On 2010-11-05 Martin wrote:
Fredag den 5. november 2010 14:43:50 skrev Jos Poortvliet:
At the conf one piece of feedback was that we need a single-sentence
mission to describe what we want - very much like what fedora has: Ah, smart people at the conference :-)
The Fedora Project's mission is to lead the advancement of free and open source software and content as a collaborative community.
I think I like their mission and it's also pretty correct
Well, their mission is quite sympathetic and I'm glad to have Fedora around, but if you read between the lines it really means: "unproductive, bleeding edge, experimental toy for geeks". And I'm pretty sure that most of the openSUSE community wants something rather different - fortunately most of the strategy discussion so far has confirmed this.
Sure. I'm not saying I like their mission so much it should be ours - we have a different goal. What I like about their mission is that it is: - ambitious - has a GLOBAL goal - gives direction and identity - yet is broad enough not to exclude much So for them, it is a good mission. We'd need a mission which has the same properties yet breathes a different (but no smaller) ambition...
- so we brainstormed on what would fit openSUSE. Suggestions are very welcome, we currently have:
The openSUSE project's mission is to unlock the posibilities of computers to users around the globe using the power and flexibility of Linux.
but it's far from perfect. Somehow it should mention we focus on flexibility and power ("make things as simple as possible but no simpler"), it should be ambitious (eg worldwide blabla), focussed on end-users etc - the requirements are clear as they come from the rest of the strategy discusion. But now, how to phrase it in one sentence?
Sorry to keep repeating myself, but the keywords here should definitely be productive, powerful and professional :-)
How about something along these lines: "In the openSUSE project we work together to create a professional and powerful Linux distribution, which lets people be productive."
Yes, that's what we do. Now why do we do it? We do want something right? So what is that? What do we want to change in the world by releasing openSUSE? If nothing, we'd better stop doing it... ;-) (yes, we do want to bring something - something which is more open, more flexible, more powerful, more professional, more productive. But how to say that in one sentence?)