Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
On 9/26/06, Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If there's one thing I regret it's that we didn't push this release as The big performance push ... maybe because we didn't have any benchmarks available, i guess. how could we have them for future releases? i mean what to measure, with which utilities, and how? (if i'm supposed to compile gnome from source, don't count on me) -- Santiago Roza [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Quim Gil a écrit : Good bits in GNOME 2.16 http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/18/2031230 Not yet del.icio.us user, sorry. Gah. some minor feature enhancements? If there's one thing I regret it's that we didn't push this release as The big performance push - there was a wealth of blog entries, performance fixes in the platform (Cairo, GTK+, pango) and focus on performance in some key applications like Evolution. We really should have made more mileage out of that - I can imagine headlines like The same GNOME, smaller and faster with by-lines like If you've been finding previous versions of GNOME a little sluggish on your older desktop, perhaps now is the time to upgrade. To my mind that is definitely a bigger feature than we will have more eye candy in future releases thanks to optional XGL support in Metacity. Cheers, Dave. -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, Santiago Roza a écrit : maybe because we didn't have any benchmarks available, i guess. how could we have them for future releases? The Evolution guys had (and sent us) benchmarks, Federico Mena, Ben Maurer, Cecilia Gonzalez Alvarez, Phillip van Hoof, Behdad Esfahbod... all of these people have worked a lot on performance for 2.16 (and 2.18), and have been publishing benchmarks on their blogs as they've been going along. Did anyone think to ask them? i mean what to measure, with which utilities, and how? (if i'm supposed to compile gnome from source, don't count on me) Ask the experts - leverage the expertise we have lying around to get the word out (and in) - the marketing team is supposed to be the place where two-way communication can happen, letting people outside know what people inside are working on, and letting people inside know what people outside want. If we're not listening to people on either side, we're badly placed to give advice or communicate. I'm sorry I didn't bring this up before the release, when it would have been more useful. Let's just learn the lesson, and make sure our finger is on the pulse next time, and give kudos where it's due. Cheers, Dave. -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, Dave! On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:19:36 +0200 Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The problem with that page is: 1. technical focus, rather than user focus (here are operations which are faster, rather than Here are high-level usecases which are faster) 2. The language is pretty tame. We have a headline that says performance tweaks - a tweak to me is turning a screw in your motor, it's not dramatically improving anything 3. It's not in the final release notes at all, not even as a footnote I agree with some of your points. However, my point was that such a page was planned; for the first time in the history of GNOME release notes, AFAIK. In the old model of concentrating on user visible stuff, performance improvements would have gotten a paragraph, at best. Now, it's a permanent part -- at least, if there's enought to write about. And documenting the efforts on a regular schedule is probably more effective in the long run, anyway. Btw, before you critize the user relevance you should have seen the raw material. Also read the discussion about user relevance in general, here on the list. [snip] My point is, this was being talked about on pgo for months, people like Jono Bacon were raving about our performance work, and a little more effort could have gone into explaining that in a way that made real the benefits of the increased performance (and even more, the effort put into it). There's a lot of stuff people talk about on pgo. What do you think? That release notes writers have nothing better to do than taking notes about stuff developers say somewhere on the Internet? There was a wiki page dedicated to list changes worth mentioning in the release notes. In my book, if it wasn't mentioned on the wiki page, it gets ignored -- especially if the job was agreed upon on bloody week before deadline! Compare to feature request not made in bugzilla. So? Did any of those guys you mentioned enter a description on the wiki page? Not that I know. (As a site note, I didn't get the memo about OpenOffice becoming a part of GNOME. A link would be welcome! ;-) ) However. If you don't want this to happen again, take care about posting a entry in your blog when the next alphas/betas are published. Maybe, more maintainers will then enter a description of changes in the wiki. The page is here: http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen/ReleaseNotes It would be helpful if changes are described so that people without a clue about the previous version would have a chance to understand it. Also, performance improvements should be measured on a user level to be more useful. Also, usability changes should be include an explanation about