Hi, On Friday, December 07, 2012 11:42:23 AM Richard Brown wrote:
Agustin Benito Bethencourt 12/07/12 9:22 AM >>>
What do we have to do at SUSE to get more people involve in the Release process?
I think the community (which of course includes SUSE) could look into ways to make it easier for people to pitch in and get involved, but more importantly I think we need to do a much better job at getting the message out there about how easy it already is to be involved in the release process.
This is something we will put more effort, yes.
Practical options I'd like us to consider include: * Revamping the website to make information about how to get involved much more prominent and welcoming. The website should also better convey the overall projects goal (which will tie into my answer to your second question) * Sorting the wiki out so it's a heck of a lot easier for everyone to use and search across - I'd like to see the death of the namespaces and perhaps replace it instead with 2 discreet wiki's, probably one for Users (ie the current SDB) and one for contributors (the current openSUSE namespace) - I think everything that currently exists in the 'Main' namespace, our 'product brochure' should be website, not wiki, material. * Do a better job of aggregating lots of our communication media (News, ML, Social Networking, etc) into one place contributors can go to stay involved (I think Connect++ could be a big part of such a solution) * Make it easier for people to get involved in our IRC channels, possibly with web-based access to IRC to dramatically lower the barrier to entry that exists for some new contributors.
A lot of what I just suggested will require co-operation from SUSE in terms of manpower and infrastructure, and it might be sensible for your team at SUSE to take the lead on some of those things, either way, those are some areas I can see us working on in the near term.
These are nice suggesstions, thanks. We will add them to our ToDo list. The tools are important, obviously, and there are many improvements we can put on the table to lower barriers. But we already have in general nice tools compared to others and we have put a lot of effort into them in the past. Are tools the priority for engaging people during the Release process? I think it is time to look into other directions as well.
Do we need to define targets for our distribution or that is a role for deployers and third parties? In terms of actual development goals (eg. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Goals_12.3) I think that's a place for our contributors to decide and the board to keep their noses out of
A community project can be seen as a meeting point in which each part work together to achieve a common goal that helps them to achive their individual goals. Each one of you is here for a reason and SUSE has its own reasons for supporting the project. We have to work to make those goals compatible, not the same one.
But aside from the day to day, practical goals, I do think we need to sit down as a project and do a much better job of communicating who we are, what we are setting out to achieve, and who we intend our distribution to be used by.
How can SUSE help on this? Should we? If there is something we can do, we will try.
I think there is some merit in your ideas for a more 'business-orientated' approach, targeting SME's and turning our focus to being the 'ideal' linux distribution for SME's to use and contribute back to. I think it's a bold and ambitious target, and as my own involvement in openSUSE originated from use in an SME, I certainly can't argue that we aren't already capable in that area. Deciding on that as our focus could help provide the refinement and polish to really achieve something in this space, and would certainly make my answer shorter when I'm at conferences and people endlessly ask me "Why should I use openSUSE?"
But 'business' is boring, I feel we'd need to be careful not to lose our unique "Have a lot of fun" vibe if we (the community) decide to head in that direction. The concerns about the economic side of things already is setting of alarm bells for me, which we'd have to resolve before I'd consider such a direction viable.
This is a technical community and is the technical focus and work what bring excitement. Without excitement there is no success as community. Making this excitement compatible with defining a target that give us opportunities to lead one or several niches is something we want to achieve at SUSE. We can do it and I think it will be good for the community too, as far that each one of you can keep doing what you like the most.
I personally think our greatest strength as a project and distribution is the fact we embrace 'Choice' The fact we explicitly don't define how you're meant to use openSUSE is a strength - Whether you're a user who wants a server, a KDE workstation, a GNOME workstation, an appliance, a tablet, a toaster, we build, we distribute, you decide
But we're not like other "do whatever you want" distros like Debian. While we do take the current and best from upstream and dump it all on our users to play with, we have tools like YaST (and SUSE give us Studio) which exist to help make that decision and deployment process easier. We're the distro where a relative novice can turn up and say "I want my box to be a desktop and a webserver and a mailserver and a VOIP server all at once" and it's half a dozen button clicks away instead of a month digging through documentation and configuration files.
I think we don't do a good enough job at getting that message out to people, and I sometimes think we forget it ourselves, occasionally thinking we're making it easier for our users by taking choices away from them, rather than instead making it easier for them to make those choices. To give a specific example, revamping the desktop selection screen with screenshots and better descriptions to make it easier for a novice user to make an informed choice between GNOME and KDE is something I'd really like to see.
I'm not sure my vision of 'choice' necessarily is enough to be a goal in-of-itself, nor do I think it is mutually exclusive to other proposed goal, whether that be a move to becoming 'business-orientated' or something else. I do think we could do with deciding on our direction, I just think we need to keep our strengths in choice and having fun at the same time, and do a better job of marketing all of it to the outside world.
Choice is the base of Free Software, but is a double side concept, as I understand you point here (correctme if I am wrong). Choice can also mean loose of focus, extra work, risks in loosing quality.... Balancing choice with available resources is something hard to do, but neccesary. We, at SUSE, can help a lot in the marketing area, but it will only be a complementary work to the viral marketing the community do. And viral marketing is based on common and clear messages.
What aspects of SUSE work in openSUSE can we improve in 2013?
After that long answer, this one is going to be nice and short - I'd like to see much better communication what the openSUSE team @SUSE is up to and where I (as a contributor) might be able to help out. With the changes to the team, I no longer understand who is doing what, and I think that's important
This is not just your perception. This is a fact. It will take us a couple more months to have simple and clear answers. But I can tell you a few things that are clear already: * We will work in the open. * We will work as a single team. * We will use the Release as our major engagement platform. * We will try to lead not just support. This is the basic reason for most of the changes we are going through and why it is taking us so long to get ready. It is not simple at all.
In the past, with the 'Boosters', when they weren't working on something already established and open, it often felt they were off doing their thing in private, then releasing their awesome stuff for everyone else to pitch in after the fact.
I'd like it if we (the wider community) could know what openSUSE@SUSE team has on the go at any one time, and hopefully this would lead to more opportunities for the community to help out in the early stages with whatever your team is taking the lead on.
There is no engagement if you do not communicate in advance what you are going to do and present it in a easy to follow way, as first step. This is something we understand now and before. But when you work full time at fast speed, the implementation is not simple at all. This topic will always be a matter of conflict. We will need to constantly put an eye on it. It will be important that people like you raise the red flag when we forget it.
In general.....in which aspects should SUSE focus its activity for 2013 (in openSUSE)? I think my first answer covers most of my feelings about this. The release process needs attention, and we need to make sure that 12.3 and 12.4 both build on the lessons of recent releases. In the absence of any overarching 'goal', my feeling would be SUSE would be well positioned to act as 'troubleshooters', helping resolve particular pain-points in the project as they arise, then working with the community and the board to help make sure they don't occur again.
12.3 is too close to do heavy changes, but we will work on several aspects that hopefully will open us more to contributions. There are no simple actions to solve problems but we are committed to make the Release process something this community feel as "yours". I have the feeling that it is now perceived as "ours". And this is not neccesarily a matter of who does the job. Saludos -- Agustin Benito Bethencourt openSUSE Team Lead at SUSE abebe@suse.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org