European Wafaa

tl;dr – To all you doomsday FUD mongers about Novell/SUSE/openSUSE STFU & let us show you what we can and will do!!

For those living under a rock, yes Novell has agreed to be acquired. Welcome to the world of business, and especially in software this sort of thing is very common.

Now for some reason a whole heap of people seem to think that this spells doom for Novell, SUSE and openSUSE. Why?  I really can't answer that.  What I do know is that all their negative speculation is at best counter productive, at worst foolish and damaging.

As with any form of speculation there are no facts to back up what they reckon is going to happen – hence the speculation.  If there is enough negative talk, negative things will happen. Current customers will look at switching from Novell products whether they be SUSE based or not, purely based on all the negativity that is being generated.

No-one is giving Attachemate a chance to prove what they have openly said – Novell, SUSE and openSUSE's contribution to the wider community will continue and that it is business as usual.  If you look at when Oracle bought Sun they said sod all about OpenSolaris and the rest of Sun. This is different.  The new overlords are actually communicating – maybe not as much as we would like, but hey it's a bloody good step in the right direction.

The latest negative piece comes from the 451 Group. Why the frig would Novell's purchase change their kernel contributions?  Why the frig would Novell's purchase change any of their current contributions to the vast array of projects including GNOME/KDE/Banshee/LibreOffice/Systemd and a whole heap of others?  Simple, it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong Novell has screwed up big time in the past, but we are working together as a community to learn from these mistakes.  All this negative noise is counter productive and just gets in the way.  If you want to see Novell, SUSE and openSUSE flourish hows about you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in?  If you don't want to chip in STFU and wait and see if something does happen.  Then you can berate us and tell us how and where we went wrong.

It looks like I've been asking you, the community, a load of questions recently on this here blog.  As such I thought it only fair to turn the tables and let you guys and girls do the asking :-)

If we can make a bit of a game out of this I would appreciate it.  So first up I'll give you a deadline of 1200UTC 17June2010 to get you questions in by.  What's the game?  Simple, I would like you lot to pretend you are interviewing our prospective Community Manager.  Does this sound a bit bitchy to you because I'm no longer in the running?  If so I genuinely don't mean it to be.  I just want you to actually search within yourselves, to work out what you feel is important to you when it comes to the role.

So all good games have a prize right? Well this shall be no different, the top 5 questions will each receive a prize.  So get to it and post your questions in the comments.  When thinking about what to ask, think about what you would like from the role, and why.  Also many big employers ask what appear to be oddball questions, but they are in fact very relevant - these types could earn brownie points ;-)

So get questioning!

It's been a while since I mentioned anything about Goblin and anything netbook related, sorry.  Anyhow as everyone is aware, Moblin has since been superseded by MeeGo.  The timing was a bit of a PITA for me, as it coincided with the Factory freeze, which means I couldn't update the relevant packages etc in-time for 11.3.

As it stands, 11.3 should have an almost fully functional Moblin environment – I say 'almost' as there were two packages that I just couldn't get to co-operate and build (the modified Moblin browser, and the Web panel).  They should not affect your enjoyment of the UX so I'm not going to kick myself too hard.   I have learnt several lessons though trying to get Moblin into Factory:

1: Getting things into the next distro release is NOT difficult.

I don't care what anyone says, the process is very simple and straight forward.  Importantly, there is a huge amount of help from all parties that deal with the acceptance etc.  If you need help or guidance, just ask! I can't stress enough how much help is available to people.  I would personally like to thank everyone that helped, but I know I will miss some people off due to my feeble brain.  As a start these people have been invaluable to the process - Andreas Jaeger, Marcus Ruckert, Stephan Kulow, Michael Meeks, Henne Vogelsang, Pascal Blesser, Andrea Florio & Dominique Luerenberger.  Thank you all (and sorry to those whom I missed of listing).

2: You need to plan, and plan well.

I started off with great intentions, but I didn't take into account how disruptive my daytime job would be.  Unfortunately I haven't wopn the lottery and as such I have to deal with “The Man”, otherwise I have no food or house :-(  Part of my bad planning led to me missing the cut-off for getting Moblin listed as an installable option from the get go.

3: Spread the love.

There's a saying I've heard many times and from many different places – A burden shared is a burden eased.  Do you know what?  It's absolutely true!  Even if there are only a couple of you dealing with a project, it makes things so much easier, and having more is just plain fun :-)  I tried to get some of you reprobates to join in, but you were all too busy.  As such the pace of progress was fairly slow.

4. Have fun doing it. 

This applies to almost anything you do, but especially when doing any form of contribution. If you feel that it is getting you down, take a break, try and pass the baton to someone else to carry it forward for a bit.  What ever you do, don't let it burn you out!  Loosing a contributor to burn-out is disastrous for the community, and is something we should all be aware of and on the look out for.

