Re: [opensuse-marketing] Re: [opensuse-buildservice] Proposed OBS rename / + BRETZN name
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 19:50:24 Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Nelson Marques <nmo.marques@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 3:46 AM, Helen <postmodernhousewife@gmail.com> wrote:
I personally have mixed feelings about this - the fact that OBS has openSUSE in its name helps to get the openSUSE name 'out there' as its use becomes more popular, but I agree that there is a strong implication for users that it is only for openSUSE. The other reasons raised by Gumb are also valid ones.
OBS is the beating heart of openSUSE, I don't see any problem in having 'openSUSE' on a platform as OBS.
Agreed
I personally don't see it as a big issue directly - the only issue with it is that people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Build openSUSE Software".
If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state and I quote: «hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Buil openSUSE Software".» This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution. Maybe before we can be attractive to developers we have to be attractive to end users, so that they ditch their distribution repositories and use ours (which isn't supported by any distribution). So for you to succeded this is probably one of the issues that needs to be worked out first... Make OBS a repository of reference to other distributions.
The discussions and chats I've had at several conferences including the latest LCA clearly brought that forward and I think those of you who've been at conferences have heard the same sentiments. Now the scope of the Build Service is much wider than that and this misconception is hurting at least some of our uptake. The marketing team is fighting this perception all the time.
From a talk I had with someone I met on OSC, I actually asked him why they didn't used devel snapshots through OBS. The answer I got was... every distribution has packagers, they do that for me, why would I want to waste time on that? I don't package, I do other more important things.
The brand is currently usually abbreviated as OBS - and known (in writing) like that. MeeGo actually calls it 'open build service' already, as do many other people. I wouldn't argue yet that 'open build service' is already the de-facto name, but it's going in that direction.
Once more, this could indicate severe marketing strategy failure. Careful with such statements.
So there is a reason to rename it: do something about a misconception which is hurting uptake.
The reason to rebrand and reposition a well established service is based on an hypothetical marketing failure? Maybe it's time for you to drop Darwinism and maybe be more mindful of Smith/Drucker/Kotler, as they will provide an answer for your problems.
Reasons not to do it: 1 we diminish the link between openSUSE and OBS 2 we loose some brand value due to the repositioning
1 & 2 - will only happen if Marketing doesn't take action to support the whole repositioning (this is where the fat budgets play there role).
On 1, I don't see this as a real issue as OBS is and will be principally developed by openSUSE - and as I wrote before, the culture of 'credit where credit is due' in FOSS protects us in this regard as well.
Unless you want to make of OBS a fully commercial product, that makes no sense.
2 is really minimal - OBS is the name most known and won't change; moreover many people already call it open build service (or even just 'the build service' which is actually really good for us I would say - saying OBS is the de-facto standard build service).
Interesting... A "build service" builds something, that's how someone probably will face it. As I face it, it's an outstanding distribution platform, to feed or distribute contents. There is a difference, and if you think closely, it might be more benefic for OBS to be promoted as a distribution platform, at least it sounds far more appealing to me, and the fact is has a HUGE 'OPENSUSE' in it's name can only benefit openSUSE as a Linux distribution.
Hence I believe the reason to do it eclipses the reasons not to do it.
Just trying to prevent a situation like the one portraited partially on [1]. If you look carefully, that entry is quite a powerful example. That entry suggests that picking KDE as the default Desktop actually didn't brought the expected user base to openSUSE. And changing back to GNOME will only hurt us more, because you are endangering hurting users and paint us like if we don't know what we're doing. I hope OBS will not be the subject of such changes every once in a while. It kills consumer trust, and we want to build relations with users based on trust so we can build loyalty. Changing all the time will only hurt what we're trying to build. [1] - https://features.opensuse.org/311023
On the facebook thing, I doubt our number likes on facebook for openSUSE have much if anything to do with uptake of OBS. Not to say we shouldn't try to increase that number...
Depends... you are only seeing one side of the problem, you neglect still that we work to provide contents to people and to show people that our contents/software is a reliable option. It makes all sense to me that the more contents we serve, the more attractive we will be for those making the contents. I'm sure that making such a risky maneuvre because a group of people call it something else is rather naive. This email expresses a personal opinion and therefore there is no right or wrong, just a point of view. NM -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:20:00 Nelson Marques wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com> wrote:
I personally don't see it as a big issue directly - the only issue with it is that people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Build openSUSE Software".
If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state and I quote:
«hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Buil openSUSE Software".»
This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution.
Yes, it is failing marketing: choosing a wrong name, duh. openSUSE Build Service as a name quite strongly suggests that it's for openSUSE... And that is the problem. Surely OBS does that, but it does more - and the name doesn't support that. It IS a marketing failure. Interestingly enough, at LCA I attended a talk by a Red Hat developer about KOJI. It's Red Hat's/Fedora's build service. It's massively worse than OBS - you CAN build packages for other distro's but it's quite hard. The whole thing is much harder to use, can't cross-compile for other platforms and has to run on your own machine. Still, many people were interested in it. And part of that is because the name doesn't signal any distro-specificity.
Maybe before we can be attractive to developers we have to be attractive to end users, so that they ditch their distribution repositories and use ours (which isn't supported by any distribution). So for you to succeded this is probably one of the issues that needs to be worked out first... Make OBS a repository of reference to other distributions.
The discussions and chats I've had at several conferences including the latest LCA clearly brought that forward and I think those of you who've been at conferences have heard the same sentiments. Now the scope of the Build Service is much wider than that and this misconception is hurting at least some of our uptake. The marketing team is fighting this perception all the time.
From a talk I had with someone I met on OSC, I actually asked him why they didn't used devel snapshots through OBS. The answer I got was... every distribution has packagers, they do that for me, why would I want to waste time on that? I don't package, I do other more important things.
The brand is currently usually abbreviated as OBS - and known (in writing) like that. MeeGo actually calls it 'open build service' already, as do many other people. I wouldn't argue yet that 'open build service' is already the de-facto name, but it's going in that direction.
Once more, this could indicate severe marketing strategy failure. Careful with such statements.
So there is a reason to rename it: do something about a misconception which is hurting uptake.
The reason to rebrand and reposition a well established service is based on an hypothetical marketing failure?
Maybe it's time for you to drop Darwinism and maybe be more mindful of Smith/Drucker/Kotler, as they will provide an answer for your problems.
Reasons not to do it: 1 we diminish the link between openSUSE and OBS 2 we loose some brand value due to the repositioning
1 & 2 - will only happen if Marketing doesn't take action to support the whole repositioning (this is where the fat budgets play there role).
On 1, I don't see this as a real issue as OBS is and will be principally developed by openSUSE - and as I wrote before, the culture of 'credit where credit is due' in FOSS protects us in this regard as well.
Unless you want to make of OBS a fully commercial product, that makes no sense.
2 is really minimal - OBS is the name most known and won't change; moreover many people already call it open build service (or even just 'the build service' which is actually really good for us I would say - saying OBS is the de-facto standard build service).
Interesting... A "build service" builds something, that's how someone probably will face it. As I face it, it's an outstanding distribution platform, to feed or distribute contents. There is a difference, and if you think closely, it might be more benefic for OBS to be promoted as a distribution platform, at least it sounds far more appealing to me, and the fact is has a HUGE 'OPENSUSE' in it's name can only benefit openSUSE as a Linux distribution.
Hence I believe the reason to do it eclipses the reasons not to do it.
Just trying to prevent a situation like the one portraited partially on [1]. If you look carefully, that entry is quite a powerful example. That entry suggests that picking KDE as the default Desktop actually didn't brought the expected user base to openSUSE. And changing back to GNOME will only hurt us more, because you are endangering hurting users and paint us like if we don't know what we're doing. I hope OBS will not be the subject of such changes every once in a while. It kills consumer trust, and we want to build relations with users based on trust so we can build loyalty. Changing all the time will only hurt what we're trying to build.
[1] - https://features.opensuse.org/311023
On the facebook thing, I doubt our number likes on facebook for openSUSE have much if anything to do with uptake of OBS. Not to say we shouldn't try to increase that number...
Depends... you are only seeing one side of the problem, you neglect still that we work to provide contents to people and to show people that our contents/software is a reliable option. It makes all sense to me that the more contents we serve, the more attractive we will be for those making the contents.
I'm sure that making such a risky maneuvre because a group of people call it something else is rather naive.
This email expresses a personal opinion and therefore there is no right or wrong, just a point of view.
