On Saturday 28 January 2006 17:40, Pascal Bleser wrote:
The initial kickoff had to come from Novell+SUSE, but now it's starting to be up to us, the community, to make things happen. We can't always say "Novell has to do this, has to do that", we have to get our act together. Novell/SUSE is putting more and more into our own hands, and it's up to us to work together, organize ourselfs as a real, linked community and just do it, not always sit and wait. IMO it's on this list that it has to happen.
I agree with everything you said, except that its on the list that it *has* to happen. It doesn't have to happen on the list, on a forum, on a wiki discussion page, or individual emails alone - it has to happen on a combination of all the options available. An example (and bear with me, I'm an AV consultant, so this is how I can best communicate my examples atm ;) ) would be how businesses work together. When I design a system, I have to include a variety of elements - video teleconferencing, audio conferencing, collaborationware, presentation displays, distributed audio and video systems, recording systems for live presentations, a means of distributing that information, webcasts, telecasts, etc, etc, etc. Not all of these systems may be used in every design, but no design would be right without a combination - theres no single way to properly disseminate all information. I think the first thing everyone did perfectly here was contact everyone who would be interested in the discussion, at least from a standpoint o active involvement. I doubt Damian would ever join the list, he just doesn't like dealing with them; however, he's very easy to get in touch with via email, and always answers quickly, and with a well thought out response. I believe everyone here is very easy and responsive when it comes to collaborating, and that will remain true. Perhaps what would be best is to start off with a list and a group of topics. This list isn't a mailing list, or a private subforum, just a list of those interested in certain primary topics and how they may be contacted. For example, I try to be active in terms of the wiki, forums, KDE, a few mailing lists, and some programming. I have little, if any, interest in GNOME & PPC (because I don't like GNOME, and don't have a powerpc :) ). Now, thats my preference. I'd also like to start helping out with documentation, and may be able to find time to do that as well. Now, others are going to have different interests, and thats a very good thing. Perhaps a good start would be to formulate a few lists of people who are interested in certain topics, set up a place to put vcards, and when you see something someone from a list of say, KDE oriented people may be interested in, you can contact them specifically about whats going on with the suse-kde list, or on a particular forum, or some such. No, its not a great solution, but it might be a worthwhile start to keeping everyone in active communication around topics of specific interest. Just a quick (well, long when written) thought. Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin