Lack of OpenSUSE Exposure, Recently?

[sorenson2743]

Maybe I'm just not looking in the right spots on the web, the openSUSE website, and the forums, but 11.4 milestones don't seem to have received a fraction of the exposure as previous 11.x and 10.x versions, and RC1 of 11.4 seems to be the most closely-guarded secret of our times. Just recently, the 11.4M6 availability announcement appeared on Distrowatch a full week after it became available for download, and I've yet to see any mention of 11.4 RC1 there.

Searched the forums, too, but can't seem to find any "announcement" reference to 11.4RC1 there, either. Is it out?

Is this recent lack of promotion a temporary lapse, or part of a more conscious strategy?

[malcolmlewis]

Things that make you go Hmmmmm....
Status: distribution RC1 is streaming to the mirrors....

[ionmich]

My opinion. I don't think lack of exposure to an interim release is nearly as bad as people thinking it is a fully polished product, trying it, finding some small problem and then going elsewhere. Better to keep it in our fold a little longer where we can test and improve it.

[consused]

My opinion. I don't think lack of exposure to an interim release is nearly as bad as people thinking it is a fully polished product, trying it, finding some small problem and then going elsewhere. Better to keep it in our fold a little longer where we can test and improve it.

Well said. Bad publicity can be counter-productive when there is a lot of competition>

[ah7013]

My opinion. I don't think lack of exposure to an interim release is nearly as bad as people thinking it is a fully polished product, trying it, finding some small problem and then going elsewhere. Better to keep it in our fold a little longer where we can test and improve it.

100% agree

[dragonbite]

I would suspect any announcement would be eclipsed with the whole Novell deal in the comments rather quickly. Agreed, it is probably better to put out a solid release than to advertise each iteration.

As is, I don't trip over Fedora's incremental steps, but Ubuntu touts each and every release it seems (with screenshots). Too much exposure also reduces some of the excitement of finding out what changed/improved.

I am hopeful for 11.4, seeing how the Intel graphic issues put the kibosh on 11.3 at this point (no sense going to 11.3 with 11.4 coming out in 19 days).

[sorenson2743]

Thanks for the responses. If I understand this issue correctly:

1. The original notice came via the mailing lists (naturally), prompting a "public" announcement via a thread in the pre-release/beta sub-forum only. That's apparently it. I have checked the "News and Announcements" sub-forum, and the Feb 5th and 12th Newsletters and there's no announcements there, along with Distrowatch, so I guess that the world obviously "knows" to search the first-mentioned sub-forum for important news like the release of RC1.

2. IMO, it's all very well to have the opinion "Better to keep it in our fold a little longer where we can test and improve it." and whatnot. But that view seems to fall apart when you consider the amount of exposure that M1 - M6 got, and the accompanying pleas for testing. Not to mention the general truism that broadened testing during development improves a product's quality and people's impression of it's worth when it is released.

3. Which returns the issue to the central question I raised in my initial post: has a conscious decision been taken within the community or the board to de-emphasize promotion of the product? Or was the ball just dropped on synching the RC1 release to external PR measures? If the latter, it's still not too late to effect recovery from the ball-dropping.

4. As an aside, it's my opinion that marketing tactics like "Better to keep it in our fold", and "Too much exposure also reduces some of the excitement of finding out what changed/improved", will certainly guarantee that OpenSUSE falls quickly to somewhere far below the NuTyX distro (haven't heard of it, you say?) which, currently, is in the glorious position of #100 out of 100 on the Distrowatch top 100.

If that's "marketing", then perhaps the definition of marketing needs to be changed to be synonomous with "invisible".

[consused]

I am hopeful for 11.4, seeing how the Intel graphic issues put the kibosh on 11.3 at this point (no sense going to 11.3 with 11.4 coming out in 19 days).

Possibly, but those issues also affected other distros as they mostly require kernel/xorg/driver/drm improvements.

[wakou]

There was this, from Linux mag First Look at openSUSE 11.4 | Linux Magazine

[DenverD]

On 02/19/2011 02:36 PM, sorenson2743 wrote:
> If that's "marketing", then perhaps the definition of marketing needs
> to be changed to be synonomous with "invisible".

it is not hidden, it was not overlooked, it is not invisible...the
latest pre-release software is always at the same place:

http://software.opensuse.org/developer/

and, has not moved from there in a long time...and, you and others are
welcome to check it out daily....sometimes a code pack pops up there
before there is an official announcement..(just because it gets put up
before the announcement is prepared)

so, bookmark it and be the first on your block!!

also unhidden in the wiki is lots of info:
http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Factory
as usual..

short: there is no magic marketing tactic in operation here..you have
discovered no grand marketing failure news story...the info is open to
the public, as usual..

nothing to see here, move along.

--
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
"It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not." DD 23 Jan 11