NM
Am Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011, 22:31:18 schrieb Jos Poortvliet:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:20:00 Nelson Marques wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com>
wrote:
I personally don't see it as a big issue directly - the only issue with it is that people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Build openSUSE Software".
If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state and I quote:
«hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Buil openSUSE Software".»
This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution.
Yes, it is failing marketing: choosing a wrong name, duh. openSUSE Build Service as a name quite strongly suggests that it's for openSUSE... And that is the problem. Surely OBS does that, but it does more - and the name doesn't support that. It IS a marketing failure.
Interestingly enough, at LCA I attended a talk by a Red Hat developer about KOJI. It's Red Hat's/Fedora's build service. It's massively worse than OBS - you CAN build packages for other distro's but it's quite hard. The whole thing is much harder to use, can't cross-compile for other platforms and has to run on your own machine. Still, many people were interested in it. And part of that is because the name doesn't signal any distro-specificity.
Just my 2cent on this: * I think when using the just the term "OBS" more strictly and avoiding the full name, the problem would reduce a lot. * A rename should always consider the available DNS domains ;) * OBS as term itself is actually less import for the end users. They just see the result. A reason why the "PPA" term from ubuntu is so intrusive. IMHO we need to finished this feature ASAP: https://features.opensuse.org/310109 and we need to find a cool and marketing-able name for (similar to 1-click- install). This would reach way more people (in best case also some non openSUSE users) and we have the chance in the second step to educate them also better about OBS. We will grow afterwards. This feature just waits for a web developer since a longer time creating a good proposal. The pure coding part will be realtive minimal, I think. Have fun on FOSDEM adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH email: adrian@suse.de -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:57:02 Adrian Schröter wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011, 22:31:18 schrieb Jos Poortvliet:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:20:00 Nelson Marques wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com>
wrote:
I personally don't see it as a big issue directly - the only issue with it is that people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Build openSUSE Software".
If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state and I quote:
«hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Buil openSUSE Software".»
This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution.
Yes, it is failing marketing: choosing a wrong name, duh. openSUSE Build Service as a name quite strongly suggests that it's for openSUSE... And that is the problem. Surely OBS does that, but it does more - and the name doesn't support that. It IS a marketing failure.
Interestingly enough, at LCA I attended a talk by a Red Hat developer about KOJI. It's Red Hat's/Fedora's build service. It's massively worse than OBS - you CAN build packages for other distro's but it's quite hard. The whole thing is much harder to use, can't cross-compile for other platforms and has to run on your own machine. Still, many people were interested in it. And part of that is because the name doesn't signal any distro-specificity.
Just my 2cent on this:
* I think when using the just the term "OBS" more strictly and avoiding the full name, the problem would reduce a lot.
Well, ppl always want to know what it means - and "open (or openSUSE) build service" is a good start of an explanation. So I don't think this will really solve the issue.
* A rename should always consider the available DNS domains ;)
hehehe yes, that is true... But doesn't openbuildservice.org already redirect to build.opensuse.org? Seems like we could go for that name then... Yes?
* OBS as term itself is actually less import for the end users. They just see the result. A reason why the "PPA" term from ubuntu is so intrusive.
True, for end-users the whole thing is very different. But this was mostly prompted by the issue with explaining this to packagers and other more technical people...
IMHO we need to finished this feature ASAP:
https://features.opensuse.org/310109
and we need to find a cool and marketing-able name for (similar to 1-click- install). This would reach way more people (in best case also some non openSUSE users) and we have the chance in the second step to educate them also better about OBS. We will grow afterwards.
This feature just waits for a web developer since a longer time creating a good proposal. The pure coding part will be realtive minimal, I think.
Awesome idea for sure, and yes, it needs a good marketing name :D
Have fun on FOSDEM
Thanks. We'll miss you...
adrian
Am Donnerstag, 3. Februar 2011, 01:31:24 schrieb Jos Poortvliet:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:57:02 Adrian Schröter wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011, 22:31:18 schrieb Jos Poortvliet: ... Just my 2cent on this:
* I think when using the just the term "OBS" more strictly and avoiding the
full name, the problem would reduce a lot.
Well, ppl always want to know what it means - and "open (or openSUSE) build service" is a good start of an explanation. So I don't think this will really solve the issue.