So that's the past/present, what about the present/future?  Well Goblin will live on, and incorporate all the new goodness that is coming out of MeeGo.  I do genuinely think that MeeGo is a vast improvement on Moblin, but as always there's room for improvement; and what better way to start improving than by getting the Geeko involved? :-)  As my contribution to HackWeek 5, I have started the importing process for all the MeeGo packages, into the OBS.  Believe it or not, there are only a handful of packages that can be carried over from Moblin which is a bugger.  Regardless I think I have got pretty much all the needed pieces in.

Problem is the way I've done it is pretty hacky – I basically just  dropped the contents of the SRPMs in and hoped for the best.  This was done mainly for speed, and I know that it isn't good enough.  Problem is I'm trying to balance my regular job and dealing with managing the renovation of my parent's house at the same time, so I really don't have a huge amount of spare time :-/  So this is where YOU come in.

Please help me to not only get Goblin updated to the latest and greatest that MeeGo has to offer, but also prove to everyone outside of the openSUSE community that we are a coherent and cohesive force to be reckoned with!  Too many people discount us, and just say that without Novell nothing would get done.  Please help me to help you to prove this assumption to be a load of rubbish.  We have the tools and knowledge available to us, so let's get on with it and get it done!  Oh and we have the real opportunity to be a leader here – the first distro to provide a full MeeGo experience!

So if you can help, then please join in on IRC (#opensuse-moblin), and on the mailing list ( make sure you are subscribed first).  The first step is to get everything building, from there we can move forward.  Oh by the way, this initial push is for the Netbook UX, but I'd love to see use get the Handheld/Tablet UX when that is released ;-)  I'm tempted by Garrett's name suggestion of Smeegol, but let's get it building and working first ;-) 

I've had a lot of people ask me both within the openSUSE community and outside of it, whether I applied for the vacant openSUSE Community Manager role.

In a nutshell, yes I did apply for it.  Why the past tense?  Well I got notified almost two weeks ago that I was unsuccessful :'(  The good thing that did come out of it, is that there seem to be some very good candidates in the running - let's face it, they would have to be pretty damned good to beat me ;-)

I would like to thank Novell for considering me for the role, and wish those that are in the running the best of luck!  Oh I'd also like to ask you, the community, to extend your support to whomever is successful in getting the role.  This doesn't mean that I'm giving up on the Geeko - hell I've invested too much time & effort to throw it away, and I have far too many friends within the community.

To the successful person: Please ensure you look after all aspects of the community, your colleagues working for "The Man" as well as those of us who do it for the love.  Let's not loose what we have by chasing that which we haven't :-)

Now back to some Smeegol madness with the Goblin!

Enterprise in the Community

It has been mentioned that the Geeko is somewhat of a schizophrenic at times, and do you know what I kind of have to agree.  The difference is I disagree on how the schizophrenia affects our dear friend.  Most people think that the multiple personalities are desktop related  - you know, KDE vs GNOME vs XFCE vs $DE.  I on the other hand feel it is to with audience - Enterprise vs Consumer.  Now don't get me wrong, the Geeko does a great job at both.  The problem is there doesn't seem to be a great deal of interaction between the two personalities.

Yes, some features from the enterprise product feed into the consumer product and vice versa which is lovely and vital.  What is missing is community interaction.  As it stands I see very little evidence of SLE customers interacting with the openSUSE community, and to an extent SLE is somewhat shunned as the illegitimate love child by many within the openSUSE community – which is just plain wrong!  There are times when SLE deadlines get on my nerves, but that is no reason to shun the staff working on it or disrespect the product.

In my job working for a major systems provider and integrator in the UK, we use a lot of SLE and others including Red Hat, AIX, Solaris and HP-UX.  The one thing that is constant is we don't interact with the communities of the OSes, unless it is via the Sales/Support departments.  Now it might be because of time constraints, but I'm not convinced.  I haven't seen any “customers” interact with the openSUSE community other than maybe with the Build Service.  Which is a real shame, as there are some great customers of the SLE product and some great people employed by them.

So how do our peers deal with it? To be honest I have no idea :-) I can only guess that they encounter the same issue, well potentially Red Hat & Fedora.  Ubuntu on the other hand have somewhat of an advantage, in so much as their enterprise product isn't a separate product but in fact part of the standard release.  So when it comes to getting ISVs, partners and customers involved they can safely say that *all* Ubuntu users can benefit from it – not just the enterprise customers.  This is a crucial point, as more people are likely to use the distro and play with it and then sign the big fat cheque for the support.  By that time they have already got involved with the community and will most likely continue to do so.

