I would like to add three points: When you’re doing an interview please be honest. *Talk about problems you faced* and how you *solved* them. Because this is more interesting for the readers than the stereotype answers like „The new $thing is better than the old $thing.“ Of course it is, that’s what the world expected, but that’s no story.

And the second point: Please be patient. Don’t expect that the interviewer has deep knowledge about you and/or your work. Interviewers are (hopefully) good in asking questions, but they might be the worst DAUs when it comes to technical aspects. If they were good in writing code, they would write programmes themself instead of asking hackers about it.

Third: At least for me there is nothing more frustrating than to get answers which are copies of what the marketing departement said. And I get angry when I read all the same answers in all the other magazines. Who do you think I will be asking the next time I need an interview? That saturated person who gave me boring answers or this new hacker, who is hungry and vivid, where I feel that he burns for what he is doing?

I’d like to see if we can change the coverage a bit in the next round of media attention. While reporters may word their questions similarly, they generally are asking the same question and the articles I read whether its openSUSE or anything else is starting to become one and the same. Just swap out the name of the product being reported on.

Basically, I see: What’s new. What’s cool. How did we get to this point, etc. Everything focused squarely on the product. Well, what’s new today, is old tomorrow when the next distro releases something that’s even better than yours, and so on goes the saga. Where’s the human side of the story? The diverse type of users that use openSUSE, the diverse use of openSUSE, the impact openSUSE makes on people’s lives. Businesses that use openSUSE. And so forth.

Reporters have a responsibility too to engage with the community they’re reporting about and not just look for an “expanded release notes” type article. In this way, more people beyond the standard user base might consider openSUSE (or Linux in general.) At this point, when I read articles after a story breaks, I generally view them all the same, and rather hunt each article for that one gem the other reporters didn’t catch onto, instead of reading the entire article as a full article of genuine interest.