Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (349 mails)

[Andreas Jaeger <aj@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Today we continue with public discussions about strategy proposals, this time 
with the "Status quo" strategy proposal:

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== Statement ==

We deliver a well-balanced GNU/Linux platform for modern computers 
(workstation, laptop, netbook, server) that equally appeals to end users, 
power users, developers and server/network infrastructure administrators. It 
shall protrude professionally and let the user be productive.

== Background ==

This strategy tries to quantify what we tried to do in the past — as it was 
not written down earlier.

So, this is what most users expect from openSUSE today, but does not give a 
vision for change looking forward.

In the context of other distributions, we differentiate ourselves from Ubuntu 
targeting the newbie and further differentiate from Fedora being experimental 
bleeding edge — instead we pick "the middle ground".

== Key ideas ==

* Creation of a general purpose distribution that
** anyone can use without too much effort
** is known for good quality (stable and usable but neither outdated nor 
bleeding edge)
** has good and sane defaults so the user can do what s/he wants to do
** has programs that work out of the box
** focused on modern hardware and their use cases (workstations, laptops, 
netbooks and servers)
** is targeted towards end users, but is reasonably equally usable for other 
workloads
* Critical analysis of hyped items before inclusion

== Activities ==

=== We need to be excellent in the following ===

* Do as we always did! That is,
** good compromise between actuality and stability
** agreeable release cycle of 8 months
** support for the three most recent releases
* Supporting our target customers
** End users:
*** Delivering multiple desktops, focusing on both GNOME and KDE
*** Focus on providing tools for being productive and creative (IDEs, editors, 
authoring tools, graphics manipulation, office productivity, etc.)
** Developers:
*** Development environments for especially C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, Ruby: 
IDEs, tools and support libraries
** Power users and system administrators:
*** Providing admin tools that are powerful yet (reasonably) easy
*** Agreeable command line experience
*** Virtualization technique, e.g. KVM, Xen
*** Standard networking services
* Continue the naturally growth of openSUSE:Factory by incorporating 
contributors' submissions.

=== We will try to do the following effectively ===

* Innovate and keep up with latest upstream developments.
* Include a more minimalistic desktop environment.
* Provide a low entry barrier for potential contributors. With the openSUSE 
Build Service, it is easier to make contributions than any other Linux 
distribution to date.
* Offer easy creation of specialized install media (appliances) through SUSE 
Studio.
* Good presentation and marketing, in particular communicating our existing 
strengths and unique features (i.e. competitive advantages).
* The usual niceties: speed, less bloat, possibility of minimality. 

=== As project, we will not focus on the following ===

(fill in if exists)

-- 
 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
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