I'm not trying to tell Novell that they need to change their business model, all what I'm saying is we need Novell's help to engage their customers and partners to be part of OUR community – N.B Our Community == openSUSE *&* SLE.  At the end of the day it's a win/win situation for all parties – they can then get maximum exposure, an element of testing of their product without having to start from scratch to get things certified etc. We benefit from a bigger community thanks to their involvement, and have many more cool things to use/play with :-)   A key one here is that of ISVs, there are a shed load of ISVs that are certified against SLE – iirc somewhere in the region of 5000 apps.  That's an impressive number, but unfortunately openSUSE sees bupkiss! Absolutely nada, niet, nil points, zilch :-(  Looking at Ubuntu they apparently have a fraction of that amount – somehere in the region of 200 or so.  The big difference is that almost *all* Ubunteros can use or access those apps.  The same goes for IHVs – hardware is only certified against SLE products which is great, but openSUSE doesn't get a look in.  There are some vendors that sell their kit with openSUSE pre-installed but there isn't the same sort of love coming from the mothership for them which really could do with changing.

Looks like I digressed somewhat – sorry.  So getting back on track(ish) how many of you guys and gals use SLE professionally?  It could be either SLES or SLED.  If you do use a SLE product do you partake in the openSUSE community professionally or is it purely part of your undying love for the Geeko? If you don't is there a particular reason why not, anything blocking you joining in, or do you just choose not to?  If you do participate as part of your job, what issues do you encounter, what could be improved etc?

As always I would love to hear from you if you have anything to discuss on the topic of Enterprise in the Community. Remember this is for your benefit as part of the openSUSE community. So please join in and get discussing.

Yes I'm still at it, trying to get YOU the openSUSE community talking about what is important to you.  This time round I'd like to hear your opinions and thoughts about something.  I'm going to keep my views on the matter quiet until we get some dialogue going, so if you want to hear my thoughts (and let's face it who doesn't? ;-) ) best you start airing your opinions.

So what is the topic? That of Community Manager.  As many are aware, Novell have started interviewing for a replacement.  Some were not happy with how the role was done in the past and some and some were, but the key part of that statement is PAST!  Let's move on and look to the future, and as part of that looking forward to the future I would like to hear what YOU would like from the new Community Manager?

Let's take a moment to see what the official blurb for the job vacancy said:

"As openSUSE Community Manager, you will work to promote the openSUSE Project, openSUSE Build Service, and sub-projects such as the education project. Your key objectives will be to grow the number of openSUSE users and contributors, and further enhance Novell's relationship with the openSUSE community and larger community of open source influencers and project maintainers. You will work closely with the openSUSE community, Novell leadership, and broader open source community. This is a unique opportunity to take a high-profile role in the open source world and make a truly global impact."

The listed key responsibilities are:

• Develop and execute a marketing plan to promote and evangelize openSUSE, in order to achieve the key objectives above.
• Plan and execute launch plans for openSUSE product releases.
• Serve as a frequent public face of the openSUSE Project to the community by blogging; seeking and providing press interviews; speaking at conferences and other events; and actively participating in social media. You will deliver fresh perspectives and thought leadership in these activities.
• Work directly with & facilitate activities for the openSUSE Ambassadors & Marketing Team.
• Engage with, support and encourage openSUSE community members via online venues such as IRC, forums, mailing lists and others.
• Help to organize major events, including the openSUSE Conference.
• Work closely with key stakeholders from openSUSE and Novell.

So do you (dis)agree with what's there?  What else would you add?  Also if you feel there is a particular issue that the new Community manager needs to address what is that issue, why should they be involved and how do you think they could resolve it?  How would you advertise the position?

People are bound to have opposing issue on items, and that is fine - if anything it is healthy and should be promoted.  As always this is about having a discussion, not a flame war.  Please try and be curteous to your fellow community members and if you can't say anything constructive - don't say anthing at all :-)

So people, let's have your valuable opinions and thoughts on the matter.

So further to my post on a11y in openSUSE, I was asked how one would enable Accessibility.  Now to be honest I only kind of know how to do it in GNOME, so I set off on a little exploration of the other desktop environments.

It may seem strange that I'm trying to champion a subject that I don't really know, but that's part of the reason why I'm doing so.  Accessibility isn't supposed to a buzzword, it is meant to be a usable function for all.  Hopefully I can learn a bit along the way and get the message out there - oh and if you could do the same that would just be spiffy ;-)

I present what I have found so far below in a simple little pictorial guide of how to get to the general a11y settings.  I have tried four desktops - GNOME, KDE, XFCE and LXDE, I couldn't find anything in LXDE so I'll try and revisit it later once I've had more time.

For GNOME:

1. In the main menu select "Control Center"

2. Then under the "Personal" section, select "Assistive Technologies"

3. Select "Enable assitive technologies"

4. When you enable assitive technologies you need to restart your session for the changes to take effect.  You can easily do this by selecting the "Close and Log Out" button at the bottom of the window

For KDE:

1. In the Kicker menu select "Applications" then "System Settings"

2. In the "Personal" section select "Accessibility"

For XFCE:

1. From the menu select "Settings" then "Accessibility"

Like I said this is just a very quick guide on how to do it.  I'm very sure there are more settings to deal with, especially in KDE but I don't know them (yet).  If you do then please shout out and help.

One of the next things I need to learn is what applications are there specifically for a11y.  I know of a few but never used them (at least I dont think I have), and I'm sure I only know of a small number.

There is an 13 letter word that begins with "a" and ends with "y", can you guess what it is?  Yup, a11y is what I'm on about, also known as Accessibility.

I think the subject of a11y is possibly a very misunderstood one, I for one incorrectly associated it with disabled use of a computer.  I have been corrected (on more than one occasion) to the fact that Accessibility actually refers to the ability for anybody to be able to use a computer (or any other device) regardless of any impairment they might have.  So that means both people with and without disabilities are a11y users.  In addition to that, a11y can also help developers to automate testing - quite often UI testing.

An extreme case of a11y usage could be a blind person who can't see a GUI the way someone with 20/20 vision can, or someone with spectacles.  They may have to use a tool called a screen reader (Orca is common on Linux) that describes what's on the screen by speaking through the speakers.  So in order to get something like Orca to work, application UIs need to be understandable by Orca in a programmatic way and that pays off with the automated testing. 

So what's the issue?  Well from what I can see, and what I have heard, is that openSUSE sucks the goat's back-end when it come's to a11y.  In all honesty I don't have any real evidence to back this claim, but one thing I do know is that we don't really do much as a community about it.  Before anyone flips this to a "why isn't Novell paying for people to work on it full time" argument, shush!  This is a misconception that I think people have about corporate sponsors to a project; as it happens Novell does employ some folks to work on a11y indirectly thanks to the working partnership with Microsoft, check out the great work by the Mono a11y team.  If we as a community want to get some dedicated resources assigned to anything, we need to make the case first, we have to show that as a community we feel strongly about the subject and show to whomever is writing the cheques that we are doing the job but could do with a helping hand.

As an example, Red Hat and Canonical do not have dedicated a11y developers but they do have developers who keep a11y foremost in their minds as they develop and innovate projects for the masses.  We don't really have that as such.  This is where we can reach out to upstream and ask for some help and guidance.  Both GNOME and KDE have a11y teams, although it appears that the former is more active. 

Accessibility is not an easy topic to tackle.  If one doesn't understand the tools, how does one ensure the pieces you put together are working?  So how about we start learning, and do it well?  This is a subject that affects all users and developers, and is something that all DEs can jump on and help out.  Heck we may even learn a thing or two about how our colleagues/friends/enemies work ;-)  It affects us all, and as such we all need to help.

The European Eunion feels fairly strongly about Accessibility and as such there are numerous laws in place to try and ensure that users that require it are given an even chance.  They have also set up AEGIS to promote a11y usage.  In the United states the National Science Foundation is helping to fund HFOSS to help the a11y cause.  So as you can see there's a fairly big push from it from central government.  If we don't follow their example and neglect to have a11y in our focused sights I fear it could lead to a slippery downward slope for openSUSE.  If that sounds melodramatic then maybe it is, but it is something that I honestly do feel could affect us badly.

A quick and dirty way to get into a11y is to just enable accessibility in your session.  You shouldn't notice any difference, if you do then that's a bug!  File the bug, and make sure you mention that you have a11y enabled.

So as a community do you think this is something we could get behind?  I would love to see openSUSE 12.0 released as the most accessible distribution; Ubuntu currently makes the statement that they are the most accessible desktop system available and this is a statement I would love to show as false!  Not through animosity but through sheer prowess of the Geeko!  To do that we (yes that means you at the back, listening to your boom boom music and chatting to your friends on FaceSpace) have to roll our sleeves up and get educated and start educating!

I'm not looking for people to nod in agreement with my call for help, that is easy to do.  What I'm looking for is a concerted effort by all in the community to help make us Number 1!  There are lots of different ways to do this, but to do so we need to unite as one and work cohesively.  So please, help me to help everyone, and make openSUSE that much better!

You have to grant me that I'm persistent ;-)

OK so this time round I thought I'd do a quick round up of some of the feedback that I've received so far - some of it has been in the form of comments on this here blog, others have been responses on mailing lists, and some has been from direct converstation with me.  I'd love to get more from you, and ultimately you get more from yourselves.

The following is in no particular order, and if anyone has anything else to add then please let me know.  Also remember this is a discussion so feel free to discuss sensibly and calmly - usual flame ban is in place ;-) :

1. Still a lot of animosity between KDE & GNOME within openSUSE.
2. The Community Manager role is too focused on marketing, and not the Community.  People would like to see a more operational role, getting involved with the actual project.
3. It is unclear as to what Novell (being the project sponsor) would like from the openSUSE Project, and how do the two fit with each other.
4. There is a percieved distrust of external contributors, their code isnt good enough etc.
5. openSUSE needs to be pushed more by all parties.  There is a distinct lack of overt and covert marketing.
6. There is too much focus on Novell employees.
7. openSUSE has no clear goal or direction,  openSUSE appears to be fumbling along not really sure of what it wants or how to do things.
8. There is too much infrastucture, or the infrastructure isn't easy to navigate or understand.
9. Sometimes we are starting to lag behind upstream and don't necessarily keep up with the latest and greatest that is out there.
10. There is too much reliance on a handful of individuals, there isn't a decent spread of knowledge/power amongst teams.
11. There doesn't seem to be enough "full time" (I believe Novell employee is meant here) people involved in some teams which are core to both openSUSE and SLE. 

So do you agree with what some of your peers say?  If not then step up and let your voice be heard, even if you do let it be known.  Remember, as a member of the community you have a chance to influence your surroundings - not taking any action will only mean that you are to blame not those that took action that you don't agree with.

Oh yes, I'm still going at it folks! Let's discuss :-)

This time round I'd like us to discuss Collaboration, Learning, Listening and Leading.  Let me clarify what I mean by Collaboration; I'm NOT talking about Groupwise/Exchange/Zimbra/Alfresco/SharePoint/Kablink style collabortaion, but I AM talking about working with other parties and teams. 

Within openSUSE as with other distributions there are multiple teams/projects that in some cases could be classed as competitors - GNOME & KDE are a prime example.  Just because they are trying to get you to use them doesn't mean they can't have some commonality (other than the underlying OS).  I'd love to see more collaboration with other distributions, working with them on the topic of say RPM as an example.  Working with upstream DEs and other distros to improve the likes of a11y (that's accessibility for thos that aren't aware, you know - audio/visual/etc impaired), education. You get the idea?  Quite often we need to just look past our differences and get on with the job, soon we'll realise (hoipefully) that we are pretty much the same the difference is in the implementation.  If we focus locally on how we can collaborate within openSUSE alone then we need to work together with a focused vision and take a demographic, say developers, and get everyone interested to chip in with ways of making it easier and better for developers to use openSUSE.  Both KDE and GNOME can easily contribute to this, as can documentation gurus and others.  The key here is to have a clearly defined target and work together, effectively combining multiple teams into one.

So what about Learning?  Well the most obvious way to learn is from history.  I'm not saying we need to dig up the text books from school and see what Claudius Maximus Aurellius did in ancient Rome, but look at the histroy of openSUSE and see what we did right and crucially what we did wrong.  Look at it and see if it still applies today and how we can do it right.  Another way of learning is from our competitors and counterparts, the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora and all the other distros and projects do some great work (whether one likes to admit it or not).  We need to take note of what/how/why they did and see if it applies to us and could we improve it.  I think there is too much of a taboo on emulating what others do, if it works then do it!  Why on earth should we re-invent the blessed wheel?

Something that we are getting a bit better at is Listening.  We're not great at it, but the movement is in the right direction.  When listening it's best to just slow down a touch and actually take stock of what is being said, also take note of how it is being said.  The message could get lost or garbled due to the way it is being passed, and if we don't focus on listening we may not notice that little fact and end up not really paying attention to the message, when in fact the message is actually very important or beneficial to us.  We need to listen to not just our community but also to those communities that we interact with and indirectly depend on - I'm mostly talking about upstream here.  There's a lot of passive learning to be had from just listening ;-)

When it comes to being a Lead, you don't have to be a nominated by committee or anything - grab the bull by the cahunas and run with it! Go with your instinct, unless you are a complete loonie you will have some reasonable rationale for doing whatever it is and can easily explain to others why/what you are doing.  Don't be scared, empower yourself and show others that what you're doing is cool and actually benefits us. 

So does anyone have any examples of where we could benefit by collaborating?  Or what about how we can improve on the instances where we are already collaborating?  What about examples of lessons to be learned from?  Yes this could get political and charged, but remember stay calm and focused - it's easier for people to pay attention that way ;-)  How about listening, any examples of where we failed or where we actually got it?  I'd also like to see who you think show good leadership, and also how/why.  This isn't about who you'd like to see as the next Chairperson for the board or what ever but people that have grabbed those cahunas and run to the finish line.

There is one item that is constant throughout - focus!  If we stay focused then we can do almost anything, even by me a drink :-)

Yup, I'm still trying to get us, the openSUSE Community, to discuss ways we can improve ourselves.  This time round I'm going to look at Education, Coaching and Teamwork.  Again there is nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary here, but these are topics I feel are easily forgotten or misunderstood.

One item that seems to pop up fairly regularily regardless of which side of the fence you're on (Novell employee or not), is community contribution and ownership.  Basically some people think getting code/packages/whatever into openSUSE is harder than getting a rocking horse to poop.  Can I just say it isn't - honest! You just need to know the process to do it.  The flip side of the conversation is, why aren't more non-Novellians putting more code and what not into openSUSE?  Maybe because they don't know or understand the process?  So basically we are all to blame, non-Novellians for not asking for help/clarification and Novellians for not going out there and teaching.

So how do we educate?  Firstly that good old method of documentation, yup it's boring and tedious at times but if done right can save a whole load of hassle.  It does not mean people can just respond to calls for help with RTFM, it mean we have to point people to the correct section of documentaion and also give a little reason as to why they should read it.  Documentation isn't the only method we can use, after all we are well and truly in the Web 2.0 buzzword bingo era; let's use video (screencast/presentation/podcast), anotated images, code examples, comic strips, audio (regular podcast or one offs), and last but not least we could always throw a bit of each into a blog post :-).  We need more of the modern methods, they're much more palatable and fun from a consumer perspective.

Sometimes just having all this information can be daunting, and you can easily get lost in it all.  So we need coaching, some gentle guidance and when needed a good slap!  If we really want more people to take ownership then let's help them take ownership.  Just throwing it out there and hoping for the best is good for no-one, and if anything will just create a bad atmosphere and generate friction.  Let's make sure that those that want to do something get as much help as we can give, it may mean that Novellians have to spend a little bit of time holding people's hands but we will all see the gain.  Don't think that I would expect it all the time, if you take it for granted you won't get the oportunity again.  So to those that want the help, make sure you make it clear that you do want and need help and also try and calm any fears that it's a one off glory hunting mission.  It is a commitment from all parties, and you really need to stick with it.  It may well be that the best person for coaching you isn't a Novell employee, so ask around.  We can all teach each other a thing or two.  A great example of coaching is Darix and all the others in the Buildservice irc channel and mailing list.  Package building can be really daunting, and getting it right can be tricky at times.  Those guys and gals there are a huge asset to the community, they're friendly and very knowledgable.  You just need to not be afraid to ask a question.  If you don't understand an answer, say so!  If you learn something document it and let everyone else know.

Lastly try and not go it alone.  If you can do something as part of a team, then that's a massive win for us all too.  You don't have to shoulder all the burden, so you reduce the risk of burn out and we reduce the risk of you getting angry and leaving either the thing you were doing or worse off you leaving openSUSE entirely.  Getting other people's input can most of the time improve things and spreading the workload also means more peoiple have visibility on what is happening.  So should you not be able to continue for whatever reason (hopefully a valid one, and not because you're bored) then the ball keeps rolling.  It also helps with the whole knowledge sharing aspect, everyone learns a bit and as we grow stronger and brighter as a whole.  The borg is strong because it is made up of many, we can be stronger.

So have you got any examples of where you recieved education/coaching, maybe you had a bad experience trying to get some?  Please let me and everyone know.  We need to learn from our actions, and if we don't know whether they were good or bad how can we improve?  If you have an idea on what needs/can be done then discuss it.  Remember this isn't about me, but about you the openSUSE community.  Let's step up and really make a difference, and prove to all those naysayers that we do care and are actually doing something about it.

Continuing my series of getting the openSUSE Community engaged in how better to improve itself, I thought I would look at Transparency and Communication.  So what do I mean by these two?

If we look at the definitions of these two:
Transparency - Lack of hidden agendas  and conditions, accompanied by the availability  of full  information  required  for collaboration, cooperation, and collective decision making.
Minimum degree of disclosure to which agreements, dealings, practices, and transactions are open to all for verification.
Essential condition for a free and open exchange whereby the rules and reasons behind regulatory measures are fair and clear to all participants.

Communication - Two-way process  of reaching mutual  understanding, in which participants  not only exchange  (encode-decode) information  but also create  and share  meaning.

Okay so nothing earth shattering, which is good in so much as it should be relatively easy to attain.  No need for spiritual enlightenment.  One question I have is, how well do you think openSUSE is at achieving both of these?  Personally I think we have come leaps and bounds, but we can still improve (we can always improve ;-) ).

The building of the distribution is done in the open on the OBS, we get regular status updates from the chirpy and cheerful Coolo on where we are at and what is causing issues.  The Board conducts its meeting in the open on irc in #opensuse-project.  All the teams conduct their meetings in the open on irc for that matter, well those that have meetings - GNOME shall be resuming the regular meetings shortly. 

We have multiple methods of communication available - Mailing lists, IRC, Forums & the booths at events.

So on the whole I think we are communicating well, but are we communicating the right information and is it *all* the information?  That's where I would like your input :-)  My Only complaint I have is something that pretty much everyone who is passionate suffers from - we sometimes let our mouths run off and end up trying to flame someone.  Being passionate is great, don't ever loose the passion.  We just need to harness it, don't let it go too wild.  Also we need to try and be more respectful to others, not just people but projects and distros.  Whether you agree with them or not, there is no need to start throwing abuse or any form of nastiness.  By all means disagree with them but do so in a calm and collected manner, you will be respected for it much more.  If you do get carried away, then for goodness sake admit it and apologise!  Everyone is guilty of this to an extent, myself included.

