On 04/27/2012 10:33 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

Hey all!

As SUSE is gearing up for SLE 12, SUSE is doing more in openSUSE. Features like systemd and grub2 are examples and more will follow.

I thought it worked the other way around:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-11/msg01359.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-03/msg00353.html

You seem to misunderstand this, let me blog about this another time in more detail. openSUSE is the upstream of SLES, so SLES work will be done in openSUSE. But openSUSE does not need to accept any of these changes, as upstream - and not as integral part - we in openSUSE can reject those... Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn,Jennifer Guild,Felix Imendörffer,HRB16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 04/27/2012 12:37 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On 04/27/2012 10:33 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

Hey all!

As SUSE is gearing up for SLE 12, SUSE is doing more in openSUSE. Features like systemd and grub2 are examples and more will follow.

I thought it worked the other way around:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-11/msg01359.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-03/msg00353.html

You seem to misunderstand this, let me blog about this another time in more detail.

openSUSE is the upstream of SLES, so SLES work will be done in openSUSE.

I clearly have misunderstood something, yes. If openSUSE is upstream of SLES, then surely openSUSE is where development happens and hence openSUSE _is_ the testing ground?

do you consider gnome.org development the testing ground for openSUSE? Or the upstream Linux kernel the testing ground for openSUSE? There is an important difference. Upstream implies that it's a project on its own, it could reject work, demand additional testing etc.... Testing will be done both upstream and downstream. Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn,Jennifer Guild,Felix Imendörffer,HRB16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 04/27/2012 03:25 PM, Robert Schweikert wrote:

On 04/27/2012 06:47 AM, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On 04/27/2012 12:37 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On 04/27/2012 10:33 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

Hey all!

As SUSE is gearing up for SLE 12, SUSE is doing more in openSUSE. Features like systemd and grub2 are examples and more will follow.

I thought it worked the other way around:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-11/msg01359.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-03/msg00353.html

You seem to misunderstand this, let me blog about this another time in more detail.

openSUSE is the upstream of SLES, so SLES work will be done in openSUSE.

I clearly have misunderstood something, yes. If openSUSE is upstream of SLES, then surely openSUSE is where development happens and hence openSUSE _is_ the testing ground?

do you consider gnome.org development the testing ground for openSUSE? Or the upstream Linux kernel the testing ground for openSUSE?

There is an important difference. Upstream implies that it's a project on its own, it could reject work, demand additional testing etc....

I am not disagreeing with you, but the argument of "rejecting" is theoretical. For most packages maintained in SLE a SUSE developer also maintains the same package in openSUSE, or is at least in the maintainer group. Thus, you are implying someone would reject their own work. That appears unlikely.

Still, major projects like switching to grub2, going to gcc 4.7 etc. are getting discussed and could get rejected - ultimately by the release team.

That said, the whole thing is rather silly and makes me wonder why this was posted to begin with. (Disclaimer I have not read the wiki page yet.)

We (SUSE employees that contribute to openSUSE) have collectively, many times, pointed out that our status is not, and should not, be any different from community members that do not work for SUSE. If we want this to be true we have to stop thinking of ourselves as "special". Why would we announce, that a group of community members, that happen to work for SUSE, will be entering a time of increased contribution to the openSUSE project?

If another group of people that know each other would send an announcement saying, in the next 6 month we are going to contribute more. Then everyone would say "great, thanks, but why are you making an announcement? What makes you special?"

Yes, as a group, SUSE employees probably still represent a large percentage of people that contribute to stuff in OBS and that ultimately ends up in the distribution. However, that should not make this group special or should not require a special announcement when the group collectively starts to contribute more to the project for a given period of time. Or are you going to make an announcement saying "The Freight Train has passed and all SUSE worker bees are once again consumed by working on SLE"?

The point that Jos and myself wanted to make is that changes from SUSE - intented for SLES - might come. And it might happen that the SUSE employees roll over some others and thus a small team formed to help if that happens. To help if the SUSE guys do not behave as real part of the openSUSE community. Robert, currently I sometimes get emails directly if such situations arise - and we wanted to provide a better contact address. This is independend of the SUSE contribution - but timing fitted, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn,Jennifer Guild,Felix Imendörffer,HRB16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-04-28 10:51, Per Jessen wrote:

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Why would we announce, that a group of community members, that happen to work for SUSE, will be entering a time of increased contribution to the openSUSE project?

For one reason only - that this group of community members, "that happen to work for SUSE", are not just ordinary community members. FTR, I have no issue with this at all - I only have an issue with it being disputed.

I agree. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+buWoACgkQIvFNjefEBxqQiwCeJv+grLGjLvYvtStbT4WCHFU0 3fAAnRd3yQmowqaGmqATNyXYPMrHI9g/ =iQvq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Dominique Leuenberger a.k.a DimStar wrote:

Quoting Per Jessen :

...

Andreas Jaeger wrote: I clearly have misunderstood something, yes. If openSUSE is upstream of SLES, then surely openSUSE is where development happens and hence openSUSE _is_ the testing ground?

I don't think we're a 'testing ground' for anybody else than openSUSE. It's just like KDE is 'a' upstream of openSUSE. Would you consider KDE to be 'our testing ground' in this case?

Only partially, but that would apply to any software/package we include and distribute. I don't think it's an entirely valid comparison - KDE is software, openSUSE is a distro (of the same). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (23.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2012-05-07 at 15:50 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

On Friday, April 27, 2012 11:05:04 Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On 04/27/2012 10:33 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

Hey all!

As SUSE is gearing up for SLE 12, SUSE is doing more in openSUSE. Features like systemd and grub2 are examples and more will follow.

I thought it worked the other way around:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-11/msg01359.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-03/msg00353.html

You seem to misunderstand this, let me blog about this another time in more detail.

I've done this now on my personal blog: http://jaegerandi.blogspot.de/2012/05/opensuse-upstream-of-suse-linux.html

...

openSUSE is the upstream of SLES, so SLES work will be done in openSUSE. But openSUSE does not need to accept any of these changes, as upstream - and not as integral part - we in openSUSE can reject those...

Andreas

I'm liking that we're referring to openSUSE as upstream from SLEx rather than "basis of SLEx" as we have done in the past. The difference in message and intent between the single word "upstream" vs. "basis" is significant and upstream shows that openSUSE is truly meant to be a community project. The growing pervasiveness of referring to "upstream" is alone a big step forward for us. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2012-05-07 at 17:07 +0200, Guido Berhoerster wrote:

I doubt that this has much practical significance due to the personnel overlap. The overwhelming majority of development work on the core distribution is already done by community members employed by SUSE, so this whole upstream - downstream distinction is more of a theoretical nature.

[*] e.g. ~80% of all changes to all Factory packages in 2010 and 2011 are authored by SUSE employees -- Guido Berhoerster

That's probably true statistically and probably will stay that way for some time. But I have witnessed many times over the years someone complaining about $something and when we tell them to contribute to a fix (knowing fully well that person has the capabilities) the person would respond with "that's SUSE's job, not the community's!" You and I both know that openSUSE is not "SUSE's job" but everyone's job in the community. And openSUSE is billed as a "community-driven project." As long as we kept saying basis over the years, it was hard to convey and dispell such myths. With a simple word change "upstream" coupled by legitimate actions to demonstrate it, over time hopefully that attitude and perception will change. I believe the word change marks a significant step and not simply semantics, and I think what AJ and team are attempting to do also marks a significant step. Perhaps a year or two from now that 80% statistic will change. Not by decreasing SUSE contributions, but by increasing community contributions. We can only hope and strive for that. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/07/2012 05:07 PM, Guido Berhoerster wrote:

* Bryen M Yunashko [2012-05-07 15:57]:

...

