On Wednesday 2010-08-11 17:19, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:
=== 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.
It is an assessment of what openSUSE used to do. Much of that happened behind closed doors just years ago so excuse me if I could not type up everything. For example, assume "not focusing on power users anymore" would be on the list. I would dismiss such a claim, because I, as a power user, feel having been satisfied over the years, as such, openSUSE can't possibly have not focused on power users. Sure there are areas openSUSE does not focus on, but I could not quantify them easily. And that's why it says (fill in) rather than (there's nothing here). And, as I probably mentioned elsewhere already, consider everything that is not explicitly listed as focus and strength to be implicitly listed under non-focus, but it seems, that, too, has been overread. Since I had originally come up with it, it obviously is a little biased, and some people already joined efforts to merge, streamline, unbias, whatever. If you haven't yet, it maybe time to do so. I suck at politics, and that's probably good so. There is this wiki page right now, and in a developer world you simply send a patch - or in this case, a fragment of an antiproposal for a single point - and we will see.
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?
My simple stance[1] is my personal pasttime experience: "Because I run it, because I develop with it, and outlook for free support from me is dim for others. Because Ubuntu drives me nuts and shows that you might have not carefully enough considered all options." That alone was sufficient to turn my surrounding world to openSUSE. [1] http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/23/people-of-opensuse-jan-engelhardt/
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 am sure two of the advocates would try to /influence/ this user with some persuasing techniques ("give it a try", "it's free"). My stance is clearly on Rule Of Acquisition #190 ("Hear all, trust nothing.") So I tell them what openSUSE has and where its strengths and weaknesses are. Then the user has to choose where he thinks he best fits in. Yes, it's an elitist view which seems to be completely disjunct from this proposal, but I am fine with going with this proposal (or the poweruser one) simply because it allows me to have my share of "expressional freedom" (lets me do what I want).
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."
Is it about green fields and backgrounds?
This proposal, in its current written form doesn't achieve that. But it could, if it was re-written somehow.
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