...

Even if you choose,  "KDE as the default",  What is wrong in showing the screenshots of the two desktops, so that a completely un-informed new user coming from windows, can choose whichever desktop that appeals to him ?

If somebody does this in a good way, let's use it.

I remember that a single screenshot will not help, it's not that easy - we need several screenshots and text.  I suggest to start on the wiki with this and then let's see what to include during the installation (if this is possible at all),

This is an interesting topic.. it was discussed a while back... 11.0 release?... on the mailing list. One of the issues was space vs legibility of any screenshots. It might be worth digging up that thread out of the archives. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 10:14 AM, Sankar P wrote:

Why single-screenshot will not help ? Since you say, "I remember" , Was this ever usability-tested previously ? (Due to the sensitivity of the topic, it might appear I am confronting you, but really just interested in knowing if there is any :-) )

I (personal opinion) believe atleast this screenshot presenting should be made to give some amount of fairness to Gnome, before KDE is selected by default.

-- Sankar P http://psankar.blogspot.com

A screenshot alone does not do any justice to the usability, features, applications, etc etc of the desktops. A video presentation may be able to give a good indicator but no worded or picture description can do any justice to either de. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 10:35 AM, Sankar P wrote:

Well, If pictures are not enough to impress people, people wont make posters or wallpapers or splash screens ;)

Show me a picture that shows usability. Show me a picture that shows features, etc. It really can't be done. If you want screen shots see the respective projects where you will get a better comprehensive coverage then any installer time screen pic can allow.

Consider from usability perspective. "Watch this video before you install" will sound tiring, whereas seeing a picture is faster and imho its impact is not as trivial as you might expect.

Of course if you word it like a dolt in a fashion that relays, you must watch before installing it won't be a good option. Word it as "If you wish to see the desktops in action then click here.

May be we can add a line: "Try the Live CD first with the two desktops before installation" etc.

Uhhuh that's fine unless your on slow net connection and to waste even more time.

oh , wait, I think I have taken a stand that Screenshots are better and defending it now ;) I think it is high time I stop making this therad into, yet another useless thread that is impossible to follow.

I suggest for a screenshot feature in the installation screen. Let the people who can make decisions decide if it is worthy. :-)

Another alternative is to have video's and pics on the net on the desktop. Oh, wait, yup, they are already there for people to preview with a already working OS on their system. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

* Martin Schlander [08-20-09 12:19]:

You didn't address a couple of the important details ;-)

Will a similar solution (pre-selected radiobutton) be applied to live-CD downloads via software.o.o, which currently suffers from the same problems as the dvd installer.

Is their a "selection" for desktop on a KDE-live-CD or a GNOME-live-CD? Seems to solve itself.

Will the main installation options be sorted by alphabet or popularity? (and will the accompanying text explain which method is used?)

either *is* acceptable :^)

Is it intended to be the future policy that the most popular desktop will be pre-selected, to avoid this discussion resurfacing every now and then?

I believe you are beginning to "rub salt" :^) -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 10:50 AM, Stephan Kulow wrote:

I think the download page is excellent for those who want to stress the "more screenshots and texts" part - it's just HTML. So just come up with HTML material we can link there.

On the download page we will continue to preselect the DVD as that's another item out of the survey: people use openSUSE for the 4.7G of it :)

Greetings, Stephan

Yes that would be the proper place for screenshots, texts, video's perhaps and if your really ambitious add a couple of netvm's (such as the testdrive feature that SuseStudio uses for people to try it out before even downloading anything. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:50:44 +0200, Stephan Kulow wrote:

I think the download page is excellent for those who want to stress the "more screenshots and texts" part - it's just HTML. So just come up with HTML material we can link there.

For that matter, on the web we could have screencasts that show both popular environments. A static screenshot doesn't really give a good sense of either desktop. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:06:35 -0600, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

Absolutely, just make sure it isn't done in HTML5, flash would be probably the best bet for this as the people that are more then likely to view them are going to be using IE.

Excellent point - definitely we should keep our target audience in mind. :-) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 11:14 AM, Stephan Kulow wrote:

Now the question arises if more people on this list can speak flash than ycp :)

But I think this gives a good rally for the better presentation. I don't think we can expect someone to come up with a good presentation for both desktops, normally you only know one as well as to present it.

Greetings, Stephan

Just have the respective team leaders present their product highlighting the strengths of their de. They would know their product better then anybody else and it can be done without slamming the competition. In other words, don't slam the competition but concentrate on your products strengths and features then present it to the end user. Btw, the content creation tools are already there for this in the distro. Simply have a embedded youtube link to the videos of the presentations. Use googles bandwidth instead of the projects. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 11:02 AM, Stephan Kulow wrote:

You mean the developers? Now that's odd - whenever I ask for help I hear from all sides "I'm not a programmer". And now that a perfect !programming job is up to grab, your first reaction is to put it to the developers?

Greetings, Stephan

Stephan, both KDE and Gnome have people that speak on a regular basis on their projects at symposiums, podcasts, conferences, etc. Much like Zonker does for the openSUSE project. What should be presented in their presentations should be discussed in their respective development groups. The end video does not have to be done by a devel but the devels most certianly should have input as to the contents of the presentation. They know their product the best. It would probably be best if openSUSE KDE / Gnome teams appoint their "evangelist" to make sure their representation upholds their ideals and standards and is able to bring across their efforts effectively. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 3:00 PM, Stephan Kulow wrote:

On Thursday 20 August 2009 21:55:07 Dean Hilkewich wrote:

...

Stephan, both KDE and Gnome have people that speak on a regular basis on their projects at symposiums, podcasts, conferences, etc. Much like Zonker does for the openSUSE project. What should be presented in their presentations should be discussed in their respective development groups. The end video does not have to be done by a devel but the devels most certianly should have input as to the contents of the presentation. They know their product the best. It would probably be best if openSUSE KDE / Gnome teams appoint their "evangelist" to make sure their representation upholds their ideals and standards and is able to bring across their efforts effectively.

OK, now we get somewhere. A openSUSE desktop evangelist is of course something else than the teamleader as you named it. Beacuse the current kde and gnome teams are development bound.

Greetings, Stephan

My apologies for the confusion Stephan. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:22:51 -0400, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

This would suggest that the user has networking up at that point in the installation process...

I think the suggestion is to link to the videos from the download site so the user can view the videos before even starting the installation. They could even view them while downloading the ISO. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

Yes that is the idea.  View BEFORE even downloading anything.

Ah, my bad. Yes, that would be a good idea. Having them on YouTube anyway would be good for people searching for Linux who haven't yet been to the download site. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net Twitter: jzb | Identica: jzb http://identi.ca/group/opensuse/members -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 11:59 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:

Might also be a good way to do some "viral" marketing? ie, make sure those videos link back to the openSUSE site's download page so people watching the videos can go direct to the download and get it. That way if they find the vids by searching YouTube, they know the next steps to take. :-)

Jim

Plus you can have the video's in a high quality "HD" format which allows a better view then most other streaming services. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Charles Kerr a écrit :

http://www.h-online.com/open/openSUSE-to-default-to-KDE--/news/114050 is reporting on this decision in the following way:

"From openSUSE 11.2 onwards, the installation process from DVD will offer a choice between KDE and GNOME, with KDE pre-selected."

Lubos blogged about it this way: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/4052

"If GNOME one day becomes more popular in openSUSE than KDE, it becomes the default. As simple as that."

Which of these statements is a correct interpretation of the decision? Making this clear and upfront now may save some frustration later on.

I think these two are absolutely good. We have to have a default. It's Kde because most openSUSE users use Kde. If ever Gnome become the prefered choice, the change in the default seems to be obvious jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Just out of curiosity, where does the openSUSE project have metrics that prove that "Most openSUSE users use KDE"? Oh and I, I just joined the list. On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Joe Harmon wrote:

...

...

...

On 8/21/2009 at 01:47 AM, jdd wrote:

...

I think these two are absolutely good. We have to have a default. It's Kde because most openSUSE users use Kde. If ever Gnome become the prefered choice, the change in the default seems to be obvious

I have been staying out of these for a little bit but I don't agree with this statement. We don't HAVE to have a choice, we are choosing to have a choice. And I don't see gnome becoming the preferred choice with KDE selected as the default.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow Sent from Wappingers Falls, New York, United States -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2009-08-21 at 17:08 +0200, Martin Schlander wrote:

Fredag den 21. august 2009 16:56:49 skrev Jason Perlow:

...

Just out of curiosity, where does the openSUSE project have metrics that prove that "Most openSUSE users use KDE"?

Oh and I, I just joined the list.

But the rest of us have been discussing this topic for a few weeks already, so please don't revisit these topics ;-)

Martin DUUUDE! Jason didn't "revisit" the issue. In fact he said nothing, all he did was ask to be pointed to some source of information he could use as a reference point. That's all he asked. He did not question the validity of our statistics or try to stir a debate here. Incidentally, Martin, in case you're unaware. Jason is a journalist. He was simply fact-gathering. Let's not go down the path once again of over-interpreting what people say or ask on the mailing list. Just give them the information they need and get on with it. That courtesy should be provided to anyone, reporter or not, who simply asks to be pointed to information on our mailing list. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member GNOME-A11y Team Member www.bryen.com (Personal Blog) www.planet-a11y.net (Feed aggregator of the Accessibility Community) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

He's German, I forgive his directness.

<snip>

...

-- Bryen Yunashko

"Bryen Yunashko" is a German name? ;-) But I could be making a gross and unwarranted assumption. My knowledge of German names etymology is very limited. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Martin Schlander wrote:

Fredag den 21. august 2009 19:19:50 skrev Administrator:

...

...

He's German, I forgive his directness.

<snip>

...

...

-- Bryen Yunashko

"Bryen Yunashko" is a German name? ;-)

But I could be making a gross and unwarranted assumption.  My knowledge of German names etymology is very limited.

I think he meant me, but I'm Danish though ;-)

"Bryen Yunashko" is a Danish name? ;-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Fredag den 21. august 2009 17:16:11 skrev Bryen M Yunashko:

On Fri, 2009-08-21 at 17:08 +0200, Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Fredag den 21. august 2009 16:56:49 skrev Jason Perlow:

...

Just out of curiosity, where does the openSUSE project have metrics that prove that "Most openSUSE users use KDE"?

Oh and I, I just joined the list.

But the rest of us have been discussing this topic for a few weeks already, so please don't revisit these topics ;-)

Martin DUUUDE!

Note the smiley, and that I *did* provide an answer :-) However I was a bit wrong. We only have 11.0 and 10.3 surveys, not 11.1. IIrc the 10.3 survey had ~25.000 respondents, and 71% KDE, 22% GNOME and the rest using other stuff (text, xfce, various window managers). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

I presume this survey is performed in an elective a poll-type fashion? If it doesnt exist already, I think that at least in the next version of OpenSUSE, you should have some sort of part of the install procedure that reports the desktop being used to a centralized database, and finds out how long the installation has been "alive". This at least should happen every time the system does a zypper update. That would allow you to have a more accurate census of how many OpenSUSE boxes exist in the wild and what UI is being utilized. On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Jason Perlow wrote:

...

Just out of curiosity, where does the openSUSE project have metrics that prove that "Most openSUSE users use KDE"?

We do a regular user survey - the last one is here:

http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/e/ec/Survey_openSUSE110.pdf

KDE3 38.5% 4007 KDE4 29.8% 3109 GNOME 26.9% 2799

Combined, KDE had 68.3%

Best,

Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net Twitter: jzb | Identica: jzb http://identi.ca/group/opensuse/members

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow Sent from Wappingers Falls, New York, United States -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

It might be good to collect a variety of datapoints, not just what desktop is more popular. For example it might be interresting to see who is running hypervisors/virtualization, what external repositories they are using, etc. On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Vincent Untz wrote:

Le vendredi 21 août 2009, à 11:16 -0400, Jason Perlow a écrit :

...

If it doesnt exist already, I think that at least in the next version of OpenSUSE, you should have some sort of part of the install procedure that reports the desktop being used to a centralized database, and finds out how long the installation has been "alive". This at least should happen every time the system does a zypper update. That would allow you to have a more accurate census of how many OpenSUSE boxes exist in the wild and what UI is being utilized.

We do have something like this: http://en.opensuse.org/Statistics

It doesn't report anything on the "which desktop is more popular?" topic, though.

Cheers,

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

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow Sent from Wappingers Falls, New York, United States -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Well, if you had some type of elective "feedback program" upon installation the user could join that would "help develop new features" in OpenSUSE that would explain upfront what the program does, I think it would get around most user concerns. You could track KDE versus GNOME usage on systems with both by having a logfile that shows each time KDE or GNOME processes were started on each system, and sending the metrics from that. On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Am Freitag, 21. August 2009 17:36:37 schrieb Jason Perlow:

...

It might be good to collect a variety of datapoints, not just what desktop is more popular. For example it might be interresting to see who is running hypervisors/virtualization, what external repositories they are using, etc.

I don't think that sending user information, no matter of what kind, back to Novell is that popular among Linux users. And to be precise it would have to be sent every time the user updates, since he might add/remove some DE. In fact, if he starts with KDE and then installs Gnome but leaves KDE on the computer, how would one know which one he uses?

Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow Sent from Wappingers Falls, New York, United States -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Why does it matter if another Linux distro uses this? This is openSUSE, you've got a clean slate to do whatever you want to improve the user experience. There is huge value in statistics gathering. Otherwise you are running blind without having a true picture of what your user community is doing. Microsoft used user statistics to great advantage from Vista when developing Windows 7. As does Apple when developing Mac OS X versions.

Is there any Linux distro that does this? To me it sounds too much just to get more statistics.

Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow Sent from Wappingers Falls, New York, United States -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Am Freitag, 21. August 2009 18:19:33 schrieb Jason Perlow:

...

Why does it matter if another Linux distro uses this? This is openSUSE, you've got a clean slate to do whatever you want to improve the user experience.

Because if another distro had done something like that already, there would be some data about its usefulness or scope of acceptance etc.

Somebody has to go first. You want to make some progress in developing a leading end-user desktop linux, you're going to have go get some signifcant metrics on usage patters. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 21 August 2009 18:59:55 Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Sven

Burmeister wrote:

...

Is there any Linux distro that does this? To me it sounds too much just to get more statistics.

Not exactly. What we're really missing is something like popcon from Debian.

https://features.opensuse.org/305877

There's also the new smolt client that can gather package statistics: http://cgoncalves.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-shiny-smolt-client.html Not sure what the state of the popcorn feature of it is, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, 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

On Saturday 22 August 2009 19:57:37 Klaas Freitag wrote:

Am Freitag 21 August 2009 20:58:11 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

...

http://cgoncalves.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-shiny-smolt-client.html

This is cool stuff. Are we sure to support that on 11.2 and on the smolt server side?

Actually this isn't implemented on server-side yet, but there is a WIP for gentoo (GSoC project) and others will follow afterward. Anyone interested in helping us? Needed knowledge are python and turbogears. -- Regards, Carlos Goncalves -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Stephan Kulow wrote:

Do we want that? If we agree it's important I'm sure we can put desktop specific updates online for the sake of counting :)

I think that'd be good to know. /me considers how to game the results to show twm as the most popular desktop... :-) Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net Twitter: jzb | Identica: jzb http://identi.ca/group/opensuse/members -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 21 August 2009 19:03:31 Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

Frankly, even that would be misleading. I use GNOME but as a matter of practice, I install both KDE and GNOME when I set up my machines. While

Of course we would only install _one_ package - depending on what you've chosen on the desktop selection. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephen Shaw a écrit :

I think on april 1st that it should install the opposite of what was selected without telling the user ;)

nope, simply default to install "all" (do you remember this was an option in the old SuSE times? 7 Gb atm) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 21 August 2009 17:16:40 Jason Perlow wrote:

procedure that reports the desktop being used to a centralized database, and finds out how long the installation has been "alive". This at least should happen every time the system does a zypper update.

Update download logfiles have been analyzed for specific files several times.

That would allow you to have a more accurate census of how many OpenSUSE boxes exist in the wild and what UI is being utilized.

http://en.opensuse.org/Statistics Bye, Steve -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

I'm fairly certain that Microsoft ASKS if you want to be part of their "Customer Experience Program" that reports back statistics in the exact same matter I'm proposing, as well as crash incidents. If there were laws against it they'd stop doing it, particularly in the EU. I know that Windows 7 still does this and Mac OS X and iTunes does this. I'm not of the opinion that everything Microsoft does is bad. In fact this is an area that I think were they excel. On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Administrator wrote:

...

If it doesnt exist already, I think that at least in the next version of OpenSUSE, you should have some sort of part of the install procedure that reports the desktop being used to a centralized database, and finds out how long the installation has been "alive". This at least should happen every time the system does a zypper update. That would allow you to have a more accurate census of how many OpenSUSE boxes exist in the wild and what UI is being utilized.

Hi Jason,

There are data protection act and brand issues with collecting information like this.  This is the kind of issue which contributed to Microsoft's bad name - collecting information regularly about people and the software they use creates paranoia.  Even after Microsoft stopped the belief persists that Microsoft is spying on all users of MS software.  Do we want to go there?

David

p.s. and a request to all on the group - please let's not get into the Microsoft trope - the KDE / gnome confrontation is enough of a blind alley.

-- Jason Perlow jperlow@gmail.com (201)735-5838 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jperlow Technology Columnist, ZDNet Tech Broiler (http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow) Blogger/Podcaster, Off The Broiler (http://www.offthebroiler.com) LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonperlow -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Joe Harmon wrote:

...

...

...

On 8/21/2009 at 01:47 AM, jdd wrote:

...

I think these two are absolutely good. We have to have a default. It's Kde because most openSUSE users use Kde. If ever Gnome become the prefered choice, the change in the default seems to be obvious

I have been staying out of these for a little bit but I don't agree with this statement. We > don't HAVE to have a choice, we are choosing to have a choice. And I don't see gnome > becoming the preferred choice with KDE selected as the default.

I agree. I've stayed out of this thread so far, mainly to see where it goes. I'm happy that there is discussion about videos and giving users more information about the two desktops, which is what I and several others were pushing for in the original discussion threads about this topic. That would be much more beneficial to the project than what we ended up with, a political statement that tells the GNOME contributors "thanks for your contributions to our project, but we're gonna tell new users to use KDE". This, as it was brought up, was a completely political discussion. Even several KDE contributors (and I realize that this was the vocal minority of KDE contributors, I'm not trying to blame everyone by any means) said that this was to repair what they had felt was them being wronged by the Project because GNOME was "allowed" to be on the same level as KDE. Let's take a realistic look at what could be done to solve this issue. Problem: We prompt users to select a desktop environment, even though many will have little idea as to what they should choose. Solutions: 1) Dump one desktop, or relegate it to the "Other..." screen and make it clear that openSUSE will support one desktop only. Consequences: will completely drive out the dumped desktop's community and alienate their userbase. 2) Endorse a desktop while still technically supporting both. Pre-select the endorsed desktop in the Installer, and suggest new users use the endorsed desktop. Consequences: Current users of desktop unaffected immediately, contributors may feel alienated and uncomfortable, ultimately leaving the desktop to a less-maintained status, harming users. May lead to same consequences as the first, but perhaps slower. In addition, new users will have no reason to choose the desktop, as the endorsed desktop is suggested. (Obviously, the Project heads have chosen this one for us, at least right now) 3) Don't endorse either desktop, provide quick tours (video, text, even interactive) of the two desktops prior to downloading (or in the installer, if technically possible) that give users much more information about which desktop could be good for them. Allows each community to continue working on their desktops and making them better, and gives the user extra information going into the install. Consequences: Although we're still forcing the user to make a choice, this time they have some extra information going in that can make it easier to choose. Those that don't have time to read or watch ANYTHING (and we're talking two minutes for both, max) aren't really likely to be moving off of their current OS anyway. I liked Dean's idea of something similar to SUSE Studio's Testdrive feature, with stock KDE and GNOME Live CD editions (or even scaled down a little) to give new users a chance to poke around. Perhaps someone familiar with how SUSE Studio does this can give some more info as to whether this is feasible or not... -- Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy openSUSE Project Member http://www.twitter.com/KevinYeaux -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Moin, On Thursday 20 August 2009 22:48:17 Charles Kerr wrote:

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:56 AM, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

Hi all,

After consideration of the project discussion I discussed the feature request further with the openSUSE Board and other leaders within the openSUSE project and came to the decision to follow the request: we will default the radio button to KDE in the DVD installer. Therefore, with openSUSE 11.2 release, the KDE desktop will be installed if the user accepts the default setting. Users can also choose the GNOME desktop at this stage.

http://www.h-online.com/open/openSUSE-to-default-to-KDE--/news/114050 is reporting on this decision in the following way:

"From openSUSE 11.2 onwards, the installation process from DVD will offer a choice between KDE and GNOME, with KDE pre-selected."

Lubos blogged about it this way: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/4052

"If GNOME one day becomes more popular in openSUSE than KDE, it becomes the default. As simple as that."

Which of these statements is a correct interpretation of the decision? Making this clear and upfront now may save some frustration later on. Both are correct. We pre-select KDE via defaulting the radio button to KDE on the "desktop selection" screen. The decision was made due to usability reason in combination with the currently more used desktop which is KDE as of today. This may change in the future and then we may change it to the desktop most used in the future - as we're doing it in many areas of the distribution, eg. ReiserFS is not default anymore nor is Konqueror our default browser anymore. Things change over time.

Best Michael

cheers, Charle

-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 09/08/20 4:05 PM, Christian Jäger wrote:

I am afraid if anything this process has shown the recklessness of some KDE community proponents and their disregard for the other big community within the project. Bullying works. And as this behaviour has now been shown to be a successful tactic we will certainly be seeing more of it. Mark my words. Oh, that's not even needed, just read Mr. Schlander's last mail.

How openSUSE as a multi-DE distribution is to survive without mutual solidarity between the GNOME and KDE communities I don't know.

I would have to disagree. This has been a very reasonable decision. The entire community had their opportunity to present their case. It's not as if Gnome was being dropped from support or even moving it's selection to a less prominent area of the selection screen. No options were removed or crippled in a way that made it any harder to make a selection. People that use gnome will continue to do so unimpeded. Your really trying hard to make a mountain of a molehill. If people get so offended over a bullet being preplaced then they really should grow some thicker of skin. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Jim Henderson wrote:

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:16:08 -0600, Dean Hilkewich wrote:

...

I would have to disagree. This has been a very reasonable decision.

I agree with you, Dean. As one of the more outspoken GNOME proponents in the discussion, I feel that while the discussion did get heated at times, the end result is a decision that - at least speaking for myself - I can live with. That consideration was given to all points of view and a decision was not unilaterally made without input from the community shows that community input is important to the process.

None of us are going to "get our way" all the time, and I agree that it does little good to further polarize the community by resorting to saying things like "bullying works".

So now we move forward.

Jim

I would also have to say that all de's that are available on the media should be on the main selection screen as well without having to unhide them. They could also create their own video showing off their stuff and have a preview on the site as well. Dean -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Kevin,

We can scream from the hills that KDE and GNOME are equally as high quality and respected choices in our products, but now, our actions don't reflect it. We're telling new users that "KDE and GNOME are just as good (but you'll really want KDE, you know?)" How should that feel to members of the community who work on GNOME, or people like me who are only involved in the project because of the high-quality GNOME desktop?

And what do you tell all the KDE users and developers who find GNOME to be the default on SUSE Linux Enterprise? Your arguments apply to them as well. I think many KDE developers have been disappointed in the past because Novell chose to prefer GNOME. And SUSE always has been a KDE distribution before the acquisition by Novell. There are always two sides of a decision. And taking into account that the large majority of openSUSE users prefers KDE, I believe that was the right decision. Regards, Peter -- Peter Albrecht Tel: +49-(0)-89-287793-83 Open Source School GmbH Mob: +49-(0)-173-3528664 Amalienstraße 77 Fax: +49-(0)-89-287555-63 80799 München http://www.opensourceschool.de HRB 172645 - Amtsgericht München Geschäftsführer: Peter Albrecht, Dr. Markus Wirtz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Samstag, 22. August 2009 20:58:58 schrieb Bryen M Yunashko:

On Sat, 2009-08-22 at 20:44 +0200, Peter Albrecht wrote:

...

And what do you tell all the KDE users and developers who find GNOME to be the default on SUSE Linux Enterprise? Your arguments apply to them as well. I think many KDE developers have been disappointed in the past because Novell chose to prefer GNOME. And SUSE always has been a KDE distribution before the acquisition by Novell.

Let's keep arguments about SLE products out of this. openSUSE and SLE are not the same thing and many of us are not users of SLE products. This debate has *nothing* to do with SLE desktop environments. Keep focused on openSUSE. This is nothing more than a distraction from the discussion.

Actually this question has not been answered yet, i.e. whether whatever is decided for openSUSE or SLE is perceived as being related to the other product due to Novell being the major player behind both. If people inside and outside the community do not see openSUSE and SLE as mostly unrelated, then this question is surely not a distraction but crucial to understand how decisions regarding any Novell product or investment are perceived by others and hence their impact on the discussions lead in the community. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 22 Aug 2009, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:

Let's keep arguments about SLE products out of this.

Amen. I am not sure why SUSE Linux Enterprise has a certain tendency to come up in discussions on this list, but more often than not it looks like a strawman. I am happy to discuss the Enterprise side of things, but this is just not the right context. This is the openSUSE project, and our mission statement does not carry any reference to SUSE Linux Enterprise (or any commercial interests of Novell, for that matter). On Sun, 23 Aug 2009, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Actually this question has not been answered yet, i.e. whether whatever is decided for openSUSE or SLE is perceived as being related to the other product due to Novell being the major player behind both.

openSUSE is openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise is SUSE Linux Enterprise. Of course there is a certain relation in that both use the Linux kernel, X.org, YaST, and hundreds of other Open Source packages; some people being paid to work on one also work on the other; users use both. At the same time, the governance of the two is vastly different and decisions can -- and in fact are -- different, too. Think JFS, ext4, desktop environments, mutt vs alpine, and many more. Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Product Management F +49(911)74053-483 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, Appliances GF Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Sven Burmeister wrote:

I think you missed the point. I was talking about perception of decisions and not how they actually come about. I may repeat myself: "If people inside and outside the community do not see openSUSE and SLE as mostly unrelated, then this question is surely not a distraction but crucial to understand how decisions regarding any Novell product or investment are perceived by others and hence their impact on the discussions lead in the community."

Yes, and perception is not going to change and match reality as long as SUSE Linux Enterprise is being dragged onto the scene. :-) (Hence I would claim that this question and asking about SUSE Linux Enterprise in the context of the openSUSE desktop discussion _are_ a distraction.) Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Product Management F +49(911)74053-483 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, Appliances GF Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Am Dienstag, 25. August 2009 17:21:37 schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:

...

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Sven Burmeister wrote:

...

I think you missed the point. I was talking about perception of decisions and not how they actually come about. I may repeat myself: "If people inside and outside the community do not see openSUSE and SLE as mostly unrelated, then this question is surely not a distraction but crucial to understand how decisions regarding any Novell product or investment are perceived by others and hence their impact on the discussions lead in the community."

Yes, and perception is not going to change and match reality as long as SUSE Linux Enterprise is being dragged onto the scene. :-)

Ok, so you think perception is different to what Novell claims. That's a first step, i.e. to acknowledge that there is a gap.

*Some* people perceive things differently. It's an open question whether that perception is widely shared or not. If a large percentage of people perceive openSUSE and SLE decisions as connected, then it may need addressing. The reality is that for the purposes of this discussion, one does not affect the other, and discussing SLE is a distraction because our decision won't influence SLE here.

In fact, trying to change perception by not talking about it will, as in politics, always end in a huge blow, i.e. the point where reality hits phantasy.

In politics, as in other things, sometimes not talking about something is the wrong thing to do -- and other times it's exactly the right thing to do. Even asserting a negative (no, these two decisions are not connected) helps perpetuate the meme by keeping it alive. (Why are they bothering to say something about this issue? I guess the two things must be connected if they have to say they're not...)

But I take your point, according to you, if one does not mention SLE within the opensuse community the outside will follow that lead and think that they are separate as well. I guess only time will tell whether that works.

I suspect that the "outside" of the community is much more likely to already think (rightly) that the decision processes are separate. I'm sure that's not universal, but if you look at people who might care about Linux a bit, but don't follow openSUSE specifically, they probably haven't spent much time either way thinking about the connection of SLE/openSUSE at all. Generally, when I have conversations about openSUSE with people who are new to SUSE in general, I have to explain the connection between the two (i.e., that openSUSE is the foundation of the SLE products) and how the two differ. There's not a strong predisposition to assume anything. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net Twitter: jzb | Identica: jzb http://identi.ca/group/opensuse/members -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:21:37 +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Sven Burmeister wrote:

...

I think you missed the point. I was talking about perception of decisions and not how they actually come about. I may repeat myself: "If people inside and outside the community do not see openSUSE and SLE as mostly unrelated, then this question is surely not a distraction but crucial to understand how decisions regarding any Novell product or investment are perceived by others and hence their impact on the discussions lead in the community."

Yes, and perception is not going to change and match reality as long as SUSE Linux Enterprise is being dragged onto the scene. :-)

I do tend to agree that SLE *shouldn't* be dragged into the discussion, but my impression of the earlier discussion was that that was a large part of the reason the KDE devs who participated were saying (at least in part) openSUSE needs to make KDE the default desktop in the installer - because SLE makes GNOME the default desktop, and the message they were getting from Novell was that GNOME was more important *because* of the decision of the default selection in SLE. This is something I tried to highlight when I said that SLE is a *different* distribution, and I didn't really feel that that particular logic made any sense, because SLE is a derived distribution from openSUSE. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:16:45 +0200, Will Stephenson wrote:

Like you I agree that SLE should not be part of this discussion, but I wish to refute your impression in case anyone else adopts it; I and the other KDE people at Novell who participated in this discussion have studiously avoided making any such claim, or more generally using SLE for leverage in this argument.

Thanks for that clarification, Will.

Please don't denigrate this change by saying it's really about something irrelevant to openSUSE.

Please understand that is not my intention; if I had somehow gotten a mistaken impression, then it's "my bad". I don't recall who it was who had suggested that this change was to "balance" the SLE decision, but I do remember that statement pretty clearly. I'm OK with the decision as it stands and it is absolutely not my intention to revisit it. My intention was just to point out to Gerard that it's possible that some got that impression, and with that impression in mind (mistaken or not), it's easy to see the discussion as "SLE was used to justify this to some extent, but we won't now use SLE as part of the metric because the decision has been made.". I'm not saying this is the reality, but it may be the impression given. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Samstag, den 22.08.2009, 12:58 -0500 schrieb Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy:

We can scream from the hills that KDE and GNOME are equally as high quality and respected choices in our products, but now, our actions don't reflect it. We're telling new users that "KDE and GNOME are just as good (but you'll really want KDE, you know?)" How should that feel to members of the community who work on GNOME, or people like me who are only involved in the project because of the high-quality GNOME desktop? In my relatively humble opinion, this was a counter-productive decision for the Project.

Exactly my sentiments. I am here for openSUSE's GNOME desktop; I had the pleasure of exchanging some mails with GNOME devs Ricardo Cruz and Michael Meeks during the last year or so and found they were really great guys; I have enjoyed openSUSE a lot. And now, during this week I have seen one part of the openSUSE 'community' kick the other part of the community in the groin, repeatedly. Not by that very wrong 'KDE default' decision, mind you. What was so frustrating and enraging was the way you KDE users went about it. KDE devs and proponents, mainly Lubos Lunak and Martin Schlander have in my mind been behaving like a bull in a china shop. You did not talk _to_ your GNOME-using comrades, you talked _about_ them because you didn't need them - because you were a majority all by yourself, and so what do you need the acquiescence of the GNOME community for? Come to that, what do you need GNOME for? And when I object to that I am kindly (or not so kindly) told to finally shut up. I am now completely disenchanted with our so-called 'community' and the whole project, and I think I am not the only one. After this week I can hardly call openSUSE a 'community', even with the quotation marks. Was it worth it? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Franckly all this fuss and stuff is becoming a bit heavy right now. A question was raised, a decison taken, proofs given that it is not against no one and will not harm nor hurt anyone (is a distro a lethal weapon ?) , plus all DE are still available, other distros are gnome default why would it be so strange or unusual or damaging when it is said that the vast majority of users are using such a DE to say it's default  --but can be changed anytime-- (??) Please Help me to understand or move on, thanks ;)

I don't think you'll ever get a clear answer on this one. A very small group of people on _each_ side seem to be of the belief that their DE is the ONLY DE, and there is no other choice. Their feelings on this border on religious fanaticism. They cannot see past their DE... and seem to think that anyone who selects the other (whether it be Gnome, KDE, or whatever) is out of their mind/stupid/fill in your favorite term here. No matter the decision, one group will feel slighted and angry. If Gnome had been selected, an equal number of squeaky wheels would be moaning the death of KDE instead of Gnome. What these people seem to miss while wearing their DE blinders is that it's just an installation default... not a statement or removal of the other DE. They seem to think that by selecting what they perceive to be the wrong DE, openSUSE is dead. This same stomping about and moaning would be happening if Gnome had been selected.. just by a different set of people. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 25 of August 2009, Christian Jäger wrote:

Am Dienstag, den 25.08.2009, 22:11 +0200 schrieb Fabrice:

...

all DE are still available, other distros are gnome default why would it be so strange or unusual or damaging when it is said that the vast majority of users are using such a DE to say it's default --but can be changed anytime-- (??) Please Help me to understand or move on, thanks ;)

This is exactly it. 'Other distros are GNOME default' is like saying 'go away and use Ubuntu then'. This is my major gripe; the indifference of KDE users about the concerncs of their 'fellow' GNOME users in the openSUSE community.

Are you suggesting that you actually care about the concerns of KDE users in the openSUSE community? If yes, then please sum up the concerns in a sentence or two. I or other people have expressed them several times, so it shouldn't be difficult and if you cannot at least say what the position of the opposing side is, then there is no point in discussing anything with you, since that makes you be the blind zealot you accuse everybody else of. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 972 190 00 Prague 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Fabrice wrote:

Franckly all this fuss and stuff is becoming a bit heavy right now. A question was raised, a decison taken, proofs given that it is not against no one and will not harm nor hurt anyone (is a distro a lethal weapon ?) , plus all DE are still available, other distros are gnome default why would it be so strange or unusual or damaging when it is said that the vast majority of users are using such a DE to say it's default --but can be changed anytime-- (??) Please Help me to understand or move on, thanks ;)

you are correct, there is no unwarranted hurt caused, the decision is sensible, and too much fuss is being made of this minor event. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

>>>On 8/25/2009 at 03:22 PM, Michael Meeks  wrote: 
> - and incidentally, thanks for all your great design on the yast2
> software frontend, I find myself actually using it by choice instead of
> zypper :-) ].

Agreed. I was amazed the other day when I had multiple rpm's to install and just select them all and right clicked and told it to install with yast. In the past it would handle multiple rpms being selected for an install through yast. This time it did :)

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Henne Vogelsang a écrit :

This would mean we need a new election for a new openSUSE board because this changes the scope of what the board is supposed to do.

no mergency. This could way next ballot :-) I don't say I favor the proposition, but openSUSE community can evolve (and must, probably) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://news.opensuse.org/2009/04/13/people-of-opensuse-jean-daniel-dodin/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Henne, On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 13:45 +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:

Agreed. This is something we can discuss.

Great :-)

This would mean we need a new election for a new openSUSE board because this changes the scope of what the board is supposed to do.

Seems reasonable to me.

People want to vote differently as they did the last time, if we are talking about technical responsibility. I know i would. People also would want to reconsider their candidacy if we are talking about technical responsibility. I know i would.

Um; the current decision was the most -incredibly- non-technical decision, Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola by voting; honestly. I don't suggest taking any technical decision making away from maintainers, therein lies madness - but it is clear that this is a decision, that is fundamentally political.

Why would anything change anything for conferences? We always present both desktops at conferences. We always hand out promo DVD's that contain both desktop as live media.

Sounds good to me, Regards, Michael. -- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Michael,

First my bias - I believe this is the wrong decision. Nevertheless - were I convinced that in fact it was made by a reasonably open and transparent process - I would be able to accept it in good conscience - in the spirit of tolerance and community; all democrats get to swallow bitter fruit sometimes :-) Well said.

On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 15:56 +0200, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

After consideration of the project discussion I discussed the feature request further with the openSUSE Board and other leaders within the openSUSE project and came to the decision

This is most interesting. When you say you "discussed the feature request" with the openSUSE Board - what was their considered recommendation ? Frankly, the openSUSE Board was just a mirror of the community. So again a

Moin, On Tuesday 25 August 2009 13:07:50 Michael Meeks wrote: pretty heated discussion. No clear recommendation.

It is one thing that the board discusses the issue, and comes to a compromise. It is another thing to (somehow) -trust- that, inside the head of one person - who happens to be a KDE user, based in a KDE hotspot ;-) -

a balanced decision is made, taking into account both the volume and quality of evidence on both sides. It is not really a process open to scrutiny - short of some MRI scanning machine ;-) Worse - it seems to me that an equally reasonable, but different person may well have made a different decision. If you take into account the surveys, openSUSE's history, the feedback and votes for the feature I think I made a pretty democratic decision. Just to notice I'm now the Product Manager for the distribution for 3-4 years and no one complained yet about decisions. By the way, almost all decisions are done by maintainers, interested groups on mls or so and just the ones the community can't come to a decision gets on my table and I have the pleasure to decide.

In summary, it is somewhat surprising, amid all the talk of the critical importance of "doing what the community wants" for a decision of this importance and scope, to be made by a single, appointed, Novell employee, in a permanent, irremovable maintainership role. The advantage of elected representatives is that as/if/when they make silly decisions, there is at least a hope of replacing them. I think we can be sure that this person is removable if doing the wrong

huh - so, I'm working at the wrong place to make an objective decision. Sounds weird to me. things.

I would ask that at the openSUSE conference we can come to an understanding of a rather more useful role for the openSUSE board for this kind of decision. Is it planned to have a discussion on this narrow topic of transparency; indeed the whole issue of openSUSE governance seems like it could do with re-visiting [ clearly with no reference to this current hot topic ].

Yes, the governance topic will be covered during the conference.

...

We want to make clear that both desktops are considered equal citizens within the openSUSE Project

How about actually sketching out what this really means, if indeed it means anything at all, to re-assure the GNOME guys that this is not the very unsubtle end of a big wedge to squeeze them out, and make their (already un-necessarily unpleasant) experience of openSUSE advocacy worse.

Please don't read things into a radio button which aren't there. Best M

As an example, can you give any assurances around my concerns about conferences - presenting both desktops equally eg. ? providing live-CD media instead of DVDs - so GNOME advocates don't have to hand out default-KDE-installs left and right ? other trivial examples might be boxed set screenshots (if the boxed set rides again), printed marketing materials etc. We have one prominent area where they are not treated equally - I assume the plan is to spread that aggressively to other areas - can you reassure ?

Thanks,

Michael.

-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Onsdag den 26. august 2009 05:20:17 skrev Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy:

On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 14:50 +0200, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

Please don't read things into a radio button which aren't there.

No, we're not reading into something that isn't there, we're reading into something that's completely there. You've made a political decision, whether you meant to or not, that KDE is more important than GNOME.

I think he decided that the openSUSE project is more important than GNOME. Which is the only sensible decision too. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

...

...

On 8/26/2009 at 03:54 AM, Administrator wrote: I don;t think there's anything in this decision which says that one or the other DE is "more important" - the default is to do with convenience during install, not importance.

If this were truly the reason for the change then I believe that the community would have been more open to other ways of addressing this. It is obvious by the reactions and the tensions that this has caused that this decision was made for more than just that reason. I hear more people complaining about this decision then I ever hear anyone complain about not having a default desktop selected and I supported the desktop for 5 years. In fact, in that time I can remember one person that told me we should have a default desktop. Even then he didn't express a preference. Other than that what I usually received (and this was only a handful of times) was a question about what desktop to use. I loved being able to tell the customer that it didn't matter. That we supported both equally and that there were benefits and strengths in both. So I am sorry but with my years of experience in supporting the desktop I don't see how this is possibly resolving this issue. Let me just ask one thing. If we were talking about having GNOME be the default as a resolution to this issue, would the KDE supporters be taking the same stance? I don't think that they would. I think the argument to keep it as not selected and provide the customer with a better option to make a choice. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying make GNOME the default selection either. I am just saying, try and put yourself in their shoes and see if you really feel the same way if the decision was reversed. I think this is just causing more issues than it is "supposed" to be trying to resolve. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-08-26 at 16:36 +0100, Matt Gray wrote:

Joe Harmon wrote:

...

Let me just ask one thing. If we were talking about having GNOME be the default as a resolution to this issue, would the KDE supporters be taking the same stance? I don't think that they would. I think the argument to keep it as not selected and provide the customer with a better option to make a choice. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying make GNOME the default selection either. I am just saying, try and put yourself in their shoes and see if you really feel the same way if the decision was reversed. I think this is just causing more issues than it is "supposed" to be trying to resolve.

Given the current reality of more than twice as many KDE users than Gnome, yes i would object to such a decision.

If those statistics were reversed then i like to believe that i would (grudgingly) accept Gnome as the default if the opensuse board decided that a default desktop would be beneficial to opensuse.

I would object regardles of the statistics. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqiXs8ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VhhQCcCd73aTsTBJ07mgb8w88j3L5U TfwAoJMdtv8jl/AqnGkidvOXqsPr6IOA =k7nB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 26 Aug 2009, Joe Harmon wrote:

I think this is just causing more issues than it is "supposed" to be trying to resolve.

I think this illustrates something important - that the discussion (read argument) isn't about default DE, but about something else. Until that something else is brought into the open and discussed directly rather than by proxy then the "issue" will remain and keep coming up whenever there is a choice between KDE & Gnome. Not discussing issues because of the emotion involved is an easy path to divorce. I have no axe to grind on this - I use KDE on desktop machines because I'm familiar with it. I have interoperability issues with some software, which irritates me. I use Gnome on servers - I don't remember why - probably because some key piece of software only ran acceptably on Gnome at the time several years ago when I set up the first server. I'm also using XFCE on a development machine because it's lightweight. I use WinXP & Vista & MacOSX also. I tend to set up new users in KDE because I can make them comfortable with it quicker. I tell them there are other DEs and may show them images, but few change. Most people just aren't interested. They just want it easy to use. David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hi Michael, On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 14:50 +0200, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

This is most interesting. When you say you "discussed the feature request" with the openSUSE Board - what was their considered recommendation ?

Frankly, the openSUSE Board was just a mirror of the community. So again a pretty heated discussion. No clear recommendation.

I am glad that the board is a good mirror of the community. It rather reinforces the general idea of them, in future, hammering out such compromises - surely ? - then they can sell it to their respective constituencies. Can you confirm that your discussion with the board was genuinely neutral, rather than a plain presentation of your decision ?

Yes, the governance topic will be covered during the conference.

Great.

...

...

We want to make clear that both desktops are considered equal citizens within the openSUSE Project

How about actually sketching out what this really means, if indeed it means anything at all ...

Please don't read things into a radio button which aren't there.

Sure; so - is there any chance you could help expand on what you mean by 'considered equal citizens' ? - I accept that it doesn't apply to this radio button - where else does it not apply ?

...

As an example, can you give any assurances around my concerns about conferences - presenting both desktops equally eg. ? other trivial examples might be boxed set screenshots (if the boxed set rides again), printed marketing materials etc. We have one prominent area where they are not treated equally - I assume the plan is to spread that aggressively to other areas

You really chose not to give any assurances here ? that is concerning. Henne's on no-change to the conference DVDs was helpful - I look forward to handing more out. Finally - I think one of the -best- ways to bury the discussion here, is to provide a satisfying, and clearly defined trigger point for re-opening it [ that is preferably at some distance away, post 11.2 :-]. Seemingly so far, we have only a "my decision is final" position, with (apparently) no hope of progress, ever. I assume it is not adequate to leave Lubos' blog to speak on this - and that some change in future is possible. I assume also, that it is obvious / 'logical' that in future that the user's choice in our data will be obscured by this default. To find an un-biased variable - can we agree that eg. when the live-CD download numbers reach 50/50 you will support re-visiting this decision ? and/or where is the raw data for that available ? So - while still horribly dissatisfied by the process, decision, and the lack of transparency - I guess at least having some clear and meaningful re-assurances, and a reasonably distant, but understood and agreed trigger point for re-opening the discussion would content me. Thanks, Michael, -- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Mittwoch 26 August 2009 schrieb Stephan Kulow:

5323 IPs downloaded KDE4 3492 IPs downloaded GNOME 1791 IPs downloaded both

Sorry, I should be consistent with my own arguments: 5323 IPs asked for KDE4 mirror, we don't know if it was downloaded. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 12:23 +0200, Stephan Kulow wrote:

But these contain so many variables too (did people still have gnome 2.24 when the patch came out? Did people actually use the software they are downloading patches for?...)

Yes - I agree it is a quagmire of uncertainty :-) In a world of (wonderful) 'zypper dup' - if we measure ISO downloads do we loose a chunk of our most clueful user-base ? there are too many imponderables.

All in all, I think there are no unbiased variables - so there will always have to be a decision made if the data we can get is representative enough or not.

True; I like the live CD install / update data because it avoids (post 11.2) the bias caused by having a default pre-selected, and shows a clear choice. [ can we detect the install / update of a live-CD vs. a DVD install ? ] - it seems the clearest, most easily measurable proxy for the choice during the installation flow that I can see.

Just out of interest, I queried the logs of last week for live cd redirects (I dare to say that in august we see mainly people not already using openSUSE):

5323 IPs downloaded KDE4 3492 IPs downloaded GNOME 1791 IPs downloaded both

So - to unreasonably extrapolate from this small sample, in this random timeframe I would turn that into: rough percentage of download sites: 50.2% - chose KDE4 32.9% - chose both 16.9% - chose Gnome from which - it seems, extrapolating, that we are needlessly annoying 1/3rd of DVD users by having a straight choice in that dialog rather than check boxes (which can be made an orthogonal issue to having a default - we can have both). Of course, we need a longer sample run from a more sensible time, and more thought - but it seems a reasonable metric to me - though clearly, actual live-CD install numbers would better. Clearly we want to best align all communities motivations with the process of installing millions of new seats of openSUSE :-) Thanks, Michael. -- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Michael Meeks wrote:

On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 12:23 +0200, Stephan Kulow wrote:

...

But these contain so many variables too (did people still have gnome 2.24 when the patch came out? Did people actually use the software they are downloading patches for?...)

Yes - I agree it is a quagmire of uncertainty :-) In a world of (wonderful) 'zypper dup' - if we measure ISO downloads do we loose a chunk of our most clueful user-base ? there are too many imponderables.

[pruned]

So - to unreasonably extrapolate from this small sample, in this random timeframe I would turn that into:

rough percentage of download sites: 50.2% - chose KDE4 32.9% - chose both 16.9% - chose Gnome

from which - it seems, extrapolating, that we are needlessly annoying 1/3rd of DVD users by having a straight choice in that dialog rather than check boxes (which can be made an orthogonal issue to having a default - we can have both).

GNOME is handicapped by a major marketing problem. First, the name GNOME, which to more people than less, gives the impression that it one of those concrete, insignificant looking, dwarves scattered around some ding-a-ling's garden. (The husband of a late friend of ours not only had gnomes in their front garden but also a crypt with a statue of the madonna - surrounded by those gnomes! Sheesh!) Having the knowledge that GNOME stands for 'GNU Network Object Model Environment' means sweet FA to everybody - except to the GNOME developers and other assorted and dedicated users. And having a big footprint, with 5 toes, as its "trademark" doesn't help in any way. Put both together and the picture created in a person's mind is that of a mythical and outdated 'creature' pretending to provide the very latest desktop environment for the modern user. MS and others did not adopt GNOME as the DE, did they? On the other hand, KDE has a simple, elegant, trademark symbol, and has the simple and elegant name of 'KDE' which in Russian, for example, simply means, "Where?" or in English simply, 'KDE'. But with no connotations of dwarves, gnomes, or Bigfoot walking in mud, or snow, and not even wearing shoes. BC -- Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the minute details." Confucius -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Vincent Untz wrote:

Le jeudi 27 août 2009, à 20:16 +1000, Basil Chupin a écrit :

...

Having the knowledge that GNOME stands for 'GNU Network Object Model Environment' means sweet FA to everybody - except to the GNOME developers and other assorted and dedicated users.

GNOME doesn't stand for anything anymore.

Never a truer word was spoken :-) .

It's just GNOME.

But the odour lingers on......

...

And having a big footprint, with 5 toes, as its "trademark" doesn't help in any way.

It has 4 toes ;-)

I got in before you! :-)

Thanks for your constructive mail,

A pleasure.

Vincent

BC -- Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the minute details." Confucius -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Kulow wrote:

Am Donnerstag 27 August 2009 schrieb Basil Chupin:

...

Vincent Untz wrote:

...

Le jeudi 27 août 2009, à 20:16 +1000, Basil Chupin a écrit :

...

Having the knowledge that GNOME stands for 'GNU Network Object Model Environment' means sweet FA to everybody - except to the GNOME developers and other assorted and dedicated users.

GNOME doesn't stand for anything anymore.

Never a truer word was spoken :-) .

While I appreciate your humour, I don't think your mail did well to the whole "please calm down" thing we're trying to achieve here.

Greetings, Stephan

I wasn't in any way trying to be humorous in my original post. I was simply telling it as I see it. The subsequent post was in line of the response by Utz, with a smiley (or two). BC -- Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the minute details." Confucius -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Michael, what about cooling down, accept some facts and work together in a constructive way? We should remember that offering 2 world class desktops should be used as a strength of openSUSE. Arguing and fighting between both will lead anywhere. Best M On Wednesday 26 August 2009 11:31:21 Michael Meeks wrote:

Hi Michael,

On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 14:50 +0200, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

...

This is most interesting. When you say you "discussed the feature request" with the openSUSE Board - what was their considered recommendation ?

Frankly, the openSUSE Board was just a mirror of the community. So again a pretty heated discussion. No clear recommendation.

I am glad that the board is a good mirror of the community. It rather reinforces the general idea of them, in future, hammering out such compromises - surely ? - then they can sell it to their respective constituencies. Can you confirm that your discussion with the board was genuinely neutral, rather than a plain presentation of your decision ?

...

Yes, the governance topic will be covered during the conference.

Great.

...

...

...

We want to make clear that both desktops are considered equal citizens within the openSUSE Project

How about actually sketching out what this really means, if indeed it means anything at all ...

Please don't read things into a radio button which aren't there.

Sure; so - is there any chance you could help expand on what you mean by 'considered equal citizens' ? - I accept that it doesn't apply to this radio button - where else does it not apply ?

...

...

As an example, can you give any assurances around my concerns about conferences - presenting both desktops equally eg. ? other trivial examples might be boxed set screenshots (if the boxed set rides again), printed marketing materials etc. We have one prominent area where they are not treated equally - I assume the plan is to spread that aggressively to other areas

You really chose not to give any assurances here ? that is concerning. Henne's on no-change to the conference DVDs was helpful - I look forward to handing more out.

Finally - I think one of the -best- ways to bury the discussion here, is to provide a satisfying, and clearly defined trigger point for re-opening it [ that is preferably at some distance away, post 11.2 :-]. Seemingly so far, we have only a "my decision is final" position, with (apparently) no hope of progress, ever. I assume it is not adequate to leave Lubos' blog to speak on this - and that some change in future is possible. I assume also, that it is obvious / 'logical' that in future that the user's choice in our data will be obscured by this default. To find an un-biased variable - can we agree that eg. when the live-CD download numbers reach 50/50 you will support re-visiting this decision ? and/or where is the raw data for that available ?

So - while still horribly dissatisfied by the process, decision, and the lack of transparency - I guess at least having some clear and meaningful re-assurances, and a reasonably distant, but understood and agreed trigger point for re-opening the discussion would content me.

Thanks,

Michael,

-- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot

-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Moin, On Wednesday 26 August 2009 17:53:45 Sankar P wrote:

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

Michael,

what about cooling down, accept some facts and work together in a constructive way? We should remember that offering 2 world class desktops should be used as a strength of openSUSE. Arguing and fighting between both will lead anywhere.

I guess you meant "nowhere".

Whether intentional or not You (your decision) are in a big way responsible for the in-fighting. oh, obviously you haven't noticed the "in-fight" on the ml prior to my decision. Yes, someone else told me before that perception is pretty subjective.

Best M

A lot of the openSUSE-GNOME people, in addition to being openSUSE ambassadors are GNOME ambassadors as well. Perhaps for much longer than when openSUSE is created. Afterall, The creator of GNOME is with us and we have two GNOME Board directors.

Just because some KDE users want to have a one-click-less installation you are making GNOME a second choice (driving away a lot of potential GNOME users). You think any GNOME ambassador will want to promote these DVDs where GNOME is considered inferior ? If so, you are failing to understand basic Human psychology and is over-expecting.

To be honest, I see no way this gonna heal soon and people living with grudge against each other communities for very long.

When there is no _quantifiable) way to assess the benefits of this move, but a noticeable negative impact in a considerable members of the community, the move imho should have been avoided. Which is why, Even after these many long threads, you are unable to convince the people opposing this move. and these people are not the usual troll-kindlers but genuine community people.

----

I believe things will be a lot more calm, if we just accept that GNOME and KDE communities are different and give separate DVDs instead of bundling them together in a single promo-DVD. Atleast every desktop will get more packages to install. And KDE users can get more packages without GNOME occupying a huge chunk in their installation media.

-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 13:13 -0400, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 1:04 PM, Michael Loeffler wrote:

...

...

Whether intentional or not You (your decision) are in a big way responsible for the in-fighting.

...

oh, obviously you haven't noticed the "in-fight" on the ml prior to my decision. Yes, someone else told me before that perception is pretty subjective.

Let's cut this here, please. Michael and Sankar, you'll have an opportunity to sit down and talk at the conference, I'm sure that will be more productive than continuing this on the mailing list.

And a quick reminder folks: We agree, or I hope we agree, that openSUSE's goals are to spread Linux and make things fun: This has been quite the opposite of fun, and anyone turning a eye towards this list recently would be quite likely to form a very negative opinion of this community.

This may not have been handled perfectly, but we can and will do better in the future, but that's the decision we have for now. Sniping at each other isn't going to get us anywhere.

GNOME and KDE folks - you're on the same side, or ought to be. Our competition hangs its hat in Redmond and in Cupertino, and if you lose sight of that, we all lose.

Love and other indoor sports,

Zonker

Just an FYI: Sometimes those "indoor sports" are fun outdoors too. :-) I agree with much of what Zonker has stated. It's really a good thing that people feel able to express their feelings and I don't want to clamp down on that, but now is the time to look at the greater good of openSUSE. While the Board did not make an official recommendation pertaining to the final decision, the board did address that we need to start looking at ways to build a better coalition amongst ourselves. There may be multiple desktop environment, but there is only *ONE* Project. And we'll continue this discussion at the conference for sure. So let's get back to business for now so we can identify more other stuff that we need to address at the conference when we all get face to face. And Sankar, if you're still coming, I expect you to bring some of that Idli you always talk about. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member GNOME-A11y Team Member www.bryen.com (Personal Blog) www.planet-a11y.net (Feed aggregator of the Accessibility Community) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-08-26 at 13:13 -0400, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

Let's cut this here, please. Michael and Sankar, you'll have an opportunity to sit down and talk at the conference, I'm sure that will be more productive than continuing this on the mailing list.

And a quick reminder folks: We agree, or I hope we agree, that openSUSE's goals are to spread Linux and make things fun: This has been quite the opposite of fun, and anyone turning a eye towards this list recently would be quite likely to form a very negative opinion of this community.

This may not have been handled perfectly, but we can and will do better in the future, but that's the decision we have for now. Sniping at each other isn't going to get us anywhere.

GNOME and KDE folks - you're on the same side, or ought to be. Our competition hangs its hat in Redmond and in Cupertino, and if you lose sight of that, we all lose.

Mmm... no, I no longer can think we are on the same side. :-/ - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqiYeIACgkQtTMYHG2NR9W2yACeJXBvH5Z28HrwqvLhZd8N12xY 0m0AoJVaGUAn4OKa1l6ZyJSbUZeytkdL =MTf9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, August 25, 2009 4:02 pm, Karl Sinn wrote:

Did you check the scores of "KDE default" and "GNOME default" on openFate?

I think this is quite interesting...

Karl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

yes, both had a 4:1 ratio respectively in favour of the current decision. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 7:07 AM, Michael Meeks wrote:

As an example, can you give any assurances around my concerns about conferences - presenting both desktops equally eg. ? providing live-CD media instead of DVDs - so GNOME advocates don't have to hand out default-KDE-installs left and right ? other trivial examples might be boxed set screenshots (if the boxed set rides again), printed marketing materials etc. We have one prominent area where they are not treated equally - I assume the plan is to spread that aggressively to other areas - can you reassure ?

As for marketing materials in general -- you have no cause for concern. As was said repeatedly in the initial discussions, the decision was about and only about the one thing, and did not indicate that openSUSE would be abandoning equal support for the desktop in any area. The DVDs contain both live CDs. We have, so far, only produced one media for handouts: 32-bit DVDs with the Live CDs on them. I'm open to producing live CDs with the 11.2 batch, but that depends greatly on a number of factors, and if we go that route I'll make every effort to ensure we have enough CDs of each type to meet demand. As for balance at shows, in materials, etc. -- anything that we're producing out of my budget will be balanced. I've been very conscious of making sure we show both desktops off when we're at events. In general, any "official" shows, we should be demo'ing both GNOME and KDE, and in the future Moblin as well. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net Twitter: jzb | Identica: jzb http://identi.ca/group/opensuse/members -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 25 August 2009 13:07:50 Michael Meeks wrote:

[...] How about actually sketching out what this really means, if indeed it means anything at all, to re-assure the GNOME guys that this is not the very unsubtle end of a big wedge to squeeze them out, and make their (already un-necessarily unpleasant) experience of openSUSE advocacy worse.

As an example, can you give any assurances around my concerns about conferences - presenting both desktops equally eg. ? providing live-CD media instead of DVDs - so GNOME advocates don't have to hand out default-KDE-installs left and right ? other trivial examples might be boxed set screenshots (if the boxed set rides again), printed marketing materials etc. We have one prominent area where they are not treated equally - I assume the plan is to spread that aggressively to other areas - can you reassure ?

Michael, I understand some of your concerns, others become ridiculous for me. Let me state how I understand that openSUSE has both GNOME and KDE as equal citizens in the project: Basically there's no change, so we continue to show both GNOME and KDE if the booth is large enough. And if choose to go to a local event with just one laptop and represent the project, it's your choice which desktop you show - as today! We have a Promo-DVD that has both desktops on it and right now do not plan to produce CDs with just one desktop. Btw. the screenshots in the openSUSE 11.1 manual show normally the GNOME desktop and YaST Gtk and that will not change with openSUSE 11.2, we're not redoing the screenshots because of Michael's announcement. I would be interested in a fair solution for the screenshots of the manual (no, I don't want two Admin-Handbooks). IMO we can continue also with the status quo. I don't think we need to like other products and show only one desktop everywhere. Let me reconfirm and give my word that we do not plan to get rid of GNOME at all, if we would have planned that, we would considered not only not sorting the desktop selection alphabetically (giving GNOME the prominent first place) but removing the dialog completely to make it harder to install GNOME (right now the change means not a single click more or less for a GNOME install!). I'm sad that we have to discuss these details at all :-( Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, 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

Torsdag den 27. august 2009 13:42:36 skrev Michael Meeks:

Thank you for you mail; it was exactly what I was looking for, and most helpfully re-assuring. It is indeed sad that re-assurance is necessary I suppose

Maybe now you guys understand why KDE users needed some reassurance after the long list of events in recent years which had left the vast majority of our community not feeling assured _at_all_. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Hm - that came out a bit harsher than I wanted. I do understand that no harm was meant by those who proposed to default openSUSE to KDE. Am Mittwoch, den 26.08.2009, 09:59 +0200 schrieb Christian Jäger:

The difference is, KDE users felt unfairly treated by what was a corporate decision. We all suffered from such situations; need I mention the acronym ZMD? I still think it is a lot easier to feel ill-treated by faceless, corporate governance than by your own 'community', your own openSUSE-'comrades'. People you thought of as having the same interest as you - until they turned round and kicked you, thus obviously redefining the community to which they feel loyal to; redefining it as a smaller circle (openSUSE minus GNOME).

Am Donnerstag, den 27.08.2009, 14:00 +0200 schrieb Martin Schlander:

...

Torsdag den 27. august 2009 13:42:36 skrev Michael Meeks:

...

Thank you for you mail; it was exactly what I was looking for, and most helpfully re-assuring. It is indeed sad that re-assurance is necessary I suppose

Maybe now you guys understand why KDE users needed some reassurance after the long list of events in recent years which had left the vast majority of our community not feeling assured _at_all_.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am Donnerstag, den 27.08.2009, 16:35 -0400 schrieb Patrick Shanahan:

* Christian Jäger [08-27-09 16:03]:

...

redefining it as a smaller circle (openSUSE minus GNOME).

This is not now nor evey was contemplated. It exists *only* in your mind. The entire discussion was based in making a default choice based on expected usage and was not to show partiality or demonstrate a better-worse situation, and was intended to address the new linux user only.

That intention I doubt. At least a 'healthy bit' of enthusiasm to push KDE did come across in some comments; completely understandable. What I don't understand is that _obviously_ Mr Schlander and Mr Lubak did not waste any thoughts on how their _demand_ to default KDE would play with the openSUSE GNOME community.

You *obviously* prefer gnome. Have you not tried any of the others before making your choice and are you not interested that one of the others may have a feature you might like?

My history is Mac --> Windows 3.1 till 2000 --> KDE 3.5 --> GNOME. And yes, I try KDE from time to time. Not my cup of tea, but it's fine. I prefer GNOME but I would never, NEVER have gotten it in my head that KDE was 'undeservedly' treated as an equal to my preferred DE because _my_ preferred DE isn't defaulted. That's a way of thinking that I cannot condone; if find it downright indecent. But well, all of us GNOMErs respect the decision to default KDE for 11.2; as dubious as the decision-making process might have been, but I for one _demand_ that this decision be revisited for 11.3. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

...

but I for one _demand_ that this decision be revisited for 11.3.

To demand that, you do need to say which decision and why you believe the outcome would be different. It seems there are 2 decisions which were made, and one issue raised. There is one further question which arises from the decisions. The decisions are: 1) to have a default DE on the install 2) to set the default according to popularity of the DE in installs in openSUSE The issue is: 3) it has been asserted that the decision making process was unfair or untransparent The further question is: 4) what are the best (for openSUSE) criteria for choosing the default install DE? What surveys / information collection do we need to evaluate this reliably? Which of these points do you want to revisit (and don't say all of them), and why do you think there'll be a different answer if it's revisited? David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

I was present during the wonderment of the kde users when it was announced that Novell had chosen gnome for the desktop for the sponsored editions and witnessed the dismay and concern that kde would be dropped. I believe that, perhaps, you are feeling that same dismay?

That's apples and oranges. When GNOME was selected as the default for SLED, it wasn't a big deal because *we don't make SLED*. That's not our product, that's not our community. In this case, we *are* placing GNOME as a second-class citizen by telling our users to use KDE, not GNOME. We're being told by our own community that KDE is what we're going to push on new users.

Time has shown that kde has *not* been orphaned and the same will prevail for gnome.  The two are much too popular to dissappear.

No, because KDE, since the start of the Project, has had the same billing as GNOME on openSUSE. In addition, it's had a strong backing as it was the default desktop in SUSE prior to openSUSE. GNOME was just added as a first-class choice several years ago, and had to build up it's own community within the project. The fact that GNOME has been able to survive in a formerly KDE-centric distro project is a testament to both it's features and it's community. The vocal minority of KDE users want to throw that away for political reasons.

But lets put aside our concerns and accept that we will move forward *together*  :^)

We all want to move forward together, but certain people wish to make that 'together' only include KDE users, it seems. Which is not going to help the Project in any way. -- Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy openSUSE Project Member www.YeauxInTheMorning.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

it was precisely because of this perception of 'ill-use' that i argued time and again last month that a decision on a default desktop should only be taken IF the relevant experts within opensuse decided that a default desktop would provide a net benefit to the distribution via increased adoption, and in particular increased adoption by new users.

We can't avoid the issue by not talking about it, which is what this proposal is - if we don't talk about defaults then we don't need to talk about the tensions / insecurities between the KDE & Gnome camps in openSuSE. The issue needs to be aired and resolved. As far as I understand, the Gnome camp fear that Gnome will become a minor player in openSuSE, and the KDE camp fear that KDE will become a minor player in the SuSE Enterprise. There have been statements that contradict these fears, but these have been discounted or ignored. What would allay the fears? David -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le mardi 01 septembre 2009, à 11:50 +0100, Matt Gray a écrit :

Thus i argued time and again last month that a decision on a default desktop should only be taken IF the relevant experts within opensuse decided that a default desktop would provide a net benefit to the distribution via increased adoption, and in particular increased adoption by new users.

FWIW, this is also what I asked at the very beginning, split the question in two different questions: "do we want a default?" and "if we have a default, which one should it be?" Mixing the two questions didn't help. 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

On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 18:39 +0200, Christian Jäger wrote:

Am Sonntag, den 30.08.2009, 14:26 -0500 schrieb Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy:

...

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote: We all want to move forward together, but certain people wish to make that 'together' only include KDE users, it seems. Which is not going to help the Project in any way.

My thoughts exactly. The project now labors from the complete mess that was made of this decision.

The correct way to go about it for the KDE-guys would have been to make contact with our GNOME community via the GNOME-ML and talk this over; straighten out the perceptions of each other. Afterwards a discussion on this very ML about what sense there could be in having a default DE could have been set up with a chance of not degrading into a flame-war. .. Because having a default DE represents a MAJOR policy change.

Certainly it was dead-wrong to allow such a thing as a 'feature request' - unproper handling, mistake #1.

Afterwards it was wrong not to discuss 'default, yes or now', separately from 'which one to default, if a default is neccessary' - Mistake #2.

Then it was very wrong to make a top-down decision, like in the 'good old SUSE days'. Because it won't be appreciated, and this needn't wonder you as it seems to encourage what many felt to be a bullying behaviour. Mistake #3.

So, on top of all the other problems we now have a leadership problem. The role of the board has also appeared in a bad light. Did anyone who really really represents the project as a whole step in to play the role of mediator with a shred of credibility? No.

A LOT of repairwork needs to be done sometime soon to re-build the wreckage that once was a cross-distribution community.

Let's clear some things up. As Michl mentioned in his announcement, he did talk to the teams involved. In fact, what happened was that we, the Board, brought together representatives from each team to a meeting just before the decision was announced. The decision was already made by the time the announcement was made, and in hindsight that is regrettable. But, the focus of the meeting was specifically the intentions you have outlined. Both sides identified their perceptions and feelings and we opened up a great dialogue. This discussion is by no means completed and we intend to further this discussion at the openSUSE Conference coming up in Nuremberg this month. I believe from this meeting, we achieved greater understanding of each other. It was clear from everyone present that we all want to work together in a more harmonious way that supports the success of each Desktop Environment on openSUSE. I do not support the notion that the aftermath of this decision was truly destructive in the way you imply. Specifically, because it forced us all to look within ourselves and where we see ourselves within the project. We do have a long ways to go, but I do not believe the road has a steep incline and we will get there in the very near future. The decision has been made, and there is nothing presently that will reverse that decision. Our energy and focus must be on the future and how we can be true brothers and sisters in the Project. Spending our time ranting and criticizing the decision itself is no longer productive and is counterproductive to the long-term goals we all have of making openSUSE a success. Do I agree with the decision itself? No. Do I want to spend time criticizing it? No. I want to spend time rebuilding and making us stronger than ever. So let's move on. And if you're going to the openSUSE Conference, I look forward to your participation in this discussion. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member GNOME-A11y Team Member www.bryen.com (Personal Blog) www.planet-a11y.net (Feed aggregator of the Accessibility Community) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 22:26 +0200, Christian Jäger wrote:

Am Dienstag, den 01.09.2009, 12:02 -0500 schrieb Bryen M Yunashko:

...

As Michl mentioned in his announcement, he did talk to the teams involved. In fact, what happened was that we, the Board, brought together representatives from each team to a meeting just before the decision was announced. The decision was already made by the time the announcement was made, and in hindsight that is regrettable. But, the focus of the meeting was specifically the intentions you have outlined.

Both sides identified their perceptions and feelings and we opened up a great dialogue. This discussion is by no means completed and we intend to further this discussion at the openSUSE Conference coming up in Nuremberg this month.

I believe from this meeting, we achieved greater understanding of each other. It was clear from everyone present that we all want to work together in a more harmonious way that supports the success of each Desktop Environment on openSUSE.

Actually, that's the first I time anyone told about this in details. That's great, but why wasn't there a communique by the board or something? As the title of this thread says, a little more transparency wouldn't hurt.

There was no communique by the Board because this was no official action made by the Board. While many view this decision as political, it still fell under the purview of technical decision making, which is not currently in our hands. As Michl stated in his announcement, he did communicate with the teams. He did so in his capacity as chairman of the Board, along with the rest of us, who recognized that our role of the board is to resolve conflicts and strengthen community.

Well, seems at least _one_ thing went right. What's still missing to put my mind at ease is that we have to make sure that such a 'dictate of the majority' (or rather of the most vocal part of the community) as we saw here cannot happen again. We need a carther that guarantees the equal positions of GNOME and KDE communties in the openSUSE either by concrete measures (such as 'no default desktop') or by a 50-50-parity of seats on the openSUSE board.

What do you think?

Greets, Chris

Let me point out that there is already an unconference session scheduled during the openSUSE Conference focusing on governance issues. I expect we'll be doing a lot of hashing and rehashing as we look at how to better improve the way the Project is governed. It will very definitely be a very hands down-roll up your sleeves and let's get to thinking about it. And I'm looking forward to it. And the great thing is, this will be most definitely transparent as this is an open meeting. In all honesty, I am not sure having specific representatives of each camp is all that effective. It's counter-productive. For one thing, it reinforces the notion that KDE and GNOME teams are two separate distinct camps with their own agendas and goals. This is not the vision I personally have. Nor is it reality. I often see GNOMEies and KDE'ers collaborating. My vision is a representation that strives for the greater good of the overall Project, not specific factions. And to ensure that most of the perspectives of our community is heard. For me, everyone knows that I am a GNOME user. But when I am in board meetings, I _never_ sit there with the express goal of protecting and pushing for GNOME's interests. I'm there to represent the project as a whole. And that's what we all have to do. And I feel that most of us are looking in that direction already. One thing that I have always felt, even when I ran for Board last year, was that we do not have enough representatives from the community on the Board. In fact, there are only two community representatives. This doesn't mean the Novell representatives aren't conscientious about community. Far from it, I believe they are more aligned with community than Novell. But still, two isn't enough. Especially when one cannot make it to a meeting, and suddenly the weight of community is on one shoulder. The good news is that very recently, the question of adding a new community board position has been floated around the board and hopefully we'll make our recommendations on it soon. Likely, this will also be brought up for discussion and agreement at the Conference, and who knows, we might be able to get a new position in time for the upcoming elections. No promises. :-) But Chris. Please do know that the points you have made are on the minds of many already. We do need to do a better job of communicating our thoughts to each other and developing the transparency in a more suitable fashion. But we're working towards it. Trust me. :-) And I look forward to seeing all of you at the Conference to discuss these matters in more detail. -- Bryen Yunashko openSUSE Board Member GNOME-A11y Team Member www.bryen.com (Personal Blog) www.planet-a11y.net (Feed aggregator of the Accessibility Community) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-ID: On Tuesday, 2009-09-01 at 22:26 +0200, Christian Jäger wrote: Am Dienstag, den 01.09.2009, 12:02 -0500 schrieb Bryen M Yunashko:

...

As Michl mentioned in his announcement, he did talk to the teams involved. In fact, what happened was that we, the Board, brought together representatives from each team to a meeting just before the decision was announced. The decision was already made by the time the announcement was made, and in hindsight that is regrettable. But, the focus of the meeting was specifically the intentions you have outlined.

Both sides identified their perceptions and feelings and we opened up a great dialogue. This discussion is by no means completed and we intend to further this discussion at the openSUSE Conference coming up in Nuremberg this month.

I believe from this meeting, we achieved greater understanding of each other. It was clear from everyone present that we all want to work together in a more harmonious way that supports the success of each Desktop Environment on openSUSE.

Actually, that's the first I time anyone told about this in details. That's great, but why wasn't there a communique by the board or something? As the title of this thread says, a little more transparency wouldn't hurt.

Yes... I missed that explanation.

Well, seems at least _one_ thing went right. What's still missing to put my mind at ease is that we have to make sure that such a 'dictate of the majority' (or rather of the most vocal part of the community) as we saw here cannot happen again. We need a carther that guarantees the equal positions of GNOME and KDE communties in the openSUSE either by concrete measures (such as 'no default desktop') or by a 50-50-parity of seats on the openSUSE board.

Yes. Something is needed. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqiZoMACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VdeQCdHrVYEW6TynGcdPGM/0VUBvYN B2sAoJEAy3QtA0VzhlTxt6BdNuBLMqJS =1Nqw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday, 2009-08-30 at 14:26 -0500, Kevin "Yeaux" Dupuy wrote:

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

I was present during the wonderment of the kde users when it was announced that Novell had chosen gnome for the desktop for the sponsored editions and witnessed the dismay and concern that kde would be dropped. I believe that, perhaps, you are feeling that same dismay?

That's apples and oranges. When GNOME was selected as the default for SLED, it wasn't a big deal because *we don't make SLED*. That's not our product, that's not our community. In this case, we *are* placing GNOME as a second-class citizen by telling our users to use KDE, not GNOME. We're being told by our own community that KDE is what we're going to push on new users.

Exactly. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqiZLUACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XBSgCfbVrpxcSdHef/GW5bV4aKRViI RRQAn3nPWW/tBy/3yg2RpuQfM5a/T39P =12Ut -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday, 2009-08-27 at 14:28 +0100, Matt Gray wrote:

Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Torsdag den 27. august 2009 13:42:36 skrev Michael Meeks:

...

Thank you for you mail; it was exactly what I was looking for, and most helpfully re-assuring. It is indeed sad that re-assurance is necessary I suppose

Maybe now you guys understand why KDE users needed some reassurance after the long list of events in recent years which had left the vast majority of our community not feeling assured _at_all_.

Good point.

Regardless of the truth of Novells support for both KDE and Gnome, Novell have had to constantly battle the [[perception]] that KDE was being sidelined.

This perception of ill-treatment was perhaps similar in nature to that expressed in this thread, and was amplified by the fact that KDE users didn't have the reassurance of knowing that Novell had just bought Ximian distro and decided to use Gnome in its commercial suse products.

In an effort to preempt a flame war let me just restate that i am delighted that suse is committed to, and markets itself as, as a technically excellent dual DE distro, and that i wholly support opensuse's commitment to maintaining equal support for both Gnome and KDE.

I really hope you are right there. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkqiaHEACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XLawCfXfwitw+xkmpcNSSahGaLUNfo J9cAnRLVgb93utQru7LBzXhOAe4H1/eS =W/mL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org