Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)

[Vincent Untz <vuntz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Le jeudi 17 juin 2010, à 11:34 +0200, Andreas Jaeger a écrit :
> http://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Documents/Strategy/Community contains 
> the following statement that we'd like to discuss and enhance as written in 
> the introductory email (http://news.opensuse.org/2010/06/17/a-strategy-for-
> the-opensuse-project-proposals-and-discussions/),
>
> Andreas

Looks like a good start!

A general comment first: is this a statement that will stay valid for,
say, 5 years? Or just a statement that is valid now, while we're
discussing the strategy?

I'm asking this because if it's the former, some things might need to be
reworded ("Establish the openSUSE Foundation" will be done at some
point, so that won't be a goal anymore...)

> We are the openSUSE Community - a friendly, welcoming, vibrant, and active 
> community. This includes developers, testers, writers, translators, usability 
> experts, artists, promoters and everybody else who wishes to engage with the 
> project.
>
> To grow the openSUSE Community, we will put contributors first and focus on 
> the following activities:
>
>     * Build a lively and active community
>     * Increase contributor visibility
>     * Attract contributions by empowering our community to influence and 
> shape 
> the Project in all aspects
>     * Make contributing easy by eliminating or greatly reducing bureaucratic 
> obstacles and having great governance
>     * Market the Project 
>
> This includes the following activities in order to excel in our goals:
>
>     * Create tools that support community activities
>     * Establish the openSUSE Foundation

(see my first comment)

>     * Improve visibility through announcements, news, blogs, tweets, etc
>     * Give presentations about the Project

What kind of presentations? At events (what kind of events?)? On the
web? Or do we want to keep this deliberately vague to cover all types of
presentations?

>     * Establish Events: Conference organization

Is this item about the organization of the openSUSE conference or about
something else? It's unclear, so clarifying might be good :-)

>     * Emphasize the value of communication and recognize cultural diversity 
> within our community

This goal sounds great, but, hrm, what does it mean in practice? :-) Do
we have any concrete example of how we would achieve this? (It sounds
more like a value than a goal to me)

>     * Foster governance discussions

(same comment as for openSUSE Foundation: once we have a good governance
model, this will be less of a goal, I guess)

>     * Mentor new contributors
>     * Praise contributors (Publicity, bounties, ...) 

I think just "Praise contributors" would be enough. I'm specifically
wondering about the bounties here. Do we have bounties?

> We will also do the following activities:
>
>     * Events: Attend shows, set up booths, have openSUSE Community rooms
>     * Raise funds for the Project through the openSUSE Foundation
>     * Helping new users and contributors

The "contributors" part here sounds redundant with the "Mentor new
contributors" from above.

>     * Encourage technical discussions (via mailing lists and forums)
>     * Give presentations about the Project

Hrm, we have this one in the first list already ;-)

>     * Publications, whitepapers, ... in journals

To be honest, I'm unsure about this one: it seems to me that the one
below (reaching out to key people) is way more important. Are we already
doing some of this today? If not, I'm not sure it's worth investing
efforts in starting doing this.

>     * Reaching multiplicators (journalists, key comm members, ...)
>     * Customer intelligence (Surveys, segmentation, update statistics, ...) 

I don't like the term "customer" for a project like ours: we're not
selling anything, and it gives some false impression. Maybe "audience"?

> Note that we are very well aware that anything we do depends on the 

Remove "Note that" :-) Maybe also remove "very well": it doesn't sound
right in such a statement.

> willingness of our community to drive it and make it successful. The openSUSE 
> Community Board sees its leadership role in making coherent proposals and 
> driving community decisions -- not in just taking decisions on behalf of the 
> community.

I wouldn't say "The board sees its role" but "The role of the board is",
especially since this statement is from the community as a whole, not
just from the board. (And saying "the board sees" might imply a new
elected board could have a different opinion here)

> Note that openSUSE has evolved from it's initial launch with little 

Remove "Note that" :-)
s/it's/its/

> participation to being now a real open source project. It has many sponsors 

(I'd remove "now" -- it doesn't bring anything useful, and will sound
weird in 3 years)

Ah, not sure I should open this can of worms, but... open source or free
software?

> including Novell as main sponsor. The sponsors are part of the Project and 
> will support it in various ways but not control the project. openSUSE being 
> an 

The last part reads a bit weird. I'd add a "will": "but will not control"

> open source project means that everybody in the community can contribute 
> equally to it in all aspects of the project and should not depend on any of 
> the sponsors doing everything.
>
> We'd like to cite as well from the openSUSE Guiding Principles:

I'd change this to: "Finally, this quote from the openSUSE Guiding
Principles summarizes the values of our project:" (or something
similar). This explains why we have that quote here, instead of just
saying "we'd like to" without explaining why :-)

>   We value respect for other persons and their contributions, for
>   other opinions and beliefs. We listen to arguments and address
>   problems in a constructive and open way. We believe that a diverse
>   community based on mutual respect is the base for a creative and
>   productive environment enabling the project to be truly
>   successful. We don't tolerate social discrimination and aim at
>   creating an environment where people feel accepted and safe from
>   offense.

Thanks,

Vincent

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