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: <snip> > 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.
There are such repositories having packages for other distro's, right? Besides, I'm not trying to get users to ditch their distro's repositories and use OBS - that won't work as OBS doesn't have all of their distro. But I want to replace PPA's and specific Fedora repositories with OBS repositories - so we need to get DEVELOPERS and ppl who want to package specific packages for other distro's to use OBS. Then they spread the packages through that. In case of developers, the only thing we win is that they will at least create openSUSE packages so we get more software. In case of 'casual' packagers who for example decide to package F-Spot for a few distro's because they like F-Spot, we have another opportunity: maybe we can convince them to contribute more packages. Then maybe convince them to start contributing those to factory and bang, we have a new contributor. So making it attractive to end users doesn't really help OBS much. > > 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. True, for some that is true. Especially if you're KDE or GNOME. Less so if you have a small, lesser-known application - look at gtk-apps.org or kde-apps.org, those apps have usually only a few packages - those for the distro of the developer and a few contributed packages by others. The developer of such an app would surely be interested in OBS so we have to reach them. And those 'others' who submitted a package are a big pool of potential contributors for openSUSE so we need to talk to them even more! And they come for Open Build Service, not openSUSE Build Service! > > 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. Sure, but the name is wrong hence it goes wrong. > > 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? No, the failure is the name. We should fix that. > 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). As Open Build Service is already used and much easier to promote, I would actually argue that KEEPING the name openSUSE build service is more 'expensive' in terms of effort to promote it. > > 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. Well, I think that benefit is surely there, but it won't be diminished much by the name Open Build Service. People who go there will see openSUSE featured in several places. And they are technical people who surely know who makes the tools they use. So it doesn't change anything for those who use it but does make it easier to get more users... win-win > > 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 Change is bad, that's for sure. But as I've said 10 times already, it's not a big change - outside of openSUSE the build service is already often referred to as open build service and we do it too because it makes more sense... > > 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. You know that's not the reason. And you also should understand by now that it's not risky to do this. > > This email expresses a personal opinion and therefore there is no > right or wrong, just a point of view. Sure. And we start to repeat ourselves, so I'll try to refrain from further commenting unless a new argument comes up. Let the OBS dev's decide or let them follow the advice from marketing (which seems to be: rename to Open Build Service). > NM
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