openSUSE 11.2 Launch Planning

[jbrockmeier]

The openSUSE 11.2 launch is some months away, but it's not too late to start planning now.

This thread is for general discussion about the launch, what themes we want to put forward, the target audience(s) we'd like to address, and so forth.

[john_hudson]

As you suggest, I think there are multiple audiences and it might be worth thinking of different approaches for different potential audiences - KDE4 afficionados, the Gnome community, KDE3 users, those migrating from other distributions, those migrating from other operating systems.

Don't know whether the education or studio aspects would also merit specific marketing.

openSUSE is such a flexible distro, it needs to be sold slightly differently to different groups.

[jbrockmeier]

Fully agreed. So let's look at some of the target audiences:

* Education
* K-12
* University
* New Users
* Experienced Linux users
* Developers
* Web developers (Ruby/RoR, PHP, Perl, Django, etc.)
* .Net developers
* FOSS application developers
* ISVs
(I split those groups up because they have different needs)
* SMBs
* Desktop users
* Server users

What else am I missing?

[Chrysantine]

Governmental people?

There's a big push in Europe for more open source software in the .gov sector, for example here in Northern Europe the new IT chief for administrative sector said "Open Source now!".

[frosch62]

Maybe it should be directed at the largest group: non-linux users. Take advantage of the financial crisis and present linux (SuSE) as the safe and free non-windows/mac alternative. That's a pretty good selling point, I think...

[john_hudson]

I really think we should stop promoting Linux as free and promote it as quality. As long as Linux is promoted as 'free', people think that paying for something else will be an improvement.

Indeed, the reason I started using Linux nine years ago was its quality and the fact that I could do things with it that I couldn't do with other software (occasionally but rarely because of the cost of acquisition).

Let's start promoting Linux as offering businesses greater productivity and quality outputs both in a recession and as they come out of it.

[frosch62]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

I really think we should stop promoting Linux as free and promote it as quality. As long as Linux is promoted as 'free', people think that paying for something else will be an improvement.

Indeed, the reason I started using Linux nine years ago was its quality and the fact that I could do things with it that I couldn't do with other software (occasionally but rarely because of the cost of acquisition).

Let's start promoting Linux as offering businesses greater productivity and quality outputs both in a recession and as they come out of it.

It's a good point, but I didn't say that price was everything. I actually mentioned safety first, and you're talking "quality." Fair enough.

But this is a forum about OpenSuSE, which is dedicated to remaining free of cost, so I find it a fair argument to make. Feel free to disagree...

[baskitcaise]

frosch62 adjusted his/her AFDB on Friday 12 Jun 2009 20:16 to write:

> But this is a forum about OpenSuSE, which is dedicated to remaining
> free of cost, so I find it a fair argument to make. Feel free to
> disagree...
>
>

And not to forget that the newest OpenSuSE version is always in "Beta" stage
and not for production, it is the testing ground for the enterprise edition.

Sometimes I think a lot of people think that it is a full blown, working
system as opposed to a work in-progress as any new release is.

Don`t get me wrong I am not knocking it, that is why I use ( and abuse ) the
latest versions, but I always keep one or two steps behind on one machine
for the stability side of things.

;-)

--
Mark

Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum

[brunomcl]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

I really think we should stop promoting Linux as free and promote it as quality.

It may depend on where you're promoting it.

Richer countries: quality matters more than cost.
Poorer countries: cost weights more than quality.

Just my two cents.

[rabbit09]

Originally Posted by frosch62

Maybe it should be directed at the largest group: non-linux users. Take advantage of the financial crisis and present linux (SuSE) as the safe and free non-windows/mac alternative. That's a pretty good selling point, I think...

Agreed you should really take advantage of this, I myself have been looking for an alternative to windows for a while now was very unimpressed with windows vista.

Im a systems analyst so I meet a lot of computer users and all of them really dont like vista, some people have downgraded their vista machines to XP. I needed an alternative because microsoft is planning on making XP obsolete faster than win 98 that means updates etc are vanishing if they havent already.

If you can market the fact that an old OS does not make use of the resources that a new PC has then you got yourself a big portion of computer users who will venture out to give it a try.