[opensuse-project] Strategy: comment on users and contributors
During the openSUSE Strategy discussions, some questions were raised about users and contributors and their roles within our Community. I'd like to discuss and define these a bit in the context of our discussions. Community - users and contributors ================================== Community is often defined as a collection of people who interact together - but what does this mean concrete for the openSUSE project? I suggest to define the openSUSE community as an open community that includes everybody that likes to be part of it including users installing openSUSE on a system as well as contributors that shape the project. Still this large openSUSE community can be seens as a larger group of users and a smaller group of contributors. The users are an important part of the openSUSE ecosystem. They are a target and beneficiary of what we do in openSUSE and we also strive to reach out to our users to become contributors to the Project. This should be a virtuous circle - the more users we gain, the more our pool of contributors and contributions grow. And the more contributors the Project gains, the more users we gain. And in order to sustain that growth of users and contributors, we must ensure an environment that supports the needs of our contributors by providing them with the tools they need as well as delivering products that our users get excited about. Contribution to the openSUSE project ==================================== A lot has been discussed on what a contribution is and I'd like to highlight a few examples of contributions to the project. Let's start with the distribution first: A user downloads the openSUSE distribution from the Internet, buys a box, or gets the install media in some other way. If a problem is encountered, the user asks for help, e.g. via: * the openSUSE forums * the openSUSE IRC channels * via a social network like twitter, Identi.ca or Facebook * the openSUSE mailing lists * uses a search engine to see what others have said, this might bring him to any of the openSUSE wiki, forum, mail lists or archives I would expect that this new user receives positive answers from forums, IRC channels, social networks and mailing lists. This might be a friendly pointer (not a simple RTFM!) to specific sections of relevant documentation, a more appropriate place to ask or maybe an detailed answer to the concrete question. People helping this new user are contributing to the openSUSE Project. Users also become contributors by writing documentation, moderating discussions, administrating infrastructure, or by with translations existing documentations and openSUSE wiki pages. There are many other forms of contribution that do not require programming ability - for example openSUSE Ambassadors running booths or making presentations at conferences and local Linux user group meetings. Eventually, the user might download a new package from the openSUSE Build Service or report a bug using bugzilla. Obviously software developers are contributing to the community when their original and creative output is made especially for the openSUSE project, e.g. running on our infrastructure and improving the distribution through iterative testing/fixing, packaging FOSS software, integrating them into the openSUSE distribution, and coordinating with the upstream projects. Likewise, as innovations or improvements are made by developers, we spread the word of their efforts and successes through blogging, marketing, and other means, which then attracts even more users. The more users we attract, the more feedback is given to developers through conversations, bug reports, feature requests, and other venues. The large upstream OSS community is contributing with many packages, e.g. the Linux kernel, to the openSUSE project but not in the sense of a core contributor to the project - more as an "independent supplier" that rather than an openSUSE contributor. However, we extend an invitation to upstream developers to become openSUSE users and make it their platform of choice for developing and contributing both upstream and directly to the openSUSE Project. Growing Users and Contributors ============================== During the Strategy Team's discussions, we concluded that our primary goal at this time is to focus on increasing the number of contributors in our community by encouraging our users to grow into those roles and attracting contributors. To do that we know we must provide all with the tools and the ecosystem to "Have a lot of fun". And, by growing the contributor community we automatically support the goal of sparking that virtuous circle of sustained growth benefiting the entire community. Let me also emphasize that the above listed contributions is just a small set of examples. There are many more ways to contribute, and often we encounter fresh and new ideas from users who should be listened to, encouraged, mentored and grown into productive project contributors (where possible). Let us keep in mind that as a project we care about the whole diverse community - and the discussions have shown how diverse it can be - and I'd like to refer to our guiding principles: "We value choice. We accept and respect that there are different ways to work, different preferences for applications, environments, tools or interfaces and different goals of users and contributors. We value diversity and pluralism as a way of addressing the needs of a broad variety of people." What do you think? Is that a common ground? If yes, I'd like to add it the the collection of strategy pages and look forward to edits, 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
On Sunday 2010-07-04 10:41, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
* People helping this new user are contributing to the openSUSE Project. * Users also become contributors by writing documentation * moderating discussions * administrating infrastructure * by with translations existing documentations and openSUSE wiki pages. * programming ability * openSUSE Ambassadors running booths * making presentations at conferences and local LUGs * report a bug using bugzilla. * blogging, marketing, and other means, which then attracts even more users.
