Thanks for your reply, Joe Zonker :-) There are higher-ups that don't have the courage/permission to talk about such sensitive questions on the list. What does Zonker mean ? Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager Maybe the Germans liked it because they like authority figures they can look up to and titles having that effect. To me it is a constant reminder that you are meant to be at the top.
His title says more about Novell's intentions then about the holder of the title. Actually, the job was originally to be called "Chief Evangelist," if you look at the original job postings. However, we discussed the title and thought that the "community manager" title was more appropriate and sort of standard within the industry. Interesting you should refer to the "industry". "Industry" and "Community" are not easily reconciled especially in this age of Corporatism ruling entire states and working for a Corporation focused on profits for the rich.
There's a good post here about what a community manager does: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2006/11/16/what-a-community-manager-does/ That's not a perfect description of my role, but it certainly is close to the mark.
I think Novell's intentions are to improve relations with the community, and help openSUSE grow as a project. If they were looking for a more traditional manager type, I don't think I would have been the first choice for the job. OK :-)
I hope you are aware that names are important carriers of messages. You're right. It was hoped that the community manager title was entrenched enough -- look at other community managers like Jono Bacon, for example -- that people would understand what we intended. Canonical/Ubuntu is a perfect example for the deception tying enthusiastic masses to commercial projects. Make-believe and hype are built up cult-like so as to extract blind loyalty, free marketing and contributions. http://justwars.com/linux/ubuntu/
I hope that isn't your role model ...
Great to think that Novell could be investing in bridging the gap between famously detached big corporations and the users ? Is he going to participate here too ? Yes. I have been describing my job as part community advocate and ombudsman. I want to be able to get feedback from the community at large and go back to Novell, the openSUSE board, and openSUSE developers, to help articulate the community's needs for openSUSE and also articulate the community's wishes with respect to the direction of the project. Excellent. Though "the community's wishes" could point to "consensus"-rule, which seems democratic but is "socialist"/dictatorial, as opposed to "wishes from the community", where individual interests are balanced not submerged.
That's not my entire role, but it is a very, very large part of it. Great. May i point you to a problem i am observing here, a disconnect and break in communication ? I don't know how interested OpenSuse is in fixing bugs. When i had difficulty searching for bugs, nobody replied. Most users seem to have given up filing bug reports because developers seem disinterested except in the cases where they are working on something already. Even Novell's own employees seem to prefer Non-OSS work-arounds then filing bug reports. (See for example "Monitor resolution").
Or is he there purely to optimise the output of the developers who are working for free. No. I do want to make sure that the project is efficient in terms of allowing contributors to get useful work done in areas where they're interested in contributing, my job is *not* to serve as a taskmaster. Looking forward to your success, Joe :-)
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