On Mon, 2012-05-07 at 15:50 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On Friday, April 27, 2012 11:05:04 Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

On 04/27/2012 10:33 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

Hey all!

As SUSE is gearing up for SLE 12, SUSE is doing more in openSUSE. Features like systemd and grub2 are examples and more will follow.

I thought it worked the other way around:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-11/msg01359.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-03/msg00353.html

You seem to misunderstand this, let me blog about this another time in more detail.

I've done this now on my personal blog: http://jaegerandi.blogspot.de/2012/05/opensuse-upstream-of-suse-linux.html

...

openSUSE is the upstream of SLES, so SLES work will be done in openSUSE. But openSUSE does not need to accept any of these changes, as upstream - and not as integral part - we in openSUSE can reject those...

Andreas

I'm liking that we're referring to openSUSE as upstream from SLEx rather than "basis of SLEx" as we have done in the past. The difference in message and intent between the single word "upstream" vs. "basis" is significant and upstream shows that openSUSE is truly meant to be a community project. The growing pervasiveness of referring to "upstream" is alone a big step forward for us.

I doubt that this has much practical significance due to the personnel overlap. The overwhelming majority of development work on the core distribution is already done by community members employed by SUSE, so this whole upstream - downstream distinction is more of a theoretical nature.

It has nothing to do with personnel overlap - the point is more the relationship between the two of them. While there might be many things that SLE engineers like to see in openSUSE, the openSUSE community might not like it and has IMHO the power to veto it. For example, if grub2 is not working in time for openSUSE 12.2, we as openSUSE community should say it's not time to use it by default etc - even if further testing might be beneficial for SLE. But we have in 2011 more non-SUSE folks contributing - so if we vote, the non-SUSE folks would win ;)

[*] e.g. ~80% of all changes to all Factory packages in 2010 and 2011 are authored by SUSE employees

With my scripts I get 72 % for 2010 and 56 % for 2011 (checking single entries in .changes (and I know that some SUSE employees use a non-SUSE address there, so handled those specifically). Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn,Jennifer Guild,Felix Imendörffer,HRB16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 07 May 2012 22:03:51 Per Jessen wrote:

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

It has nothing to do with personnel overlap - the point is more the relationship between the two of them. While there might be many things that SLE engineers like to see in openSUSE, the openSUSE community might not like it and has IMHO the power to veto it.

Where is that veto button? Here: http://bit.ly/K19XG4

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

On Monday 07 May 2012 22:03:51 Per Jessen wrote:

...

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

It has nothing to do with personnel overlap - the point is more the relationship between the two of them. While there might be many things that SLE engineers like to see in openSUSE, the openSUSE community might not like it and has IMHO the power to veto it.

Where is that veto button? Here: http://bit.ly/K19XG4

Haha, very poor joke. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (16.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

* Andreas Jaeger [2012-05-07 21:46]:

...

...

I'm liking that we're referring to openSUSE as upstream from SLEx rather than "basis of SLEx" as we have done in the past. The difference in message and intent between the single word "upstream" vs. "basis" is significant and upstream shows that openSUSE is truly meant to be a community project. The growing pervasiveness of referring to "upstream" is alone a big step forward for us.

I doubt that this has much practical significance due to the personnel overlap. The overwhelming majority of development work on the core distribution is already done by community members employed by SUSE, so this whole upstream - downstream distinction is more of a theoretical nature.

It has nothing to do with personnel overlap - the point is more the relationship between the two of them. While there might be many things that SLE engineers like to see in openSUSE, the openSUSE community might not like it and has IMHO the power to veto it.

For example, if grub2 is not working in time for openSUSE 12.2, we as openSUSE community should say it's not time to use it by default etc - even if further testing might be beneficial for SLE.

With personnel overlap I didn't only mean the cases where SLE personell maintains openSUSE packages but also that many of those who maintain the core distribution are employed by the same company that produces SLE.

But we have in 2011 more non-SUSE folks contributing - so if we vote, the non-SUSE folks would win ;)

True, there is a large wider community, but then generally we don't vote on technical matters or have a formal decision-making process on technical matters like e.g. Fedora.

...

[*] e.g. ~80% of all changes to all Factory packages in 2010 and 2011 are authored by SUSE employees

With my scripts I get 72 % for 2010 and 56 % for 2011 (checking single entries in .changes (and I know that some SUSE employees use a non-SUSE address there, so handled those specifically).

Just out of curiousity, do you have detailed statistics available somewhere? I have polished my script a bit and put the results up at http://heapoverflow.de/tmp/factory-changes-2009.txt http://heapoverflow.de/tmp/factory-changes-2010.txt http://heapoverflow.de/tmp/factory-changes-2011.txt These are of course just a rough indicator, contributions are almost impossible to quantify and above results are skewed e.g. by mass changes or excessive changelog entries of packages like kiwi. -- Guido Berhoerster -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 08 May 2012 11:04:32 Guido Berhoerster wrote:

* Andreas Jaeger [2012-05-07 21:46]: <snip>

...

But we have in 2011 more non-SUSE folks contributing - so if we vote, the non-SUSE folks would win ;)

True, there is a large wider community, but then generally we don't vote on technical matters or have a formal decision-making process on technical matters like e.g. Fedora.

Well, we do, theoretically - if maintainers can't figure things out and the release team can't call the shots and the board can't find a solution either we do a project-wide vote. But we do try to figure things out there where the work is being done first, yes. And while people complain frequently, they rarely step up to do the work for their preferred alternative so the choices are usually simple - go with what the maintainers want, end of discussion ;-)

On Thursday 10 May 2012 11:10:26 Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 2012-05-10 08:58, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

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so the choices are usually simple - go with what the maintainers want, end of discussion ;-)

That is not necessarily the best technical path.

But the most pragmatic. In the real world, a technical superior solution which doesn't exist (or is unmaintained) always looses from a hacky but existing or maintained solution ;-)

- -- Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

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On 05/10/2012 01:58 PM, Pascal Bleser wrote: [snip]

Where we fail monumentally though, as so many projects, is in communication.

Who has skills and experience in certain domains and can contribute something to a topic ?

How do we keep people informed about the discussions that are happening so they get a change to weigh in if they can contribute something (too many tools, too many lists, unfriendly tone) ?

Yes, I agree, keeping people informed is a problem. There are basically only two options: a.) Develop a plan for feature/change X with people at large b.) Describe the plan for feature/change X after the fact Option a.) - We develop some high level plan of features/changes we want in the project, distribution, tools, etc. and someone writes a rough design and implementation outline, things are rather vague at this point. This then gets posted and people can discuss and sign up to contribute work to the specific feature/change. The plan is developed by a large group of contributors in the open. Option b.) - A contributor or small team of contributors decide what they want to do and then come back and say "this is what I am/we are going to do". The plan is basically complete and is completely developed by the individual contributor or the small team. Input by a large group (community at large) is still valued but a "start from scratch" suggestion would certainly be discarded. I have my own opinion about what could and could not work, but I'll keep that to myself, for now.

