noniko wrote:

Hi, Pascal

...

With the exception of houghi's DVD script, almost all the mails in the past two months on the lists have been about "my soundcard doesn't work", "Xen doesn't work", and of course "zypp/zmd problem". While that's fine on opensuse-factory or suse-linux-e, it's not on this list, and there hasn't been anything else, at least not as far as I can remember.

<snip>

Then, the problem. there are too many entrances for opensuse mailing lists. I should mailto opensuse-e and opensuse-factory for subscription, receive confirming mail and reply and receive welcome mail and.....

I don't think its good, either, one ML for any topic like a hoosh. It's not sweet to search my thread from hundreds of post in the first downloaded in the morning throuth the mailbox ....

I wish if we could have somewhat like single-sign-on system for every lists belonging opensuse.

My vote for this idea. Present system is kind of complicated, but that is what I have seen on other lists too. BTW that was one reason that I didn't used mailing lists before. -- Regards, Rajko.

Martin Schlander wrote:

On Monday 08 May 2006 13:08, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

At least that's my vision on how we should evolve as a community, and I've been using SUSE since 5.0 (= quite some time), waiting for these opportunities to happen. Maybe I'm just too impatient, I probably am, but I objectively think we're pretty much stuck in inertia right now.

Feedback and comments are very much appreciated :)

While I share your vision for the community and I agree we can improve in lots of ways I do think being "sick" of our community is a bit harsh.

I didn't meant to say that I'm "sick of our community". If I was "sick of our community", I wouldn't be on this list nor trying to kick off something ;)

The whole openSUSE thing is only 7-8 months old. A lot of people still don't even understand what it's all about - hence all those tech-questions on the opensuse-mailinglist. Most people I'm afraid think openSUSE is just the OSS version of SUSE Linux (including Michael Meeks judging from the latest issue of Linux Format)

ACK, I'm afraid most people don't get the "community" thing yet.

Also people need to learn that there's a real possibility of influencing the distro and community through their community efforts. Building a community takes time - and I believe we're moving in the right direction and we're growing.

A community also works as a "meritocracy". What mostly annoys me is people telling the Novell staffers "we need this", "you have to do that", "you must add that package in the distro", etc... That's just not how it works nor supposed to work. Get involved, make packages yourself, start discussion threads here to have something realistic and that fits most people, and then - when necessary - submit something to Novell staff that is as effort and painless as possible to implement.

Maybe SuSE's history of being not so open is part of the reason that the community is pretty fragmented. But I expect it'll get better.

Yes, that's the main reason for the current fragmentation of the community. The problem is very different than with most distros: SUSE *has* a strong community and a large user base (not large enough given its quality, but still). The problem is that it is very fragmented, because the link between them has been missing all those years. So IMO one of our top priorities should be to think about how to interconnect the parts of the community. Which kind of brings us to the web forum topic, amongst others. In this particular case, we failed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try again, just differently.

I'm pretty sure that any other distro/community also has a lot of people who don't give a rat's ass about the big picture and only care about getting xgl on their box as fast as possible. That's just something you have to live with.

Sure. >90% just want to get, not participate, or don't have the time to do so. That's fine I guess, as we can't do much about it ;)

Other than spending a lot of time beta-testing these last few months I've also been working on a beginner's guide to SUSE Linux. In it I try to encourage users to take part in the openSUSE community as I certainly enjoy being part of it.

Great, now that's an initiative :) Do you plan to sell it as a book or could it be turned into a collaborative effort ? When I was talking about a lack of information, this is an example as well. Unless you've barely started with it, it should be mentioned on the wiki and possibly even be opened to other community members who'd want to participate. I think the "projects" page on the wiki should be enhanced a little - the build service isn't even mentioned: http://en.opensuse.org/Projects cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

On Monday 08 May 2006 15:20, Pascal Bleser wrote:

Great, now that's an initiative :)

Thanks, maybe I should've mentioned it's in Danish, which of course limits it's relevance to ~6 million people ;)

Do you plan to sell it as a book or could it be turned into a collaborative effort ?

It'll be online - under the GFDL with no invariant sections.

When I was talking about a lack of information, this is an example as well. Unless you've barely started with it, it should be mentioned on the wiki and possibly even be opened to other community members who'd want to participate.

I had added a link to it here http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate a while ago. Seems somebody's deleted or moved all non-English references.. anybody got any idea where they might have been moved to? Actually I've been doing these beginner's guides since 9.3 - the prolonged 10.1-beta phase has meant I've had a lot of time to work on the 10.1 guide though ;) But I'm not much of a graphical designer or webdeveloper which shows - but it's definitely a lot better than my previous efforts. Getting all flattered by people showing interest I've put it online a bit early for y'all to see: http://suse.linuxin.dk/10.1 Of course you can't understand it - but I think you'll get the general idea - it's aimed at absolute beginner's and only contains very basic stuff. I'm considering translating it into English - but I'd need better hosting for that. Certainly could be turned into a community effort - could be put on the wiki with no problems - other than the screenshots perhaps(?). cb400f

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 05:20, scsijon wrote:

Let us split our community away to handle tasks such as:- a) assist with small useage \ new idea packages and unexpected extension requirements to existing packages.

b) assist as we do now in "field" testing through the beta program, but not only SuSE's but other packages that need larger variations of testers.

c) assist as we do now in the problem fix process.

d) documentation, not only "how to use" types, but "using this with these extensions this way allows you to do this" as well as "this plus this plus this and either this or this but not including this" makes a "qqqq" server. I, for example have decided to spend my available time this year in creating a "Mini-Command Useage" Manual that lists commands, what they are, their extensions plus a number of standard used matrixes (such as ls -la) and what they give you back. It will be able to be printed out as a mini-manual (a5/2 flip) or a cardfile format for pda's etc. But I will say more on this when I have my thoughts in propper order and under an appropriate subject header (of which this is not).

e) design and create the direction specifications of what we think users will be wanting in the near future.

f) provide support to our communities across the world by assisting with technical translation of ideas and "command formats"

g) marketing/promotion h) writing code/patches I like this idea of splitting things up - but I think we need some kind of formalized leadership/organization (call it what you want). I don't necessarily believe in "leaders manifesting themselves naturally". I think we need to form some kind of teams - with (elected) leads. And a wikipage where you can see who are members of a certain team and how to join - and what the tasks/responsibilities are, etc. Of course everyone who's not in a team would be free to contribute in any way he/she pleases. cb400f

my notes at specific points with cuts to keep the size down you may need martin's earlier message if you haven't followed this At 08:57 PM 10/05/2006, you wrote:

Martin Schlander wrote:

...

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 05:20, scsijon wrote:

...

Let us split our community away to handle tasks such as:- a) assist with small useage \ new idea packages and unexpected extension requirements to existing packages.

With "package", you really mean RPMs ?

Not primarily, preferably new programs that need assistance, such as helping a designer to turn a program that is small market due to designers initial limitations or initially only wanted for themself to something that can spread, so definitely not just converting existing rpm's between systems such as deb, rh, etc. although that would be part of it

...

...

b) assist as we do now in "field" testing through the beta program, but not only SuSE's but other packages that need larger variations of testers.

That's a good idea. I'd sure like people to also test my packages (and those in Packman) ;D

Though it is difficult to think about it now, it is highly dependent on how 3rd party packagers will work with the build service or not.

Maybe all packages on Packman will be done through the build service, maybe not. Well, all of them can't be managed in the build service, because of legal reasons (mad, lame, mplayer, ...)

My original thoughts were along the lines of "to field test" anything we know how to use currently against the new beta version's basic system and document changes and differences with regard to expected outcome vs actual outcome. I am slowly becoming of the opinion that there needs to be a Linus / ?W3 standard on how a source package shall be formed and made available.

...

...

c) assist as we do now in the problem fix process.

Could you elaborate a little what you mean with that ? "Fix process" as in beta test phase or as general help to end-users, i.e. web forums, suse-linux-e, suse-factory, IRC ?

report problems, and help in their duplication and fix as we do now

...

...

d) documentation, not only "how to use" types, but "using this with these extensions this way allows you to do this" as well as "this plus this plus this and either this or this but not including this" makes a "qqqq" server. I, for example have decided to spend my available time this year in creating a "Mini-Command Useage" Manual that lists commands, what they are, their extensions plus a number of standard used matrixes (such as ls -la) and what they give you back. It will be able to be printed out as a mini-manual (a5/2 flip) or a cardfile format for pda's etc. But I will say more on this when I have my thoughts in propper order and under an appropriate subject header (of which this is not).

