Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (229 mails)

[Per Jessen <per@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

> > > The openSUSE project's mission is to unlock the posibilities of
> > > computers to users around the globe using the power and flexibility
> > > of Linux.
> >
> > Hmm, I can't help thinking this is the kind of mostly pointless
> > corporate mission statement I've have presented with innumerable
> > times in my corporate past.
>
> Hmmm. to check: do you think the same about the one Fedora has?

If this is the one: "The Fedora Project's mission is to lead the
advancement of free and open source software and content as a
collaborative community.", then yes, I think that is also mostly
pointless waffle.  It sounds grand, but does it _mean_ anything? 

> > > but it's far from perfect. Somehow it should mention we focus on
> > > flexibility and power ("make things as simple as possible but no
> > > simpler"), it should be ambitious (eg worldwide blabla), focussed
> > > on end-users etc - the requirements are clear as they come from the
> > > rest of the strategy discusion. But now, how to phrase it in one
> > > sentence?
> >
> > Have a lot of fun?
>
> yeah but is that why openSUSE exists? Just to have fun? If it is,
> fine, of course. I thought we had a slightly higher goal, like
> Bringing Something Better Into This World.

I hope the projects aim will be to produce a high-quality, dependable
Linux distribution, and that we'll have a lot of fun doing it. 

> Not everyone will have the exact same goal which will obviously ensure
> our mission WILL be a bit wide, vague (and probably, because of that,
> corporate?). But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to define it,
> right?

First, I think the important thing for a mission statement for a
volunteer community is to actually _say_ something.  Second, the
mission statement isn't meant to express everyones individual goals,
it's meant to express just _one_ goal. 


-- 
Per Jessen, Zürich (7.1°C)

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