* A rename should always consider the available DNS domains ;)
hehehe yes, that is true... But doesn't openbuildservice.org already redirect to build.opensuse.org? Seems like we could go for that name then... Yes?
This particular one is indeed owned by me (privately). But there are also others, some of them pointing also to build.o.o, but they still want to hand it over only under some conditions (money or others). That is something what I don't even want to start about. One aspect, which should not be forgotten is that OBS is developed still by 99% from SUSE employees. We have meanwhile a core team of 3 people and that size is only existing, because is OBS is used also for SUSE Linux Enterprise and a variete of further SUSE and Novell products and services. This is of course another good reason to rename it away from "openSUSE", but SUSE/Novell as company is the main developer (and openSUSE is just a user in first place so far regarding the efforts), so we need to sync with our buisiness folks here. One of them (Kurt Garloff) made actually a suggestion some month ago to rename it to "OBS Build Service". This is in the tradition of the Gnu tools and also rpm (RedHat Package Manager -> rpm package manager) is a good example. It also strength the "OBS" term itself IMHO. I personally like this suggestion and would slightly prefer it to open-build- service (but I have no strong opinion here). But you may want to discuss it on FOSDEM. Btw, when we have finally decided about a new name, I would use the new DNS name to present OBS as technology and of course link to some real life instances. But it would be not the same as build.o.o, which is the openSUSE instance.
* OBS as term itself is actually less import for the end users. They just see the result. A reason why the "PPA" term from ubuntu is so intrusive.
True, for end-users the whole thing is very different. But this was mostly prompted by the issue with explaining this to packagers and other more technical people...
But the idea behind this is to get users first and convert some of them to packagers afterwards ;) And every packager is anyway a user, so he will have first contact with this. Esp. when comming from a non-SUSE distro and gets surprised via some web page that software.opensuse.org also offers for his distro stuff ;)
IMHO we need to finished this feature ASAP: https://features.opensuse.org/310109
and we need to find a cool and marketing-able name for (similar to
1-click- install). This would reach way more people (in best case also some non openSUSE users) and we have the chance in the second step to educate them also better about OBS. We will grow afterwards.
This feature just waits for a web developer since a longer time creating
a good proposal. The pure coding part will be realtive minimal, I think.
Awesome idea for sure, and yes, it needs a good marketing name :D
Have fun on FOSDEM
Thanks. We'll miss you...
adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH email: adrian@suse.de
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 03 February 2011 10:55:01 Adrian Schröter wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 3. Februar 2011, 01:31:24 schrieb Jos Poortvliet:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:57:02 Adrian Schröter wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011, 22:31:18 schrieb Jos Poortvliet: ...
Just my 2cent on this:
* I think when using the just the term "OBS" more strictly and avoiding the
full name, the problem would reduce a lot.
Well, ppl always want to know what it means - and "open (or openSUSE) build service" is a good start of an explanation. So I don't think this will really solve the issue.
* A rename should always consider the available DNS domains ;)
hehehe yes, that is true... But doesn't openbuildservice.org already redirect to build.opensuse.org? Seems like we could go for that name then... Yes?
This particular one is indeed owned by me (privately). But there are also others, some of them pointing also to build.o.o, but they still want to hand it over only under some conditions (money or others). That is something what I don't even want to start about.
Well, depending on the amount and conditions, I might actually be willing to pay for this - if it's like $50 or so.. It would make sense from a marketing perspective and that's what my budget is for... I know, it's ethically not great, but we have to think from a practical pov.
One aspect, which should not be forgotten is that OBS is developed still by 99% from SUSE employees. We have meanwhile a core team of 3 people and that size is only existing, because is OBS is used also for SUSE Linux Enterprise and a variete of further SUSE and Novell products and services.
This is of course another good reason to rename it away from "openSUSE", but SUSE/Novell as company is the main developer (and openSUSE is just a user in first place so far regarding the efforts), so we need to sync with our buisiness folks here.
Sure. But I would hope to be able to convince them that from a marketing pov something like open build service is better ;-) Besides, we WANT to change the "99% from SUSE employees", right? That means we need to put in some effort, also in this area. As well as things like code cleanup, mentoring, code documentation etc etc etc - the usual riff-raff ;-)
One of them (Kurt Garloff) made actually a suggestion some month ago to rename it to "OBS Build Service". This is in the tradition of the Gnu tools and also rpm (RedHat Package Manager -> rpm package manager) is a good example. It also strength the "OBS" term itself IMHO.
I personally like this suggestion and would slightly prefer it to open-build- service (but I have no strong opinion here). But you may want to discuss it on FOSDEM.
Hmmm, it does indeed fit in the Unux tradition. Then again, that tradition is a bit outdated these days - pretty much nobody does use recursive acronyms anymore. But you're right, it's an option.
Btw, when we have finally decided about a new name, I would use the new DNS name to present OBS as technology and of course link to some real life instances. But it would be not the same as build.o.o, which is the openSUSE instance.
Makes sense...
* OBS as term itself is actually less import for the end users. They just see the result. A reason why the "PPA" term from ubuntu is so intrusive.
True, for end-users the whole thing is very different. But this was mostly prompted by the issue with explaining this to packagers and other more technical people...
But the idea behind this is to get users first and convert some of them to packagers afterwards ;)
Well, that depends on what definition of users you and I are using here. I meant users as in users of the openSUSE distribution; if you're talking to users as in users of OBS you're entirely right of course. Our distribution users are in the longer term of course also a source of new contributors but a bit more distant than those already using OBS...
And every packager is anyway a user, so he will have first contact with this. Esp. when comming from a non-SUSE distro and gets surprised via some web page that software.opensuse.org also offers for his distro stuff ;)
Yup :D
Why not use both names? Then one could use either name depending on the political context. "open-buildservice for historical reasons also called opensuse-buildservice" "opensuse-buildservice for marketing reasons also called open-buildservice" There could be a virtual project so that people trying to install would always do the right thing no matter what named was used. -- Paul Elliott 1(512)837-1096 pelliott@BlackPatchPanel.com PMB 181, 11900 Metric Blvd Suite J http://www.free.blackpatchpanel.com/pme/ Austin TX 78758-3117
On Thursday 03 February 2011 23:50:27 Paul Elliott wrote:
Why not use both names? Then one could use either name depending on the political context.
"open-buildservice for historical reasons also called opensuse-buildservice"
"opensuse-buildservice for marketing reasons also called open-buildservice"
There could be a virtual project so that people trying to install would always do the right thing no matter what named was used.
Hmmm, that would only complicate things. Kurt has a point, as does Bryen - we can call the technology Open Build Service and we have an instance wich is the openSUSE BS. Still I'd call it all the Open Build Service which has an instance free-to-use on build.opensuse.org - to make sure ppl realize that the instance on buid.o.o is ALSO cross-distro! If we point out that the Open Build Service is there 'for all distro's' but still say 'openSUSE build service' when referring to build.o.o we're still having the same issue. After all, while it's fine if ppl run their own instance of OBS, we have the biggest opportunity of turning them into contributors if they're on build.o.o! So to cut to the chase and avoid further bikeshedding*, let me propose the following: OBS will from now on officially be known as Open Build Service. build.openSUSE.org is openSUSE's OBS instance. If any of the core OBS developers have strong objections, please say so. If not, let's say this decision is made - I don't really see why the whole project has to be involved in that decision. It's your build service, the marketing team advices a name change - you decide. Project gets notified. No reason to let another 500 people give their opinion (and bother the other 499 with that). Who codes decides, bottom up, independent teams, all that ;-) Cheers, Jos * bikeshed.org
On 2/4/11 8:29 AM, Jos Poortvliet wrote:
On Thursday 03 February 2011 23:50:27 Paul Elliott wrote:
Why not use both names? Then one could use either name depending on the political context.
"open-buildservice for historical reasons also called opensuse-buildservice"
"opensuse-buildservice for marketing reasons also called open-buildservice"
There could be a virtual project so that people trying to install would always do the right thing no matter what named was used.
Hmmm, that would only complicate things. Kurt has a point, as does Bryen - we can call the technology Open Build Service and we have an instance wich is the openSUSE BS. Still I'd call it all the Open Build Service which has an instance free-to-use on build.opensuse.org - to make sure ppl realize that the instance on buid.o.o is ALSO cross-distro! If we point out that the Open Build Service is there 'for all distro's' but still say 'openSUSE build service' when referring to build.o.o we're still having the same issue. After all, while it's fine if ppl run their own instance of OBS, we have the biggest opportunity of turning them into contributors if they're on build.o.o!