the reason of the change. Cheers, Claus -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi Claus, Claus Schwarm a écrit : This is what could be made after feedback from a helpful Evolution developer. Read it and ask yourself how many people are really affected by these improvements. I'm not sure whether that would have been sufficient to produce the headlines you're thinking of. The problem with that page is: 1. technical focus, rather than user focus (here are operations which are faster, rather than Here are high-level usecases which are faster) 2. The language is pretty tame. We have a headline that says performance tweaks - a tweak to me is turning a screw in your motor, it's not dramatically improving anything 3. It's not in the final release notes at all, not even as a footnote Some performance feature improvements were mentioned in Feature additions (longer battery life for laptops), but nothing on performance improvements for non-latin scripts (see Behdad and Federico's Pango blogs), performance improvements in the platform (Ryan Lortie, Ben Maurer and Federico Mena's blogs - especially the file chooser - not to mention Manu Cornet and Cecilia Gonzales, Federico's Google SOC and GNOME WSOP students, and Michael Meeks's work in Bonobo), improvements to Cairo performance (see Macslow's blog), improved login time (John Rice, Federico Mena), performance of Evolution (pvanhoof, harish, Cecilia) or OpenOffice.org (Michael Meeks), Nautilus (Federico again). Or how about the work that GNOME people have been doing on performance tools? Soren Sandmann's work on sysprof, or the call-tree scripts that Federico et al wrote to make those pretty graphs we've been seeing, or the work that got done on bootcharts because of a challenge thrown down by Owen Taylor (OK, tenuous link). My point is, this was being talked about on pgo for months, people like Jono Bacon were raving about our performance work, and a little more effort could have gone into explaining that in a way that made real the benefits of the increased performance (and even more, the effort put into it). Cheers, Dave. -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, I'm feeling some aggression and defensiveness here which I'm going to put down to cultural differences. I will say, though, that we all have a part to play in improving things, and I think that this could have been addressed better if I'd brought it up before the release (mea culpa). Claus Schwarm a écrit : However, my point was that such a page was planned; for the first time in the history of GNOME release notes, AFAIK. In the old model of concentrating on user visible stuff, performance improvements would have gotten a paragraph, at best. There was a performance section for 2.12 too. Btw, before you critize the user relevance you should have seen the raw material. Also read the discussion about user relevance in general, here on the list. Sure - I also commented on the resulting text and suggested tying things to user actions. Which I can't find in the archives... There's a lot of stuff people talk about on pgo. What do you think? That release notes writers have nothing better to do than taking notes about stuff developers say somewhere on the Internet? Well, it's my primary news source to know what application maintainers are working on, and what is creating a buzz in our community. So yes, I think it is important for people interested in promoting GNOME (and particularly release notes writers) be aware of it. There was a wiki page dedicated to list changes worth mentioning in the release notes. In my book, if it wasn't mentioned on the wiki page, it gets ignored -- especially if the job was agreed upon on bloody week before deadline! Compare to feature request not made in bugzilla. So? Did any of those guys you mentioned enter a description on the wiki page? Not that I know. I don't know what vision you have of the marketing team, but mine does not consist of if you build it, they will come. marketing is a pro-active task - we need to go to people inside GNOME to find out what they're working on, and go to people outside GNOME to tell them, and get feedback. Then we need to take that feedback, go back to people inside GNOME, and see what they think. Rinse, repeat. So, do I think that module maintainers will swarm to a wiki page for 2.18 just because I write a blog entry asking them to? Hell, no. (As a site note, I didn't get the memo about OpenOffice becoming a part of GNOME. A link would be welcome! ;-) ) mmeeks is a bonobo maintainer, and a lot of the OOo on Linux performance work is done directly in the GNOME platform (gtk+, pango, libbonobo, libgnome/ui). It would be helpful if changes are described so that people without a clue about the previous version would have a chance to understand it. Also, performance improvements should be measured on a user level to be more useful. Also, usability changes should be include an explanation about the reason of the change. It's our job to get that raw techie information and translate/interpret it. Asking for it isn't going to make it happen. In fact, this job is the major task that the person who takes on the release notes/roadmap will have to handle. Cheers, Dave. -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
--- Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
There's a lot of stuff people talk about on pgo.
What do you think?
That release notes writers have nothing better to
do than taking notes
about stuff developers say somewhere on the
Internet?
Well, it's my primary news source to know what
application maintainers
are working on, and what is creating a buzz in our
community. So yes, I
think it is important for people interested in
promoting GNOME (and
particularly release notes writers) be aware of it.
I think this particular point is a cultural issue, but
not cultural in the sense of nationalities...
I think it's more to do with the coder/non-coder
divide in GNOME -- whether this is real or only
perceived.
It's something I'm aware of with my work as a
documentation writer. You feel very much that you're
expected to do a lot of chasing up, and going to get
the resources you need yourself.
In a similar vein, I'd like people working on the apps
I document to *push* information to me ('Hi docs list,
I've just made this change to the interface, thought
you might need to know'), rather than me have to dig
up and interpret changelogs that mean mostly nothing
to me with only two weeks to go to release.
This sort of thing requires a change in culture rather
than new rules like there are already for freezes.
I thought about creating a set of policies for the
Docs Team, including what we expect from module
maintainers.
Perhaps the marketing team could do the same?
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Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, a few notes: On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:24:03 +0200 Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So yes, I think it is important for people interested in promoting GNOME (and particularly release notes writers) be aware of it. There's a difference between being 'aware of it' and following it closely enought to remember certain posts, you know? ;-) But it's sort of interesting that you think others are required to waste their time finding the relevant post among the, well, less relevent stuff that's posted on pgo. Can you provide a rationale why do you think the time of developers is so much more valuable than anybody else's time? I don't know what vision you have of the marketing team, but mine does not consist of if you build it, they will come. marketing is a pro-active task - we need to go to people inside GNOME to find out what they're working on, and go to people outside GNOME to tell them, and get feedback. Then we need to take that feedback, go back to people inside GNOME, and see what they think. Rinse, repeat. I was just talking about efficient organization: to minimize the work load for everybody, some agreements need to be taken care of. So, if there's a wiki page to enter stuff by maintainers, it should be used. So, do I think that module maintainers will swarm to a wiki page for 2.18 just because I write a blog entry asking them to? Hell, no. My suggestion has nothing to do with making anybody do anything, but with *reminding* people that certain stuff needs to be done. And that they are the ones who can do it most efficiently. And yes: I hope, some people just need a reminder. Some may need two or more, but at least blog entries about this will be relevant to GNOME. It's our job to get that raw techie information and translate/interpret it. Asking for it isn't going to make it happen. In fact, this job is the major task that the person who takes on the release notes/roadmap will have to handle. Well, yes and no. Of course, it's true that developers should not need to write the release notes. On the other hand, it's much work for an outsider to find out why some changes were made. Trying to interpret stuff will either lead to errors or it will lead to more work for everybody: for the writer to ask questions and for the maintainer to answer them. Funny enought, the third possibility is to use the usual meaningless marketing lingo that some people here don't like. Also, there's no reason for the responsible people to *not* take a few more minutes to make some effort on how they describe changes. Of course, they can continue to mention a keyword and hope the writer understands it correctly. On the other hand, lots of open source projects posts lots of changes all the time. Especially professional writers have the tendency to ignore descriptions that need additional time to be checked ro translated. They have their deadlines, too. So, maybe this is one important difference to the KDE project, and Firefox, and other projects that get more news coverage? That their maintainers make more efforts to educate users and journalists about changes they make? Well, you may find someone who like to do it the way you described. Davyd and others made a great job here, and it was convinient to rely on them for doing the right stuff. But what do you do if you don't find somebody like that, anymore? Will you do it yourself? The next years? Cheers, Claus -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, Claus Schwarm a écrit : Can you provide a rationale why do you think the time of developers is so much more valuable than anybody else's time? snip I was just