2010/6/21 Per Jessen
Rajko M. wrote:
On Sunday 20 June 2010 11:06:47 Per Jessen wrote:
... Anyway, that is really more of a specific strategy issue, and as such not relevant for the community statement (in my opinion).
Yes it is, but that is actually something that should precede statement. Analyze what you have to cover and then decide what you will cover in the beginning with current resources (infrastructure and volunteers), as well as make plans for future.
That sounds like tactics, not strategy.
The last thing is to put in a statement paragraph or section that will be condensed version of detailed operative plan. That is actually what we have, but with too few details.
There is already a plan and and a strategy??? Rajko, you're way ahead of most of us I suspect.
This discussion makes me recall why, long ago, I decided to leave this community as contributor and member. It reminds me also why I unsubscribed all the mailing lists and forums (I'm subscribed to this ML for another question I had on redistributing a live, and wasn't subscribed for a while before that). It is not a community statement, or a set of well written guiding principles, a perfect strategic plan that will fix the experience a user has when he gets in touch with openSUSE (I'll use openSUSE with the broader meaning of project and community), especially if the statement does not reflect the experience. This inconsistency affects many technical aspects too (see "the most usable linux for home users", then try to use yast to connect to your windows machine, take a look at the yast printer module, or do a search on OBS), however the technical aspects are secondary, if another, more important aspect is not in place, especially when it comes to a community distribution, or a distribution that wants to be community driven. This aspect concerns personal relationships. We can write all the times we want that we should respect each other, that the community should be open to different cultures, and to different ideas, but it is not going to work if these ideals do not belong to the community members. Writing them is very easy, it takes ten minutes, but putting them in to practice does not happen at all, and if you want an example, read this thread again, and you'll see it very clearly. In a thread where the topic is the future of the project, I would expect whoever is actually interested to have a certain behaviour and attitude, being open to listen to others without writing the first rough statement coming to his mind. I would expect who discusses to do that, for example, without splitting hair with the dictionary and the grammar, given that most of us are not native English speakers, and that, anyway, it is one of the most irritating things to do when you're talking to someone. It deviates from the topic, it adds tension, and it does not add anything to the discussion. I would also expect realistic proposals, but, unfortunately, we started with an incredible discussion about getting rid off of Novell, as if it were a plague, when, without it, we would not even be here to talk about this project. Someone tried to dig out all the mistakes made in the past by Novell, as it has become routine, but that's the past of the project, and we all know what happened already. There is really no need of bringing that back every time we talk about what we should do. Reading this thread, I see some good point, but they are submerged by a level of noise that makes them irrelevant. If we cannot have a serious discussion without a level of noise superior to the level of the relevant content, we have a problem, and that problem is in the people who discusses, that cannot keep the discussion clean. I don't think we are going to convince many to be part of this community if this is the kind of discussion they'll have to be part of. I'm sorry to put it so roughly, but I have to say that if I were a new user or a new potential contributor who, by chance, read this thread, I would not have a good impression and I would probably start looking elsewhere. The reason is very simple: the discussion is about a formal aspect (imho not even that important), the definition of a community statement, and who discusses might have good points, but they're wasting their time talking, sometime not exactly in a friendly manner, about details whose impact on the final result is minimal or null. They get lost on questions that are of no interest for that potential user/contributor who wants only one thing: a simple, clear, well explained way to contribute in a friendly environment, possibly with documented procedures on how to proceed in their tasks. It's not a statement that will create this environment, and it is not the best strategy that will attract contributors. A lot more work is necessary to do that than fixing a goal, and that work starts applying the principles you are only talking about to this discussion before than to anything else, or you won't give the example, and you won't convince anyone. Sincerely, good luck. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org