Hello Team,
I have read you discussion. There are a lot pros and cons. We have to have all this more simple. And I think I have missed something. So I have to ask some questions (Q) and will give some answers (A). These is my way of thinking:
1. Q: What are our main tasks? A1: To get openSUSE going to "create one of the world's best Linux distributions". [http://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page] A2: To get more help, to do this. [[Portal:How to participate]] A3: To get mor atractive for more peole? "It is great for beginners, experienced users and ultra geeks alike, in short, it is perfect for everybody!" [[Main Page]]
2. Q: How have we to do this? A: Contibutions from a lot of *active* poeple!
3. Q: What are the activities to get openSUSE to the future? Q1: Chating in chatrooms or on mailinglists, to chat because someone likes to chat? A1: No. It has to be an addition, but is not basic work. Q2: What are basic works? A2: Work within the different teams: On the page: Portal:Teams I count 42 teams (plus local groups) Q3: Can we get a short overview about the contributions of the named contributors? A3: Yes, but it needs some time.
4. Q: Are there any rules to get a member? A: 1. You have to contribute to get openSUSE going. It is the entrance fee. 2. There are additional rules und you have to accept this rules. 3. If you ask for membership, you accept this rules und have paid your fee. 4. It have to be an honor, to get a membership!
5. Q: What are the hurdels? They are low? How low? Q1: One to X contributions per year? Q2: One to X contributions per month, to average? Q3: One to X contributions per week, to average? Q4: One to X contributions per day, to average? A1: It has to be the entrance fee!!! The hurdle hase to be decided and published.
6. Q: When does the membership ends? A: If you don't pay your fee in the predetermined level, over a predetermined time and if you don't accept the rules any more!
I think clear rules like this have to be descibed.
Best regards
Slughorn
On Thu, 2012-02-23 at 18:36 +0100, Wolfgang Hahnl wrote:
I have read you discussion. There are a lot pros and cons. We have to have all this more simple. And I think I have missed something. So I have to ask some questions (Q) and will give some answers (A). These is my way of thinking:
Sorry but I think you have overly-complicated the topic instead of simplifying it. The question that was posed was what to do about all those members who are no longer actively involved in the community in any way at all. The focus of the question is not how to build and grow the community, but how to resolve what is essentially a membership accounting question. Nothing more, nothing less.
A very separate and potentially valid topic can be originated discussing ways to improve and recruit new contributions to openSUSE. That is, and always should be, a sustained topic that we all give thought to on a regular basis. But that's not the focus of Robert's thread.
And by the way, you reference contribution as "building the greatest distribution." That's very limiting in scope given that openSUSE Project is about more than just the distro. You can be a contributing member of openSUSE without ever even using the distro. For example, you could be a contributor to the OBS code. Same for YaST, you could contribute to the code which is open sourced and could be used on any distro, not just openSUSE distro.
So please, don't narrow down the definition of contributor to just our distro. That would alienate a number of our existing contributors in a very adverse way, and send a bad message that we only appreciate people who help with the distro and nothing else under the Project umbrella.
Thanks, Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:37:00 -0600 Bryen M Yunashko suserocks@bryen.com wrote:
On Thu, 2012-02-23 at 18:36 +0100, Wolfgang Hahnl wrote:
I have read you discussion. There are a lot pros and cons. We have to have all this more simple. And I think I have missed something. So I have to ask some questions (Q) and will give some answers (A). These is my way of thinking:
Sorry but I think you have overly-complicated the topic instead of simplifying it. The question that was posed was what to do about all those members who are no longer actively involved in the community in any way at all.
Simple solution is obviously not possible, otherwise we would not have one of "those" threads. It is also obvious that current thread is stuck in the middle of nowhere just because it is trying to solve problem that is created with initial simple division on Member and non-Member, honorably called contributor, that is not sufficient as it left out those that did contribute enough to be a Member, but at some point they quit for one or another reason. (Like that wasn't possible to see in advance.)
We either pull up the sleeves and create a bit more complicated structure now or we are going to repeat endless discussions every few months when some other point that can't be ignored comes up.
What is another problem with just adding third type of membership for inactive members?
There is no definition what is qualifying activity to become member, which was the case since ever, it is just arbitrary opinion of the day by the board or later membership committee. IMHO, that is as it should be as making more rules will not help that at some point someone has to make a call and declare one person member, and the other with similar activity not. The only thing that more rules (types and levels of membership) will help is to make margin of error smaller, and make people feel better.
I proposed some more complicated rules with more levels and types of membership, which will solve current problems, create types of membership that we don't have, like Honorable Member, and lower margin of error when one has to make a call, but that is against rule of simplicity :)
A very separate and potentially valid topic can be originated discussing ways to improve and recruit new contributions to openSUSE. That is, and always should be, a sustained topic that we all give thought to on a regular basis. But that's not the focus of Robert's thread.
This discussion mentioned few times that we don't want to alienate potential and current contributors by demonstrating insensibility in a contribution treatment, so this discussion is not out of context of growing user and contributor base. We can focus on question at hand, but nothing will be solved unless we step back and see what we actually want to achieve (which is what Wolfgang did).
On Thursday, February 23, 2012 07:24:58 PM Rajko M. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:37:00 -0600
Bryen M Yunashko suserocks@bryen.com wrote:
On Thu, 2012-02-23 at 18:36 +0100, Wolfgang Hahnl wrote:
I have read you discussion. There are a lot pros and cons. We have to have all this more simple. And I think I have missed something. So I have to ask some questions (Q) and will give some answers (A).
These is my way of thinking:
Sorry but I think you have overly-complicated the topic instead of simplifying it. The question that was posed was what to do about all those members who are no longer actively involved in the community in any way at all.
Simple solution is obviously not possible, otherwise we would not have one of "those" threads. It is also obvious that current thread is stuck in the middle of nowhere just because it is trying to solve problem that is created with initial simple division on Member and non-Member, honorably called contributor, that is not sufficient as it left out those that did contribute enough to be a Member, but at some point they quit for one or another reason. (Like that wasn't possible to see in advance.)
We either pull up the sleeves and create a bit more complicated structure now or we are going to repeat endless discussions every few months when some other point that can't be ignored comes up.
What is another problem with just adding third type of membership for inactive members?
There is no definition what is qualifying activity to become member, which was the case since ever, it is just arbitrary opinion of the day by the board or later membership committee. IMHO, that is as it should be as making more rules will not help that at some point someone has to make a call and declare one person member, and the other with similar activity not. The only thing that more rules (types and levels of membership) will help is to make margin of error smaller, and make people feel better.
I proposed some more complicated rules with more levels and types of membership, which will solve current problems, create types of membership that we don't have, like Honorable Member, and lower margin of error when one has to make a call, but that is against rule of simplicity :)
A very separate and potentially valid topic can be originated discussing ways to improve and recruit new contributions to openSUSE. That is, and always should be, a sustained topic that we all give thought to on a regular basis. But that's not the focus of Robert's thread.
This discussion mentioned few times that we don't want to alienate potential and current contributors by demonstrating insensibility in a contribution treatment, so this discussion is not out of context of growing user and contributor base. We can focus on question at hand, but nothing will be solved unless we step back and see what we actually want to achieve (which is what Wolfgang did).
Keeping it all simple. We want people to contribute in any way to openSUSE Projects. So it's a an inclusive communit (it doesn't matter how frequently or randomly you contribute). We don't want to be a police or having contributors accounting to decide who is a member or not We would like to know the contributor is in somehow a member (because members rule themselves by guiding principles). Other not member may be not easily recognized. We should include an easy mechanism to resign the membership. This way members actively resign instead abandomning the project.(Maybe a button or choosing option mechanism active-inactive)
Regards,
-
Bryen M Yunashko -
Rajko M. -
Ricardo Chung -
Wolfgang Hahnl