All of these are forms of contributions. Some are easier to quantify (in bytes, lines, # of BZ reports, # of SRs), and should thus "always" count. Just acknowledge that some things, such as marketing, are not easily quantifiable and convey this issue in the registered membership application process. -- 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 11:00 +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
On Sunday 2010-07-04 10:41, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
* People helping this new user are contributing to the openSUSE Project. * Users also become contributors by writing documentation * moderating discussions * administrating infrastructure * by with translations existing documentations and openSUSE wiki pages. * programming ability * openSUSE Ambassadors running booths * making presentations at conferences and local LUGs * report a bug using bugzilla. * blogging, marketing, and other means, which then attracts even more users.
All of these are forms of contributions. Some are easier to quantify (in bytes, lines, # of BZ reports, # of SRs), and should thus "always" count.
Just acknowledge that some things, such as marketing, are not easily quantifiable and convey this issue in the registered membership application process.
You're absolutely right that not all "marketing" efforts are easily quantifiable. For example, I personally believe the person who doesn't blog or speak publicly about openSUSE but does spread the word by telling his neighbors and co-workers and encouraging them to try out openSUSE is just as equally important a contributing marketer as anyone else in the Project. But, alas, for membership purposes, this is difficult to prove. Maybe we should distribute CD's like the old days with AOL where there was a hidden code on media that attributed to the person who distributed the media. :-) (I'm only kidding here, we're certainly not going to do that!) Anyway, Jan, your point is valid and certainly one that membership approval process has always wrestled with. I just want to remind everyone that this thread isn't about membership, its about the definition of users and contributors within the scope of overall openSUSE strategy proposal and how we work with the various people that come to us (or we go to.) Most certainly, however, depending on the outcome of our final strategy agreed upon, the membership approval process will take some of its direction from that strategy. 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
Dear Andreas.
Community - users and contributors ==================================
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all. So growing 'users' to become contributors should be the main goal. Besides that, thanks for summing it up. Greets Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 04 July 2010 18:54:52 Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Andreas.
Community - users and contributors ==================================
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all. So growing 'users' to
I think users are a win for the project since they acknowledge that we do great work. And they will help grow the user base as well.
become contributors should be the main goal.
I agree that this is the focus - as written - but not because I don't value users ;)
Besides that, thanks for summing it up.
thanks, 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
On Sunday 04 July 2010 18:54:52 Marcus Moeller wrote:
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all.
But we do all that for the users. Users are the reason why the project exists at all. Uwe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Dear Uwe,
On Sunday 04 July 2010 18:54:52 Marcus Moeller wrote:
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all.
But we do all that for the users. Users are the reason why the project exists at all.
Sorry, this is not how the open source ecosystem works. Your perspective is the classic business model view (and which is how SUSE has been delivered for quite a long time). What is the benefit for the project of attracting users (besides telling them they should contribute if they use Open Source). It's a give and take, you cannot survive only by giving (unless you're earning money with). I even can't agree with Andreas that users give us acknowledgement as this is really worthless. An I can't repeat it as often: it's really easy to contribute and everybody should be able to. You are contributing if you report a bug, send feedback, and track the responses, too. -- Greets Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 05 July 2010 08:52:14 Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Uwe,
On Sunday 04 July 2010 18:54:52 Marcus Moeller wrote:
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all.
But we do all that for the users. Users are the reason why the project exists at all.
Sorry, this is not how the open source ecosystem works. Your perspective is the classic business model view (and which is how SUSE has been delivered for quite a long time).
What is the benefit for the project of attracting users (besides telling them they should contribute if they use Open Source). It's a give and take, you cannot survive only by giving (unless you're earning money with). I even can't agree with Andreas that users give us acknowledgement as this is really worthless.
An I can't repeat it as often: it's really easy to contribute and everybody should be able to. You are contributing if you report a bug, send feedback, and track the responses, too.
Now you simply move the point at which you say somebody is contributing. A happy user who tells her neighbour about openSUSE/linux is a contributor? If you go that far, pretty much everyone who installes openSUSE themselves is probably a contibutor - only 'corporate' users are not (but their company is paying for the product anyway). So at that point we're back at getting as many users as possible... (which I think is great, btw) Users bring mindshare, tell others about openSUSE, give us leverage with big companies (hard- but also software and service companies), give the companies in the openSUSE ecosystem more opportunity to make money (!good for us!) and yes, some might actively contribute at some point. And anyone NOT using MS Windows or Mac OS X is a Saved Soul ;-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 2010-07-04 18:54, Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Andreas.
Community - users and contributors ==================================
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all. So growing 'users' to become contributors should be the main goal.
No, plain users are very important to linux in general and openSUSE in particular. There is no purpose to all this if there are no users. Linux for geeks and all that. For instance, users means market share, which means money for hardware makers if the users choose a printer instead of another printer. No users means no support in hardware. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" GM (Minas Tirith)) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREIAAYFAkwxs4MACgkQja8UbcUWM1wHgAEAkCtoyj+uLe9F9ge8KgjBuTpK m+lvJa6SlwkgFBY19jcA/Aw1EayTT/OpvJkQOnBOAAatb/GQDC22xMXiyznAM8aa =/u9H -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Community - users and contributors ==================================
I think your summary is very good. I personally don't like the word 'user' at all because for me a user is similar to 'consumer' or 'lurker' and is no win for the project at all. So growing 'users' to become contributors should be the main goal.
No, plain users are very important to linux in general and openSUSE in particular. There is no purpose to all this if there are no users. Linux for geeks and all that.
For instance, users means market share, which means money for hardware makers if the users choose a printer instead of another printer. No users means no support in hardware.
I think there will also be, for us, some constant ratios, e.g. 100 "users" will give rise to 1 "contributor" etc. We need both the volume of users and also to improve the ratios, through all the methods of encouragement we've been discussing. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
(2010/07/04 17:41), Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Community - users and contributors ================================== [...snip] The users are an important part of the openSUSE ecosystem. They are a target and beneficiary of what we do in openSUSE and we also strive to reach out to our users to become contributors to the Project.
Agreed.
This should be a virtuous circle - the more users we gain, the more our pool of contributors and contributions grow.
I can partly agree, but partly can't. My definitions of user and contributor are: User: person who is interested in what (s)he can GET FROM openSUSE(*) Contributor: person who is interested in what (s)he can DO FOR openSUSE(*) (*) 'openSUSE' can be replaced with 'others'. Everyone can be both a user and a contributor at the same time and I believe that would be the ideal of not only openSUSE Project but also whole FLOSS community (and I would like to add 'our life' here ;-)). But unfortunately, there are more than a little persons who are 100% pure users and not interested in contributing at all. They use openSUSE just because they find openSUSE useful for them and when they find more useful distros than openSUSE, they would move to those distros without hesitation. That has nothing (or at least, only few) to do with their (users) skill or proficiency in openSUSE. There are more than a little openSUSE experts who are not interested in helping others, in the meanwhile, there certainly are a bunch of persons who are just newbies and not used to openSUSE or Linux, but very interested in contributing somehow. If we want to gain such 100% pure users more, the method might be simple - distribute free (as beer) 100% SLE compatible distributions with long term/unlimited supports. ...But that shouldn't be our goal.
And the more contributors the Project gains, the more users we gain.
Totally agreed.
And in order to sustain that growth of users and contributors, we must ensure an environment that supports the needs of our contributors by providing them with the tools they need as well as delivering products that our users get excited about.
IMHO, the schema 'users vs contributors' won't make us happy and will result in stagnant community. The question 'Which do we need more, users or contributors ?' may create a wall between users and contributors. If someone is called 'user', (s)he may think that (s)he doesn't need to do anything for openSUSE, or, that there's nothing (s)he can do for openSUSE just as a mere 'user'. Persons that we really need are, persons who think 'openSUSE is *MY* (or *OUR*) OS (or distribution)'. Such persons obviously use openSUSE and will contribute openSUSE somehow, because its *THEIR* (or *OUR*) OS. When they feel other distros are better than openSUSE, they will try to make openSUSE much better instaed of just leaving openSUSE. I'd like to increase such persons in our community. So, my ideal is as follows: "If you got interested in and start using openSUSE, you are now considered as an openSUSE community associate. We, openSUSE community, give you a sincere welcome and hope you will have a lot of fun with openSUSE. Using openSUSE is your first step as an openSUSE community associate, but if you really like it (and we hope you will like it ;-)), there are a lot of things you can do for improving YOUR openSUSE. (...)" There may be '99%-user/1%-contributor', '80%-user/20%-contributor', '50%-user/50%-contributor'... percentage can vary, but all of them are our associates. Of course the more an associate contributes, the more (s)he will be respected. Our goal is not increasing the number of users nor contributors, but increasing the number of such associates and the percentage of contributors part of each associates. I might not be a good expositor, but I hope you can understand what I mean - i.e. separating contributors from users isn't a best solution. 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
On Lunes, 5 de Julio de 2010 03:25:22 Satoru Matsumoto escribió:
(2010/07/04 17:41), Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Community - users and contributors ==================================
[...snip]
The users are an important part of the openSUSE ecosystem. They are a target and beneficiary of what we do in openSUSE and we also strive to reach out to our users to become contributors to the Project.
Agreed.
This should be a virtuous circle - the more users we gain, the more our pool of contributors and contributions grow.
I can partly agree, but partly can't. My definitions of user and contributor are:
User: person who is interested in what (s)he can GET FROM openSUSE(*) Contributor: person who is interested in what (s)he can DO FOR openSUSE(*) (*) 'openSUSE' can be replaced with 'others'.
Everyone can be both a user and a contributor at the same time and I believe that would be the ideal of not only openSUSE Project but also whole FLOSS community (and I would like to add 'our life' here ;-)).
But unfortunately, there are more than a little persons who are 100% pure users and not interested in contributing at all. They use openSUSE just because they find openSUSE useful for them and when they find more useful distros than openSUSE, they would move to those distros without hesitation.
That has nothing (or at least, only few) to do with their (users) skill or proficiency in openSUSE. There are more than a little openSUSE experts who are not interested in helping others, in the meanwhile, there certainly are a bunch of persons who are just newbies and not used to openSUSE or Linux, but very interested in contributing somehow.
If we want to gain such 100% pure users more, the method might be simple - distribute free (as beer) 100% SLE compatible distributions with long term/unlimited supports. ...But that shouldn't be our goal.
And the more contributors the Project gains, the more users we gain.
Totally agreed.
And in order to sustain that growth of users and contributors, we must ensure an environment that supports the needs of our contributors by providing them with the tools they need as well as delivering products that our users get excited about.
IMHO, the schema 'users vs contributors' won't make us happy and will result in stagnant community. The question 'Which do we need more, users or contributors ?' may create a wall between users and contributors. If someone is called 'user', (s)he may think that (s)he doesn't need to do anything for openSUSE, or, that there's nothing (s)he can do for openSUSE just as a mere 'user'.
Persons that we really need are, persons who think 'openSUSE is *MY* (or *OUR*) OS (or distribution)'. Such persons obviously use openSUSE and will contribute openSUSE somehow, because its *THEIR* (or *OUR*) OS. When they feel other distros are better than openSUSE, they will try to make openSUSE much better instaed of just leaving openSUSE. I'd like to increase such persons in our community.
So, my ideal is as follows:
"If you got interested in and start using openSUSE, you are now considered as an openSUSE community associate. We, openSUSE community, give you a sincere welcome and hope you will have a lot of fun with openSUSE. Using openSUSE is your first step as an openSUSE community associate, but if you really like it (and we hope you will like it ;-)), there are a lot of things you can do for improving YOUR openSUSE. (...)"
There may be '99%-user/1%-contributor', '80%-user/20%-contributor', '50%-user/50%-contributor'... percentage can vary, but all of them are our associates. Of course the more an associate contributes, the more (s)he will be respected. Our goal is not increasing the number of users nor contributors, but increasing the number of such associates and the percentage of contributors part of each associates.
I might not be a good expositor, but I hope you can understand what I mean - i.e. separating contributors from users isn't a best solution.
Best,
I loved the way you focused this issue. "Associates" as users and contributors is the way we should see this. Every single contribution (translation, marketing, artwork, documentation, developing, package maintainer, bug reporting, tester, IT solutions, etc.) is a valuable contribution depends on the level it is appreciated or related to project priorities. And everyone can make a contribution on different areas of the project. Maybe is a little hard to control the information is generated from several channels at the same time. An orchestra needs different levels and differentiated performers but not only musicians as others to make a very good show (lights controllers, sound engineers, electricians, director, music writers, etc). Every user is a potential contributor if we are able to show them the way to make it possible easier without obstacles. We should be able to channeling their energy and knowledge levels the way it is helpful to the openSUSE community and the project. And we should not forget a general behavior principles. Human beings mostly behave themselves by movements economy. At least at the beginning they are going to use, play or remember what is available, easy, popular, stable, smooth, status associated, etc. The high level skills desirable to develop software, packages and apps comes with experiences and sharing these experiences, discovering new scenarios and needs to overcome or protect. The real challenge and opportunity area or the general purpose solution is not how to get this kind of users or developers for the project but how to channel the associates energies to make the project and the community goals possible. Best regards, -- 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
On Tuesday 06 July 2010 17:20:04 Ricardo Chung wrote:
On Lunes, 5 de Julio de 2010 03:25:22 Satoru Matsumoto escribió:
(2010/07/04 17:41), Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Community - users and contributors ==================================
[...snip]
The users are an important part of the openSUSE ecosystem. They are a target and beneficiary of what we do in openSUSE and we also strive to reach out to our users to become contributors to the Project.
Agreed.
This should be a virtuous circle - the more users we gain, the more our pool of contributors and contributions grow.
I can partly agree, but partly can't. My definitions of user and contributor are:
User: person who is interested in what (s)he can GET FROM openSUSE(*) Contributor: person who is interested in what (s)he can DO FOR openSUSE(*) (*) 'openSUSE' can be replaced with 'others'.
Everyone can be both a user and a contributor at the same time and I believe that would be the ideal of not only openSUSE Project but also whole FLOSS community (and I would like to add 'our life' here ;-)).
But unfortunately, there are more than a little persons who are 100% pure users and not interested in contributing at all. They use openSUSE just because they find openSUSE useful for them and when they find more useful distros than openSUSE, they would move to those distros without hesitation.
That has nothing (or at least, only few) to do with their (users) skill or proficiency in openSUSE. There are more than a little openSUSE experts who are not interested in helping others, in the meanwhile, there certainly are a bunch of persons who are just newbies and not used to openSUSE or Linux, but very interested in contributing somehow.
If we want to gain such 100% pure users more, the method might be simple - distribute free (as beer) 100% SLE compatible distributions with long term/unlimited supports. ...But that shouldn't be our goal.
And the more contributors the Project gains, the more users we gain.
Totally agreed.
And in order to sustain that growth of users and contributors, we must ensure an environment that supports the needs of our contributors by providing them with the tools they need as well as delivering products that our users get excited about.
