On Wednesday 02 February 2011 22:20:00 Nelson Marques wrote: > On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I personally don't see it as a big issue directly - the only issue with > > it is that people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there > > to "Build openSUSE Software". > > If people see it that way, maybe it's marketing failure? As you state > and I quote: > > «hat people clearly assume the "openSUSE Build Service" is there to > "Buil openSUSE Software".» > > This only points failure on marketing practices, marketing efforts are > failing in passing the message, but in reality, it's not actually far > from the reality. OBS plays it's role, it enables all the contents > distributed in openSUSE Linux distribution.
Yes, it is failing marketing: choosing a wrong name, duh. openSUSE Build Service as a name quite strongly suggests that it's for openSUSE... And that is the problem. Surely OBS does that, but it does more - and the name doesn't support that. It IS a marketing failure. Interestingly enough, at LCA I attended a talk by a Red Hat developer about KOJI. It's Red Hat's/Fedora's build service. It's massively worse than OBS - you CAN build packages for other distro's but it's quite hard. The whole thing is much harder to use, can't cross-compile for other platforms and has to run on your own machine. Still, many people were interested in it. And part of that is because the name doesn't signal any distro-specificity. > Maybe before we can be attractive to developers we have to be > attractive to end users, so that they ditch their distribution > repositories and use ours (which isn't supported by any distribution). > So for you to succeded this is probably one of the issues that needs > to be worked out first... Make OBS a repository of reference to other > distributions. > > > The discussions and chats I've had at several conferences > > including the latest LCA clearly brought that forward and I think those > > of you who've been at conferences have heard the same sentiments. Now > > the scope of the Build Service is much wider than that and this > > misconception is hurting at least some of our uptake. The marketing team > > is fighting this perception all the time. > > From a talk I had with someone I met on OSC, I actually asked him why > they didn't used devel snapshots through OBS. The answer I got was... > every distribution has packagers, they do that for me, why would I > want to waste time on that? I don't package, I do other more important > things. > > > The brand is currently usually abbreviated as OBS - and known (in > > writing) like that. MeeGo actually calls it 'open build service' > > already, as do many other people. I wouldn't argue yet that 'open build > > service' is already the de-facto name, but it's going in that direction. > > Once more, this could indicate severe marketing strategy failure. > Careful with such statements. > > > So there is a reason to rename it: do something about a misconception > > which is hurting uptake. > > The reason to rebrand and reposition a well established service is > based on an hypothetical marketing failure? > > Maybe it's time for you to drop Darwinism and maybe be more mindful of > Smith/Drucker/Kotler, as they will provide an answer for your > problems. > > > Reasons not to do it: > > 1 we diminish the link between openSUSE and OBS > > 2 we loose some brand value due to the repositioning > > 1 & 2 - will only happen if Marketing doesn't take action to support > the whole repositioning (this is where the fat budgets play there > role). > > > On 1, I don't see this as a real issue as OBS is and will be principally > > developed by openSUSE - and as I wrote before, the culture of 'credit > > where credit is due' in FOSS protects us in this regard as well. > > Unless you want to make of OBS a fully commercial product, that makes no > sense. > > > 2 is really minimal - OBS is the name most known and won't change; > > moreover many people already call it open build service (or even just > > 'the build service' which is actually really good for us I would say - > > saying OBS is the de-facto standard build service). > > Interesting... A "build service" builds something, that's how someone > probably will face it. As I face it, it's an outstanding distribution > platform, to feed or distribute contents. There is a difference, and > if you think closely, it might be more benefic for OBS to be promoted > as a distribution platform, at least it sounds far more appealing to > me, and the fact is has a HUGE 'OPENSUSE' in it's name can only > benefit openSUSE as a Linux distribution. > > > Hence I believe the reason to do it eclipses the reasons not to do it. > > Just trying to prevent a situation like the one portraited partially > on [1]. If you look carefully, that entry is quite a powerful example. > That entry suggests that picking KDE as the default Desktop actually > didn't brought the expected user base to openSUSE. And changing back > to GNOME will only hurt us more, because you are endangering hurting > users and paint us like if we don't know what we're doing. I hope OBS > will not be the subject of such changes every once in a while. It > kills consumer trust, and we want to build relations with users based > on trust so we can build loyalty. Changing all the time will only hurt > what we're trying to build. > > [1] - https://features.opensuse.org/311023 > > > On the facebook thing, I doubt our number likes on facebook for openSUSE > > have much if anything to do with uptake of OBS. Not to say we shouldn't > > try to increase that number... > > Depends... you are only seeing one side of the problem, you neglect > still that we work to provide contents to people and to show people > that our contents/software is a reliable option. It makes all sense to > me that the more contents we serve, the more attractive we will be for > those making the contents. > > I'm sure that making such a risky maneuvre because a group of people > call it something else is rather naive. > > > This email expresses a personal opinion and therefore there is no > right or wrong, just a point of view. > > NM
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