Right. I would dub this the "howto collection". I think that part is very important, both for helping end-users but also for spreading SUSE Linux.

how-to is only a small part, what I believe is needed is a "grow" manual that allows you to start with the basics (eg the command only "ls"), add the meanings and results of the generally used extensions (ls -l) and provide the commonly used major commands (ls -Ralph). It would also have the needed links to man, info, online refs etc. so as you become more comfortable with what you are doing your able to expand. Most of what was listed below, can be found already BUT in a format that needs an expert level of knowledge, i'm more interested in something I could give to any person with either a pre-installed system or the dvd that will COMPLETELY create a basic system and work from there knowing the person will gain confidence as she/he uses their inquisitiveness.

"High level" HOWTOs, e.g. (I mentioned them before, but they're rather good examples IMHO):

cut

...

...

e) design and create the direction specifications of what we think users will be wanting in the near future.

Could you elaborate ? I don't quite understand what you mean with this one.

What will we dream?, wifi was a dream a few years ago, can we create an active memory shrinker for packages so there is no waste memory space?, lcd glasses that reflect images on the retina are in use by the various armed forces today, why can't we do the same with the laptop and kill the screens?, what about doing away with hard drives and use the memory stick memory?, gloves instead of mice and keyboards (as you can do for joysticks and games), do we have the capabilities if one became available at a decent price to make use of it today?, and on I could go.. and i've only talked about hardware!

...

...

f) provide support to our communities across the world by assisting with technical translation of ideas and "command formats"

Same as above ;)

any translator will tell you that the biggest problem in translating is not converting the "words" across, it's getting the "meaning of intent" or idea across as it all has to be in words so someone reading it raw understands exactly what is meant.

...

g) marketing/promotion

Yep.

I actually see this as primarily a Novell Task, we should NOT be involved in marketing. Promotion on the other hand, we can assist with providing we are given the tools and materials we need, WHEN we need them, not weeks later when the direction has gone cold and lost.

...

h) writing code/patches

As well. In the same category: making packages ;)

this I consider part of (a) above

...

I like this idea of splitting things up - but I think we need some kind of

We definitely have to categorize/split up those topics, which _could_ mean (just off the top of my head, maybe it's completely inadequate ;)): - specific mailing-lists per topic - specific "homepages" (or index, rather) on the wiki - some kind of structure of teams

...

formalized leadership/organization (call it what you want). I don't

Yes... "some kind of structure of teams" ;)

...

necessarily believe in "leaders manifesting themselves naturally". I think we need to form some kind of teams - with (elected) leads. And a wikipage where you can see who are members of a certain team and how to join - and what the tasks/responsibilities are, etc.

I don't believe the need of "leaders" is warranted, what would be much more use is mentors and guides, you don't want someone to take control of these teams, you want someone who will keep them on direction and be able to write a spec.

Exactly. Topics, needed skills and interests are way different, which means we have to somehow split/organize/structure them.

Splitting also means it's easier to structure and cope with goals, tasks, people.

Of course, they're not totally independent and linking must happen where appropriate. And some tasks involve several topics/teams.

...

Of course everyone who's not in a team would be free to contribute in any way he/she pleases.

Yes, obviously. The "team lead" (or whatever) is not there to decide who may participate or not, it's there to coordinate tasks and communication, and possibly, in extreme situations, take a decision if no agreement can be found inside the team.

cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

and that's my latest two bits oh, and by the way, for those that want a return, payment for this work should be in kudos not financials. scsijon ps i'm in house move mode for the next four/five weeks (428km each way and it's winter down here), i'll be online at least once a week but the reply may not return till the following.

On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 14:22 +0200, houghi wrote:

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 09:40:31PM +1000, scsijon wrote:

...

how-to is only a small part, what I believe is needed is a "grow" manual that allows you to start with the basics (eg the command only "ls"), add the meanings and results of the generally used extensions (ls -l) and provide the commonly used major commands (ls -Ralph). It would also have the needed links to man, info, online refs etc. so as you become more comfortable with what you are doing your able to expand.

Well, maybe it's time I start working on an old pet project of mine again. A long time ago I started a book project. People talked me into writing a book on SUSE Linux. Not the usual stuff on how to install it and where to click to get a web browser or an email tool, but something more technical. Kind of a behind he scenes guide to SUSE's Linux distribuition. We kind of finished the book in late 1999. But as it turned out, the book was never printed. There are many reasons to why it came that way, but it all boiled down to the fact that the publishing industry was (is?) not ready for content licensed under something like the Free Documentation License. So we gave up on all the fame and glory of a printed publication and settled with publishing it online. This at least made it available to a large audience and it seems we hit the nerve as we got , and still get, a good number of hits on these pages and quite some positive feedback. Now we have 6 years and who knows how many versions of SUSE Linux later and being based on SuSE Linux 6.0, the book is pretty outdated by now. So I set up a Wiki and planed to allow it to be edited by whoever feels like contributing. maybe you want to check it out and we can use it as a base for a in depth guide for openSuSE... The url is http://www.slgfg.de BB

On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 16:18 +0200, Marcus Rueckert wrote:

On 2006-05-17 15:48:17 +0200, Bodo Bauer wrote:

...

We kind of finished the book in late 1999. But as it turned out, the book was never printed. There are many reasons to why it came that way, but it all boiled down to the fact that the publishing industry was (is?) not ready for content licensed under something like the Free Documentation License. So we gave up on all the fame and glory of a printed publication and settled with publishing it online. This at least made it available to a large audience and it seems we hit the nerve as we got , and still get, a good number of hits on these pages and quite some positive feedback.

Welcome Bodo :)

I've been the occasional lurker for a while... :)

it works pretty well if you choose oreily as your publisher. The svn book is available under an open license from http://svnbook.org./

As is the latest book from Karl Fogel: "Producing Open Source Software". The book is available from http://www.producingoss.com/.

both are published by oreilly.

At the time O'Reily was the worst of all and didn't want to hear anything about open licenses. Glad to hear they changed their mind.

hope this helps

I'm not really interested in having a printed copy anymore. That's why I put it out there... BB

On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 16:40 +0200, houghi wrote:

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 03:48:17PM +0200, Bodo Bauer wrote:

...

So I set up a Wiki and planed to allow it to be edited by whoever feels like contributing.

As it is about SUSE and it is a wiki, why not place it on openSUSE directly?

It's already there and actually draws surprisingly much traffic. I'm hestiant about changing the location again... BB

Marcus Rueckert wrote:

the opensuse wiki got a bit faster lately. :)

much faster... jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

jdd wrote:

of course, for now and opensuse, the second option is far better :-).

and of course (for me :-) the opensuse version should be updated on the fly to 10.0/10.1/10.2 jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Bodo Bauer wrote:

If anybody has this experience and wants to volunteer as comaintainer, please step up ... :)

I can, if you don't ask for too much time. right now I give my best on the french opensuse wiki, but most of the mandatory work is done and I may distract some time fort your project. but there is still some layout questions :-). How do you entend to manage the different suse versions? one way could be to freeze (id est don't make editable) the old part and let users copy/paste the page they want to update on a similar frame for the "10" tree but we could discuss this elsewhere if you don't want this to take place on opensuse jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 06:59:08PM +0200, Bodo Bauer wrote:

...

* put it on opensuse (or ask us to do so). Like this the licence go to Novell. This has avantages and drawbacks. advantages as if somebody try to copy it and restrict licence on the result, Novell is better armed to fight it, drawback if ever you want to take it back.

I'm very reluctant to sign give up rights to big corporations. And Novell doesn't really make a difference here. As with every publicly traded company, it's hard to trust anything in this environment...

Pity if that is the only reason. Because it means that you will be also reluctant to do other things on openSUSE.org. Also time you spend on your own project won't be spend on opneSUSE.org, even though both are basicaly doing the same. :-( -- houghi http://houghi.org http://www.plainfaqs.org/linux/ http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

Today I went outside. My pupils have never been tinier...

Hi Eberhard, On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 18:06 +0200, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

Welcome back home, Bodo!

You almost make me feel like I blew my cover by posting here. I'm actually back at SUSE for a while and didn't think it's such a secret... :)

I can't wait to see an actualized presentation of the /proc filesystem tunables. Will you work on it?

Unlikely. And by now it really should address /sys as well. I just don't find the time to keep all this up to date. That's why I thought a Wiki would be a good idea. BB

At 10:22 PM 17/05/2006, you wrote:

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 09:40:31PM +1000, scsijon wrote:

...

how-to is only a small part, what I believe is needed is a "grow" manual that allows you to start with the basics (eg the command only "ls"), add the meanings and results of the generally used extensions (ls -l) and provide the commonly used major commands (ls -Ralph). It would also have the needed links to man, info, online refs etc. so as you become more comfortable with what you are doing your able to expand.

Start looking at susehelp. Although I think we need to look at what is in there. Most of it is old and needs replacement. Kernell 2.4? Books from 96?

Online Resources could use some update as well. I think the whole thing needs an overhaul.

-- houghi http://houghi.org http://www.plainfaqs.org/linux/ http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

...

Today I went outside. My pupils have never been tinier...

already on the list of sources minds think alike scary isn't it :-) scsijon

Hi, On Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 11:19:16, Martin Schlander wrote:

I think we need some kind of formalized leadership/organization (call it what you want). I don't necessarily believe in "leaders manifesting themselves naturally". I think we need to form some kind of teams - with (elected) leads. And a wikipage where you can see who are members of a certain team and how to join - and what the tasks/responsibilities are, etc.

I find this approach very confusing. The problem we face at the moment is that there are not enough active members in any of the "teams". We are struggeling to get things done because there are only a handfull of people doing stuff. And i mean actually doing somthing not talking about it. Look for instance in the support database. Martin imported a lot of articles from the old one. Its the perfect place to add small amounts of documentation. There even is a HOWTO on writing an sdb article, there is a style guide, there are lots of old articles you can learn from. So its really easy to add SDB articles. Now we are close to 10.1 and im sure there are some rough edges in it that need explenation. Did anyone write any article about something in 10.1 yet? No. Or another case. The Download page. Everybody knows that we will release 10.1 tomorrow. Everybody can see that the Download pages is not up to it yet. Its needs some work to reflect the new media layout, maybe a new template or things like that. Is it hard to do? No. Is anyone doing it? No. Or the best example ever. The Taks page. Did anyone do anything from the task page yet? No. Yesterday the first task got done and that page is there since a month. Its even linked from menu. So its not very hard to find (1 click!). What im trying to say is that we are short on active members. We are not short on leadership, we are not short on things we have to do, we are not short on entry points for pepole that want to do something, we are not short on documentation on how to do things. And what i really want to say is: GET YOUR ASS UP AND DO SOMETHING!!!! Henne And just a small sidenote: In fact there is already a strong leadership in most of the areas Wiki content: Pflodo, jdd, CuCullin, Beineri, Rajko Wiki infrastructure: Martin, darix Packaging: Pascal, Packmans, James, Peter Buildservice: Adrian, mls, schiele, Cornelius Meetings: me, darix, cboltz General: skh, adrianS, cthiel and so on, and so on. They dont need to be declared. They are just leading by scratching their own itches that they have with the openSUSE project. So youre already proved wrong in when you object that "leaders manifesting themselves naturally" because they already have... -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

Hi, On Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 13:25:38, houghi wrote:

On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 01:00:36PM +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

In fact there is already a strong leadership in most of the areas

Wiki content: Pflodo, jdd, CuCullin, Beineri, Rajko Wiki infrastructure: Martin, darix Packaging: Pascal, Packmans, James, Peter Buildservice: Adrian, mls, schiele, Cornelius Meetings: me, darix, cboltz General: skh, adrianS, cthiel Anoyance: houghi

Heh no. You are doing vital things too i couldnt categorize that fast. There are others too, if i didnt name you dont be offended. I could go on and on for hours. There are Benjiman, aka_druid, Nermal, the_dude and all the others on IRC, there are David, Manfred, Thomas, Helga, Martin and more on the german users list, there are Carl, Carlos, David, Gil and all the others on the english users list, there are all the people from the forums i dont know the names of, there are the guys from the suse newsgroup and so on and so on. All leading their individual parts of the openSUSE community. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 07:41, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

...

Wiki content: Pflodo, jdd, CuCullin, Beineri, Rajko Wiki infrastructure: Martin, darix Packaging: Pascal, Packmans, James, Peter Buildservice: Adrian, mls, schiele, Cornelius Meetings: me, darix, cboltz General: skh, adrianS, cthiel

Anoyance: houghi

I think this is a brilliant side-note, Henne. How about building this list out into a proper online 'org chart'? One of the biggest problems I've had (and continue to have) is recognizing what 'projects' or 'teams' exist and how they relate to each other. Carl

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 08:22, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

http://en.opensuse.org/Teams

??? :)

Thanks for the link! Technically speaking, that's a list... not a chart. ;-) I guess I need to spend more time over there... I lost track quite some time ago! Carl

Hi, On Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 13:49:03, jdd wrote:

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

...

The problem we face at the moment is that there are not enough active members in any of the "teams".

good point. but this should lead you to the question why?

There is a simple answer for that. Because there are not enough people that do things. Not everything has a technical reason. Sometimes you have to take things like they are and you have to accept that you cant fix them by implementing, or discuss about implementing, some technicality. You have to lead by example and bring people to follow you. Thats why im doing the download page now and stop discussing this topic :) Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, http://hennevogel.de "To die. In the rain. Alone." Ernest Hemingway

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 13:00, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

What im trying to say is that we are short on active members. We are not short on leadership, we are not short on things we have to do, we are not short on entry points for pepole that want to do something, we are not short on documentation on how to do things.

And what i really want to say is:

GET YOUR ASS UP AND DO SOMETHING!!!!

While I think you're right that we lack active members - I still think more or less formalized teams would help make it more accessible for people to join in. Also of course one of the prime tasks for any team would be to recruit/encourage new members.

And just a small sidenote:

In fact there is already a strong leadership in most of the areas

Wiki content: Pflodo, jdd, CuCullin, Beineri, Rajko Wiki infrastructure: Martin, darix Packaging: Pascal, Packmans, James, Peter Buildservice: Adrian, mls, schiele, Cornelius Meetings: me, darix, cboltz General: skh, adrianS, cthiel

All these people have my utmost respect - and I would happily accept any of them as team leads - I'm not asking for something extremely bureaucratic - but I'm reluctant to start making major changes to the wiki-download-page for example - if I don't know if someone else is working on it already - or if tomorrow someone's going to alter it completely again. For people to want to get involved we need some coordination. cb400f

Henne Vogelsang wrote:

[...]

I find this approach very confusing. The problem we face at the moment is that there are not enough active members in any of the "teams". We are struggeling to get things done because there are only a handfull of people doing stuff. And i mean actually doing somthing not talking about it.

ACK. But, you know, maybe those people who are already active in some way (whatever that is, there are many ways you can contribute and serve the community) can't handle more than what they already do. Having said that, the logical conclusion should be how we can find more people taking on some "work" ("work" is maybe not the best term here). If anybody had a proposal, well, that would be fine!

[...] Look for instance in the support database. [...] Or another case. The Download page. [...] Or the best example ever. The Taks page.

Henne, I think that the focus is too much on the wiki. The wiki is one part of the project (and surely an important one), it's great for howtos etc. but a wiki is not ideal for other things. From my point of view, it's e.g. not particularly suitable as a communication platform. In many emails where we discuss things to do, you can read at the end of the discussion "I'll put it on the wiki" - and that's it (the end of the story; the actual work is never done). I think we need a better way for this kind of communication. Just as an example, I would much prefer having meeting minutes (etc.) sent by email (in addition to writing a wiki page) - at least for me (I can't speak for others), that would make life a bit easier. If a had some comments, I could just reply by email and ask for clarification, or for additional info, etc. instead of communicating via wiki. As usual, it's much easier to find people doing something if you approach them directly, i.e. in a much more personal way. While a mailing list is clearly not really a personal way of communication, it might be better than an "anonymous" wiki page. I hope you know what I mean, it's a bit difficult to express those thoughts in a clear way... Any other ideas how to involve more people are, of course, highly appreciated. Cheers, Th.

Am Monday 08 May 2006 18:52 schrieb Alexey Eremenko:

...

Other than spending a lot of time beta-testing these last few months I've also been working on a beginner's guide to SUSE Linux. In it I try to encourage users to take part in the openSUSE community as I certainly enjoy being part of it.

cb400f

Where can I find that effort ?

