On Fri, Mar 02, 2007 at 10:52:25PM +0100, Alberto Passalacqua wrote: > After quite a long time, I decided to do some considerations on the > status of OpenSUSE as a community and as a distribution, starting from > everyday experience. > > I'll start from some bug reports, which affects me directly and which > have been waiting for a solution for a long time since the release of > 10.2 final. They're only examples, you can find many others on bugzilla. > > * main-menu Hangs > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=240727
The bugnr is incorrect. > * Banshee doesn't recognize ipod > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=215301 > > * yast is still unable to list printers > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=240727 > > * Gimp can't print: > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=230887 which sends > to bug #226710, which is not accessible. > > > The main menu bug is a blocker and it's really strange no-one in the > development team noticed it during the development stage. A patch was > recently released on bugzilla, but it only partially solves the problem > for some user and does nothing for others, which indicates the issue is > quite serious. It just helps to be insistent. And if there is no reaction, just bring it up on this list. Since you did not list the right number I cannot comment on it. > The helix-banshee bug is really a mystery. It's there since beta stage, > but no solution is coming. It seems that recompiling a package is > impossible at SuSE. It is not. Just the package maintainer (Aaron) seems not be as responsive as probably necessary. > The yast-printer bug seems solved, but I still can't see my network > printers in yast. I've just reopened the bug. > > The gimp problem was marked as duplicate of a FIXED bug, but this one > links to an inaccessible report. No, it was not. The other bug was referenced only. I just opened it for your viewing pleasure. (It was a security bug and the bugfix was released.) This issue is _SOLVED_. > In my opinion these issues are serious and the lack of consideration > they receive is very disappointing considering that solutions were > promised in many occasions, and they're not provided in an acceptable > time (~3 months after the official release). > The bugzilla is full of other examples of problems which could be easily > solved in a short time, but never received a comment. There are many > easily fixable bugs with many comments and no solution. It is also full of examples where we released bugfixes. > OpenSUSE, in the opinion of most users, is the mean through which users > know SUSE, evaluate it and start using it. There are many users who > approached to SUSE through OpenSUSE to evaluate the enterprise line too > and to see how the team/community works. > > I don't think OpenSUSE is giving a good image of itself neither as a > distribution nor as a team/community. This is your view. > The quality of the distribution is lower then in the past due to the > choice to release too quickly and the lack of testing. 8 months is "too quickly"? Or do you mean the Alpha->Beta->Release turnaround time? The problem is, that we also have business products on the side to do. And you always want the latest and greatest, so long test cycles only cause other frustrations. Btw, openSUSE alpha1 is out _NOW_ while 10.3 will be released in August... So you can already start testing. > The issue of testing was addressed by adding a beta release for 10.3, > but I don't think the team should expect significant improvements from > testing provided by users if > > * a pre-testing is not done in-house. It is. > * no guidelines are given to community testers. Well, we do publish the major changes done. And _you_ know best on what _you_ want to do with openSUSE. We necessarily do not. > * no consideration is given to their reports. It is harder for us to publish fixes post-release as it is before-release. Developers focus on the next releases, other products etc. Also releasing fixes via online update requires additional QA effort. > Especially the pre-testing is important in my opinion, because community > users often don't have enough experience and knowledge, or they don't > test the distribution for enough time. Thats because we release early and often now ... A paramount concept within opensource. > Guidelines would help us a lot to look for problems in specific areas > and to test things more carefully Everything you do should work ;) > Of course all this makes sense only if reports will be considered in > time and seriously, hopefully before release ;-) > > A final comment, to conclude this already long e-mail, is about the > GNOME-KDE question (seriously, for once). > > Gnome users (not only me, there are a few, but there are) are quite > bored to see GNOME considered the de-facto second choice of the > distribution because it is less tested than KDE and less maintained. > Now, I understand many developers at SUSE love KDE and that SUSE was a > KDE based distribution. But in the past at least it was coherent: KDE > was the default and SUSE was really optimised for KDE. It was so evident > that GNOME appeared out of place, and it was OK. A user who chose SUSE > knew it was a KDE distribution. > > Today SUSE has no defaults, so a user thinks he can choose what he likes > more, but it's not that way. > In openSUSE 10.2 it is so evident a lot of the efforts were put in > creating a KDE which is better than GNOME. Examples are many: from the > new kickoff menu, which was developed faster than the gnome main-menu > and has none of the issues of the gnome one, to the opensuse-updater, > which has no equivalent in GNOME (I know one is coming for 10.3). Well, kickoff was developed on ideas of gnome main-menu ... so it had an existing parent. > Both DE should be considered as alternatives, not as rivals. I do myself > this mistake, I know. But it's really annoying to read "Use KDE" or "Use > a KDE app" when a user asks for help about GNOME. And WHY NOT? KDE apps work in GNOME, GNOME apps work in KDE. I use GIMP regulary. I use Firefox occasionaly. Under KDE. > Moreover GNOME is the default on SLED, and having a low quality GNOME on > openSUSE doesn't help to give a good image to potential customers. > If things are going to stay as they are at the moment, I would really > prefer a strong but clear decision to make openSUSE again a KDE based > distribution instead of having a two-DE distribution only in appearance. The problem in general is that our GNOME developers work more on the enterprise desktop , while the KDE guys work more on the openSUSE snapshots, for above reasons. Ciao, Marcus --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
