On Tuesday 03 August 2010 14:34:13 Pavol Rusnak wrote:

On 08/03/2010 12:28 PM, Egbert Eich wrote:

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- Had a longer phone discussion about the openSUSE strategy discussion, the sentiments of the SUSE Labs developers and how to overcome the disconnect of people at SUSE Labs (and other divisions inside SUSE not directly involved on openSUSE) and the openSUSE project.

I'm looking forward to a written summary of this discussion :-)

That would indeed be interesting. The SUSE labs developers are supposed to be community leaders, after all, and their input is/should therefor be valuable...

On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 02:11:34PM +0530, Sankar P wrote:

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:35 AM, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

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On Tuesday 03 August 2010 14:34:13 Pavol Rusnak wrote:

...

On 08/03/2010 12:28 PM, Egbert Eich wrote:

...

- Had a longer phone discussion about the openSUSE strategy discussion,   the sentiments of the SUSE Labs developers and how to overcome the   disconnect of people at SUSE Labs (and other divisions inside SUSE   not directly involved on openSUSE) and the openSUSE project.

I'm looking forward to a written summary of this discussion :-)

That would indeed be interesting. The SUSE labs developers are supposed to be community leaders, after all, and their input is/should therefor be valuable...

Right :) See below.

With so much noise in the project mailing list, I will be surprised if any of the kernel folks were even following the threads, instead of mark-all-as-read. I will also be eager to know what their opinion is.

This is exactly the point and actully what's happening. It is one of the issues I brought up talking to AJ: there are simply too many communication channels (fora, MLs, IRC, ...) for those people to follow. Some kernel folks read kernel@ but this is a topic ML and sufficiently focussed and low volume to follow. Most people from the Labs are active in their own communities (kernel, gcc, samba as example) already while at the same time they working for Novell, where their duties cover a assignments totally unrelated to openSUSE. These two areas alone already consume a great amount of time. Thus participating in yet another community is nothing that seem to be very feasable. AJ mentioned that to be informed about what's going on in the project people should at least read news@ and announce@ - still these are hardly lists where one can chime into an ongoing discussion. I also explained to AJ about my impression that several people I met there seem to feel a discomfort to voice their opinions on an opensuse ML being Novell employees at the same time. When I was talking to people at the Labs Conference and asked them why they did not bring up a certain topic on an openSUSE ML I heard more than once: 'Isn't this a discussion that should be had internally?'. (I strongly believe that this is a feeling that's shared by several other Novell employees working for OPS.) Indeed for someone working at a company like Novell for a while it may feel strange to discuss things with collegues in public: - Should one really openly 'flame' fellow Novell employees (AJ, Michael, coolo, the Boosters, ...) or decisions made by them? - What things can a Novell employee say in public? How much are the things one says influenced by internal knowledge that's not ment for public digestion? The main part of the conversation with AJ dealt with the feeling people had about the 'strategy discussion'. AJ was concerned that I had projected my own discomfort with it upon the people while I tried to assure him that this was not the case. I explained the sentiments: Most people in the Labs have a long history with a free software project. For those people a discussion about a strategy for the project seems to be rather strange thing: Free software projects live from the contributions by volunteers and thus are are meritocracies: the people who contribute get to determine the direction, the direction is determined by their contributions: people pick a topic, work on it, and only then present it and discuss it. From this discussion new aspects may arise, the contribution may get modified, extended etc and eventually (which however is not certain) a new feature will make it into a release. People who get to freely choose what they want to do are the most vibrant drivers of their topics. Therefore the direction of a free software project is never fully predetermied, rather it depends on: a. what topics are presently 'hot' on the street. b. who happens to be around to pick up such a topic and drive it. This understanding seems to be rather universally shared by all Labs people active in upstream projects. A project 'strategy' which predetermines from the outset in which general direction a project is going to evolve doesn't seem to fit into the picture. AJ explained to me one of the reasons for a 'strategy' was to answer the question 'why openSUSE?' ie to determine what distinquishes us from the others. I explained to AJ the sentiments expressed by some Labs developers: To them openSUSE is just the optimum between 'most current' and 'stable and easy to use' which to them is a sufficient distinquishing factor already. I reported to AJ also that I had invited all people who are not comfortable with a strategy for openSUSE to participate in the relevant discussions. This however again touches on what I mentioned above. This to a large part summarizes the discussion I had with AJ. A perfect recipe how to overcome the disconnect none of us could come up with at the call. Maybe one step would be to bring the SUSE Labs conference and the openSUSE conference together, an idea that has been tossed around for quite a while already. The change in structure of the Labs conference especially that would be required seemed to have been the major obstacle that kept it from happening so far. Now since there is about a year before the next Labs conference there should be sufficient time to make this happen. Cheers, Egbert.

