On Wednesday 28 July 2010 09:53:32 Jim Henderson wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:00:55 +0200, Pavol Rusnak wrote:
The openSUSE distribution acts as a reference distribution, providing an environment for testing the used technology, a stabilizing ground for common components, and a real-life use case for applying technology and distributing Linux software. It's targeted at technically interested users, including programmers and system administrators. It has a focus on good user experience and making technology available to end users. It doesn't target users with highly specific technical needs.
To me, "good user experience" isn't very specific, and in some ways might come across as contradicting the "no focus" area of "non-technical users" - not that technical users can't have a good user experience, but that there's an implication of 'polish' that's more associated with a non- technical audience. I hope that makes sense, because it seems at the moment to not be easy to explain what I mean.
Good user experience isn't very specific, that's right. But the important part is that it is a focus. That we actually care about the experience of the user and take this into account when taking decisions about what to do and how to do it. What this means in details of course has to be worked out, but if this is a serious direction, this is just a natural part of development. I don't think it's a contradiction to not focusing on non-technical end users. These are orthogonal issues. Focus on good user experience is one thing, which users are our target group is another thing. The "polish" will be different dependent on the target group, but it needs to be done to provide a good experience in any case.
= Good to have = [...] * Community for user support
I would consider this essential. Without a community for user support, there's no feedback mechanism to improve the reference distribution. It also seems odd to not have this listed as "essential" since providing the home for the community is considered essential. Put another way, if having a user support community isn't essential, then why invest the time and resources in providing the home for that community (not that I think providing the home isn't essential - I provide the counterexample to demonstrate this point only).
Sounds reasonable to me.
= No focus =
* Directly providing a polished distribution for non-technical end users
I think we do this now with the main distribution, and that to an extent, this is an essential goal as well (or at least "good to have") because it provides a basis for the derivatives to provide that polish. I guess this perhaps needs to be more specifically defined for me as to what isn't/wouldn't be included. I couldn't even say what I would take as implied as not being provided by this statement.
You could also read that non-focus as: We are not Ubuntu. For the definition of what a non-technical end-user is, I like to think of this as as somebody who never bought a computer magazine. What that then implies for the actual products, needs to be worked out, but it won't involve problems like explaining how to use a mouse or what a harddisk is.
* Bleeding edge technology
It might make more sense instead of saying there's no focus on bleeding edge technology to clearly mark anything that's a technology preview as such and include it with those caveats. That way, that newer technology can be tested by those who want to do so, but they know that they are essentially alpha- or beta- testing. (Of course, it could be argued that those who do that should be using Factory instead of a numbered release - and perhaps it will be.)
You could also read that non-focus as: We are not Fedora. But I agree with your point that including newer technology as some kind of labeled previews make sense, and of course sometimes new technology is also the right way to go. But openSUSE's strategy should not be to focus on always having the latest technology. -- Cornelius Schumacher <cschum@suse.de> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org