Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2391 mails)

[Andreas Jaeger <aj@xxxxxxx>]

Edmund Fitzgerald <edmund.fitzgerald75@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> [...]
> And then when they banned Sam from a list just because he was
> asking questions which made the SUSE people uncomfortable is

Aaron Kuklis was banned from the list in October due to violent
violation of the mailing list netiquitte.  He came back under disguise
as Sam - and I see no reason to unban Aaron.

> the absolute height of bad form -- this compounds the original
> insult of blowing off the users concerns.  Isn't it much better
> to satisfy the user-base by changing a few words on an install
> screen to address the problem he's concerned about than to
> create the impression that the SUSE product is run by a bunch
> of insecure goons who can't handle constructive criticism.
>
> It's clear the level of frustration he was feeling when he
> asked repeatedly for someone at SuSE to "put an adult in
> charge" of the 11.0 distribution -- precisely because of the
> thoroughly unsatisfactory answers coming out of the SUSE folks.

Edmund, this is the wrong forum for any 11.0, we have discussed on the
appropriate list where the current status was agreed on by all involved.
And "put an adult in charge" is a not respectfull to Coolo!

> For all I know, technologically, the 11.0 release will be
> very good -- but the answers coming from the team come off
> as anywhere from blase' disinterest for the concerns of those
> raising them to barely concealed contempt and hostility
> for even asking questions.

Aaron asked with rather hostility and was not willing to understand
anything.

> Perhaps this is a difference in the U.S. vs European culture,
> (and I would put UK culture closer to American culture than
> European, as the initial philosophical view of the colonists
> was that they were Englishmen first, and the Revolution was
> merely the last resort to securing their rights, as Englishman,
> which the Crown was denying them solely because they weren't
> living on the home islands.) as the European point of view
> is rather more stratified and specialized, and "the experts"
> are generally not to be questioned by the public.  However,
> it seems to escape the SUSE people that many of those who
> have been prodding them for better answers have actually
> been in the Unix and/or IT field longer than the SUSE people
> themselves.  Some of us still have nostalgiac memories of
> PDP-11's running version 7 Unix and/or 2.x BSD (even though
> these same machines were thoroughly thrashing with as few
> as 10 users).
>
> -
>
> Anyways, about the KDE 3 vs KDE 4 discussion, I think it's
> a valid concern coming from those who deal with people who
> are completely new to Linux, and oftentimes suggest it to
> people who are willing to try something new -- that the
> KDE 3/KDE 4 issue be handled properly--not only for the
> sake of Novell and SUSE, but for the Linux community as
> a whole.
>
> When suggesting to a complete Linux neophyte that they try
> SUSE 11.0, do we really want to rely on the recollection
> of said neophyte to remember any caveats about KDE 4, when
> they probably didn't understand the verbal warning in the
> first place? (it's difficult to remember a message which
> you never understood to begin with).  People don't want
> to suggest something to a friend, and then have it
> blow up in the friend's face, and have it harm their
> friendship or business connection.
>
> These sorts of effects seem to be completely ignored by
> the SUSE 11.0 folks, and yes, that seems to be making a
> lot of the list subscribers annoyed, because they get the
> feeling that the SUSE team is making a distro which is
> going to have a big "gotcha" in the install phase, and
> which will likely bite ANY new/neophyte user.

This is the wrong forum for this.  We had initially only KDE4 there and
then discussed (but not on *this* mailing list) to add KDE3 as well -
and discussed also how to do it properly.  The consensus there was that
this is the right way.  We did also some tests with users on this.

We even discussed AFAIR during one of our IRC meetings...

Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform/openSUSE, aj@xxxxxxx
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