I want to participate in writing the SUSE beginner's guide.

You should maybe ask on opensuse-doc ml -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de

jdd wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Most notably, the staff dedicated to openSUSE at Novell is too small in numbers. This has some implications, as we cannot tell Novell what to do with its money (no jdd, we can't):

did I ever say so?

Yep.

...

I'm sick of having unanswered questions,

set up a subject on IRC meeting tomorrow

The IRC meetings are very ineffective as far as communication is concerned. It's a one-way channel as long as it works by voicing, but there's probably no other option (so no pun intended). Haven't been there the last weeks though (Tuesday being the only day where I'm always away from home in the evening), maybe the modus operandi has changed.

...

We have to get our act together, drive topics and initiatives on this very list ourselves, then come up with agreed upon, realistic proposals or requests to Novell, if needed.

our problem is number, we are a very small number here

Which brings us back to the "linking community parts" topic. We are a large number as a whole... we're just no "whole" as of now, but isolated, smaller communities. The french-speaking community being a particular problem that deserves a thread of its own (and a large market to win for Novell ;)).

do you subscribe to opensuse-wiki? http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-wiki/2006-May/

I'm already on opensuse, opensuse-build, opensuse-factory, opensuse-fr, opensuse-opt and opensuse-packager, every single evening/night on #suse, #opensuse and #opensuse-fr + I read http://planetsuse.org every day. I think that given the above, if there is important/interesting information I'm not aware of, we have a communication problem (and yes, I read almost every mail on those lists ;)). I think this list is the "main" one, where everyone who's on other opensuse-* lists should be subscribed to. Maybe we could have volunteers who'd compile a weekly report of what's happening on the other lists, and send them on this one ? Just an idea... Blogging about it would be even more effective IMO. Anyone who blogs SUSE-related stuff sporadically and who isn't aggregated on http://planetsuse.org ? If so, please contact James Ogley (link is on planetsuse.org) to have him add your feed. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

On 08/05/06 22:48 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

Yes please. opensuse-packaging is very, very low traffic... actually that list is near useless at the moment, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, there are several experienced packagers subscribed to that list, and I'd say that if you have a question regarding packaging, be it specific to SUSE or not, or just want to discuss thing related to it, join the list, let us know.

FWIW, I submitted my spec file for DenyHosts to that very list four days ago and have yet to receive any response. I'd like to get involved, but that was hardly encouraging. Of course I understand it's not a "right" to receive a reply, but I'd have felt less disheartened if someone had taken the time to review my work as I've lots to learn but plenty of enthusiasm. Craig

Hi Martin, Am Tuesday 09 May 2006 08:33 schrieb Martin Mewes:

I think that if a packager wants to build packages for openSUSE a interactive build tool (IBT) should come up with something like this (more specific to read on opensuse-packaging soon):

You heard about the openSUSE Build Service ? I think almost everything you mentioned is there or is planned ... http://build.opensuse.org opensuse-buildservice mailing list may help you as well :)

Step 01: Enter the path/download URL to the $name.src.rpm

planned

Step 02: IBT extracts the contents to ~/build/$name Step 03: As the src.rpm extracts the sources for $name.rpm provided by the developer it should be somewhat analyzable by IBT. IBT should actually see the install instructions and can present the sections part by part.

we do not allow src.rpm upload, because we build also for Debian. But we could extend the command line tool to extract the src.rpm and to upload it automatically ...

Step 04: IBT should be able to have a set of directories builtin to give the packager good hints on how to change the install instructions.

rpm macros are doing this in general.

Example: Webmin wants to install to /usr/libexec/webmin by default, but the standards for openSUSE say that system packages should go to /opt/$package as example so the instructions for the installation regarding the installation path should be automatically altered by IBT.

IMHO a provided WebMin by openSUSE should install into /usr, but that may cause some conflicts ...

Step 05: In the end Webmin is managed over HTTP so the IBT should ask a couple of questions at the end, i.e.

Is this a package to be managed remotely? [ ] Please enter the the needed port: ________

IBT can automatically add code to the package to open the managing port in the firewall. [ ]

RPM-Commandline/YAST-Output: a) If you choose to leave this entry blank some code will be added to the package informing the end-user that he needs to open the given port in the firewall manually. b) If you choose to select this option code will be added informing the user that the given port will be opened automatically for him.

Good idea, maybe a YaST configuration template could be created, which can be configured by a simple file for each package ...

As you may see "Step 05" is part of the IBT which is directly supporting openSUSE. To now it is Webmin-specific but I will render it to be more general. In the end there should be something like this:

Step 06: openSUSE requires packages to be signed with a digital signature. If you do not have a GnuPG-key IBT will now build one for you. Please enter the following information:

Full Name: eMail: Description:

IBT will create the key and stores everything in a safe place to be used for future packaging. On will IBT will upload it to a key-server for you as well (highly recommended). This key should be used for packaging only.

We will have a global openSUSE Build Service key soon. We are not sure yet, if we really need the possibility to allow signing with user keys, but we spoke about a solution that you can sign the package provided by the Build Service via the command line tool (yes, without uploading the private key and without downloading/reuploading the rpms). bye adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de

Adrian Schröter wrote:

Hi Martin,

Am Tuesday 09 May 2006 08:33 schrieb Martin Mewes:

...

I think that if a packager wants to build packages for openSUSE a interactive build tool (IBT) should come up with something like this (more specific to read on opensuse-packaging soon):

You heard about the openSUSE Build Service ? I think almost everything you mentioned is there or is planned ...

http://build.opensuse.org

may I state than beeing quite involved here, having made some (even hex) programming, using quite often to compile my packages and having written part of a course on LDP 101 (junior admin) I still don't know what this build service is about? may be somebody could take some time to explain to non programmers what this is going to do? for example, I understand very well (I guess :-) what the Sourceforge compile farm is, but what the heck is the suse build service? I see the ending point is a rpm or deb file :-), but what is the way from my one page php script to this rpm through the build service? (I could do myself by hand on 2/3 hours, I hope :-) what advantages? let's beg you have XEN farms? but then? thanks jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Marcus Meissner wrote:

http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service

sorry, but this one is nearly unusable. looks like a man page :-((()). please give us _one_ example. If you want, give me some access and I will try to describe this from a semi-external point of view jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Am Monday 08 May 2006 18:19 schrieb houghi:

On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 01:08:49PM +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote: <snip>

...

Just a few thoughts, off the top of my head: - packagers: we need more packagers, don't forget that the whole thing is happening around a distribution, made of packages

This is towards the extra repo's, I suppose, because I doubt if SUSE will let us be packaging at this very moment. So for this we have to wait for the build server.

Hey, have a look at http://software.opensuse.org/download ;) These are packages from SUSE/Novell and other people starting to use the build service... I have the hope to have an open build service (not feature complete and not official stable) within the next two month ... bye adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de

Alexey Eremenko wrote:

Here we totally lack good Yast Tutorials & Documentation. (unfortunately the *only* tutorial I was able to find was FOSDEM 2006) Nothing found - not what Yast does behide the scenes - and not how to program it's modules & new frontends for Yast itself (GTK, Web).

absolutely true. Yast being what it is, it's an emergency :-). Many yast pages are straightforward, but some are really cryptics :-) I already prtoposed a layout: http://fr.opensuse.org/Yast:Agent_de_transfert_de_mail but I waited for 10.1. Now we have it (yast wont change anymore) so we can go. I already begin to setup a web page with the "po" files (http://dodin.org/po/, copy paste the po file name in the url), but for translation use (that is why it's not on the wiki) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 08:46:15PM +0100, Thomas Hertweck wrote:

From my point of view, a (SUSE) community might be all of what has been mentioned above (all people share interest in SUSE Linux and the openSUSE project) although some people might be more active than others, no doubt (sorry, but some people have to work hard and can't afford to spend the whole day playing with SUSE Linux betas or writing emails to the opensuse mailing list ;-)).

The community is al SUSE users. Wether this is as an end-user or as a developer or packager, is irrelevant. Then there are several smaller groups. People who use openSUSE.org for communication and people who don't. The seems to segragate the groups. People at openSUSE tend to be a bit more involved in SUSE development (even if only through betatesting) and others eem to focus more on support for the end-user. I can immagine that many end-users are scared to join a higly technical mailinglist or think that their ideas won't be followed up on. Just a thought. It could be that I am completely and utterly wrong. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

Pascal Bleser wrote:

[...] While it isn't wrong, you can notice that when you reply to a query like that, it ends up in a thread of 6 mails at least, 30 mails at worse. So that's still traffic that doesn't belong to this list.

