On Wednesday 02 February 2011 20:37:44 Nelson Marques wrote:
<snip>
I believe on this at least... without a strong user base, we might not become attractive enough for developers to use OBS to distribute their software, because our user base isn't large enough. Maybe what developers love is probably that everyone picks their software and use it? Maybe that's the missing link.
That reads as if you assume OBS is not successful. I feel the opposite.
Greg,
Nah, I might have picked the wrong example, or at least a misleading one. OBS is successful, that's the main reason why I think that repositioning it now wouldn't bring us any good and would probably demand a huge set of resources/budget not to loose what OBS team has achieved.
On a very straight way, I think the base line of OBS promotion should actually start with OBS power users, because they are the ones which can highlight what makes devs tinkle and happy. Those are probably the best topics to promote it (alongside with some metrics for a more professional thing).
It is very hard for none tech people to get the soul of it. From my experience with OBS, I would translate OBS in a single word: ADDICTIVE. After your first package gets a positive review and hits Factory, you want to pump some more... you feel that you are a bit of openSUSE. This is the reason why I went the road of the Ubuntu Indicators and eventually Unity (which is a major pain).
From my side, my motivation came from the very positive feedback of people regarding the work and the addiction of despite not being a technical person, I can do something for openSUSE through OBS.
Now that is interesting. How would you say could we modify OBS or the way we use it and talk about it to get more people to not just use it but also start contributing to openSUSE? You've recently gone through a process of starting to use it, then contributing - how's that working, what barriers did you encounter and did you feel supported and invited to contribute?
Not going on openSUSE vs Ubuntu distro wars, both are far too different and with different positioning/goals. There's nothing to compare, if I could shape openSUSE at my own will, I would reposition it as a content service platform, not just as a desktop or a server, but as the platform that enables you to have any piece of free software you could ask for. But this is just my speculation ;)
NM