openSUSE Strategy: Home for developers

[prusnak]

Hi all!

As we promised earlier[1] starting today we'll be discussing the first
of strategies: Home for developers[2]. Please try to add your comments
to particular bulletpoints or sentences, so it is easier for us to merge
your suggestions into final form. Happy discussing!

[1] http://news.opensuse.org/2010/06/17/...d-discussions/
[2] http://en.opensuse.org/Documents/Strategy/Development

[DenverD]

prusnak wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> As we promised earlier[1] starting today we'll be discussing the first
> of strategies: Home for developers[2]. Please try to add your comments
> to particular bulletpoints or sentences, so it is easier for us to
> merge
> your suggestions into final form. Happy discussing!

is it the intention to pick one of the three as _the_ strategy for the
way forward

1 openSUSE - Home for developers
2 openSUSE - Base for derivatives
3 openSUSE - Mobile and cloud ready distribution

*or* is the intention to so shape the internals of those there paths
so that all of those can be achieved?

i ask becuase i just a few days ago i read an article in Linux
Journal, June 2010, Issue 194, article title _Philosophy and Fancy_,
page 56 leads me to believe there is already a great "home for
developers" "A distro put together for a hacker will ... have a raft
of coding tools ... Slackware is aimed squarely at this demographic."

and, i think it is pretty easy to agree that Google/Android/Chrome is
already light years ahead on the third strategy..

so, will we let the devs currently and firmly in the drivers seat have
their way (number one) or the new kids (and millions and millons of
potential users) theirs (number three) or are we gonna mash'em all
together and continue to produce a stable, dependable, trustworthy
generic base linux (number two) which our major sponsor can turn into
a commercial desktop AND server AND something to sell to the mobile
hardware makers AND . . .?

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[oldcpu]

One thing I would like to see, as a volunteer for providing support, is some sort of guidance provided by the developers (and the packagers) to the support volunteers , in providing guidance so that the support volunteers can document the way things are done for basic user support.

I constantly find myself reverse engineering (to a limited extent) what has been done, in order to understand enough to write a wiki, or some sort of guide.

This is true not only for the developers, but also wrt the packagers, who play a key roll in repackaging the developers' applications, so that regular users can use the package. Sometimes how the application is packaged by a packager, can have an important impact on how the application functions.

Now if the developers/packagers will write all of the wiki/guides, then there is less need for such a guidance/communication to volunteers like me (as the wiki/guide created by the developer/packager provides all the information). ... but somehow I think the developers and packagers do not want to write the wiki ....

So, the question in my mind, is how do we BETTER go about this ? How do we ensure there is a downstream flow of information, instead of a forced upstream reverse engineering learning (which is what happens now to a certain extent) ?

[prusnak]

is it the intention to pick one of the three as _the_ strategy for the
way forward

1 openSUSE - Home for developers
2 openSUSE - Base for derivatives
3 openSUSE - Mobile and cloud ready distribution

*or* is the intention to so shape the internals of those there paths
so that all of those can be achieved?

The intention is to shape the internals of the strategies so we'll end up with one strategy that most of us want to follow. It might happen that activities from one strategy will appear in another, but we don't want to create a meld of these 3 strategies.

[DenverD]

prusnak wrote:

> Please try to add your comments to particular bulletpoints or
> sentences, so it is easier for us to merge your suggestions into
> final form. Happy discussing!


your post in the forum didn't include the text as did your post to the
mail list, i include it now so forum users can copy and then add/edit
as you suggest:


openSUSE - Home for developers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.) Statement:

We deliver the most integrated platform for developers (e.g. web
developers, system developers, Qt/GTK developers, Android/MeeGo/WebOS
developers, etc.)

To be the ideal home for developers we deliver all popular open source
IDEs and related tools and the perfect desktops suited for them to
make the development efficient. Additionally we deliver a decent
server platform to allow direct deployment of web applications and
make rapid testing possible. By providing integration with social
networks and collaboration tools, we enable developers to work
flawlessly in a distributed environments and enable the usage of
agile techniques.

2.) Activities:

2.a.) We need to be excellent in the following:

* Out-of-box experience for all popular open source IDEs, integration
and development of related tools (graphical debugger, etc.)
* Provide tools to easily deploy developed software (e.g. server
integration, Build Service, etc.) more tightly coupled to tools
* Provide infrastructure to distribute software (e.g. Build Service,
SUSE Studio)
* Provide desktop environments fitting the needs of developers
* Cooperation with team projects to make openSUSE their
development platform of choice
* Deliver the most up-to-date development libraries to make app
development rock (also allow to keep multiple versions)
* Integrate social networks and collaboration tools
* Collaboration with other Linux distros

2.b.) We will try to do the following effectively:

* Provide GUI administration tools, including WebYaST
* Lobby for open standards
* Market openSUSE at events
* Continue testing and bugfixing in an efficient way

2.c.) As project, we will not focus on the following anymore:

* Applications not related to development (directly or indirectly)




end
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[consused]

One thing I would like to see, as a volunteer for providing support, is some sort of guidance provided by the developers (and the packagers) to the support volunteers , in providing guidance so that the support volunteers can document the way things are done for basic user support.

I fully support oldcpu's request - whatever strategy is chosen. It should be a basic requirement on any organization that has ambition to grow its community of contributors, and to support its existing user group in that effort, not to mention the project's wider reputation.

[oldcpu]

Please try to add your comments
to particular bulletpoints or sentences, so it is easier for us to merge
your suggestions into final form. Happy discussing!

I can not find a point relative to support. Is it just me having another classic oldcpu oversight ? Or is support to users no longer part of the openSUSE strategy ?

[DenverD]

prusnak wrote:
> The intention is to shape the internals of the strategies so we'll end
> up with one strategy that most of us want to follow. It might happen
> that activities from one strategy will appear in another, but we don't
> want to create a meld of these 3 strategies.


does your answer mean those three are the *only* strategies available
for the future of openSUSE, and NONE of those can be modified enough
to have a strategy which leads "the Community" into a future of:

openSUSE - A stable (but exciting), dependable (but modern and forward
looking), predictable (but not boring) and secure (yet accessable)
Linux loved by developers, programmers, contributors
mobile/cloud/home/office users, governments, institutions, back
office/cloud/isp/webstore/etc server administrators and Linux
Enterprise software derivatives makers (Novell) and professional
quality server and mainframe hardware makers/sellers (like HP, IBM,
DELL, CRAY, etc etc etc)


is there not room for something like that?

if not, then i'm in the wrong place...and, good luck with the
soon-to-be niche openSUSE operating system.

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[DenverD]

oldcpu wrote:
> I can not find a point relative to support. Is it just me having
> another classic oldcpu oversight ? Or is support to users no longer
> part of the openSUSE strategy ?


it is NOT there, anywhere...from the point of view i can gather users
are all of those who do not contribute, and therefore do not count and
should not be considered..

i can only guess that from these few quotes i gathered from the
strategy discussion on the mail list and are representative of some of
"the Community" leaders:

audience is listening only, contributors are taking part. openSUSE is
no big band (maybe sometimes ) it's a project which lives from
contributions not 'feeding customers'.

That's why I previously said we need more contributors, no users, no
customers, no leechers and no 'audience'. Don't get me wrong. As
mentioned, even if you submit a bug and give feedback, you contribute.

It's US who makes the project vital.

cite: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-p.../msg00295.html

We can't have contributors without users and we can't have users with
contributors, but I think contributors have to come first, because
they are essential in producing what will attract the user.

cite: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-p.../msg00283.html

To target - and thus to grow - the users , we need to grow the
contributors. Right now I think the openSUSE project should
concentrate on growing the contributors so that those then grow users...

cite: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-p.../msg00375.html

of course, the problem with that going in assumption is that the only
folks who should download the install disk the FIRST time should be
those who have already contributed, or screw them when they get a
black screen, or format away daddy's tax records!

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DenverD (Linux Counter 282315)
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CMedia 9761 AC'97 Audio

[oldcpu]

I suspect maybe the need for support was simply "understood/implicit" and so intuitively obvious to those creating the Strategy that it never occured to them as being needed as a separate entry.

But I believe a separate entry for support may be useful to have one, as by adding it as an appropriate separate entry, it could "drive some activities" which will hopefully help developers and packagers (by ensuring users know enough about their (developer/packagers) applications to provide good feedback), it will hopefully help support staff (by ensuring they understand what packagers/developers are implementing and hence can then support users better) and it will hopefully help users (by ensuring they understand how to install, and use applications).

... but perhaps I have missed this in the wording... There IS a LOT of good stuff there.