I have been active on the suse-linux mailing list for maybe over 6 years now, so I know all these problems. Most traffic per thread is usually caused by OT emails and discussions about the netiquette...

The question is: if we kept up the effort of guiding people with such questions on another list, would we have more discussions and drive about community-centered topics or not ? I think we would, I somehow got the feeling the list was kind of drowned by support questions. But I might as well be completely wrong ;)

Hmm, well, I get your point but I am not sure whether your conclusions are correct. I think there are already many discussions started on this mailing list, but most of the time I can't see any conclusions and any outcome of these discussions and that makes it inefficient and ineffective (example: what was the outcome of the loooong discussion about [open]SUSE forums?)- this is the main problem from my point of view. I have experienced this situation several times in the past, there were many discussions on suse-linux what could be done and what might be useful, etc. but nobody really did it - that was exactly the reason why I've written and published several howtos (for things I was/am committed to) on my private homepage. And I got really a lot of positive feedback for it. And some others on suse-linux have done similar things, that's for instance how the suse-linux-faq started off. So I absolutely agree with you that it needs some kind of "leadership", volunteers doing the actual work. Leaders (in this case) are not elected, they just grow into this position. Something that evolves over time. When reading this (or other) mailing list(s) for some time, it's not too hard to figure out who currently grows into a community leadership position, or who already is one of the leaders (hint: hey, the guy started this email thread ;-). Usually, these people don't show up all the time, they just do their work in the background - however they speak up when it's the correct time and place and when it's important, and others know then it's now time to listen.

[...] Being part of the community is not just using SUSE Linux, but also feeling committed to it, in a sense of wanting to participate into the joined effort such an open source project represents.

ACK.

[...] I'm working 8 hours every day and still commit myself to spend a few more building a lot of packages, amongst others - which doesn't mean that I "expect" others to do the same.

Sure. I am, e.g., working about 10 hours every day and have some additional open source and community commitments, not to mention private life, family, etc. However, that also means that it's very hard to find some time to really take on a global openSUSE project, even when it's just a small one. And I am sure many other people have similar "problems". (By the way, this is e.g. also one reason why I think we did not have many forum owners/moderators on this mailing list for the correpsonding discussion - they spend quite a lot of time managing their forum, thus it's very difficult to get involved in yet another project.) It's not that people don't want or like to help, it's just sometimes very difficult to manage everything. To draw a conclusion here: I am not sure whether it would help but I could imagine that having a list of things to do (not just the big things that take half a year to finish, but also the things that are less important and cleared within half an hour) and mailing this "TODO" list to the opensuse mailing list (or other mailing lists as well?) could help to find people taking on some work. Most often people just don't know where to start or they are afraid of starting some work that might take years to finish. Having small tasks might help in this respect. However, we would of course also need somebody being in charge of this TODO list ;-) The wiki is, from my point of view, a highly inefficient way for communication - it's good for howtos, etc. but not for discussing things to do or gathering action points. People usually read their email every day, but they don't scan the wiki every day to look for updates...

Why do I do it ? Might sound silly, but I do it for the people who use SUSE Linux, to save them work and from the complexity of building software from source. And also for the good of my favorite Linux distribution, in general. (not that I'm being against other Linux distributions or OSS efforts, I'm also one of the organization staff members of FOSDEM)

I mean, the very essence of OpenSource and Free Software projects, at least from the "philosophical" point of view, is to contribute to a joined effort, with the time and skills you can dedicate to it.

And BTW, that absolutely wasn't to push my example forward..

Absolutely. I fully agree with you here, I feel very much the same.

[...] But that still doesn't give us something we might be lacking at the moment... could it be leadership ?

See my notes above concerning the leadership issue. Leadership is closely related to "management" - delegating work, organizing things, communicating with others, involving new people in projects, etc., it's not about doing all the work by oneself.

[...] That's not only lacking as far as we, non-Novell employees, are concerned but also from e.g. the SUSE staff. Historically, SUSE has been developed in a rather closed environment, communication with users and committers happening on a secret path ;)

ACK. Luckily, I know some of these secret paths ;-)

Nevertheless, they're very aware of the problem and are working on it. That's certainly the kind of thing that takes time, and a lot of progress has been made already since the opensuse.org launch, with people like AJ, henne, cthiel, skh, darix, Marcus Meissner and several others pushing internally for more and more openness and integration with the community (as of non-Novell employees).

I can see every day how difficult it is *within our own company* to communicate between the development centers and offices. It's even more difficult to communicate when 3rd parties are involved (I guess the "community" was a bit like a 3rd party for Novell when the openSUSE project started) - there are also some legal issues involved, sometimes you simply don't know what to expect, and some 3rd party people have really unrealistic expectations, etc., so it's difficult to find the right track. Hopefully, things will improve but this might take some time and needs also building up some trust between all the parties...

[...] While it cannot be enforced, it always takes a number of committed people to drive a community, to push it forward and take responsibility.

This is a very good closing remark! Greetings from London and Goodnight! Th.

jdd wrote:

[...]

First, I don't really like the "Leadership" word. I don't see me as a leader (for the fr wiki I'm sysop of), that is my opinion is only important if it's the only one :-) - else I try to follow the majority will.

second, sysop needs at least some admin rights (to be able to edit the front page, for example), and this can only be done by Novel.

third, the forum stuff is a totally other beast, it needs admin rights at the server level (and the relevant knowledge), this is not to be done by volunteers. [...]

jdd, I think you didn't get my point. I was talking about "leaders", not about system admins, moderators, sys ops, maintainers or whatever. Don't take it personally, but I (that's of course only my opinion, others might have a very different opinion) would not consider you as a "leader". Cheers, Th.

On 08/05/06 22:43 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

...

With the exception of houghi's DVD script, almost all the mails in the past two months on the lists have been about "my soundcard doesn't work", "Xen doesn't work", and of course "zypp/zmd problem". While that's fine on opensuse-factory or suse-linux-e, it's not on this list, and there hasn't been anything else, at least not as far as I can remember.

This is a general problem on mailing lists and it won't go away as long as people on this list really answer all of the (in principle) OT emails. It needs combined effort to achieve a solution.

To be fair, although this list is described as "opensuse General discussion about the openSUSE (development) project" on the wiki, it's has a slightly misleadingly moniker and has so from the outset. I've always thought it should be more implicitly named, e.g. opensuse-devel which leaves no grounds for confusion. Perhaps it's time to start afresh with a review of the mailing lists and hopefully draw more people who are interested in contributing to the development of the project but aren't particularly interested in day to day user support? Craig

Per Jessen wrote:

Craig Millar wrote:

...

To be fair, although this list is described as "opensuse General discussion about the openSUSE (development) project" on the wiki, it's has a slightly misleadingly moniker and has so from the outset. I've always thought it should be more implicitly named, e.g. opensuse-devel which leaves no grounds for confusion.

I second that.

Maybe even rename opensuse@ to opensuse-project@ to be more clear. Looking at other -devel lists, it seems that people think they get technical help there, so I expect confusion to become worse if we rename opensuse@ to opensuse-devel@. I changed the template a bit (in the hope of making it clearer). However, I think we should also rearrange the order of the lists. Suggestion: * suse-linux-e * opensuse-factory * opensuse-announce * opensuse * opensuse-doc * opensuse-optimize * opensuse-buildservice * opensuse-packaging * opensuse-commit * opensuse-wiki * suse-security-announce * suse-security * suse-kde * suse-ppc And also a rewording the following entries would make sense: * opensuse-factory Discussion about factory/alpha/beta/RC versions of SUSE Linux. * suse-linux-e Discussion about released SUSE Linux versions. Regards, Carl-Daniel

Adrian Schröter wrote:

Am Monday 08 May 2006 13:08 schrieb Pascal Bleser: ...

...

Most notably, the staff dedicated to openSUSE at Novell is too small in numbers. This has some implications, as we cannot tell Novell what to do with its money (no jdd, we can't):

I think the main problem here is that the distribution gets still compiled with the internal autobuild. Our plan is to move out the packages step by step to the public Build Service. I hope that we can develop 10.2 with the public build service which should improve this situation at least in regard of the distribution development.

