-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Peter Flodin wrote:
I am a little confused with one regard of the openSUSE project and the goal of making SUSE Linux the most widely used Linux. And something that I believe will need to be changed in the near future to achieve that goal. It has become quite clear that the openSUSE project is not really a user project, and in its current form is a developer only project.
Err... define "user project" and "developer only project". Keep in mind what the current state of the openSUSE project is: it has just begun, and there's still a lot to do, both on the SUSE/Novell side as on ours (the community).
Just look at the example of normal users asking for help on this supposedly general openSUSE mailing list and told to go to a non-opensuse place because this is a development list.
This hasn't been properly communicated. AFAICT, this is *not* supposed to be yet another user help mailing-list. There's already suse-linux-e. Making this a "user" mailing-list would kill openSUSE, it's already drowned with such e-mails as of now. "Developers" (i.e. packagers, committers, active community members, ...) also need a mailing-list to communicate their ideas, what they've always been missing, etc... with people from SUSE/Novell. Believe me, we packagers know that distribution since quite some time, and we're the ones working hard in our free time to provide end-users with tons of packages to make their life easier. We do have a lot to say, propose and discuss with the people working on SUSE Linux. So please, bare us some space to do that. Of course, anyone can join in, this is a community initiative after all ;P We should probably move to a dedicated mailing-list. But I really don't see the point of making yet another mailing list for helping end-users with their installation or hardware issues on SUSE Linux.
This now also confuses the aim of the openSUSE wiki (my main contributional input to this project so far), who is it aimed at? The end-user or the openSUSE developer/contributor?
Everyone.
If I want to write SUSE end-user wiki should I go to: http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/Cool_Solutions_Wiki_Main_Page ? or perhaps submit articles to http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/ (and even earn points).
I would like openSUSE be a distro with a user community to rival anybody and here is what I believe openSUSE should do: 1. Rename SUSE Linux OSS to openSUSE Linux - you can't build a user community if you have nothing to build it around.
It's exactly the same thing, just a different name.
2. OpenSUSE.org has to be a full self contained entity with a "everyone is Welcome here" attitutude. This therefore requires web forums for support. Mailing lists and news readers are not good enough
IMHO web forums suck really, really bad. And there are already some SUSE web forums. I think it's much better to embrace and extend what already exists in the community instead of starting everything from scratch.
for newbies. There is no choice. If you don't like web forums, get over it or don't go there, the mailing lists should be untouched. Otherwise can someone explain how the openSUSE project actually intends to reach one of its stated goals, it just won't happen by accident...
Yes, the answer is pretty simple: TIME. The project has just been started, everyone at SUSE/Novell is working hard to fix the bugs we've submitted and to finish the 10.0 release. - - the bugzilla is there and works great - - the betas and RCs are there - - the wiki is there, anyone can contribute - - some spin-off distribution(s) have started already (SUPER) - - SUSE Linux (OSS) is available for download from day 1 of its release (actually from day -30 ;)), unlike what SUSE previously did (1 month after releasing the boxed set) - - anyone on this mailing-list can make propositions, state her ideas, discuss with other members of the SUSE community and with people from Novell working on the distribution and the openSUSE project Many things are just not there *yet*, it's that simple. Putting up an initiative like this doesn't happen in 4 weeks' time. And if you get the feeling that there isn't much happening at the moment, you're right, but it's because 10.0 has to be finished and everyone at SUSE is busy doing so. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDK18Hr3NMWliFcXcRApEDAJ9eBxvvwh2ZZvVItOMxjcfn1tHQ5wCghzbV KP1RixQHA+B/X1D+swMUjMM= =w3I0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----