Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)

[Andreas Jaeger <aj@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday 08 June 2010 20:44:27 Per Jessen wrote:
> I couldn't find a suitable place to add this in the running thread, so
> I'm starting this one
>
> - whilst there seems to be lots of arguments against TrifleMeNots main
> arguments (possible sale, the MS deal etc), as far as I can tell,
> no-one has actually argued against the independence in itself.  It
> seems to me that TrifleMeNot has a point - IF the current
> infrastructure DID suddenly go away, we would have a very serious
> issue.  Whether or not that is a real risk or not, being more
> independent wouldn't be that bad, would it?  Seeking infrastructure
> contributions could even go quite well with a strategy of attracting
> more developers and contributors (if that is the strategy).

Per,

let me rephrase what I said in this thread with other words.

openSUSE will always depend on somebody to sponsor infrastructure.  It would 
be great if there would not be one major sponsor and if that one goes away, 
the whole project would be in jeopardy.  

Sponsorship like we need for the openSUSE build service is not that easy but 
we're not bad: we have 20+ machines and that hardware got sponsored by AMD.  
We have sponsored bandwidth for the machines.  And Novell sponsors  the 
datacenter, meaning space, power, cooling and administration for the Build 
Service - and also for many other systems.

The crucial part about independence is not the data center sponsorship by 
Novell.  The crucial part is sponsoring a lot of developers to make openSUSE 
successful.

In the past you had to be a Novell employee to make certain things happen.  We 
changed all of that - and if there's still a place where Novell employees are 
in charge it's mainly because of nobody stepping up to do it instead of Novell 
controlling it.  There are a few places where that contribution is not 
possible today, e.g. proper handling of feature requests, and we work actively 
on removing those barriers.

So, independence has two facets:
* independence from the money of Novell
* independence from the control of Novell

I'm convinced that the majority of the community does not want independence 
from the money of Novell. For example every ambassador ask for goodies from 
Novell for their local events.  Yes, we want more money to grow openSUSE - and 
that's what has been said is why the openSUSE Board works on an openSUSE 
foundation.

Independence from the control of Novell is something the project has already - 
it just has to grab it.  And that's the discussion IMO that we should have - 
on how to grab it. We have now people part of our server administration team 
that are not Novell employees, we have with Bryen an openSUSE marketing lead 
that is not a Novell employee etc. As part of the marketing team lead by Bryen 
I do right now the openSUSE Build Service announcements. And that kind of 
self-reliance and independence where Novell is part of the community - and 
where contribution and not money roles - is the one the project is moving 
towards,

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