That is, how to actually *reach out* for other, qualified people's opinions: if we want the better technical solutions, the better quality then that is what we must do, and what we have to want.

Back to communication, and broadcasting information, and talking/blogging about what you're doing.

Not everyone wants that, some just want to hack whatever they want the way they want, especially if that's how they've always worked (tunnel vision),

This is a big problem for certain parts of the distro and not for other areas. If someone with tunnel vision just works away on keeping so called leaf packages up to date, great. We probably do not need much of a plan or much communication about this. For changes like the introduction of systemd in 12.1, switching to grub2 for 12.2, the Plymouth integration, etc. communication is absolutely necessary and critical. (I am NOT saying there has been no communication for these examples, there has been.) Question is, was there a sufficient plan for these projects or was it more or less adhoc. For projects like these, if we have people with tunnel vision working on the nuts and bolts, we should at least make an effort and try to find a "communicator" to partner with the tunnel vision worker bee.

and if those people in the openSUSE community are just clueless noobs and death-by-bikeshedding trolls, right? (Yes, I'm being ironic.)

Unfortunately we have plenty of bikeshedding even on technical issues, see the systemd discussion from last year, and I think we just have to be more aggressive in trying to suppress it. Going back to the original message that spawned this thread I stick with what I said originally, most of it is a theoretical argument, it is an invitation to bikeshedding, and the message itself should probably not have been posted, at least not in the way it was presented. The blogs by Jos and Andreas send a completely different message than the mail that was sent to this list. The bottom line of the intention could have been summarized in a few sentences and should have not been tied to what's going on downstream in SLE at all. Anyway, yet another communication issue ;) Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center LINUX Tech Lead rjschwei@suse.com rschweik@ca.ibm.com 781-464-8147 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Robert Schweikert wrote:

...

and if those people in the openSUSE community are just clueless noobs and death-by-bikeshedding trolls, right? (Yes, I'm being ironic.)

Unfortunately we have plenty of bikeshedding even on technical issues, see the systemd discussion from last year, and I think we just have to be more aggressive in trying to suppress it.

Yes, we do want more communication, but we only want the _right_ kind of communication. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (18.1°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 5:38 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

On Fri, 11 May 2012 08:20:01 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

...

and if those people in the openSUSE community are just clueless noobs and death-by-bikeshedding trolls, right? (Yes, I'm being ironic.)

Unfortunately we have plenty of bikeshedding even on technical issues, see the systemd discussion from last year, and I think we just have to be more aggressive in trying to suppress it.

Yes, we do want more communication, but we only want the _right_ kind of communication.

It's important, though, that the "right kind" not just be defined as "everyone who agrees with me" or even "everyone who agrees with the majority".

Yup, disagreement is more than fun - it is useful ;-)

As a community, we say that we value diversity.  For that to be true, we have to not be seen to (or appear to - for the average viewer) reject ideas based on who they come from or if they're unpopular - or even if they're poorly expressed.

It's important to weigh ideas based on their merits.

And willingness of the person who brought them forward to implement them. I'd pick a crappy solution to a problem with someone to implement it over a perfect solution with nobody able to work on it anytime ;-) Of course, all properly presented* opinions have value. But many of the probably belong in bugzilla or openfate. They even have a +1 system :D While input from users is valuable (and there is a number of VERY knowledgeable non-developers lurking on this list giving VERY valuable feedback from time to time), too much heavily distracts from the work to be done. Some developers have unsubscribed from our core development list(s) for this reason and frankly I care far more about getting them back than getting a bit less input from users. But this goes back to our earlier discussion - how do we balance our core lists when it comes to amount of traffic, feedback we get, checkups on the 'real-ness of issues', quality, moderation etcetera. Something to discuss at oSC (October, Praha, more info coming soon).

Jim --  Jim Henderson  Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

respectfully-brought, relevant, reasonable, on-topic, non-repetitive etc. And indeed, it doesn't matter who they're from and how well he/she expresses himself. We all sucked at English at some time in the past, even if that requires going back almost our entire lifetime (as is the case for native speakers). 8-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hey, On 05/15/2012 12:43 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:

There's got to be someone to review the requests and determine (a) if they're enhancements or bugs, (b) if they duplicate something else in the system, (c) if they are already resolved, (d) if they're even relevant any more.

Otherwise a system/systems like that become a black hole and nobody has any confidence in them. I do occasionally hear from users who wonder if it's even worth submitting a bug or an enhancement request because it / feels/ like nobody's reviewing them (even if they are being reviewed).

This is an important enablement step that needs to be taken with the community. :) There are few things that are as enabling (for a community) as just listening and acting on feedback.

But we have to deliver that function (reviewing) as a community also. That means someone needs to volunteer to do it. We bee a screening team for fate/bugzilla again. I have the feeling (not necessarily from your comments but from others) that people expect that this magically happens if they just win "the feedback argument" with "the developers". I can make you a promise today: It won't solve itself. In this day and age for every line of code a developers produces he has to read/write 100 lines in the feedback loop. For a developer the problem is not getting feedback but how to cope with the amount he gets, how to stay productive while staying connected.

...

Some developers have unsubscribed from our core development list(s) for this reason and frankly I care far more about getting them back than getting a bit less input from users.

I think it's a question of taking the broader user base's input [...] and refining that feedback in a way that's useful and not time-consuming to the developers working on making a better product.

Yes that's exactly what needs to be done. But here we are again, another task that needs to be done. So people, it's time to step up and do something about it of start to live with the situation. Just because something needs to be done it doesn't happen. The only way things happen is if you make them happen yourself. Just do it! Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE http://www.hennevogel.de Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hey, On 05/15/2012 01:45 PM, jdd wrote:

Le 15/05/2012 13:07, Henne Vogelsang a écrit :

...

something needs to be done it doesn't happen. The only way things happen is if you make them happen yourself. Just do it!

sure, but this is a two step problem: we have to teach voluteers how to do this.

Then volunteer your work for that first. It always boils down to the same thing, do something with all the possibilities this project gives you. There isn't someone who will come and make your bed. Hell you have to go out into the Forrest, lumber the tree, cut planks out of the logs, mine and melt your metal for the nails and engineer your own bed here! To often I hear someone say "we" when in reality they mean "they". It's always "they" who have to do, teach and organize things. There is always some reason why "they" have to do something first before "I" can volunteer. But "they" are nonexistent, people.

I follow the bugzilla mailing list, I know how much work is done there, but I could give very little help, for example not knowing who is in charge of each kind of problem.

Either you can never know (because this is not your thing, this is too complicated for you, this is impossible to do in general yadda yadda yadaa) OR you can try to figure it out. Sit your butt down and read through the OBS documentation how to figure out maintainers, try to assign bugs to the right people, make mistakes and learn from them, ask people you think are knowledgeable for help etc. In the end you either succeed and fixed the problem or you admit defeat, have learned a valuable lesson and start over with the next task.

