David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
... It has always been "attention to detail" that has set SuSE/openSuSE apart, why change course? ...
It was precisely this "attention to detail" that first attracted me to SuSE Linux, after first working professionally with RedHat. And this is the reason my team-mates in a strong SuSE Linux shop like SuSE in general, and openSUSE in particular, the fact that it is better-engineered and there is more attention to details. "Whatever it takes" should/must be the way to keep that. I have a very busy life now, as I'm sure many others of do, but I have coded more than a little professionally, and am trying to gradually work my way into being more active in support of Linux. Specifically, I have gravitated to SuSE because of the quality, and the engineering. So I encourage the "best and brightest", as well as the "foot soldiers" of the community, to constantly strive to make the extra effort that it takes to make and keep this distro at the front of the pack. And I am willing to help to contribute as well, when and if I can find a way to do so that is both meaningful and useful, and that doesn't require lots of time and/or immediate response. Given those two caveats, if anyone on the list is willing to point me in the direction of where some good "entry level" community support opportunities are, I will consider putting my hand to the plow. I know enough of the history of Linux, and Unix before it, to realize that some really good distros have fallen by the wayside. Likewise, without mentioning names, some quite popular distros have advanced, and have made contributions to the entire Linux community, but still have not attained the level of quality and systems integration that this distro has. And that is one of the reasons I come down hard on some of the things that I see, not because I like to complain (although perhaps I do, sometimes), but because I have already lived through the loss of one really good OS (OS/2) (well, you could also count DEC and CDC OS's, but...), and now have openSUSE Linux as the first, and only, OS I have found that is as useful to me as OS/2 was. And yes, I have worked enough with several other major (and lesser-know) distros, enough to know the reason why I am working with, and agonizing over, openSUSE. We in the openSUSE community truly have a unique situation and opportunity. This is my "halftime pep talk"...to myself as well as to our community. Let us not forget what we have, and what it takes to get and keep us there. Speaking for myself, I am going to start looking at some of the bugs that people are complaining aren't getting fixed for reasons of time, and see if they look like something that I could handle. And if so, I will be reaching out further to try to get involved. In the meantime, FWIW, I am a half-way decent c programmer, can and have worked with C++ a bit, and have experience in several software development efforts, from one person projects to global teams. So, if anyone has any ideas that are on the order of 3-6 hours a week of commitment, plus or minus, please make a suggestion (besides spending less time writing posts and more time writing code...<G>). Dan Goodman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org