As for transparency, I think we are certainly on the right track.  Almost everything is now done in the open, I'm not aware of anything done behind closed doors, again let me know if there is any.  If there is we need to know what and crucially why.  Yes I accept that there are occaisions where some things need to be done in relative secrecy but we need to try and keep those to a minimum and there needs to be a good reason for it - financial/legal/etc implications.

So please if you have any comments on either communication or transparency then let's have them.  Without them things will just tick along as they are, and possibly degrade (hopefully there will be none of the latter but....).

For those of you that are about to start shouting at me about iFolder.  Yes it is an old issue that is much more complicated to resolve, there are layers of old school Novell involved and as such it makes things much more complicated.  Also it isn't part of the openSUSE Project it is a Novell project, which is also another reason I believe that things haven't been resolved.  Should it be covered by the Geeko's fine umberella?  What can be done to improve things?  How can we communicate with those that are responsible?  As Jono and Aq say - this is only the start of the conversation.  It's up to you to to keep it going and find the answers you are looking for!

It's been a couple of weeks since my first Discussion with the Community, so as a follow on I thought I would cover the topic of Tools for the community.  In my mind I split tools into two groups - hard & soft.  What I mean by this is "hard" = infrastructure based, and "soft" = software based.

Some may seem pretty obvious to you, and some may seem like they aren't tools at all.  So to clarify what my definition of a tool is - something that enables or facilitates the completion of a task.  So that gives the "Tool" a pretty big scope :-)

Now as a community we have a lot of good tools already available to us.  One of the problems is that we don't really know about them or we've forgotten about them.  So as a refresher here are the "hard" tools (no childish snickering please ;-) ) I can think of, if you notice any that I've missed out please let me know:

• Forums
• Repository/Package Download
• Image Download
• User / Member Directory
• openFate Feature Requests
• Open Build Service
• Shop
• News
• Blogs
• Wiki
• Project Management
• Initial Support
• Home Page
• Bugs
• Mailing Lists
• Source Code
• Planet
• IRC
• Package Search for the OBS & wider community
• Community Wiki
• Notification System
• Video

There is a good mix of tools hosted on Novell infrastructure and that hosted outside of Novell.  For instance the Source code is actually on the Gitorious service, why should we have to maintain our own DVCS when there are open services available?  Also with the Video, we use Blip.tv and will also add YouTube to the toolset for distribution of openSUSE video.  The Planet is hosted on a community owned and run server as is the Community Wiki and package search.  So you can't say we are wholly reliant on Novell :-)

At the moment I don't see anything that we're missing, but I'm sure something will crop up and then we'll go "Ah if only we had XYZ", but when that happens we can look and see what best fits the bill and try and fix it.  The only complaint I think we have is that the integration between the tools isn't as good as it could or should be.  This is something that has been picked up on so don't worry too much, the Boosters are working hard to make things blend naturally.  So it will happen, just not over night.

Okay so that covers the infrastructure bits, what about the software side of things?  Well whilst at the Novell offices in Nurenberg for HackWeeKII, there was a discussion about how to get more people involved in the actual coding of things.  Some of the Novellians were curious as to why no-one was willing to actually pick up some of the code and start sending in patches.  Well I'd like to recommend we look at another big project at Novell, and also to some of the big upstream projects.

Firstly the other project is the Mono Project, those that want to spout holier than thou rubbish can just STFU and do that now!  The Mono guys & gals have made available Virtual Machine images, Live CDs, as well as the required packages.  They include all the required tools to develop with Mono, and also exmple applications and also code so that you can get going real fast.  They have effectivly created a Mono Developer's Kit, but crucially they use openSUSE and they do a fantastic job of pimping the Geeko! Thanks Mono Project, you're doing a sterling job! 

Secondly we have recently seen that KDE have created their Plasma Netbook Reference Platform using openSUSE & our tools, so if anyone wants to look at, tinker with, hack, or do whatever with it they can and easily.  GNOME have a Developer Kit available thanks to the fine Foresight folks (with a whole lot of love from Og Maciel).  It gives everything one needs to get to developing for the GNOME Environment.  Og has also taken the step and started to create a Developer Kit for Django.

So my little mind is starting to tick, and this to those that know me well is always slightly dangerous :-)  Why don't we follow these examples, and provide language and function specific developer kits?  Prove to people that it isn't difficult to make the switch to develop for their preferred language or what ever on openSUSE, give them Live & Installable ISOs, give them VM images. Give them the tools needed to get the job done!

We could always pimp these developer kits at the specific language conferences like PyCon, RailsConf etc.

We have many programming experts within the community, so why don't we pull from that expertise?  Let's get openSUSE Developer kits for Java, Python, Qt, Python, Ruby, PHP, and any other language you think is beneficial.  This isn't about what language is better than the next, it is about getting the message out and showing everyone that it really isnt hard to use openSUSE as your preferred platform.

