her for her wisdom. ;-) Best, -- _/_/ Satoru Matsumoto - openSUSE Member - Japan _/_/ _/_/ Marketing/Weekly News/openFATE Screening Team _/_/ _/_/ mail: helios_reds_at_gmx.net / irc: HeliosReds _/_/ _/_/ http://blog.zaq.ne.jp/opensuse/ _/_/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org