Hi all,

As some might have read, today on news.opensuse.org the second part of the strategy new style went live. Let me compy some of that announcement:

Over the last week you have all given input on the new strategy document describing the target users of openSUSE. It saw quite a bit of rewriting and rephrasing but it seems the description fitted most of your perceptions. We have incorporated all the comments into the document and a new iteration can be found on co-ment.

Furthermore, the next piece of text has been added: "What does openSUSE offer its users?" [1] Like with "Target Users", we would really appreciate it if you could give your input on co-ment but we will accept any kind of input on any channel we can follow. So if co-ment isn't your thing, feel free to comment below this post, on the forums or anywhere else. For those new to co-ment - it is a pretty awesome commenting tool under the GNU Affero GPL[2].

Giving your input on co-ment [1] will make the discussion a bit more structured and easier for everyone to follow. How-to: select some text you want to comment on (a word, a few words, a sentence) and choose the little yellow + sign on the top-left of the page to add your comment. If you click a colored section of the text, you can see the comments which have been made to that section it and add your own voice to the discussion. Easy peasy!

See for reference the openSUSE Strategy portal [3] on the wiki. A copy of the current proposal is at the bottom of the mail. Please have fun!

Greetings, Your strategy team

[1] https://lite.co-ment.com/text/lNPCgzeGHdV/view/ [2] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html [3] http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Strategy

The current proposal:

As with every other 'who are we' document, this one assumes our community statement [ http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Strategy_Community_Statement ].

Target users ========== The target users of the openSUSE distribution are people who need to get work done and want something stable and usable for their every day needs. They are users who are interested in technology, willing to learn to adapt their computer environment if needed, capable of reading documentation and/or asking questions on forums. But also people who don't want to if they don't have to - good defaults save them time. In short, the technology-adept computer user or IT professional who is productivity-focused. This includes power users, developers, system administrators but also the typical office workers or students handy with computers. A convenient definition would be someone who has read a computer magazine or technology website once or twice and works with computers a lot. The default openSUSE does not target casual computer users. For them we have simplified Netbook editions and in a company they would run a SLED desktop configured by an administrator who uses openSUSE.

Our user wants control over his or her computing experience - but at the same time doesn't want to WASTE time - things should work out of the box while offering flexibility and configurability for when it is needed. And this user is empowered to help his or her favorite distribution - it is easy to contribute back to openSUSE and we make sure our users know this.

What openSUSE offers ==================

* We offer a powerful, stable core and let our community contribute other packages and tools through the Build Service: freedom and choice. * We maintain our software for 18 months and allow a easy upgrade path * We don't jump ship whenever something shiny comes along - users depend on our product so we only move when something is proven better * But through our Build Service we offer the latest and greatest even for older releases in case our users needs it * So we are actually the ONLY DISTRIBUTION having both stability and a fresh taste! * a desktop system that works out of the box with good defaults but offers the needed flexibility and configurability * Easy ways to change the defaults while administration the system and during the installation * A great infrastructure to build upon including technologies like the build service, Kiwi and technology build upon those like SUSE Studio. Thanks to our build service, developers can easily provide users with their software, no matter what Linux distribution they use. And our users can easily contribute back to openSUSE. * A product clearly NOT the result of NIH - we collaborate and cooperate with others, providing the best technology from around the Free Software ecosystem * The option for commercial support from Novell by using SLES

In short, our philosophy is stable over shiny and powerful over dumb combined with innovative and flexible technology and an open mind for collaboration.