So now that I've said my piece, what tools do people think we are missing?  Also what issues do people have with our current tool set?  For goodness sake don't just grumble about things let's discuss constructively so we can fix things!

A bad workman always blames his tools, a good workman utilises his tools to their full extent.

I thought it would be a good idea to try and engage you – the fine openSUSE community – in discussion about "Us" the Community.  We seemed to have been spoiled by having a Community Manager, people kind of seemed to let him do the work or worse expected him to do so.  Now that we don't have that position any more we need to go back to basics and start rolling our sleeves up.  We've started but we have much to do.  As such this is the first in I'm not sure how many posts on the subject.
 
To save me having to repeat myself constantly I'll do a small disclaimer now:
THESE ARE MY OPINIONS AND THOUGHTS AND NOT GOSPEL! I AM NOT EMPLOYED BY NOVELL! I WANT TO GET A DISCUSSION GOING NOT A FLAME WAR!
 
In my opinion this topic is linked to my previous post about the "Planning For The Future".  The key here is to remain agile, able to flex, roll, bounce, jump and basically move with the times.  If we impose strict rigid requirements then things will start to crack and crumble.
 
So what do I see as key items needed to enable more community contributions, and get more non-Novellians involved in taking a more (pro)active role in the Project?

• Tools - we need an enabler of sorts that lets people start off small and get to grips with how things move, from there they can grow out and up.
• Transparency - ensuring that the decisions that are made are clear concise and understandable.  I'm ure not everyone will like the decisions but if they can see the reasons behind it then they can work with it and maybe come up with a better alternative.
• Communicate - this is something that has improved a lot over time but still has some ways to go.  There are certain parties that still don't understand how to communicate with the wider community but they can and are an integral part of the ecosystem, we need to educate and help them get better.
• Coach - no-one can get to a suitable proficiency in any subject whether it be academic/sporting/whatever without some form of tutelage.  To help lighten the work load on the employees that are trying to juggle between their enterprise workload and community workload we need to have them spend some time away from their corporate duties to help with some knowledge and skill sharing.
• Teamwork - stop depending on individuals, whether they are Novellian or non-Novellian one person can't do it all in their supposed subject matter of expertise.
• Educate - self market, not just to the outside world but internally too.  The openSUSE community is too modest for it's own good at times, we need to be more vocal about all the fantastic stuff we do.  We have to be clear and concise in the message we send out across the community.
• Learn - look at our peers and take a leaf out of their book sometimes.  Believe it or not they do do things right sometimes ;-) I'm not saying copy, but try and take the bits that are needed and roll it into what you want.
• Collaborate - work with our peers on universal matters.  This doesn't just mean cross-desktop, but also cross-project and cross-distro.
• Listen - take a moment to hear what is being said.  Just taking that little bit of extra time can help isolate the noise from the message and help you understand what is being said/asked.  Remember that not everyone is a native speaker of your language so things might get lost/confused in translation, which is where that little bit of time will help.
• Lead - you don't have to do things by committee.  If you see something that needs/can be done just do it!  We dither around far too much waiting for someone else to do it.  Do what you can and then communicate what you've done and what if anything is outstanding.

All the above link into one another almost inextricably, so not doing one will most likely have an detrimental effect on the rest.

We already have several items that are great examples of how the community can get on and do something great, a sample of those are:

• openSUSE Education - this team started from very little and have created one of the best educational derivatives of any distro.  There is a good mix of people involved, and no-one is paid to do it, even on the Novell side.  They're a well knit team of contributors that are more than happy to help people wanting to help them. They saw a gap and filled it, by taking a leaf out of one of our peers' book and enhanced it.
• Packman - the great resource for the common user.  They are one of the oldest community based projects relating to openSUSE or its earlier iterations that I remember.  They're approachable friendly and have a heck of a lot of knowledge.  They saw a need and did it.
• LXDE - a new desktop environment that is only a couple of years old.  It has effectively been packaged from scratch by one person and is now included in Factory and the upcoming 11.3 release.  There was no committee discusion about doe we want it in or should we have it in, there was an opportunity and it was capitalised on.

Now I'd love to hear from people on what they think is missing or blocking them from doing any/all of the above, I'd also like to know what it is that people find awkward or difficult in joining in and being more active.  Don't get me wrong I appreciate one of the most precious and costly commodities is pretty much standard across the board - that of time.  I suffer from that problem as much as anyone, but it doesn't stop me from contributing, sometimes I just ave to slow down and trickle the contributions rather than pour them.  So let's start the conversation and get ideas and complaints out in the open.  If you don't say it how are people going to know about it?

Remember that this is an open dialogue.  Pot shots, defamation of character, flaming, and anything non-constructive will NOT be tolerated.  Let's keep it clean and helpful.  Listing things that our peers do better than us and also what they do worse than us would most likely open eyes.
 
How one gets to the future greatly depends on how one deals with the present and learns from the past.