So to cut to the chase and avoid further bikeshedding*, let me propose the following:
OBS will from now on officially be known as Open Build Service. build.openSUSE.org is openSUSE's OBS instance.
If any of the core OBS developers have strong objections, please say so. If not, let's say this decision is made - I don't really see why the whole project has to be involved in that decision. It's your build service, the marketing team advices a name change - you decide. Project gets notified. No reason to let another 500 people give their opinion (and bother the other 499 with that). Who codes decides, bottom up, independent teams, all that ;-)
Cheers, Jos
* bikeshed.org
Hi, I am sure this will be a topic to discuss at FOSDEM, unfortunately Adrian will not be there. That said, I agree with Jos that a "rebranding" of you will of OBS is a good thing. I have demoed OBS many times to people and the instant reaction is: " Oh, I thought it was only for openSUSE." Ultimately, its for the OBS developers to decide. I'll shut up now and hope this thread ends. Cheers, Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 10:55:01AM +0100, Adrian Schröter wrote:
One of them (Kurt Garloff) made actually a suggestion some month ago to rename it to "OBS Build Service". This is in the tradition of the Gnu tools and also rpm (RedHat Package Manager -> rpm package manager) is a good example. It also strength the "OBS" term itself IMHO.
Oh, I like this suggestion, it makes a lot of sense. thanks, greg k-h -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:20:00 Nelson Marques wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com> wrote: <snip> Maybe before we can be attractive to developers we have to be attractive to end users, so that they ditch their distribution repositories and use ours (which isn't supported by any distribution). So for you to succeded this is probably one of the issues that needs to be worked out first... Make OBS a repository of reference to other distributions.
There are such repositories having packages for other distro's, right? Besides, I'm not trying to get users to ditch their distro's repositories and use OBS - that won't work as OBS doesn't have all of their distro. But I want to replace PPA's and specific Fedora repositories with OBS repositories - so we need to get DEVELOPERS and ppl who want to package specific packages for other distro's to use OBS. Then they spread the packages through that. In case of developers, the only thing we win is that they will at least create openSUSE packages so we get more software. In case of 'casual' packagers who for example decide to package F-Spot for a few distro's because they like F-Spot, we have another opportunity: maybe we can convince them to contribute more packages. Then maybe convince them to start contributing those to factory and bang, we have a new contributor. So making it attractive to end users doesn't really help OBS much.
The discussions and chats I've had at several conferences including the latest LCA clearly brought that forward and I think those of you who've been at conferences have heard the same sentiments. Now the scope of the Build Service is much wider than that and this misconception is hurting at least some of our uptake. The marketing team is fighting this perception all the time.
From a talk I had with someone I met on OSC, I actually asked him why they didn't used devel snapshots through OBS. The answer I got was... every distribution has packagers, they do that for me, why would I want to waste time on that? I don't package, I do other more important things.
True, for some that is true. Especially if you're KDE or GNOME. Less so if you have a small, lesser-known application - look at gtk-apps.org or kde-apps.org, those apps have usually only a few packages - those for the distro of the developer and a few contributed packages by others. The developer of such an app would surely be interested in OBS so we have to reach them. And those 'others' who submitted a package are a big pool of potential contributors for openSUSE so we need to talk to them even more! And they come for Open Build Service, not openSUSE Build Service!
The brand is currently usually abbreviated as OBS - and known (in writing) like that. MeeGo actually calls it 'open build service' already, as do many other people. I wouldn't argue yet that 'open build service' is already the de-facto name, but it's going in that direction.
Once more, this could indicate severe marketing strategy failure. Careful with such statements.
Sure, but the name is wrong hence it goes wrong.
So there is a reason to rename it: do something about a misconception which is hurting uptake.
The reason to rebrand and reposition a well established service is based on an hypothetical marketing failure?
No, the failure is the name. We should fix that.
Maybe it's time for you to drop Darwinism and maybe be more mindful of Smith/Drucker/Kotler, as they will provide an answer for your problems.
Reasons not to do it: 1 we diminish the link between openSUSE and OBS 2 we loose some brand value due to the repositioning
1 & 2 - will only happen if Marketing doesn't take action to support the whole repositioning (this is where the fat budgets play there role).
As Open Build Service is already used and much easier to promote, I would actually argue that KEEPING the name openSUSE build service is more 'expensive' in terms of effort to promote it.
On 1, I don't see this as a real issue as OBS is and will be principally developed by openSUSE - and as I wrote before, the culture of 'credit where credit is due' in FOSS protects us in this regard as well.
Unless you want to make of OBS a fully commercial product, that makes no sense.
2 is really minimal - OBS is the name most known and won't change; moreover many people already call it open build service (or even just 'the build service' which is actually really good for us I would say - saying OBS is the de-facto standard build service).
Interesting... A "build service" builds something, that's how someone probably will face it. As I face it, it's an outstanding distribution platform, to feed or distribute contents. There is a difference, and if you think closely, it might be more benefic for OBS to be promoted as a distribution platform, at least it sounds far more appealing to me, and the fact is has a HUGE 'OPENSUSE' in it's name can only benefit openSUSE as a Linux distribution.
Well, I think that benefit is surely there, but it won't be diminished much by the name Open Build Service. People who go there will see openSUSE featured in several places. And they are technical people who surely know who makes the tools they use. So it doesn't change anything for those who use it but does make it easier to get more users... win-win
Hence I believe the reason to do it eclipses the reasons not to do it.
Just trying to prevent a situation like the one portraited partially on [1]. If you look carefully, that entry is quite a powerful example. That entry suggests that picking KDE as the default Desktop actually didn't brought the expected user base to openSUSE. And changing back to GNOME will only hurt us more, because you are endangering hurting users and paint us like if we don't know what we're doing. I hope OBS will not be the subject of such changes every once in a while. It kills consumer trust, and we want to build relations with users based on trust so we can build loyalty. Changing all the time will only hurt what we're trying to build.
Change is bad, that's for sure. But as I've said 10 times already, it's not a big change - outside of openSUSE the build service is already often referred to as open build service and we do it too because it makes more sense...
On the facebook thing, I doubt our number likes on facebook for openSUSE have much if anything to do with uptake of OBS. Not to say we shouldn't try to increase that number...
Depends... you are only seeing one side of the problem, you neglect still that we work to provide contents to people and to show people that our contents/software is a reliable option. It makes all sense to me that the more contents we serve, the more attractive we will be for those making the contents.
I'm sure that making such a risky maneuvre because a group of people call it something else is rather naive.
You know that's not the reason. And you also should understand by now that it's not risky to do this.
This email expresses a personal opinion and therefore there is no right or wrong, just a point of view.
Sure. And we start to repeat ourselves, so I'll try to refrain from further commenting unless a new argument comes up. Let the OBS dev's decide or let them follow the advice from marketing (which seems to be: rename to Open Build Service).
NM
On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Nelson Marques <nmo.marques@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wednesday 02 February 2011 19:50:24 Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Nelson Marques <nmo.marques@gmail.com> wrote:
If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state and I quote:
«hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to "Buil openSUSE Software".»
This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution.
Once more, this could indicate severe marketing strategy failure. Careful with such statements.
The reason to rebrand and reposition a well established service is based on an hypothetical marketing failure?
If it's a case of stringent adherence to Marketing principles and theory, then perhaps these principles need to be attended to at a much earlier stage of product development. Because at this stage Marketing is being presented with a fully fledged, named and branded product which we are then, like an advertising company, asked to promote, flaws and all. But really Marketing should be involved at all stages of product development to ensure that we can successfully market the product. At what point did the Marketing team and OBS representatives have a round table and decide on the optimal branding for the build service? Is there an IRC log on that? If any rebranding is EVER going to be done, it needs to be done now, before things go any further, and if not, then we need a clear strategy for ensuring its broader application is more easily promoted (eg, a logo which emphasises BUILD SERVICE). Regarding the suggestion that it's up to the OBS people to decide: they should certainly have some solid input, but as an integral part of the openSUSE project, it is not solely up to them. Who do we have on the team who has qualifications and experience in marketing and advertising? I assume from your comments that you have some formal experience in this area, Nelson? Who else? best, Helen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-buildservice+help@opensuse.org
participants (7)
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Adrian Schröter -
Greg KH -
Helen -
Jos Poortvliet -
Nelson Marques -
Paul Elliott -
Peter Linnell