[opensuse-project] openSUSE Membership
Hi! One of the first things that the openSUSE board have been working on is getting some clear acknowledgment through for all good openSUSE contributors. The result of this can be seen through what we think of as "openSUSE Members"[0]. We are glad to announce that the process for becoming a member has just been approved by the board, and that we are now happy to take any applications. Please have a look at the wiki page for instructions on doing so. We hope that this will further distinguish active and helpful contributors to openSUSE, and in doing so bring the openSUSE community closer together. Have a lot of fun! [0] http://opensuse.org/Members -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 22:33 +0000, Francis Giannaros wrote:
Hi!
One of the first things that the openSUSE board have been working on is getting some clear acknowledgment through for all good openSUSE contributors. The result of this can be seen through what we think of as "openSUSE Members"[0].
We are glad to announce that the process for becoming a member has just been approved by the board, and that we are now happy to take any applications. Please have a look at the wiki page for instructions on doing so.
We hope that this will further distinguish active and helpful contributors to openSUSE, and in doing so bring the openSUSE community closer together.
Have a lot of fun!
Thank you for the invitation to apply. I just took a quick look at the wiki page and it looks interesting. One thing I'd like to ask/suggest: There appears to be no definition of what is considered a "verifiable contribution." "Mail the openSUSE board at board@opensuse.org mentioning your [verifiable] contributions." Can you expand to define what is considered a "verifiable contribution?" In many ways, I believe that we all contribute simply by downloading openSUSE and communicating with others our experiences (and issues.) Obviously when you mention "substantial", there is an implied bar that is set between standard community participation and higher level contribution. Bryen --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Feb 4, 2008 10:53 PM, Bryen
On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 22:33 +0000, Francis Giannaros wrote:
Hi!
One of the first things that the openSUSE board have been working on is getting some clear acknowledgment through for all good openSUSE contributors. The result of this can be seen through what we think of as "openSUSE Members"[0].
We are glad to announce that the process for becoming a member has just been approved by the board, and that we are now happy to take any applications. Please have a look at the wiki page for instructions on doing so.
We hope that this will further distinguish active and helpful contributors to openSUSE, and in doing so bring the openSUSE community closer together.
Have a lot of fun!
Thank you for the invitation to apply. I just took a quick look at the wiki page and it looks interesting. One thing I'd like to ask/suggest: There appears to be no definition of what is considered a "verifiable contribution."
"Mail the openSUSE board at board@opensuse.org mentioning your [verifiable] contributions."
Can you expand to define what is considered a "verifiable contribution?" In many ways, I believe that we all contribute simply by downloading openSUSE and communicating with others our experiences (and issues.) Obviously when you mention "substantial", there is an implied bar that is set between standard community participation and higher level contribution.
I agree and this is something I will raise at our next meeting. I just want to clarify that there is not some incredibly great entrance barrier here. Chances are that if you feel like you're a part of the openSUSE community, or you do great stuff for openSUSE already and would like to be clearly a member, then openSUSE membership is exactly for you. So, if that's you -- please do not hesitate to apply :-) Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Francis Giannaros a écrit :
[0] http://opensuse.org/Members Thank you for the invitation to apply. I just took a quick look at the wiki page and it looks interesting
I did also :-) the membership list is very difficult to browse, it don't seems to be sorted in any way and it's very long. members must know that is they already approve the guiding principles, this is noted on they profile :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
One of the first things that the openSUSE board have been working on is getting some clear acknowledgment through for all good openSUSE contributors. The result of this can be seen through what we think of as "openSUSE Members"[0].
I'm happy that there is now a defined way to get an opensuse.org mail address. That's good.
We hope that this will further distinguish active and helpful contributors to openSUSE, and in doing so bring the openSUSE community closer together.
I'm also very much in favor of giving active contributors recognition. We have
great examples how this can work, e.g. the "People of openSUSE" series.
But I'm a bit concerned about tying this to the status of a "member" of the
project. openSUSE is an open and inclusive project. People should feel like
members when they are taking part in the community. I don't think this should
require any formal approval. This feels like an additional barrier which goes
against our desire to grow the community.
--
Cornelius Schumacher
On Feb 6, 2008 4:14 PM, Cornelius Schumacher
One of the first things that the openSUSE board have been working on is getting some clear acknowledgment through for all good openSUSE contributors. The result of this can be seen through what we think of as "openSUSE Members"[0].
I'm happy that there is now a defined way to get an opensuse.org mail address. That's good.
We hope that this will further distinguish active and helpful contributors to openSUSE, and in doing so bring the openSUSE community closer together.
I'm also very much in favor of giving active contributors recognition. We have great examples how this can work, e.g. the "People of openSUSE" series.
But I'm a bit concerned about tying this to the status of a "member" of the project. openSUSE is an open and inclusive project. People should feel like members when they are taking part in the community. I don't think this should require any formal approval. This feels like an additional barrier which goes against our desire to grow the community.
Being an open, global project is certainly the top thing on the list, and nothing should detract from that. We should always be open and accessible to others -- and in fact I think the idea of membership only complements this. Nearly all open source projects have something similar to this (like KDE e.V.). What we do need to keep an eye with things like this is that the process and requirements are transparent. I want to work on making it even more transparent, and the current method should definitely be seen as a "beginning" with serious consideration later on how well it scales, how appropriate it is, etc. There shouldn't be anything secret, exclusive, or bureaucratic about it. We should work hard to make everyone feel involved instantly, and we should definitely distinguish and acknowledge the active and helpful contributors. The point is never to imply that only those who are members are part of the community -- on the contrary, everyone involved in anything related is part of the community, and 'membership' is just an umbrella for those active contributors who it would be fitting to give i.e. o.o addresses and cloaks to, and who for example we might see as representatives of the openSUSE project. Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 06 February 2008, Francis Giannaros wrote:
Being an open, global project is certainly the top thing on the list, and nothing should detract from that. We should always be open and accessible to others -- and in fact I think the idea of membership only complements this. Nearly all open source projects have something similar to this (like KDE e.V.). What we do need to keep an eye with things like this is that the process and requirements are transparent. I want to work on making it even more transparent, and the current method should definitely be seen as a "beginning" with serious consideration later on how well it scales, how appropriate it is, etc. There shouldn't be anything secret, exclusive, or bureaucratic about it.
If becoming a "member" requires "continued and substantial contribution" and approval by the board it is in fact a pretty exclusive thing. I don't think that's necessarily bad in itself. For getting an openSUSE address we need some exclusivity, because this means not only participating in the project but also representing the project. I fully trust the board to handle this appropriately and without imposing too much bureaucracy. But calling these people "member of openSUSE" and all others not is wrong in my opinion. In contrast to KDE and many other free software projects openSUSE doesn't have an organization whose purpose is to represent the project. For KDE e.V. and other organizations being a member comes with certain formalities, responsibilities and rights, which are very specific to the organization. In most cases members of the organization are also members of the project, but it's not required at all to become a member of the organization before you can be part of the project.
We should work hard to make everyone feel involved instantly, and we should definitely distinguish and acknowledge the active and helpful contributors. The point is never to imply that only those who are members are part of the community -- on the contrary, everyone involved in anything related is part of the community, and 'membership' is just an umbrella for those active contributors who it would be fitting to give i.e. o.o addresses and cloaks to, and who for example we might see as representatives of the openSUSE project.
For me the problem would be solved by using another term than "member".
Maybe "representatives" or "ambassadors" (Fedora is using this term) or at
least attribute it like "core members" or something like that.
--
Cornelius Schumacher
Cornelius Schumacher a écrit :
least attribute it like "core members" or something like that.
+1 jdd -- http://www.dodin.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Feb 7, 2008 11:50 AM, Cornelius Schumacher
On Wednesday 06 February 2008, Francis Giannaros wrote:
Being an open, global project is certainly the top thing on the list, and nothing should detract from that. We should always be open and accessible to others -- and in fact I think the idea of membership only complements this. Nearly all open source projects have something similar to this (like KDE e.V.). What we do need to keep an eye with things like this is that the process and requirements are transparent. I want to work on making it even more transparent, and the current method should definitely be seen as a "beginning" with serious consideration later on how well it scales, how appropriate it is, etc. There shouldn't be anything secret, exclusive, or bureaucratic about it.
If becoming a "member" requires "continued and substantial contribution" and approval by the board it is in fact a pretty exclusive thing. I don't think that's necessarily bad in itself.
Here I meant exclusive in the sense that there are people who will never have access to it; theoretically, anyone can of course become a member.
But calling these people "member of openSUSE" and all others not is wrong in my opinion. In contrast to KDE and many other free software projects openSUSE doesn't have an organization whose purpose is to represent the project. For KDE e.V. and other organizations being a member comes with certain formalities, responsibilities and rights, which are very specific to the organization. In most cases members of the organization are also members of the project, but it's not required at all to become a member of the organization before you can be part of the project.
In this sense it is precisely the same -- no-one is saying others are not part of the project; in fact, you have to be part of the project before you can be a member.
We should work hard to make everyone feel involved instantly, and we should definitely distinguish and acknowledge the active and helpful contributors. The point is never to imply that only those who are members are part of the community -- on the contrary, everyone involved in anything related is part of the community, and 'membership' is just an umbrella for those active contributors who it would be fitting to give i.e. o.o addresses and cloaks to, and who for example we might see as representatives of the openSUSE project.
For me the problem would be solved by using another term than "member". Maybe "representatives" or "ambassadors" (Fedora is using this term) or at least attribute it like "core members" or something like that.
Yes, I think there's a different interpretation here of "member", and it was a term that we discussed and I talked about to a few other people, but it just seems like the most fitting term for the case (though not really perfect). "Representatives" lacks the contribution part and overplays the representation factor, "ambassadors" is just far too political and doesn't really even seem relevant enough, and "core members" seems far too exclusive. This term -- "core" -- would generally be reserved for people working on very core or essential aspects of the project (for example, to take KDE again: people working on i.e. kdelibs), whereas we consider people working in *any* area of the project to be legible for membership. I agree that the word is perhaps not entirely perfect, but I don't think we'll get any closer with another word, and I don't think we're losing too much by using it. Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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Bryen -
Cornelius Schumacher -
Francis Giannaros -
jdd