IMHO, the schema 'users vs contributors' won't make us happy and will result in stagnant community. The question 'Which do we need more, users or contributors ?' may create a wall between users and contributors. If someone is called 'user', (s)he may think that (s)he doesn't need to do anything for openSUSE, or, that there's nothing (s)he can do for openSUSE just as a mere 'user'.
Persons that we really need are, persons who think 'openSUSE is *MY* (or *OUR*) OS (or distribution)'. Such persons obviously use openSUSE and will contribute openSUSE somehow, because its *THEIR* (or *OUR*) OS. When they feel other distros are better than openSUSE, they will try to make openSUSE much better instaed of just leaving openSUSE. I'd like to increase such persons in our community.
So, my ideal is as follows:
"If you got interested in and start using openSUSE, you are now considered as an openSUSE community associate. We, openSUSE community, give you a sincere welcome and hope you will have a lot of fun with openSUSE. Using openSUSE is your first step as an openSUSE community associate, but if you really like it (and we hope you will like it ;-)), there are a lot of things you can do for improving YOUR openSUSE. (...)"
There may be '99%-user/1%-contributor', '80%-user/20%-contributor', '50%-user/50%-contributor'... percentage can vary, but all of them are our associates. Of course the more an associate contributes, the more (s)he will be respected. Our goal is not increasing the number of users nor contributors, but increasing the number of such associates and the percentage of contributors part of each associates.
I might not be a good expositor, but I hope you can understand what I mean - i.e. separating contributors from users isn't a best solution.
Best,
I loved the way you focused this issue. "Associates" as users and contributors is the way we should see this. Every single contribution (translation, marketing, artwork, documentation, developing, package maintainer, bug reporting, tester, IT solutions, etc.) is a valuable contribution depends on the level it is appreciated or related to project priorities. And everyone can make a contribution on different areas of the project. Maybe is a little hard to control the information is generated from several channels at the same time. An orchestra needs different levels and differentiated performers but not only musicians as others to make a very good show (lights controllers, sound engineers, electricians, director, music writers, etc).
Every user is a potential contributor if we are able to show them the way to make it possible easier without obstacles. We should be able to channeling their energy and knowledge levels the way it is helpful to the openSUSE community and the project.
And we should not forget a general behavior principles. Human beings mostly behave themselves by movements economy. At least at the beginning they are going to use, play or remember what is available, easy, popular, stable, smooth, status associated, etc. The high level skills desirable to develop software, packages and apps comes with experiences and sharing these experiences, discovering new scenarios and needs to overcome or protect.
The real challenge and opportunity area or the general purpose solution is not how to get this kind of users or developers for the project but how to channel the associates energies to make the project and the community goals possible.
Exactly, I also believe anyone associated with openSUSE - be it user, administrator or contributor, is part of the community and helps, one way or another, to push it to greather heights. For contributors - having 1.000.000 users is far more satisfying than having 5 users. And other users will, as you write, go for the easy but also popular choice. So even if a user doesn't directly contribute, as long as we know the person is using openSUSE, he/she matters for us.
Best regards,
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
So, my ideal is as follows:
"If you got interested in and start using openSUSE, you are now considered as an openSUSE community associate. We, openSUSE community, give you a sincere welcome and hope you will have a lot of fun with openSUSE. Using openSUSE is your first step as an openSUSE community associate, but if you really like it (and we hope you will like it ;-)), there are a lot of things you can do for improving YOUR openSUSE. (...)"
Neo, I belive. For me, this is the point. +1 -- Kayo Hamid Fontinhas - kayohf@gmail.com openSUSE Member, Ambassadors & Testing Core Team http://en.opensuse.org/User:Kayohf -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:41:30 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
What do you think? Is that a common ground?
You've got my support with this, Andreas. :-) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
participants (12)
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Administrator -
Andreas Jaeger -
Bryen M. Yunashko -
Carlos E. R. -
Jan Engelhardt -
Jim Henderson -
Jos Poortvliet -
Kayo Hamid -
Marcus Moeller -
Ricardo Chung -
Satoru Matsumoto -
Uwe Buckesfeld