On Tue, 2010-08-10 at 09:32 +0200, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Today we continue with public discussions about strategy proposals, this time with the "Status quo" strategy proposal:
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== Statement ==
We deliver a well-balanced GNU/Linux platform for modern computers (workstation, laptop, netbook, server) that equally appeals to end users, power users, developers and server/network infrastructure administrators. It shall protrude professionally and let the user be productive.
== Background ==
This strategy tries to quantify what we tried to do in the past — as it was not written down earlier.
So, this is what most users expect from openSUSE today, but does not give a vision for change looking forward.
In the context of other distributions, we differentiate ourselves from Ubuntu targeting the newbie and further differentiate from Fedora being experimental bleeding edge — instead we pick "the middle ground".
== Key ideas ==
* Creation of a general purpose distribution that ** anyone can use without too much effort ** is known for good quality (stable and usable but neither outdated nor bleeding edge) ** has good and sane defaults so the user can do what s/he wants to do ** has programs that work out of the box ** focused on modern hardware and their use cases (workstations, laptops, netbooks and servers) ** is targeted towards end users, but is reasonably equally usable for other workloads * Critical analysis of hyped items before inclusion
== Activities ==
=== We need to be excellent in the following ===
* Do as we always did! That is, ** good compromise between actuality and stability ** agreeable release cycle of 8 months ** support for the three most recent releases * Supporting our target customers ** End users: *** Delivering multiple desktops, focusing on both GNOME and KDE *** Focus on providing tools for being productive and creative (IDEs, editors, authoring tools, graphics manipulation, office productivity, etc.) ** Developers: *** Development environments for especially C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, Ruby: IDEs, tools and support libraries ** Power users and system administrators: *** Providing admin tools that are powerful yet (reasonably) easy *** Agreeable command line experience *** Virtualization technique, e.g. KVM, Xen *** Standard networking services * Continue the naturally growth of openSUSE:Factory by incorporating contributors' submissions.
=== We will try to do the following effectively ===
* Innovate and keep up with latest upstream developments. * Include a more minimalistic desktop environment. * Provide a low entry barrier for potential contributors. With the openSUSE Build Service, it is easier to make contributions than any other Linux distribution to date. * Offer easy creation of specialized install media (appliances) through SUSE Studio. * Good presentation and marketing, in particular communicating our existing strengths and unique features (i.e. competitive advantages). * The usual niceties: speed, less bloat, possibility of minimality.
=== As project, we will not focus on the following ===
(fill in if exists)
The lack of "what we won't do" is a fundamental problem with this proposal. By not defining what it is that does not fit within our priorities, we effectively lose any strategic purpose to the proposal. And we end up not moving forward. All of the above is good at highlighting some of the strengths that exist within our Project, but it also highlights a "everything under the sun" approach. What's important to note here is that no proposal is going to exclude anything that someone wants to do. A strategy can be very broad or very narrow, depending on what all parties agree with and can in fact provide the resources for. So, in the above listed items, its basically concluded that we reach a middle ground. Middle ground implies that we make certain sacrifices here or there. That's fine. That's actually what a strategy statement is supposed to do. But this proposal does not define *what* the middle ground sacrifices are. This Status Quo proposal has some merits and supports some personal beliefs I have about the Project's benefits. But, until it defines clearly what openSUSE is all about to the world, I cannot support this proposal in its currently written form. If you go back to the first paragraph of the proposal (the Statement), its simply a claim that just about every other distro makes. If a new person to Linux is presented with three different distro CD's and has to pick one to install, what is our argument why openSUSE should be picked? Or more importantly, if a new Linux user is approached by three different openSUSE advocates separately, would the message each person gives to the new user the same? Would it be different? Or would it be different but have some common thread embedded within that message? I think we all agree that there isn't a consistent message, and that sometimes when we talk to each other about what we think openSUSE means, we think... "What is that person talking about?? That's not what openSUSE is about." And thus, a strategy statement not only gives some focus and direction to what we are doing on the technical/community side, but also unifies us in how we communicate to the world what openSUSE is about. This proposal, in its current written form doesn't achieve that. But it could, if it was re-written somehow. Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org