Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (465 mails)

[Ricardo Chung <amon0.thoth1@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Lunes, 5 de Julio de 2010 03:25:22 Satoru Matsumoto escribió:
> (2010/07/04 17:41), Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> > Community - users and contributors
> > ==================================
>
> [...snip]
>
> > The users are an important part of the openSUSE ecosystem.  They are
> > a target and beneficiary of what we do in openSUSE and we also strive
> > to reach out to our users to become contributors to the Project.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > This should be a virtuous circle - the more users we gain, the more
> > our pool of contributors and contributions grow.
>
> I can partly agree, but partly can't. My definitions of user and
> contributor are:
>
> User: person who is interested in what (s)he can GET FROM openSUSE(*)
> Contributor: person who is interested in what (s)he can DO FOR openSUSE(*)
> (*) 'openSUSE' can be replaced with 'others'.
>
> Everyone can be both a user and a contributor at the same time and I
> believe that would be the ideal of not only openSUSE Project but also
> whole FLOSS community (and I would like to add 'our life' here ;-)).
>
> But unfortunately, there are more than a little persons who are 100%
> pure users and not interested in contributing at all. They use openSUSE
> just because they find openSUSE useful for them and when they find more
> useful distros than openSUSE, they would move to those distros without
> hesitation.
>
> That has nothing (or at least, only few) to do with their (users) skill
> or proficiency in openSUSE. There are more than a little openSUSE
> experts who are not interested in helping others, in the meanwhile,
> there certainly are a bunch of persons who are just newbies and not used
> to openSUSE or Linux, but very interested in contributing somehow.
>
> If we want to gain such 100% pure users more, the method might be simple
> - distribute free (as beer) 100% SLE compatible distributions with long
> term/unlimited supports.  ...But that shouldn't be our goal.
>
> > And the more contributors the Project gains, the more users we gain.
>
> Totally agreed.
>
> > And in order to sustain that growth of users and contributors, we
> > must ensure an environment that supports the needs of our
> > contributors by providing them with the tools they need as well as
> > delivering products that our users get excited about.
>
> IMHO, the schema 'users vs contributors' won't make us happy and will
> result in stagnant community. The question 'Which do we need more, users
> or contributors ?' may create a wall between users and contributors.  If
> someone is called 'user', (s)he may think that (s)he doesn't need to do
> anything for openSUSE, or, that there's nothing (s)he can do for
> openSUSE just as a mere 'user'.
>
> Persons that we really need are, persons who think 'openSUSE is *MY* (or
> *OUR*) OS (or distribution)'.  Such persons obviously use openSUSE and
> will contribute openSUSE somehow, because its *THEIR* (or *OUR*) OS.
> When they feel other distros are better than openSUSE, they will try to
> make openSUSE much better instaed of just leaving openSUSE.  I'd like to
> increase such persons in our community.
>
> So, my ideal is as follows:
>
> "If you got interested in and start using openSUSE, you are now
> considered as an openSUSE community associate.  We, openSUSE community,
> give you a sincere welcome and hope you will have a lot of fun with
> openSUSE.  Using openSUSE is your first step as an openSUSE community
> associate, but if you really like it (and we hope you will like it ;-)),
>   there are a lot of things you can do for improving YOUR openSUSE. (...)"
>
> There may be '99%-user/1%-contributor', '80%-user/20%-contributor',
> '50%-user/50%-contributor'... percentage can vary, but all of them are
> our associates.  Of course the more an associate contributes, the more
> (s)he will be respected.  Our goal is not increasing the number of users
> nor contributors, but increasing the number of such associates and the
> percentage of contributors part of each associates.
>
> I might not be a good expositor, but I hope you can understand what I
> mean - i.e. separating contributors from users isn't a best solution.
>
> Best,
I loved the way you focused this issue. "Associates" as users and contributors 
is the way we should see this. Every single contribution (translation, 
marketing, artwork, documentation, developing, package maintainer, bug 
reporting, tester, IT solutions, etc.) is a valuable contribution depends on 
the level it is appreciated or related to project priorities. And everyone can 
make a contribution on different areas of the project. Maybe is a little hard 
to control the information is generated from several channels at the same 
time. An orchestra needs different levels and differentiated performers but 
not only musicians as others to make a very good show (lights controllers, 
sound engineers, electricians, director, music writers, etc).

Every user is a potential contributor if we are able to show them the way to 
make it possible easier without obstacles. We should be able to channeling 
their energy and knowledge levels the way it is helpful to the openSUSE 
community and the project.

And we should not forget a general behavior principles. Human beings mostly 
behave themselves by movements economy. At least at the beginning they are 
going to use, play or remember what is available, easy, popular, stable, 
smooth, status associated, etc. The high level skills desirable to develop 
software, packages and apps comes with experiences and sharing these 
experiences, discovering new scenarios and needs to overcome or protect.

The real challenge and opportunity area or the general purpose solution is not 
how to get this kind of users or developers for the project but how to channel 
the associates energies to make the project and the community goals possible.


Best regards,
-- 
Ricardo Chung
a.k.a. amonthoth
openSUSE Ambassador for Panama
http://en.opensuse.org/User:Amonthoth
http://es.opensuse.org/Usuario:Amonthoth
http://twitter.com/amon0thoth1
http://www.opensuse.org/en/
http://es.opensuse.org/Grupos_Locales_de_Usuarios
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx