Dennis Gallien wrote:
While perhaps a legitimate argument can be made to those users that their expectations are inappropriately high for community software, as you and I know from our commercial background, end-users are just not receptive to "excuses". All they care about is whether it "just works" and they can get their job done. Probably both of us have had conversations with users along these lines and have the scars to prove it.
When it comes to desktop end-users whom we are presumably trying to attract to openSUSE and whose frame of reference is a commercial product - Windows - this applies all the more so. If we cannot provide the quality and stability that they expect, and they are nearly helpless to resolve upgrade issues, then for the vast majority of them our only substantive value proposition is that our software is free (other values such as "open source" are largely an abstraction to them).
Right.
So you've put your finger directly on the question I was trying to raise (if I may paraphrase): "openSUSE doesn't have the same concern for users or customers, and regardless of problems users may experience and how much they complain, it won't change much".
Dennis, let me interrupt here - we're talking about openSUSE as if it were a body of people moving and working towards an objective in an orchestrated way. I think that is our mistake. There is no openSUSE objective, no orchestration and no conductor, only a fair amount of coordination/cat-herding supported by SUSE and SUSE infrastructure. As many people will tell you, the direction of openSUSE is determined by the people who do the work.
Assuming your premise is correct, then that argues for much better clarity in who this project is intended for and who we are working to attract as new members. My initial thought re setting expectations and better preparing/supporting the upgrade process is based on my understanding (perhaps incorrect, but again IMHO I've never seen this clearly articulated) that we are trying to grow our community primarily from users as described above.
We do have a strategy: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Strategy There is also a portal with some more background: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Strategy
And while there has been some modest successes, most failed (even the commercial attempts), other of course than Ubuntu. It delivers far less than openSUSE, but clearly its "just works" strategy has been by far the most successful attracting new users from Windows.
Yes, it is a very attractive proposition for new users as well as admins having to deal with e.g. office users. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org