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Suggestions for the new board?
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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So, I think it might have been mentioned that there’s this election thing going on… (Are you an eligible voter in the openSUSE Board election? Have you voted yet? If not — stop reading this post and go vote!)
My question for today — what suggestions would you have for the new board? If you were having a sit-down with the board, what advice would you give, what would you ask them to do in the next year?
Define an all-integrating contribution policy and work on a clear naming scheme for all openSUSE activists.
Thanks – any suggestions, on the contrib policy?
In the next year? Reassess what exactly is that SuSE is trying to be. Because, as we all know, you can never be all things to all people. As I see it, the primal role (from Novell’s point of view) of SuSE is as a testing ground for SLED and, in a lesser way, for SLES. Now, from the community’s point of view, the answer may (and will) be completely different. From my personal point of view, SuSE is struggling to become the most reliable and most complete all-round distro ever. The competition is tough in that area. Mistakes are not easily forgiven. Now, from the PR point of view, the Novell’s “deal” with M$ was (some say) such a mistake. From my point of view, the premature introduction of KDE4 was such a mistake. KDE 3.x should have remained the default SuSE desktop for at least another year. Another weak point is the live installation CD. Hardware recognition is still a step behind Mandriva, and so is wireless support. Newbie-friendliness still has vast room for improvement. So does ease of configuration. And documentation. And localization. As long as all these FUNDAMENTALS are not thoroughly improved, frills like Compiz and 3D effects will remain just a sad joke. That’s whay I’d suggest a general reassessment, maybe even a poll. WHAT are we really trying to achieve here? WHAT are our priorities? Once this is assessed, once all these (and a million other, just as legitimate) points of view are reconciled, the road should be easy.
Well, I think assessing is the easy part, implementing is the hard part.
I think our goals are fairly clear, but perhaps we haven’t articulated them as well as we could. Good thoughts, thanks.
I’m hoping the board will get more involved with the direction of openSUSE. Not getting into technical details, but identifying weak spots of the project/distro and working with Novell, Suse.de leadership and volunteers to do something about it.
I have the greatest respect for Coolo and AJ – but I think the board will be more useful when it’s no longer “dominated” by the same people who run openSUSE day to day. In businesses you don’t have the same people on the board as in management – the board is there to “oversee” the management – I hope the openSUSE board will a take a similar role.
Martin, I know what you mean, but just for the record: the board was not “dominated” by Coolo nor AJ in any way.
AJ did most of the annoying work, but didn’t have more influence than any of the other members.
I don’t necessarily have proof, but you can take my word for it
Thanks for the input. I assume you’ve voted?
One word: marketing.
We’ve made great strides, including the new Marketing team. But we need to have some more marketing muscle – including from Novell. If Vista and Mac are going up against each other on TV & print ads, openSUSE should be presenting our product just along with them.