Not to raise the bugzilla problem itself (work an other thread), but than there is an enormous gap between ordinary user and you, for example, in matter of infrastructure knowledge.

we need some sort of "masterclass", may be the Freight train could help is this respect :-))

How do you think I learned about our infrastructure? How do you think I keep up with changes in our infrastructure? I constantly pick up tasks where I have no idea how to do them. Then I sit down and figure out how to do them. I try things, read things, I nag my peers about help, I get on peoples nerves about details and I make lots of mistakes. In short: I do something about it. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You have to take your contribution into your own hands, you can't rely on someone else to teach or do something for you. Do it yourself. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE http://www.hennevogel.de Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/15/2012 10:04 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On 2012-05-15 15:46, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

How do you think I learned about our infrastructure? How do you think I keep up with changes in our infrastructure?

But you are inside! You have access to the phone list, for example.

You do not need a phone list. Very few, if any e-mails asking for help on the mailing list go unanswered. Later, Robert -- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center LINUX Tech Lead rjschwei@suse.com rschweik@ca.ibm.com 781-464-8147 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

On 05/15/2012 04:04 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2012-05-15 15:46, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

How do you think I learned about our infrastructure? How do you think I keep up with changes in our infrastructure?

But you are inside! You have access to the phone list, for example.

Inside of what? SUSE you mean?

I personally have worked tirelessly the last 6+ years, from the start of openSUSE, together with a lot of my friends in this project, to make this an independent open source project.

You don't need to be inside SUSE to achieve anything in openSUSE. Everything is as accessible for you as it is for me as SUSE employee. The "phone list", infrastructure, documentation, tools, information, people... everything.

The problem now (actually since a year or so) is that, after we've succeeded in creating this freedom, not enough people step up and do something with it.

I'd like to fix something on the mirrors.opensuse.org website, how do I get access? -- Per Jessen, Zürich (14.1°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Vincent Untz wrote:

Le mardi 15 mai 2012, à 18:41 +0200, Per Jessen a écrit :

...

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

On 05/15/2012 04:04 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2012-05-15 15:46, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

How do you think I learned about our infrastructure? How do you think I keep up with changes in our infrastructure?

But you are inside! You have access to the phone list, for example.

Inside of what? SUSE you mean?

I personally have worked tirelessly the last 6+ years, from the start of openSUSE, together with a lot of my friends in this project, to make this an independent open source project.

You don't need to be inside SUSE to achieve anything in openSUSE. Everything is as accessible for you as it is for me as SUSE employee. The "phone list", infrastructure, documentation, tools, information, people... everything.

The problem now (actually since a year or so) is that, after we've succeeded in creating this freedom, not enough people step up and do something with it.

I'd like to fix something on the mirrors.opensuse.org website, how do I get access?

I'd ask darix on IRC, or mail admin@opensuse.org to know.

Vincent

Thanks, I'll try that. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (12.4°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, Am Dienstag, 15. Mai 2012 schrieb jdd:

I don't give up easily, but spent 4 years before being able to report usefully, how many years before being able to help sorting bugzilla?

Less than 4 years ;-) Some tips: - search for bugs that are assigned to the screening team - that's the starting point for sorting and reassigning bugs - if it is clear that a bug belongs to a specific package, find out the package maintainer with osc maintainer -e openSUSE:Factory packagename (replace "packagename" with the real package name) If the output contains a "bugowner", use this mailaddress, otherwise the "maintainer" mail address. If the output gives you more than one mail address, just choose one of them. - Read the "How to report ..." pages linked on http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Submitting_bug_reports#Reporting_a_bug and check if the bugreport contains the required information. The most common case are bugs related to YaST or the installation. In this case, check if the y2logs are attached - if not, set the bug to NEEDINFO and ask the reporter to attach them. - you don't need to sort all bugs yourself - just pick whatever you like (it's already a great help if you check all YaST/installation bugreports if the y2logs are there and ask for them if not) - don't be afraid of making mistakes - the worst case that can happen is that a developer says "not my bug" and assigns it to the responsible person Please also add a section on http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Submitting_bug_reports (next to the "Fixing bugs" section) that describes how to help sorting bugs - what I wrote above is probably a good start ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz -- .tsi neshcaweg lebanhcS red mhi eiw ,nebierhcs os redej run lloS senie nebatshcuB netsre ned hcodej nnad uD tsetllos esiewretneuqesnoK .nereileksunim seztaS [Andreas Kneib in suse-linux] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 15 May 2012 13:07:23 +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

This is an important enablement step that needs to be taken with the community. :) There are few things that are as enabling (for a community) as just listening and acting on feedback.

But we have to deliver that function (reviewing) as a community also. That means someone needs to volunteer to do it. We bee a screening team for fate/bugzilla again.

Correct. :)

I have the feeling (not necessarily from your comments but from others) that people expect that this magically happens if they just win "the feedback argument" with "the developers". I can make you a promise today: It won't solve itself.

From an enablement perspective, I see that there's a need both from the community and from the project. The community needs to step up to help with these tasks, but there needs to be some coordination as well, and

Also correct. I see this in the forums as well, users who complain that "no testing" has been done - but who don't realise that they /are/ potentially part of the testing team. that is something that needs to (IMHO) come from the project or from SUSE itself. I think this is something that's /probably/ best handled as a guided community activity.

In this day and age for every line of code a developers produces he has to read/write 100 lines in the feedback loop. For a developer the problem is not getting feedback but how to cope with the amount he gets, how to stay productive while staying connected.

Yup, and that's true in non-OSS software projects as well. It's a common issue in software development in general.

...

I think it's a question of taking the broader user base's input [...] and refining that feedback in a way that's useful and not time-consuming to the developers working on making a better product.

Yes that's exactly what needs to be done. But here we are again, another task that needs to be done. So people, it's time to step up and do something about it of start to live with the situation. Just because something needs to be done it doesn't happen. The only way things happen is if you make them happen yourself. Just do it!

+1, absolutely, but I'd say again that as a guided community activity, this could be much more effective. One way that might help would be to suggest (not require, obviously - 'require' doesn't work so well with volunteers beyond a certain point) that if one takes the time to submit a bug, perhaps it could be suggested that they might help review an existing bug, maybe try to duplicate it. That way members of the community are helping each other write better reports. Again, not as a hard requirement, but as a suggestion to help the project along. Another thing that probably needs to happen is a top-down review of all the outstanding bugs with a determination if they're even worth pursuing at this stage. For example, bugs that are against 11.1 probably aren't going to get addressed (or may already have been, or may no longer be relevant), so they should be closed as "WONTFIX". Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 15 May 2012 15:48:24 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Jim Henderson wrote:

...

For example, bugs that are against 11.1 probably aren't going to get addressed (or may already have been, or may no longer be relevant), so they should be closed as "WONTFIX".

It would be better to assign them back to the reporter, informing him that the bug will not be fixed for 11.1, and asking if he has seen the bug in the latest release (12.1). IMO, _just_ closing as "WONTFIX" does not encourage more bug reporting.

However, I think our bug-handling/processing is long overdue for review, the above is merely one of the items on the agenda.

That's a good idea, Per - in many cases, perhaps the bug would still be valid on 12.1 or 12.2, in which case it should be captured. But in some cases - for example, a bug written against a specific kernel version in (again, just spitballing) the 2.4 series? Probably even if the same symptom is seen in 12.1, the root cause will be different. I think if the bug is old enough, WONTFIX is probably a reasonable way to close it, but with a note saying "If this is happening in a current version, let us know and we'll reopen it under the new version" - that puts the onus on the reporter(s) to check and see if it's on the current releases. Otherwise, you still end up with bugs in old versions (there are still open bugs on 10.1 and 10.3) that are never going to get fixed. For example, on 11.3 there are 81 bugs in a NEEDINFO state. That's effectively got those bugs assigned to the reporter for more info, but that info hasn't been provided. Maybe they upgraded. Maybe they switched distros. But I think determining what to do moving forward will require more up- front review and work. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 15 May 2012 18:28:40 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

I think if the bug is old enough, WONTFIX is probably a reasonable way to close it, but with a note saying "If this is happening in a current version, let us know and we'll reopen it under the new version" - that puts the onus on the reporter(s) to check and see if it's on the current releases.

Yeah, I agree, that works too. It's purely my personal feeling that it feels better to be asked rather than have the bug closed as WONTFIX.

Good point. It's important to consider the reaction.

...

Otherwise, you still end up with bugs in old versions (there are still open bugs on 10.1 and 10.3) that are never going to get fixed.

For example, on 11.3 there are 81 bugs in a NEEDINFO state. That's effectively got those bugs assigned to the reporter for more info, but that info hasn't been provided. Maybe they upgraded. Maybe they switched distros.

In such cases, both reporter and developer have presumably both lost interest. 81 is not a lot, but I think reports in NEEDINFO can be auto-closed after e.g. 6 months of inactivity, maybe with an automatic ping every month. It _is_ possible that someone is waiting to collect diagnostics, but if they do turn up after e.g. 8 months, re-opening is not a big deal.

Exactly. Looking at how Codeweavers deals with this sort of thing, I like what they do in terms of voting on support for a piece of Windows software - customers are given a fixed number of votes, but after a year (I think it is), the votes are returned to the customers. They can add those votes back to the same programs if they want to, but the idea is to keep their customers engaged. It's not exactly analogous, since we're talking about bugzilla here, but conceptually that idea of "if we need info and it isn't provided, the bug's going to be closed" keeps the reporter engaged in the process.

Checking for bugs in NEEDINFO assigned to me is not something I do every day, I do occasionally forget bugs I'm supposed to provide some feedback for. I could do with a weekly mail with a list of NEEDINFO bugs assigned to me.

On the subject of training, perhaps a demo of how to check bugs one is somehow involved in would be a way to do that. Or indeed even a standard query being set up in bugzilla for that purpose (I have that one set up for my own use and find it very useful). Increasing that kind of engagement from the user base is important. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/15/2012 05:29 PM, Helen South wrote:

...

On the subject of training, perhaps a demo of how to check bugs one is somehow involved in would be a way to do that. Or indeed even a standard query being set up in bugzilla for that purpose (I have that one set up for my own use and find it very useful).

Increasing that kind of engagement from the user base is important.

Jim Yes and no. For some users, they just want to 'do the right thing' and submit a bug, not have it turn into an ongoing issue.

The non-technical explanation is important; some users won't know about the kernel series and a 'WONTFIX' comes across as disinterest. "Thanks so much for reporting this bug. It hasn't been resolved in 11.x, but we hope that it may have been fixed in the process of developing 12.x If you find this again when you upgrade to 12.x, please file a new bug." .... something like that.

Put a human face on it.

cheers Helen

I agree with Helen, I am sure that there are a lot of non-technical users who can definitively spot a bug but have a hard time explaining it and submitting it. The closer we are to their understanding of an issue with openSUSE, the more submissions we will see to make something better. Andy (anditosan) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hello, Am Mittwoch, 16. Mai 2012 schrieb Andrew Joakimsen:

But then sometimes submitting logs is just silly.

I submitted a bug because there's package nagios-plugins-apt built against openSUSE. This package is used to monitor the status of apt-get updates on Debian distros. It can not install on openSUSE through zypper due to a missing dependency of apt. But somehow I am asked for y2logs!? Is this not enough:

Problem: nothing provides /usr/bin/apt-get needed by nagios-plugins-apt-1.4.15-47.1.x86_64 Solution 1: do not install nagios-plugins-extras-1.4.15-47.1.x86_64 Solution 2: break nagios-plugins-apt by ignoring some of its dependencies

Choose from above solutions by number or cancel [1/2/c] (c):

I assume you are talking about https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=761676 You are right - in this case, y2logs are not needed. Looks like Kun Kan Zhang is trained on requesting logs for every YaST bug ;-) (and in 99% of the cases, they are needed) OTOH you as bugreporter also weren't perfect ;-) Let me tell you could do better: - report the bug against the correct component - it is clearly a bug in the nagios-plugins package, not a YaST bug - therefore choosing "YaST2" as component doesn't make too much sense. I'd choose one of Network, Basesystem or Other. - assign the bug directly to the package maintainer: # osc maintainer openSUSE:Factory nagios-plugins bugowner of server:monitoring/nagios-plugins : schneemann AT b1-systems.de Hint: you can still change the component and reassign the bug ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz --

Womit erstellt ihr so eure Homepages? mit vim *g*. Wobei es Leute gibt, die tatsächlich behaupten, das soll auch mit diesem Betriebssystem - wie heißt es doch gleich - *äh* Emacs gehen. <SCNR> [> Bernd Stäglich und Philipp Zacharias in suse-linux]

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

, I'd expect to hear back from them asking

for more information - and if I didn't provide it, then shame on me for not giving them the right information so when 7.2 comes out the bug I found was fixed.

--  Jim Henderson  Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

I'm a little out of the loop on this stuff - is there an existing thread on bugzilla and how it works, flaws, issues etc? I've only ever filed the one bug I think, so you'll have to excuse my ignorance about it. How much flexibility do we have to adapt the way it works? Is there possibilities to flag 'power users' whose bugs usually deserve closer attention, or to flag 'more information available/needed' and so on? However I fear I'm asking old questions. I'd like to get more 'up to speed'; it'd be interesting to contribute in this area, it seems valuable. -- IRC: helen_au helen.south@opensuse.org helensouth.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 2012/05/15 18:54 (GMT) Jim Henderson composed:

On the subject of training, perhaps a demo of how to check bugs one is somehow involved in would be a way to do that. Or indeed even a standard query being set up in bugzilla for that purpose (I have that one set up for my own use and find it very useful).

Increasing that kind of engagement from the user base is important.

When you're logged in, down at the bottom is a link "my bugs". That means all bugs assigned to "me", which never happens to people who only file or CC and never provide patches. There should be another called "bugs I filed", or a configuration option to make "my bugs" mean bugs "I" filed. A custom saved query can be made down there, but the process, even the concept, to probably most only only ever file or CC is not intuitive, much less easy. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 2012/05/15 21:25 (GMT-0400) Patrick Shanahan composed:

Open your eyes a little larger and look a little closer. Beside the menu item you cited "My Bugs" exists another menu item called "My Reports" that seems to have just that, bugs you have reported. http://wahoo.no-ip.org/~pat/bugzilla.jpg

I wonder how long it's been there? Note that "my reports" excludes resolved duplicate bugs, and so doesn't pick up any open bugs duped and CC'd to, or bugs with such resolutions as noresponse, wontfix or upstream, any of which may mean the bug hasn't necessarily been buried. Except where I saved my own called "All My Bugs" (whether open or not), the others I use only have "My Bugs": bugs.freedesktop.org bugs.kde.org bugs.mageia.org bugzilla.gnome.org bugzilla.kernel.org bugzilla.mozilla.org bugzilla.redhat.com bugzilla.samba.org qa.mandriva.com FWIW, "enhancement" is supported in all of all in the above list, as opposed to closing enhancement requests into a completely separate DB and UI as openSUSE does with FATE. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

...

Checking for bugs in NEEDINFO assigned to me is not something I do every day, I do occasionally forget bugs I'm supposed to provide some feedback for. I could do with a weekly mail with a list of NEEDINFO bugs assigned to me.

On the subject of training, perhaps a demo of how to check bugs one is somehow involved in would be a way to do that. Or indeed even a standard query being set up in bugzilla for that purpose (I have that one set up for my own use and find it very useful).

These are the two standard searches: My bugs - anything assigned to me. My reports - open bugs reported by me. I know I added a third: Everything - bugs reported by me, regardless of status. (this is for me to identify my deja-vu moments). Saved searches can be found under "Preferences", where you can also see many other searches that people have saved. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (6.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Hmm... I just now realized that the original thread this was on got hijacked. Someone took an email from the existing Freight Train thread and simply replied to it and changed the subject line. This causes problems for those of us who are using threading in our email clients. I did not realize that this thread was actually a new thread nested inside an old thread. For future proper usage, if you want to start a new thread (or sub-thread in this case), please create it from scratch. Simply replying and changing a subject line retains the thread ID within the headers and throws everything out of whack. If you feel you need to display text from an original thread to make the new thread relevant, simply copy that text into the newly-created message. Thanks! Bryen On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 15:48 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Jim Henderson wrote:

...

For example, bugs that are against 11.1 probably aren't going to get addressed (or may already have been, or may no longer be relevant), so they should be closed as "WONTFIX".

It would be better to assign them back to the reporter, informing him that the bug will not be fixed for 11.1, and asking if he has seen the bug in the latest release (12.1). IMO, _just_ closing as "WONTFIX" does not encourage more bug reporting.

However, I think our bug-handling/processing is long overdue for review, the above is merely one of the items on the agenda.

-- Per Jessen, Zürich (15.2°C)

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 13:41 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

...

I have the feeling (not necessarily from your comments but from others) that people expect that this magically happens if they just win "the feedback argument" with "the developers". I can make you a promise today: It won't solve itself.

Also correct. I see this in the forums as well, users who complain that "no testing" has been done - but who don't realise that they /are/ potentially part of the testing team.

Just to throw something into the mix. I totally agree. If you don't contribute to testing then you don't have much right to complain. Part of the problem I've seen with some of these complainers over the years is that they haven't quite understood the distinction between SLE and openSUSE. They think that openSUSE belongs to SUSE and don't get it yet that openSUSE belongs to community. I think that's something we still have to work at to make a stronger distinction between the two camps. But just very recently, I encountered another "complainer." This person speaks almost no English, so I had to rely almost completely on Google Translate + another person in the IRC channel who knew both Spanish and English. :-) The complainer was indeed complaining about poor testing of 12.1 where the person found what apparently was a serious bug. We told the person to file via bugzilla and the person promptly refused saying s/he was uncomfortable doing that because it required knowledge of English. At first I was going to say "Well just use Google Translate like I'm doing now." but then I realized it would further be a problem because the bug owner would require some feedback with the bug reporter as investigation of the bug progressed. And I can see how that could get messy and somewhat intimidating. I could actually empathize with this person at this moment. And it makes me realize that there are potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of testers/reporters out there who don't test/report simply because of language barriers. And I've been tossing this around in my head the last couple of weeks: "How do we break down that barrier?" and truthfully... I can't come up with anything solid. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 13:41 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

...

...

I have the feeling (not necessarily from your comments but from others) that people expect that this magically happens if they just win "the feedback argument" with "the developers". I can make you a promise today: It won't solve itself.

Also correct. I see this in the forums as well, users who complain that "no testing" has been done - but who don't realise that they /are/ potentially part of the testing team.

Just to throw something into the mix.

I totally agree. If you don't contribute to testing then you don't have much right to complain.

Hmm, yes and no - there are presumably still many users out there for whom openSUSE is just a tool. If it doesn't work, they'll get another one. Complaining is also feedback, and it's a lot better than people just voting with their feet. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (13.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 18:38 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Hmm, yes and no - there are presumably still many users out there for whom openSUSE is just a tool. If it doesn't work, they'll get another one. Complaining is also feedback, and it's a lot better than people just voting with their feet.

That's apples and oranges in my opinion. There's a big difference between a user who uses and simply is dissatisfied and goes somewhere else. That's "our fault" so to speak if we didn't create something that the end user is happy with. I say that, of course, to only some extent because we are obviously not in the business of appeasing every user out there.

What we're talking about here is how the complaint (or yelling) is conveyed. "I can't believe this doesn't work! Don't you people ever test anything?!? SUSE pays all these people and it is broken?!?" That kind of complaint is not useful because the expectation they have for openSUSE is unrealistic.

They are venting their frustration - they chose openSUSE, but didn't get the quality product they expected. It's a pity we can't meet those expectations (yet), but I wouldn't just dismiss such complaints, regardless of which misconceptions might be involved.

I have seen a number of times over the years people complain like this and when we tell them they can be testers and help identify problems, they have outright said "Not my job! That's SUSE's job!"

Sure. That does not render their complaints invalid though. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (12.2°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 19:01 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

but this is something we'll have a problem with as long as the names are so close (and I'm not going to propose rebranding at this stage of the game, nor do I think that would be even considered by the project as a whole). This is something that RedHat did well by naming their community project "Fedora" - the name is different enough that there's no ambiguity for those who are new to RedHat. That was a smart move.

Agreed. The same could be said for Canonical/Ubuntu. But at this stage of the game, we're too well entrenched with the name openSUSE, not just by familiarity but also because so many things in our infrastructure refer to "openSUSE." We just have to be creative in trying to figure out how to convey the message. While I believe we made a naming mistake originally, I would personally not advocate a name change either. The time and effort would be just too much. And yes, I admit, I was a "complainer/yeller" the first time I formally entered the community. Immediately, one person, JPR, spoke directly with me and guided me into how to be involved and within weeks I became fully entrenched in the community. I guess everyone now has someone to blame for my presence here. :-) But point is, we do need to all collectively adopt an attitude of welcoming and mentoring/guiding. It's a lesson I learned and I try to do it the same unto others. And this is something we should do attitudinally, not "policy-ally." (Hey, I just invented a new word!) Getting people to recognize that they are stakeholders in the Project is what leads to community growth and contribution. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 15 May 2012 21:45:22 +0200, Klaas Freitag wrote:

On 15.05.2012 21:21, Bryen M Yunashko wrote: Hey,

...

...

RedHat did well by naming their community project "Fedora" - the name is different enough that there's no ambiguity for those who are new to RedHat. That was a smart move. Yes. The good lord did a smart move creating the world ;-) Guys, you have topics here again... Do you think that moves the project forward?