-- Sankar P http://psankar.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+help@opensuse.org

-- Egbert Eich (Res. & Dev.) SUSE LINUX Products GmbH openSUSE Booster / X Window System Development Tel: +49 911-740 53 0 http://www.suse.de ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 05:46:58PM +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

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With so much noise in the project mailing list, I will be surprised if any of the kernel folks were even following the threads, instead of mark-all-as-read. I will also be eager to know what their opinion is.

First of all, interesting, bloody interesting read. And I understand the labs ppl very well - will discuss this with them in 2 weeks when I hope to be at their offices...

Labs people are not colocated - that's why they have this conference. In case you mean the office in Prague, yes, there are a number of labs people there - but not all of them. Most of the labs is spread all over the world.

...

Indeed for someone working at a company like Novell for a while it may feel strange to discuss things with collegues in public: - Should one really openly 'flame' fellow Novell employees (AJ, Michael, coolo, the Boosters, ...) or decisions made by them? - What things can a Novell employee say in public? How much are the things one says influenced by internal knowledge that's not ment for public digestion?

I have this myself - I don't know where I stand being both a Novell employee and a community member. Something I want to discuss with ppl in person a bit anyway so I'll take it up with them too.

Finally people speak up - and I'm sure others will go again: "oh, no, this should have been an internal discussion".

...

This to a large part summarizes the discussion I had with AJ. A perfect recipe how to overcome the disconnect none of us could come up with at the call.

The strategy part I can, I think, explain to them. I've been trying to get more strategic thinking within the KDE community for ages, it's finally working a bit (more due to aseigo than me, btw) and I have strong opinions on the matter. And I'm of course right ;-) (gosh I sometimes wish I was arrogant enough to actually say (and mean) that without a smiley)

As much as I know aseigo he's actually able to drive a strategy - thru his own contributions :) This is exactly in line with what I wrote earlier.

Will discuss this more at the nurnberg offices and try to blog about that again at some point in the near future.

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Maybe one step would be to bring the SUSE Labs conference and the openSUSE conference together, an idea that has been tossed around for quite a while already.

+1000

Probably the majority of talks held on the labs conference were suitable and of interest for the openSUSE project. With colocation the openSUSE conference would get a number of good technical talks practically for free. It's a good way to show the community in which areas we contribute to upstream development and a good way of attracting more highly technical people.

Ties within Novell itself, within the community and between the two should be improved in general. Having face to face meetings is one of the most (if not THE most) effective ways to do it. And I'll walk the talk here, as far as I can - as soon as I think I should start being useful in this community and have some confidence when it comes to knowing what is going on I will try to organize more face-to-face meetings. Or rather, help ppl organize them for me of course ;-)

Indeed.

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The change in structure of the Labs conference especially that would be required seemed to have been the major obstacle that kept it from happening so far. Now since there is about a year before the next Labs conference there should be sufficient time to make this happen.

Cheers, Egbert.

Now go drink beer, it's weekend.

In case of French ppl, drink wine.

And in case you don't drink alcohol, either start now or skip a night's sleep, you'll feel about as hazy as when being drunk.

Actually I do - but not tonight, still some bug waiting... Cheers, Egbert. -- Egbert Eich (Res. & Dev.) SUSE LINUX Products GmbH openSUSE Booster / X Window System Development Tel: +49 911-740 53 0 http://www.suse.de ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+help@opensuse.org

Hey, On 08/06/2010 07:31 PM, Egbert Eich wrote:

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 05:46:58PM +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

...

Indeed for someone working at a company like Novell for a while it may feel strange to discuss things with collegues in public: - Should one really openly 'flame' fellow Novell employees (AJ, Michael, coolo, the Boosters, ...) or decisions made by them? - What things can a Novell employee say in public? How much are the things one says influenced by internal knowledge that's not ment for public digestion?

I have this myself - I don't know where I stand being both a Novell employee and a community member. Something I want to discuss with ppl in person a bit anyway so I'll take it up with them too.

Finally people speak up - and I'm sure others will go again: "oh, no, this should have been an internal discussion".

I never heard "oh, no, this should have been an internal discussion" anywhere! And believe me I am usually part of the nasty discussions ;-). I do believe this is a fear that we need to manage somehow. They don't have this in their upstream communities right? Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+help@opensuse.org

Hey,m On 09.08.2010 19:31, Egbert Eich wrote:

On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 12:06:01PM +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

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On 08/06/2010 07:31 PM, Egbert Eich wrote:

...

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 05:46:58PM +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

...

Indeed for someone working at a company like Novell for a while it may feel strange to discuss things with collegues in public: - Should one really openly 'flame' fellow Novell employees (AJ, Michael, coolo, the Boosters, ...) or decisions made by them? - What things can a Novell employee say in public? How much are the things one says influenced by internal knowledge that's not ment for public digestion?

I have this myself - I don't know where I stand being both a Novell employee and a community member. Something I want to discuss with ppl in person a bit anyway so I'll take it up with them too.

Finally people speak up - and I'm sure others will go again: "oh, no, this should have been an internal discussion".

I never heard "oh, no, this should have been an internal discussion" anywhere! And believe me I am usually part of the nasty discussions ;-).

You may be too intimidating ;P

Yeah right :P

...

I do believe this is a fear that we need to manage somehow. They don't have this in their upstream communities right?

Of course not. There is no contractual relationship between the project and the contributor. Everyone just contributes as an individual. There is a difference if you post on LKML or some freedesktop.org ML with a Novell mailing address or if you do this in the openSUSE project. At least this perception exists.

Then this is something we need to change. openSUSE is run in the same way as any other project they participate in: Contribuors voice their opinion no matter where they come from. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 06 August 2010 17:15:46 Egbert Eich wrote:

On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 02:11:34PM +0530, Sankar P wrote:

...

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:35 AM, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

On Tuesday 03 August 2010 14:34:13 Pavol Rusnak wrote:

...

On 08/03/2010 12:28 PM, Egbert Eich wrote:

...

- Had a longer phone discussion about the openSUSE strategy discussion, the sentiments of the SUSE Labs developers and how to overcome the disconnect of people at SUSE Labs (and other divisions inside SUSE not directly involved on openSUSE) and the openSUSE project.

I'm looking forward to a written summary of this discussion :-)

That would indeed be interesting. The SUSE labs developers are supposed to be community leaders, after all, and their input is/should therefor be valuable...

Right :) See below.

...

With so much noise in the project mailing list, I will be surprised if any of the kernel folks were even following the threads, instead of mark-all-as-read. I will also be eager to know what their opinion is.

This is exactly the point and actully what's happening. It is one of the issues I brought up talking to AJ: there are simply too many communication channels (fora, MLs, IRC, ...) for those people to follow. Some kernel folks read kernel@ but this is a topic ML and sufficiently focussed and low volume to follow. Most people from the Labs are active in their own communities (kernel, gcc, samba as example) already while at the same time they working for Novell, where their duties cover a assignments totally unrelated to openSUSE. These two areas alone already consume a great amount of time. Thus participating in yet another community is nothing that seem to be very feasable.

AJ mentioned that to be informed about what's going on in the project people should at least read news@ and announce@ - still these are hardly lists where one can chime into an ongoing discussion. I also explained to AJ about my impression that several people I met there seem to feel a discomfort to voice their opinions on an opensuse ML being Novell employees at the same time. When I was talking to people at the Labs Conference and asked them why they did not bring up a certain topic on an openSUSE ML I heard more than once: 'Isn't this a discussion that should be had internally?'. (I strongly believe that this is a feeling that's shared by several other Novell employees working for OPS.)

How can we overcome this?

Indeed for someone working at a company like Novell for a while it may feel strange to discuss things with collegues in public: - Should one really openly 'flame' fellow Novell employees (AJ, Michael, coolo, the Boosters, ...) or decisions made by them?

Flaming is always wrong ;) In general, decisions are not made ad-hoc, so they get discussed first and everybody is welcome to discuss that. And if then a decisions is made that you don't agree with, I really suggest to decide whether it's important for the project to discuss this again and whether you have something fundamentally knew to say - and if that's the case, go ahead. If you feel the need to flame anybody, do it privately in a friendly way first ;)

- What things can a Novell employee say in public? How much are the things one says influenced by internal knowledge that's not ment for public digestion?

Regarding openSUSE, there shouldn't be internal knowledge. ;) I'm really struggling to see examples that hinder you and would welcome some examples via private email.

[...] Maybe one step would be to bring the SUSE Labs conference and the openSUSE conference together, an idea that has been tossed around for quite a while already.

Yes, an idea that we want to discuss for next year again.

The change in structure of the Labs conference especially that would be required seemed to have been the major obstacle that kept it from happening so far. Now since there is about a year before the next Labs conference there should be sufficient time to make this happen.

Andreas -- 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 GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126