Would be awesome, yet we'll have to see whether the build service will be mature enough when 10.2 will start to get built, to avoid having a issues caused by the build service. Guess I'd better kick myself and start using it to trigger some bugs ;) I'll see what osc has to offer, seems to best fit for the way I work.

...

- information flow: not enough information between different parts of the community, also about the wiki, announcements, changes, decisions, ...

Other, minor ideas, such as having @opensuse.org email addresses, to show we're part of the community (this has been mentioned once on the list, but hasn't been discussed further).

While I agree that there should become more people an @opensuse.org email address, I disagree that everybody should get one. Because not every user of openSUSE should be able to speak for the project.

ACK, that's also what I was having on my mind.

The question is, how we can decide/vote who should get one ? How many people

Right, that's the only real issue.

should get one ? I would be very happy, if we could elect some committee for these questions ... Btw, a forward address for everybody could be someone@user.opensuse.org for using it esp in regard with the build service... How does this sound ?

Very good to me. +1 I didn't want to use that word until now, but I guess that electing some form of "steering committee" could be a very welcome step forward.

...

I'm sick of having unanswered questions, waiting for the build service to solve all problems, and waiting for folks at SUSE/Novell to do things for us because they're busy with development, beta phases or the many other things they have to do (note: this is not meant to be a rant against the SUSE staff, they have a lot of work and not enough people dedicated to openSUSE).

Sorry for this, but the build service is already there for people, who accept bugs, problems, downtimes and so on. You can already build public packages.

Yes, but Adrian, what I mean is that since openSUSE has been kicked off in October, many questions and topics have been put back because the build service was going to solve everything (and it might do so one day ;)). Other topics have also been put back because everyone was busy working on the 10.0 release, and it was pretty much the same the last month or two with 10.1 (agreed, that was a particularly hot one). The latter point being why I wrote we should get forward as a community without always waiting for you guys to take decisions, we can't just have a standstill while you're busy on a release. Now the build service is starting to take some shape, which is great, but it still lacks tooling (please, not the web UI ;)) and guidelines ([1] looks like chaos to me, and even inside subdirectories the names of distributions are varying from SL10 to SuLi10.0 to a few others) - but I've already addressed that in another mail (and just noticed your reply, thanks ;)). [1] http://repos.opensuse.org/opensuse/repositories/main/ I don't use it as of now, because I have my environment, my scripts, my repository, I need minimal effort to submit, build and retrieve packages, mostly because I manage an insane amount of packages during my free time and it has to be working as quickly as possible. While we're at it, as it comes to my mind right now, an example of lack of "community embracement" as far as packaging is concerned: SUSE Linux 10.1 now has signed installation sources, supports an enhanced RPM-MD (aka yum) format with YOU-alike information. That's great, I love it, I really do but... it hasn't been advertised on any relevant list (I'm on opensuse, opensuse-build, opensuse-packaging and opensuse-factory, I guess I would have noticed ;D), there is no documentation available, no howto. Well, for the signed repos, some information has been put together (don't have the URL at hands atm). The enhanced RPM-MD thing kind of popped up by chance as Christoph mentioned it while discussing something loosely related. When such things are discussed and developed, I would expect it to be public, e.g. on opensuse-packaging. While it isn't really of much interest for users, it is for 3rd party packagers like the packman team, myself, and many others. 10.1 is going to be released in 2 days and I have no idea how to sign my repositories to avoid big warnings showing up in end users' YaST2 when they add my repo. I guess I'd be able to do so by spending half a day with trial+error, but I don't quite have that time atm, and I was actually expecting something more or less spoon-fed to be written for us. Don't take me wrong, it's not supposed to be a useless rant for the fun of it, I'd just like to point out some things that seem problematic to me ;)

...

We have to get our act together, drive topics and initiatives on this very list ourselves, then come up with agreed upon, realistic proposals or requests to Novell, if needed. Of course, it's even better when we don't have to. And let's please discuss important issues first.

This is a benevolent dictatorship model, but that doesn't mean that we should just sit back, rant and wait for things to be done by them.

At least that's my vision on how we should evolve as a community, and I've been using SUSE since 5.0 (= quite some time), waiting for these opportunities to happen. Maybe I'm just too impatient, I probably am, but I objectively think we're pretty much stuck in inertia right now.

Impatientness is a good motivation :)

Definitely ;) Personally, atm, my mindset is "I want everything and I want it now". Of course not meant for real, but as a perspective to try to find out what to do and what we're missing. Let's raise issues and ideas, discuss them, make decisions and/or proposals to you folks (when necessary) and see when, how and if we can get those things done. Of course, doing them will take time, but at least we'd have a big TODO list. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 11:27:25AM +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote: ...a lot of things, one of them being stupid:

[...]

...

10.1 is going to be released in 2 days and I have no idea how to sign my repositories to avoid big warnings showing up in end users' YaST2 when they add my repo. I guess I'd be able to do so by spending half a day with trial+error, but I don't quite have that time atm, and I was actually expecting something more or less spoon-fed to be written for us.

My bad, this pretty much looks like it, at least as far as signed yast repos are concerned: http://en.opensuse.org/Secure_Installation_Sources

YUM too, just look at the end. Ciao, Marcus

Helle, all, I'm really very busy nowadays but I think I should say something here... There are really many good ideas in that topic ... but how can a newbie or opensuse beginner start help? He need tutorials, very simple documents and interactive help to learn about the things he may help with? I've RHCE but I don't know how to build a quite complex RPM package from source code ... I need a tutorial to learn "how" .. many people likes to help but that are just disappointed when then read complicated advanced stuff... simplicity is a must .. I've already helped opensuse by making teaching movies.. I started with opensuse 10 installtion, then some linux essentials and I'll continue for advanced stuff ... it's on my Arabic website www.linuxeyes.com ... that's all what I could do .. I want to do more but I couldn't 'coz of complixety of management or inability to go with direct helping stuff ... sorry for my bad english Greetings from Cairo, Egypt :)

houghi wrote:

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 11:18:00AM +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Would be awesome, yet we'll have to see whether the build service will be mature enough when 10.2 will start to get built, to avoid having a issues caused by the build service.

What I understood is that the build service would be something for end of this year. I can imagine that it is then too close to a 10.2 release, so it could be for the version after that.

It's a moving target in development. It's already usable right now. The question is rather: will it be tested, and have enough features to be viable for building 10.2 at some early stage (of 10.2).

...

...

While I agree that there should become more people an @opensuse.org email address, I disagree that everybody should get one. Because not every user of openSUSE should be able to speak for the project. ACK, that's also what I was having on my mind.

I disagree. People who have a login at Novell/openSUSE should get an email adress as an extra.

Sure, @users.opensuse.org as Adrian suggested.

At this moment there is nobody, except suse.de, who can speak for openSUSE.org

Sorry but that's exactly the "I'm sitting here and waiting for things to happen" attitude I was referring to. I think I can speak for opensuse.org because I'm an active part of that community. So can any other active committer. Stop considering us non-Novell employees as minor elements of the community.

I don't see the opensuse.org email adress as anything official. I see it as a gift. I have a gmail adress, but when I send mail with that adress, I hardly speak for gmail.com. I have several other adresses and with none of those people will think that I am somehow resposible for anything.

I'm afraid you don't get the point. It's not just an email address for convenience like gmail. You contribute actively to the community (and probably more than just reporting 2 or 3 bugs), you're part of it, and you want to show it. Don't underestimate the effect of it, it also helps a feeling of belonging to the active core of the community. We're going to have leadership, we're going to have people who will come out of the mass and do more than others, deserve more credit and respect than others (I mean wrt their work), that's just how opensource communities work and evolve naturally. We won't be an exception, like it or not. Having an opensuse.org email is just natural to that evolution as a community. Actually, anything else is awkward.

...

...

The question is, how we can decide/vote who should get one ? How many people Right, that's the only real issue.

People who file bugreports in bugzulla. Making the adress available only to some is a bad move that will seperate the community even more to haves and have nots.

Read above. There will be differences, that's how it works, always, like it or not. And I don't agree that anyone who reports a few bugs on the bugzilla has the same degree of involvement in the project as a packager, a forum or wiki moderator/sysop, or even someone who committedly and thoroughly tests factory or beta releases and reports several dozens of bugs, makes large contributions to the documentation, writes several howtos on the wiki, spends a lot of time translating, etc... OpenSource projects always work as "meritocracies". cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

houghi wrote:

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 12:11:14PM +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

...

I disagree. People who have a login at Novell/openSUSE should get an email adress as an extra. Sure, @users.opensuse.org as Adrian suggested.

I disagree. That is just ugly.

...

...

At this moment there is nobody, except suse.de, who can speak for openSUSE.org

Sorry but that's exactly the "I'm sitting here and waiting for things to happen" attitude I was referring to.

I think I can speak for opensuse.org because I'm an active part of that community. So can any other active committer.

Stop considering us non-Novell employees as minor elements of the community.

I am not. I am also an active part of the community, as is everybody else who uses SUSE. Who decides if there comes a forum and when? As I see it we can expess our wishes, yet it is Novell that decides in the end wether or not things happening.

I couldn't disagree more. While using SUSE Linux somehow makes you part of the community at large, that's not the part of the community I'm talking about. That means you're using it and it doesn't imply that you are spending some of your free time to make things better for the others who use it. Sorry but it _does_ make a difference. People should be rewarded for their efforts. It's not about pushing down people who don't, it's about pushing up people who do, that's a subtle but very important difference. "It is Novell that decides in the end whether or not things happen" It's the current situation because some people seem to be fine with that and because tons of on- and off-topic mails are flowing on the list but we aren't able to take decisions in the end. I'm afraid the web forum topic is very characteristic. We don't want that situation (well, at least, I don't) and Novell doesn't want it either, it isn't a benefit to anyone. If that's the idea, then we can stop the whole opensuse.org thing right now. The goal is to go beyond that as fast as possible so that we can directly contribute to the project: documentation, translations, testing, packaging, helping out and moderating on IRC, forums and mailinglists, developing YaST2 modules, submit source code patches, create artwork, etc etc... Some of that is already possible, most is still quite cumbersome, and a smaller part isn't possible just yet. The benefit is for both sides: 1) we non-Novell employees can contribute directly and influence our ecosystem and our distribution (wrt packaging once the build service is mainstream for building SUSE Linux) 2) Novell gets a lot of manpower and skilled people to contribute to their business, indirectly, by spreading the user base Really, one goal should be to take away as much work as possible from the openSUSE staff at Novell. They're not keeping their hands on it because they don't want to give control away, but because we haven't been able yet to produce a community structure where it is possible. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to give away some or most of the many tasks and responsibilities they have to take care of now/ As I wrote in an earlier mail, it's a benevolent dictatorship, but we can nevertheless be in control side-by-side with Novell, together, on most aspects, as equally leveled partners.

I don't think that is a bad thing. It just needs some improvemenet.

No, it has to change completely. This is an interim situation, this is not what we should aim for.

...

I'm afraid you don't get the point. It's not just an email address for convenience like gmail.

I DO get the point. It IS just an email adress. That was my reason of asking a while ago in the first place. To have it as a forwarding emailadress when you subscribe to either openSUSE or to bugzilla.

Could be one use for it, but that's really minor compared to the "I'm part of the community" aspect.

It would be very sad if only some selected few would be able to get one.

"selected" yes, but "few".. not necessarily. What's sad about that ? It's how it works. You really want to tell me Linus Torvalds shouldn't be regarded as more respected, committed, deserving as a Linux newbie who installed SUSE Linux 2 days ago ? (granted, those are extremes ;)) Is that a reason to dismiss or consider that Linux newbie as an inferior human being, as you seem to imply into what I wrote ? Of course not. Couldn't that newbie one day contribute a lot to the community and be respected and deserving as well ? Obviously, yes. (well, as much as Linus would be pretty tough ;D) I'm not sure you have a realistic vision of how OpenSource communities (or communities in general) work. But to make this very clear: it's not because someone spends a lot of time and energy e.g. making packages or writing documentation for thousands of SUSE Linux users that I would [or anyone else should] consider him a better human being or superior to anyone else. It's just that he is more committed to the community than others, and that he's spending a larger part of his life, his free time and his passion for the good of the whole community (including the many many SUSE Linux users who benefit from that). In a community like ours or as with any OpenSource project or distribution I know of, he deserves more respect for his work and contribution (not that others don't), his voice should have more weight... and he should get an opensuse.org email ;D

You want to have people join openSUSE community. Giving them an emailadress is then a thank you for doing so.

Right, @users.opensuse.org Personally, and that's really only my very own opinion, I don't really care much about someone installing SUSE Linux on his PC but who doesn't care about getting involved in it and who never will. Nice for him he gets a stable, polished distribution as well as a friendly, helpful and qualified community. But should I really care about it ? Not much. Sure, I guess the larger the user base, the better for all of us, but there's not much beyond that. The people I care about are those who take part into "doing" the community, helping out, contributing to the mutualized effort. I don't see anything wrong in that. Does it mean I don't respect the end-user who's not involved into the effort ? Of course not. Does it mean I won't spend my free time to also make his "computing experience" easier and nicer ? Neither. Frankly, if I would, I don't think there would be some 7 GB repository of RPM files at http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/

Otherwise people will think that they are still not a real opensuse member, because they don't get the address.

IMO that address is not a gift for doing nothing, it's something that has to be "deserved", kindof. You become "a real opensuse member" when you participate, there are many ways to do so, and a lot of people do. Really, what's wrong or "ugly" with that ? Does it sound like apartheid ? ;) BTW, do I sound arrogant or harsh to you ? Well, I'm trying to push things forward and at some point it involves making statements and/or speaking on behalf of others, either to be agreed upon or to trigger reactions, discussions, decisions and actions (in that order ;D). cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

Really, what's wrong or "ugly" with that ? Does it sound like apartheid ? ;) ^^^^^^^^

Am Dienstag, den 09.05.2006, 13:36 +0200 schrieb Pascal Bleser: [snipped lot of stuff about deserving an email address] I can't believe you guys are arguing about who should get what kind of email-address. How about we have Novell create a new mailing list: emailornot@opensuse.org has a nice ring to it, does it not? Well, I just started contributing to opensuse by translating a couple of pages on the wiki (oh, darn, I should post that to the opensuse-wiki mailing list I guess), so according to you I would not (yet) be eligible for an opensuse email address, but if it was up to houghi, I would actually get one. Guess what? I couldn't care less about another email-address or not. What I care about is that I virtually can't find any information on opensuse.org that goes beyond how to download the latest release. I occasionally see a link posted here or on another opensuse mailing list i subscribed to, and i keep asking myself: how did he (or she) find that particular bit of information? i keep trying, but either I get dead-ends or I'm drowned in search results. Another thing: I find a page, see that it has already been translated and move on to another page. The next day I happen to visit that same page again, it looks the same, only the link to the translated page is suddenly gone. What kind crap is that? No matter if a wiki (and opensuse is a wiki, right?) is an ever-evolving thing or not. As a user I prefer some stability. When I visit a webpage I expect to find it again tomorrow, even more so when it's a corporate webpage. And I get annoyed when one of the main pages changes daily, like it happened with http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation. that was totally out of line. smiley or not.

BTW, do I sound arrogant or harsh to you ? Well, I'm trying to push things forward and at some point it involves making statements and/or speaking on behalf of others, either to be agreed upon or to trigger reactions, discussions, decisions and actions (in that order ;D).

No, not arrogant, but losing yourself (and some really good points in your original posting) in imho totally fruitless discussions about some really. really, really (may I say it again: really!) unimportant things. -- Andreas

Am Dienstag, den 09.05.2006, 13:30 -0500 schrieb Dave Crouse:

I did start up a forum for opensuse, www.opensuse.us .

it's in my bookmarks :)

Don't get me wrong, I think that the wiki admins do a great job of keeping track of things, but on a personal note, I hate it when something i write gets re-written by someone else.

I would like to have more control over "my" article too, but then again, the dynamics of a wiki usually plays out just fine. As I understand it, a "critical mass" of active contributors is vital for a wiki to actually work. Maybe that is part of the problems the opensuse wiki has.

I run several forums, and they are a great way of "storing" information for [...]

-- Andreas

Am Dienstag, den 09.05.2006, 19:53 +0100 schrieb Thomas Hertweck:

Well, it's a wiki, isn't it?

That's one of the things I didn't understand right away. It's not that long ago that I visited opensuse.org the first time, and I did *not* know that it was a wiki, I assumed it was a corporate website, like a successor of suse.com.

And from my point of view, wikis have assets as well as drawbacks. You describe one of the drawbacks. I have made quite a lot of negative experiences with wikis as more or less everybody is able to change the pages. One day you add something, the next day it's gone. One day you fix a description in the wiki (and you really know what you're doing there), the next day somebody has removed your fix and replaced it with the old (and wrong) text because he thought he knew better. And so on... I like the idea that everybody can contribute, but wikis also need some sort of "quality control", some "stability" as you describe it.

The idea of "protected" pages like the opensuse front page is a step in the right direction I think. Drawbacks aside, I can see the advantages a wiki can have over a traditionally maintained website. I used them myself by making some quick changes to articles.

I (that's my personal opinion) would much prefer a managed system over a wiki, but I guess there are not enough resources to achieve something like that.

I really don't know if that's the problem. The greatest advantage of a wiki is imho how easily people can add their contributions, which in turn makes them a lot more connected to the particular community. -- Andreas

Am Mittwoch, den 10.05.2006, 20:10 +0100 schrieb Thomas Hertweck:

Andreas wrote:

...

[...] I really don't know if that's the problem. The greatest advantage of a wiki is imho how easily people can add their contributions, which in turn makes them a lot more connected to the particular community.

Sure, I agree with you. That's the positive aspect of a wiki. The question is, how to minimize the negative aspects of a wiki. I've now already seen several people saying that links were removed, changes that have been made to improve the pages were revoked, and that it's hard to find information in the wiki.

I did actually "complain" about these things too. So yes, I do cherish the advantages, but would of course also like to have the drawbacks eliminated.

Unfortunately, I don't have solutions for all of these problems, but there is clearly something that could be improved. Just to add one experience I've made: when searching for SDB articles, I don't like how the search results are presented. Here is an example searching for "yast" (DE-version):

SDB:YaST Installationsquellen erzeugen (7719 Byte) 2: SDB:original_name: /sdb/de/2004/02/yast_instsrc.html 3: SDB:original_title: YaST Installationsquellen erzeugen 7: [[Category:SDB:YaST|Y]] 22: ... YaST. <code>Plain Cache</code> und "echte" <code>YaST</code> Quellen. [...]

The old SDB and the way how search results were presented there, well, from my point of view it was much more concise and clearly arranged. As a simple user, I am not interested in "SDB:original_name", or "SDB:original_title", or "[[Category:SDB:YaST|Y]]" - that's just unnecessary information at that point (it might be useful information for a developer etc., no doubt). Well, just an observation...

Mind if I take this (and other suggestions for improvement) over to the opensuse-wiki list? I guess if we all want things to change, we got to start somewhere. -- Andreas

Andreas wrote:

Guess what? I couldn't care less about another email-address or not.

I don't care neither, but if some people do...

What I care about is that I virtually can't find any information on opensuse.org that goes beyond how to download the latest release.

I agree with you that there are not enough pages on the wiki. and than find them is difficult. so I try to find a better way. but it's difficult. In fact the best way I have found yet is the google link there: http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=site%3Aopensuse.org&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta= and I try to write doc, but, sorry I write much more in french than in english :-) http://fr.opensuse.org/Utilisateur:Jdd but don't forget opensuse is very young :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

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

Am Dienstag, den 09.05.2006, 13:36 +0200 schrieb Pascal Bleser: [snipped lot of stuff about deserving an email address]

I can't believe you guys are arguing about who should get what kind of email-address. How about we have Novell create a new mailing list: emailornot@opensuse.org has a nice ring to it, does it not?

The point wasn't so much about the email address or not, it was more about a structure, process, whatever to try to get discussions into a somewhat more effective path. Up to now many threads get somehow diluted into sticking on 2-3 unimportant details, ad nauseum, making the actual topic irrelevant and in the end, nothing agreed upon, nothing decided, 1 step forward, 2 step backwards. Too bad I had to try to explain "meritocracy" down to nitty gritty of one example (opensuse.org emails, in this case). Seems that exactly the same thing happened again.

Well, I just started contributing to opensuse by translating a couple of pages on the wiki (oh, darn, I should post that to the opensuse-wiki mailing list I guess), so according to you I would not (yet) be eligible for an opensuse email address, but if it was up to houghi, I would actually get one. Guess what? I couldn't care less about another email-address or not.

What's the problem, if you don't care about it ? ;)

What I care about is that I virtually can't find any information on opensuse.org that goes beyond how to download the latest release.

Right. And it's probably the biggest challenge as far as a large wiki is concerned: how to organize and categorize pages to find them easily, say, on looking at 2 or 3 (index) pages at most. Not that the challenge is wiki-specific, it's just related to documentation in general. Indexing is an art of its own. [...]

...

Really, what's wrong or "ugly" with that ? Does it sound like apartheid ? ;) ^^^^^^^^ that was totally out of line. smiley or not.

Ummm... well, you're picking a single line totally out of context. Thank you for trying to make me look like an ass, that's a particularly nice and appreciated move.

...

BTW, do I sound arrogant or harsh to you ? Well, I'm trying to push things forward and at some point it involves making statements and/or speaking on behalf of others, either to be agreed upon or to trigger reactions, discussions, decisions and actions (in that order ;D).

No, not arrogant, but losing yourself (and some really good points in your original posting) in imho totally fruitless discussions about some really. really, really (may I say it again: really!) unimportant things.

Probably. I guess I just shouldn't have reacted to some replies in the first place that were picking single, unimportant elements of the mail and spending too much time on explaining those until they become irrelevant. I just wonder whether it's tactics or not. I'll try not to fall into the same trap again. How about giving your opinion about the "really good points" in the original posting ? Maybe it's still possible to not dismiss the whole thread just because of that. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEYRLBr3NMWliFcXcRAhAIAJ495ef/AHOxx7G018MC4ngpO4SG8QCggk3+ 9uC2P2vNFuIyBzUJ0BNKUx0= =Z08N -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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

On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 12:08:01AM +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote: <snip>

...

How about giving your opinion about the "really good points" in the original posting ? Maybe it's still possible to not dismiss the whole thread just because of that.

The good points are ignored, because otherwise you get a <ME TOO> mentelaty. The bad points are forcefully and arrogantly defended by you. So what do you want? That we just all happily agree with you? Or perhaps I am again too stupid and don't understand things.

I'd rather say you're manipulating. You're stating the total opposite of what I wrote in my mails. WTF are you trying to do ? - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEYSIur3NMWliFcXcRAhB1AJwOxbp/c9KSBUb/kLGxDeGpMDdHAQCgtd2G LmsCbydVFrFMoqjJQtMz8Ec= =skBT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

houghi wrote:

I don't see the opensuse.org email adress as anything official. I see it as a gift. I have a gmail adress, but when I send mail with that adress, I hardly speak for gmail.com.

Because gmail.com offers free email to anyone who wants it. opensuse.org doesn't. Anyone with a @opensuse.org email-address will have a strong implied association with opensuse. It can't be just a user. /Per Jessen, Zürich

Adrian Schröter wrote:

...

Other, minor ideas, such as having @opensuse.org email addresses, to show we're part of the community (this has been mentioned once on the list, but hasn't been discussed further).

While I agree that there should become more people an @opensuse.org email address, I disagree that everybody should get one.

please, can we use this as an example. we need badly to keep peoples with us. People come on the wiki, edit some pages and go. how can we glue then to openSUSE :-) * we can't pay them, too expensive and beyond the open philosophy :-) * we can't do nothing, because most of them wont stay and between the two? some kind of reward? giving an opensuse.org mail could be one step reward. Let any sysop the opportunity to ask a user: I see you have made some work on opensuse, would you mind to have such address? To be written as "staff member" on a blocked page (that is a bit more official than the wiki team page) could be made at the same time. and any such people should be asked to choose a particular task: edit/maintain some part of the wiki (some category, for example), giving sometime on a Linux forum with the opensuse mail as signature... then we could add some "time" reward: may be the one staff member for 6 month can have a chocolate medal :-) or a SUSE pin, or better a unexpected gift as you did for beta testers

Impatientness is a good motivation :)

some times. I was asked to be sysop in November and the wiki opened in february. I was near to give up and take work elsewhere. Voluteers can find work very easily, you know :-) however, moral rewards are the betters. simply a personal message from a sysop can be rewarding :-) thanks jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos