-----Message d'origine----- De : Jos Poortvliet [mailto:jospoortvliet@gmail.com] Envoyé : 13 septembre 2010 15:21 À : opensuse-project@opensuse.org Cc : Andy Objet : Re: [opensuse-project] My Idea of a Good Strategy

On Monday 13 September 2010 20:43:33 Andy wrote:

...

To me, the best thing that you guys can do is first define "Who do you want to target?"

Andy, my friend, within a few days the strategy team will release exactly THAT part of our new "who are we" thing :D

Don't great minds think alike?

;-)

...

Why? because it is the best decision that will show you what you want. Something that I can envy from Ubuntu, for example, is the fact that they always wanted that "human connection" with their users. They displayed this in all areas in marketing and I think it still sells well. I believe openSUSE is a tool that helps power users primarily but has lost the feel of what it is like to have newcomers in their distribution.

Many may fear that because you take a more "novice" approach to the desktop, that it will take away from the ability that power users have to use the distribution. But to me the matter is more simple. Power users will be more comfortable if they use openSUSE that has a more minimalistic and simpler approach to the desktop because that way, They will be able to focus more on the tasks that they are performing rather than devising ways to customize the desktop to their needs, and things like that.

Amen to that. Powerusers don't want to have to search for something and things have to work out of the box as much as possible. But they don't want to be stuck with what they got, either. It's about balance. And there is still a choice there - if you focus so extremely on 'novices', as Ubuntu does, you DO de-optimize for powerusers, I have little doubts about that. I think openSUSE can affort sitting a bit closer to powerusers - not making things hard but at least making things accessible to them when they need it. openSUSE has always done that - which is why it is so popular with system admins and other experienced computer users. I think we must keep that legacy in honour, even when we try to make sure everyone can use our software. Powerusers are ALSO human, despite what you might have heard ;-)

Hi, Is it a question of balance or of choice? Maybe the same thing.... I think that it is important to give choice to the users. It is also important to not forget newbies and newcomers, especially those coming from windows world. For them, it has to work out-of-the box or we will lose them. The system has to offer tools and apps that'll be easy to use. In giving choice, as you said, other users (advenced and expert users) are not stuck with what they got. And when newbies and newcomers become advenced users and want to explore deeper their linux system, they have the possibility to do it. I like that Jos. I am particularly happy that the strategy team took this into account. Pat

...

Please, remember that there is hidden potential within the novice users you can attract to openSUSE.

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On 09/13/2010 03:10 PM, Andy wrote:

Amen to that. Powerusers don't want to have to search for something and things have to work out of the box as much as possible. But they don't want to be stuck with what they got, either. It's about balance. And there is still a choice there - if you focus so extremely on 'novices', as Ubuntu does, you DO de-optimize for powerusers, I have little doubts about that. I think openSUSE can affort sitting a bit closer to powerusers - not making things hard but at least making things accessible to them when they need it. openSUSE has always done that - which is why it is so popular with system admins and other experienced computer users. I think we must keep that legacy in honour, even when we try to make sure everyone can use our software. Powerusers are ALSO human, despite what you might have heard ;-)

...

...

Please, remember that there is hidden potential within the novice users you can attract to openSUSE.

Andy

This part of the conversation really cuts to the core of what is being called "startegy". The biggest differentiators for OpenSUSE continue to be the centralization of OS control in Yast and the multitude of choices available through OBS! As an illustration, comparing OpenSUSE 11.3 and Fedora Core 13, these are the most essential differences. Package to package, release number to release number, OpenSUSE and Fedora just don't differ that much. (Fedora a little closer to upstream?) I understand that it's a little different comparison with Ubuntu, at least with the elementary mod stuff and Shuttleworth's lawsuit kevlar. When I originally choose to use SuSE a decade ago, the centralization of common administrative tasks in Yast was the biggest factor. At the time, I had already been working with UNIX for over a decade ... hardly a newb ... System stability, ease of administration through Yast, ease of "restricted" format handling, a reasonable set of software choices in the default repositories ... I think these are features that will be appreciated by newbies and experienced *nix folk alike. OBS, and it's twin? "build", are more likely to be appreciated by folk who know what they are doing and want/need something a little outside the "norm" ... the "power user". To my mind, especially when one considers the almost limitless choices offered in OBS, the core OS would be more attractive to most potential users by offering a little less choice if that could be translated into better quality of what is actually released. In summary, I am arguing that a focus on improving the quality of what OpenSUSE already does well and implementing features that have come to be expected by all users (e.g. graceful "restricted" format handling, etc.) is a strategy that targets an extremely wide range of future OpenSUSE users. Whether or not there are some potential trade-offs to be made to get there ... I don't know ... it's implicitly a question here and in my previous posts. ... and I'm still having fun! cwight -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le lundi 13 septembre 2010, à 21:21 +0200, Jos Poortvliet a écrit :

On Monday 13 September 2010 20:43:33 Andy wrote:

...

To me, the best thing that you guys can do is first define "Who do you want to target?"

Andy, my friend, within a few days the strategy team will release exactly THAT part of our new "who are we" thing :D

Sweet, I'm eager to see the result :-) [...]

Amen to that. Powerusers don't want to have to search for something and things have to work out of the box as much as possible. But they don't want to be stuck with what they got, either. It's about balance. And there is still a choice there - if you focus so extremely on 'novices', as Ubuntu does, you DO de-optimize for powerusers, I have little doubts about that. I think openSUSE can affort sitting a bit closer to powerusers - not making things hard but at least making things accessible to them when they need it. openSUSE has always done that - which is why it is so popular with system admins and other experienced computer users. I think we must keep that legacy in honour, even when we try to make sure everyone can use our software. Powerusers are ALSO human, despite what you might have heard ;-)

I'm not completely sure I agree with that, but most importantly, if this will be part of what will be release in the next few days: where do you draw the line between "novices" and "powerusers"? I'm not expecting a real answer now, but just keep the question in mind for the "who are we" thing ;-) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

possibly OT - but i just read the target user description and its brilliant. keep up the good work. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 13 September 2010 21:26:04 Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:43:33 -0600, Andy wrote:

...

To me, the best thing that you guys can do is first define "Who do you want to target?"

No, IMHO the foremost question should be "Where do we stand?"

Sure, but that question brings up: "what do we currently offer, and who likes that?" IOW our CURRENT target users ;-)

Philipp

On Monday 13 September 2010 22:09:19 Andy wrote:

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

On Monday 13 September 2010 21:26:04 Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:43:33 -0600, Andy wrote:

...

To me, the best thing that you guys can do is first define "Who do you want to target?"

No, IMHO the foremost question should be "Where do we stand?"

The reason why I don't like this question is mostly because openSUSE should already have an idea about where they stand.

Well we don't, that is why this whole thing started in the first place. If you want to go somewhere you need to know where you are - a TomTom without GPS sattelites is pretty useless :D

To me, this question makes openSUSE stay on the past. To discuss what has transpired overtime is something that is personal understanding of each member of openSUSE. But once you think of those who "might" be using openSUSE, you stop the self criticism and move forward to a target that does not center on itself.

...

Sure, but that question brings up: "what do we currently offer, and who likes that?" IOW our CURRENT target users ;-)

True that!

...

...

Philipp

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:36:40 +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

"what do we currently offer, and who likes that?" IOW our CURRENT target users ;-)

As long as you don't make the error of saying "we're not loosing ground to other distros, we just target different users" that question is important. This whole strategy talking just makes me uneasy as what use is talking about the next five or ten years if you don't know why you're (perceivedly) loosing ground to other distributions. It was suggested on the german list to start by asking people you know (frieds, collegues etc.) why they abandoned openSUSE, stayed with it or stared to use it. And no, most of them won't join this discussion here because their knowledge of English is small to non existant. Which brings up the next problem in that we leave out lots of users if we force them to use English in order to participate. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 14/09/10 07:36, Philipp Thomas wrote:

[...] As long as you don't make the error of saying "we're not loosing ground to other distros, we just target different users" that question is important. This whole strategy talking just makes me uneasy as what use is talking about the next five or ten years if you don't know why you're (perceivedly) loosing ground to other distributions. It was suggested on the german list to start by asking people you know (frieds, collegues etc.) why they abandoned openSUSE, stayed with it or stared to use it.

And no, most of them won't join this discussion here because their knowledge of English is small to non existant. Which brings up the next problem in that we leave out lots of users if we force them to use English in order to participate.

As I've started the whole thing on the German mailing list, I should perhaps add a couple of comments. ;-) First of all, Philipp is absolutely right that there are quite a few people on the German mailing list who feel somewhat uncomfortable participating on English-only mailing lists. I assume that there exist similar situations on other local-language mailing lists. It's therefore important that we gather feedback from all the mailing lists (I know, that's quite a bit of work but probably unavoidable to give all openSUSE users a voice). Coming back to what Philipp said, I think he's again absolutely right in saying that first of all we need to better understand the current situation. It doesn't make sense to me to discuss strategies which will hold for the next couple of years without knowing the target. Using the GPS analogy again, it seems as if the strategy team is trying to decide on a direction without knowing the current position. However, we should certainly only decide to head, say, North if we know where we are right now and if we know where our destination is. Otherwise North might be the completely wrong direction. I doubt that a strategy which doesn't go along with addressing the fundamental issues (e.g. losing openSUSE users to other Linux distributions) would do openSUSE any good. It must go hand in hand. I've therefore suggested (and Sebastian and other people on the German mailing list have taken over at that point) that we should first of all look outside of the openSUSE mailing lists and forums to check with people who have deliberately decided to leave openSUSE and use other Linux distributions, or people who have never come to openSUSE in the first place, why they made these decisions. If we managed to get such (honest) information from quite a lot of people in various countries (and I am pretty sure all of us have friends, colleagues or we know other people who fall into above mentioned category), we would hopefully be able to find the strengths and weaknesses of our current openSUSE distribution and also of the openSUSE project itself. Given the language barrier, it would obviously be better to ask people in their native language instead of English. I personally would only decide on targets and strategies once I've obtained the information where we are right now. There must be reasons why Ubuntu and maybe other distributions as well have overtaken openSUSE although openSUSE (or S.u.S.E. as it was called at that time) has existed for over 15 years and, hence, had quite a bit of a head start. Knowing these reasons is crucial. I am not sure whether the proposal of asking around will really work in practice, it's just a suggestion. But if all of us managed to get feedback from, say, 10 people, there would be quite a bit of data that could be analysed. This would then clearly help us to check why openSUSE has lost ground to other distributions. For obvious reasons, we can't gather such information on the openSUSE mailing lists and forums or via homepage etc, we won't find the people we are looking for in this way. The personal approach seems to be the most promising one. Regards, Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Surveying was the first thing that I proposed to Jos when I gave him my personal opinion about this strategy. I suggested asking on my university campus about their habits on the computer. I could get a good sample of ideas and habits people have when it comes to the desktop. I could take it further and ask more about OS's in general, what they would change, what doesn't work, etc. So I am offering to do the same here at the University. We should come with some possible questions. Andy On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Charles Wight wrote:

 On 09/14/2010 02:04 PM, Thomas Hertweck wrote:

...

On 14/09/10 07:36, Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

[...] As long as you don't make the error of saying "we're not loosing ground to other distros, we just target different users" that question is important. This whole strategy talking just makes me uneasy as what use is talking about the next five or ten years if you don't know why you're (perceivedly) loosing ground to other distributions. It was suggested on the german list to start by asking people you know (frieds, collegues etc.) why they abandoned openSUSE, stayed with it or stared to use it.

And no, most of them won't join this discussion here because their knowledge of English is small to non existant. Which brings up the next problem in that we leave out lots of users if we force them to use English in order to participate.

As I've started the whole thing on the German mailing list, I should perhaps add a couple of comments. ;-)

First of all, Philipp is absolutely right that there are quite a few people on the German mailing list who feel somewhat uncomfortable participating on English-only mailing lists. I assume that there exist similar situations on other local-language mailing lists. It's therefore important that we gather feedback from all the mailing lists (I know, that's quite a bit of work but probably unavoidable to give all openSUSE users a voice).

Coming back to what Philipp said, I think he's again absolutely right in saying that first of all we need to better understand the current situation. It doesn't make sense to me to discuss strategies which will hold for the next couple of years without knowing the target. Using the GPS analogy again, it seems as if the strategy team is trying to decide on a direction without knowing the current position. However, we should certainly only decide to head, say, North if we know where we are right now and if we know where our destination is. Otherwise North might be the completely wrong direction. I doubt that a strategy which doesn't go along with addressing the fundamental issues (e.g. losing openSUSE users to other Linux distributions) would do openSUSE any good. It must go hand in hand.

I've therefore suggested (and Sebastian and other people on the German mailing list have taken over at that point) that we should first of all look outside of the openSUSE mailing lists and forums to check with people who have deliberately decided to leave openSUSE and use other Linux distributions, or people who have never come to openSUSE in the first place, why they made these decisions. If we managed to get such (honest) information from quite a lot of people in various countries (and I am pretty sure all of us have friends, colleagues or we know other people who fall into above mentioned category), we would hopefully be able to find the strengths and weaknesses of our current openSUSE distribution and also of the openSUSE project itself. Given the language barrier, it would obviously be better to ask people in their native language instead of English.

I personally would only decide on targets and strategies once I've obtained the information where we are right now. There must be reasons why Ubuntu and maybe other distributions as well have overtaken openSUSE although openSUSE (or S.u.S.E. as it was called at that time) has existed for over 15 years and, hence, had quite a bit of a head start. Knowing these reasons is crucial.

I am not sure whether the proposal of asking around will really work in practice, it's just a suggestion. But if all of us managed to get feedback from, say, 10 people, there would be quite a bit of data that could be analysed. This would then clearly help us to check why openSUSE has lost ground to other distributions. For obvious reasons, we can't gather such information on the openSUSE mailing lists and forums or via homepage etc, we won't find the people we are looking for in this way. The personal approach seems to be the most promising one.

Regards, Thomas

Hello all,

Why not survey all folks registered as users?  I you don't know, ask!

cwight

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On 14/09/10 20:47, Charles Wight wrote:

[...] Why not survey all folks registered as users? I you don't know, ask! [...]

The point was to reach people *not* using openSUSE. Why would you then survey folks registered as openSUSE users? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And even *within* the openSUSE world, there are many actual users not officially registered. Sorry. Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hello Andy and Thomas, Hee hee ... we obviously have VERY different ideas as to what might be accomplished with a survery :D. While surveying not users could be interesting ... to do so meaningfully is quite a data collection conundrum! The most obvious problem: how do you identify folk who are potential OpenSUSE users as opposed to folk like my mom .... charles wight -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/14/2010 04:21 PM, Thomas Hertweck wrote:

On 14/09/10 21:30, Charles Wight wrote:

...

Hee hee ... we obviously have VERY different ideas as to what might be accomplished with a survery :D.

While surveying not users could be interesting ... to do so meaningfully is quite a data collection conundrum! The most obvious problem: how do you identify folk who are potential OpenSUSE users as opposed to folk like my mom .... Geez, you still don't understand what this is all about. ;-)

It's very very simple, you think far too complicated. openSUSE has lost users (new starters and experienced users) to other Linux distributions and/or openSUSE has not managed to attract as many new users (as in "new to Linux") everybody had hoped, they decided to use another Linux distribution right from the beginning of their Linux career, so to speak. The question is: Why did that happen? In order to find out, we don't have to ask your mom or openSUSE members or members of our mailing lists and forums. That's the wrong audience. We need to go out there and ask users of Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, CentOS,<you name it> why they have chosen the respective Linux distribution and *not* openSUSE, or why they decided to leave openSUSE (I actually know quite a lot of experienced users who used SuSE Linux in the 90ies but have moved on to other distributions since then). There must be reasons, but nobody within the openSUSE project has been able to come up with a logical explanation for all of that so far. The answers we get from non-openSUSE Linux users will tell us what's currently missing and will certainly help us to decide on any future directions of openSUSE. It's really very basic stuff. Philipp has really summarized it nicely earlier today. Of course, getting reliable information isn't an easy process.

You propose to ask users already making use of openSUSE. This is like a self-fulfilling prophecy! You won't learn from them about the bad or dark sides of openSUSE. However, it's these sides that need to be improved in order to stop people from leaving openSUSE (or not considering it at all in the beginning) or to become more attractive for Linux users in general. You could come up with a nice strategy, but if this strategy doesn't solve the fundamental problems why users decide against openSUSE, the strategy won't do openSUSE any good, and if openSUSE runs out of users and contributors at some point, it certainly won't do openSUSE any good. That's why Philipp and I think we first of all need to find out where we are right now before deciding on the strategy that will affect the next 5 years or so. Don't plan for the future until you are sure you will survive the present.

Thomas

My thinking is a little more direct (complicated?): if OpenSUSE fails to please it's current user base, it's done! That said, if there is a viable mechanism to identify and contact users of other distributions, it could provide valuable information. But if the current user base moves on ... it's still done! charles -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 15/09/2010 00:12, Jos Poortvliet a écrit :

10% of the peeps on this list ask 2 others about their opinions and manage to present that in a reasonable way we, as in the strategy

simple. I have two users I know very well and I tried to drive to openSUSE. My elderly daughter is so happy with openSUSE that her avatar's name is linusienne. My 90 years old mother was very happy with openSUSE (much more than with Windows), but I could never make openSUSE read all the "ppt" powerpoint files that are her most used file format, so I had to keep Vista on her computer... jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://pizzanetti.fr -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 14/09/10 23:12, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

[...] (In general, "we should" statements should be rewritten to "I will" or not be send at all, right? hehe)

I don't like you attitude. This is more or less the typical "it's open source, fix it yourself" argument you hear far too often from people associated with openSUSE. That's exactly - so I've been told - why some people don't like openSUSE. There's nothing wrong with contributing ideas even if those people can't put the ideas into action themselves. Since I've started the discussion on the German list, I have of course taken some steps to put my thoughts into action. Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 16/09/10 08:48, Martin Schlander wrote:

But it would be better if the ideas were somewhat aligned with the reality of openSUSE today.

There's hardly enough manpower to just maintain status quo these days. So all those fine labour intensive ideas for others to carry out, are pretty much a waste of time.

What we needs are ideas how to attract more manpower, and good ideas that can make a big difference without requiring a lot of work

Exactly. That's why Philipp and I and quite a few others have said we need to identify first where we are right now and why openSUSE isn't the distribution of choice for many users/developers. Once we know that, we can hopefully find a way to improve the situation despite the limited resources that are available. Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 14 September 2010 21:47:50 Charles Wight wrote:

Why not survey all folks registered as users? I you don't know, ask!

openSUSE run a survey in February, the questions there where done with the strategy discussion in mind. Some analysis at http://old- en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=UX/openSUSE_Survey_2010 I'm just moving the files to the new wiki... Check http://en.opensuse.org//Portal:Strategy for all background material Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj@{novell.com,opensuse.org} Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 2010-09-13 21:36, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

On Monday 13 September 2010 21:26:04 Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:43:33 -0600, Andy wrote:

...

To me, the best thing that you guys can do is first define "Who do you want to target?"

No, IMHO the foremost question should be "Where do we stand?"

Sure, but that question brings up: "what do we currently offer, and who likes that?" IOW our CURRENT target users ;-)

That's in the previously posted strategies.. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org