Fair enough, it's easy to wander in conversation. But in terms of "the point", it's not enough to say SUSE and openSUSE are different, because the naming gets in the way of that explanation. So we need to be clear on this point - and saying that openSUSE is upstream to SLE is a huge step in the right direction. We need to shout it from the rooftops. But enough on that subject. :)

...

But point is, we do need to all collectively adopt an attitude of welcoming and mentoring/guiding. That might be true. OTOH, even with mentoring, stuff is complicated and hard to get on speed with. You often have to work hard to find something out, improve it, become an expert on. Thats exhausting. Why would you do that? Because you personally want it or because people say "wow - how cool, thanks!". I think that is the main motivator. And I think we don't do that often enough.

I tell you from my personal experience as the author of Hermes: The number of people saying something positive about Hermes to me is a little of fraction of the number of people ranting nonsense. And - interestingly enough - the less clue people have the more they rant.

And how many people actually did something useful to Hermes for example instead of just talking? You don't want to know... How motivating is that?

That is different in other communities, and I think that has to change: More trust and a more positive attitude for stuff others do.

Yes, agreed. Getting positive feedback in general can be very difficult - I've always said when it comes to support forums that their purpose isn't for people to say "everything's excellent, outstanding, and working just fine", and it's important to keep that in mind. But it's also important for users to take the time to tell those who do the work that things are well. Many in this project aren't in it for the money (ie, it's not their paid job) but because they love being a part of it. Recognition of their effort is a motivator, and is something that we could - as a project - probably do better at. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Wed, 16 May 2012 08:35:26 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

...

That might be true. OTOH, even with mentoring, stuff is complicated and hard to get on speed with. You often have to work hard to find something out, improve it, become an expert on. Thats exhausting. Why would you do that? Because you personally want it or because people say "wow - how cool, thanks!". I think that is the main motivator. And I think we don't do that often enough.

Praise is an important management tool, but it has to be sincere, and that is difficult to bring across in email. It also works best coming from a superior. Praise from ones peers is a lot less effective.

Depends on the situation - peer recognition can work very well (and in an OSS project, it's peer recognition that helps build the meritocracy that's present in most projects). As a motivator, though, yeah - for example, on LKML, praise from Linus probably motivates most people more than praise from me would. :)

Nonetheless, you've got a good question here - what is the main motivator for people to take part?

Daniel Pink's book _Drive_ provides some pretty good insights into what motivates people to act. It's probably not completely comprehensive, but I found it to be quite instructive.

...

I tell you from my personal experience as the author of Hermes: The number of people saying something positive about Hermes to me is a little of fraction of the number of people ranting nonsense. And - interestingly enough - the less clue people have the more they rant.

And how many people actually did something useful to Hermes for example instead of just talking? You don't want to know... How motivating is that?

Personally speaking, one word of praise easily outweighs any negative ranting.

I think perhaps an underlying commentary to Klaas' message is that often times we don't even know about peoples' involvement in various systems (or for that matter that the systems are there or what they do). I've found over the years that in general, tech people often aren't good at trumpeting their accomplishments. Part of the reason for that is, I think, something I personally refer to as "SME syndrome" (SME = Subject Matter Expert). When one knows something well enough to the point of it being second nature, one tends to think there's nothing special about the skills and/or knowledge involved. I've seen countless SMEs who have very poor self-esteem because they think "anyone could learn this". Of course, that's not a ubiquitous thing, either. I've also seen plenty of SMEs who are rightfully (and wrongfully - usually because they're not the SME they think they are) very proud of their achievements. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Pascal Bleser wrote:

What would often help tremendously is to accept that opinions and wording are highly depending on cultural factors. Obviously we always read and understand everything with our own cultural filter. That often leads to misunderstandings, bashing, disrespect, frustration, etc... Actually it does every single day, including in this project.

+1. It's unavoidable. Twenty years ago I worked in an organisation with +30 different nationalities, we worked with those misunderstandings, bashings, disrespect, frustration, etc every day.

If we want to improve our communication (I mean the communication between the people who care and contribute to the project), that is definitely one thing we should become more conscious of, i.e. before we start an argument, pause and think whether it isn't just a different understanding or background. Not that easy to do though :)

Not at all easy, no. Especially not when most people remain in their own countries most of their lives and rarely even encounter another nationality. I think it's just something we have to live with, TBH. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (5.2°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Wed, 16 May 2012 21:26:30 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Of course, that's not a ubiquitous thing, either. I've also seen plenty of SMEs who are rightfully (and wrongfully - usually because they're not the SME they think they are) very proud of their achievements. :)

No need to invent a new term, there is one already :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Cool, I've learned another thing today. :)

But one can add a lot of other factors that come into play as well, such as cultural differences (germanic vs latin, to oversimplify -- plays a huge role but discussing that would inevitably end up in a neverending thread), and/or for example having some who see communicating and "bragging" about achievements and activity as "unnecessary" or "bad" [1].

Yeah, I've always thought there's a bit of a cultural role in it as well. I've got some good friends in Germany who are a lot of fun to interact with because of how they approach their expertise. The conversations can get quite loud, but they're fun and nobody's taking it personally (which really helps).

Some cultures cultivate the myth of success having to come out of a group and dispise individuals who stand out, other cultures do the exact opposite and value the genius of individuals.

Boy do I know what you mean here. :)

What would often help tremendously is to accept that opinions and wording are highly depending on cultural factors. Obviously we always read and understand everything with our own cultural filter. That often leads to misunderstandings, bashing, disrespect, frustration, etc... Actually it does every single day, including in this project. I'd say at least in one out of three emails.

Well, I think the most recent case in point is the discussion about specific bugzilla statuses (proposed and otherwise) - in some languages, INVALID or OBSOLETE have very charged meanings, as Felix pointed out. In others (and even in various subcultures, just take tech vs. non-tech for example) it's not personal at all. It's important, I think, to make sure that when we have something like that take place, that it's clear that the selection of a status is nothing personal, it just is a way of classifying things. I think for large portions of the tech audience, that's understood, but openSUSE in particular has a very interesting blend of tech and non-tech audiences, and the overlap between them can be problematic because of the different social conventions and norms. Add in cultural differences as well, and sometimes it's a wonder we don't tear ourselves apart. ;)

If we want to improve our communication (I mean the communication between the people who care and contribute to the project), that is definitely one thing we should become more conscious of, i.e. before we start an argument, pause and think whether it isn't just a different understanding or background. Not that easy to do though :)

Thinking before hitting send is quite difficult to do, and it requires a certain level of emotional intelligence to have that level of self- awareness. While it's a "would be nice", it's not something we can expect of everyone. So for those who do have that level of self- awareness, it's important to look beyond the "flame" and see the spark (so to speak).

Another aspect that helps to understand many reactions, opinions and disagreements is "people who are afraid of change" (aka conservatism) vs "people who embrace change" -- that's an oversimplification of course.

Sounds like a lot of BS? I used to think so too. If you believe it's just a load of ...., then you're probably a [1] :)

And if you understand German and think I'm just babbling nonsense, who am I to talk about stuff like that anyway, check this out: http://youtu.be/QxtDdEMp9w4 (Gunter Dueck, Psychologie des Wandels / psychology of change)

Just based on that alone, I really hope we get to meet in person one day. I think we'd have a fascinating discussion. :) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

Getting people to recognize that they are stakeholders in the Project is what leads to community growth and contribution.

Exactly! I don't know how we go about doing that, but I know it isn't done with "why don't you do it yourself, dude?" .... -- Per Jessen, Zürich (6.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Wed, 16 May 2012 11:45:14 -0500 Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

We do it with "Here's how you can do it yourself, dude." :-)

I like your optimistic vision, but if there will be more of "Here is how to do it" and lesser of "Do it yourself" then we would be the most popular distro on the planet. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 00:23 +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

While input from users is valuable (and there is a number of VERY knowledgeable non-developers lurking on this list giving VERY valuable feedback from time to time), too much heavily distracts from the work to be done. Some developers have unsubscribed from our core development list(s) for this reason and frankly I care far more about getting them back than getting a bit less input from users.

But this goes back to our earlier discussion - how do we balance our core lists when it comes to amount of traffic, feedback we get, checkups on the 'real-ness of issues', quality, moderation etcetera. Something to discuss at oSC (October, Praha, more info coming soon).

I don't think itwould be fair to assume that all developers who left a particular ML did so because they disliked the rancor going on in that list. Some simply avoid ML's because its just not their thing. They're simply not interested in discussions whether it has substance or not. And that's fine, I can respect that. But I think what we're really concerned about is how to get the endresult useful bits that come out of any discussion. And I'll grant that some comments on any given thread are clearly outrageously inappropriate or unproductive. But others are sometimes interpreted as unproductive by some and productive by others. It would be interesting if we could come up with a way to summarize the final points of any given discussion and convey it to any given stakeholders (including those who are not on a ML but are directly involved in the subject matter.) I fear though that human reality dictates that we'll never achieve such a lofty goal. Getting someone or some team to diligently summarize every relevant thread is simply never going to happen. I guess the point I'm making here is that we're discussing how to keep a discussion productive, and we're not discussing how to extract the productive bits of a discussion to implement somewhere. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-05-15 00:23, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

It's important to weigh ideas based on their merits. And willingness of the person who brought them forward to implement them. I'd pick a crappy solution to a problem with someone to implement it over a perfect solution with nobody able to work on it anytime ;-)

But that is "bad". - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+yOzcACgkQIvFNjefEBxpbCwCfa969bAX9I8O1QaTU3kGvn7GI hCsAn1fBM/zDr0XQ966I+32oddO4Sqvk =VZwo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-05-20 16:59, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

On Tuesday 15 May 2012 13:17:11 Carlos E. R. wrote: On 2012-05-15 00:23, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

...

...

...

It's important to weigh ideas based on their merits.

And willingness of the person who brought them forward to implement them. I'd pick a crappy solution to a problem with someone to implement it over a perfect solution with nobody able to work on it anytime ;-)

But that is "bad".

...

No, smart and pragmatic. If you do it the other way around (perfectionism) you will never get anything done.

I concede that it is pragmatic, but it is not smart. For example, the translation volunteers do not translate what they (we) like, but instead translate everything in turn. Code should be the same. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+5NtoACgkQIvFNjefEBxrN1wCeL8yX9knB339gyUn1tvltHtqi D9MAnR5ubE0OSxGuV/2NNZcuuHvym5tv =G5DW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-05-10 17:16, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

On Thursday 10 May 2012 11:10:26 Carlos E. R. wrote: On 2012-05-10 08:58, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

...

...

so the choices are usually simple - go with what the maintainers want, end of discussion ;-)

...

That is not necessarily the best technical path.

But the most pragmatic. In the real world, a technical superior solution which doesn't exist (or is unmaintained) always looses from a hacky but existing or maintained solution ;-)

And creates damage to others on the road. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+sD6MACgkQIvFNjefEBxq+dQCgw8/zwsPyNbhDP+pZzH+G8DCt JW8AoKt0ATNlSb9gtmj31g/SzvD6YfqB =fU+P -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Le 10/05/2012 11:12, Guido Berhoerster a écrit :

I think others have pointed out before that things are not always that simple and not all packages are created equal and exist in a vacuum. Certain technical decisions can have very far reaching consequences not only on a package itself but by directly and indirectly inflicting work on others, affecting the user experience and pulling the project in a certain direction for years to come.

yes, but in this situation we have only a small bunch of solutions: * hope that the maintainer is aware of this and take it into account * hope than more volunteers step in * hope that the main (or other) sponsor give instructions to some employee to step in rignt now, AFAIK, openSUSE have no paid person in charge, so all we can do in hope :-). if a product is not maintained, how can openSUSE use it? by the way the overall situation is pretty complicated, because the way people works for openSUSE is very varied. Some,are paid for by sponsors (obvious) some (sometime the same) work on they free time on core programming some work on they free time on other less important applications some work on documentation for an application some work on the openSUSE communication (mailing lists, forums, wiki...) some works upstream, may be never knowing about openSUSE but have a work used by openSUSE and I certainly forgot some and is any of these stop working, somebody have to step in - or the system fails. Think about openSUSE weekly news jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 2012-05-10 13:38:20 (+0200), Henne Vogelsang wrote:

On 05/10/2012 11:12 AM, Guido Berhoerster wrote: [...]

...

I think others have pointed out before that things are not always that simple and not all packages are created equal and exist in a vacuum.

Right. That's why disrupting changes are discussed among maintainers on fate, bugzilla and -factory. Of course cross-dependencies exist and of course collaboration is a necessity for all of us!

Those facts don't change the way we organize: openSUSE is bottom up. Nobody will tell you what to do, just do what you like and collaborate with others. That's the basic principle of FOSS and that's how we work.

Sorry, there's a red herring in there: information about what is being discussed where is very poor. That creates quite a gap between the people who contribute to a ton of things during a few spare hours, and those who have 8 hours per day to spend on it, sitting next door to the other 2 or 3 people they see as relevant on the topic. No, it's not a cheap shot, it's normal behaviour, it's not a harsh criticism, it's just that it happens, and we have to keep that in mind. Oh, and work against it. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf

Hello, (not too related, therefore without quoting) The most serious problem I remember from SLE10 and SLE11 development is bugzilla - SLE bugs are non-public, which can cause some frustration for openSUSE contributors if they want to understand the details of a change by reading the bnc# referenced in the .changes or, even worse, if a public openSUSE bug is marked as a duplicate of a non-public SLE bug. Are there any plans to make the SLE bugs public by default? I understand that some customers might want to have their reports non- public, and I fully understand and accept this. There's nothing wrong with having the _option_ to flag a report non-public - but IMHO all bugreports should be public unless there is a good reason to mark them private. Regards, Christian Boltz PS: Yes, this might sound like the mail I've sent before SLE11 development started. I could probably have recycled it, but searching would take longer than rewriting it from scratch ;-) -- don't forget autocompletion uses the new iliketomessup framework which is great as it can also be used to transform water into beer. [postdoc38 yahoo fr in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259949] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 2012/05/07 18:24 (GMT+0200) Lars Müller composed:

Christian Boltz wrote:

...

Are there any plans to make the SLE bugs public by default?

...

I understand that some customers might want to have their reports non- public, and I fully understand and accept this. There's nothing wrong with having the _option_ to flag a report non-public - but IMHO all bugreports should be public unless there is a good reason to mark them private.

+1

+2 -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org