talking about efficient organization: to minimize the work load for everybody, some agreements need to be taken care of. So, if there's a wiki page to enter stuff by maintainers, it should be used. snip And yes: I hope, some people just need a reminder. Some may need two or more, but at least blog entries about this will be relevant to GNOME. snip Also, there's no reason for the responsible people to *not* take a few more minutes to make some effort on how they describe changes. Of course, they can continue to mention a keyword and hope the writer understands it correctly. OK - it's clear that you're saying all these things to people other than those who should be hearing it. I'm sure Shawn McCance who leads the documentation project agrees with a lot of what you're saying. In fact, he's probably well placed to make suggestions as to how to improve things, or how to leverage the work the docs team are already doing. The i18n team are also made aware of all interface changes - perhaps they might be able to help. And you should definitely be talking to the maintainers about this, rather than the marketing list. And, again, ranting about this stuff won't improve the situation. And haranguing developers isn't going to make them any more eager to document their changes in a marketing-friendly way. So, please, by all means continue this discussion, but continue it with the relevant people, rather than on the marketing list. Cheers, Dave. -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:40:43 +0200 Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK - it's clear that you're saying all these things to people other than those who should be hearing it. Ehm, pardon? You started talking about the *vision* and how the marketing team is supposed to handle things according to *your* opinion. I was just trying to make clear that this (a) is not useful, and (b) was already organzied differently. Btw, organzied by others and not me. So, I wasn't adressing developers, nor did I try to haranguing them, nor did I rant about developers. I just tried to explain why your point of view doesn't make sense, IHMO. snip So, please, by all means continue this discussion, but continue it with the relevant people, rather than on the marketing list. Yeah. I'm really motivated to do this, now. Cheers, Claus -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
I'm sorry I didn't bring this up before the release, when it would have been more useful. Let's just learn the lesson, and make sure our finger is on the pulse next time, and give kudos where it's due. Gathering, sorting, and presenting the release information takes a lot of time and effort. That's why I recommended a schedule: http://live.gnome.org/ReleaseNotes The problem here, as far as I can tell, was that someone else (mostly, Quim, I think) had to step in at the last moment. So I think we are lucky that we had release notes at all, even if they weren't perfect. These things happen. Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi, On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:21:34 +0200 Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To my mind that is definitely a bigger feature than we will have more eye candy in future releases thanks to optional XGL support in Metacity. Note that a performance page was written. It looked like this: http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen/ReleaseNotes/TwoSixteenPerformance This is what could be made after feedback from a helpful Evolution developer. Read it and ask yourself how many people are really affected by these improvements. I'm not sure whether that would have been sufficient to produce the headlines you're thinking of. Of course, that should not mean that 'eye candy' was the best headline to pick -- however, nobody was able to suggest a better one, back then. Cheers, Claus -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Good bits in GNOME 2.16 http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/18/2031230 Not yet del.icio.us user, sorry. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://pinguino.tv signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Hi Santiago, If you are a del.icio.us user, then please bookmark these with the tag gnome216 (you can use more than one tag if you like, but please include that one). I think I got these three, but there's no harm in having pages bookmarked more than once. I haven't seen any Spanish articles bookmarked yet - just French, German and English. Isn't anyone covering this in Spain or South America? How about Asia? Cheers, Dave. Santiago Roza wrote: these are the sources i found so far: http://slashdot.org/articles/06/09/07/0240207.shtml http://arstechnica.com/articles/columns/linux/linux-20060905.ars http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6261033378.html feel free to add more... -- Santiago Roza [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- David Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
Op ma, 11-09-2006 te 22:32 -0300, schreef Santiago Roza: these are the sources i found so far: feel free to add more... http://tweakers.net/nieuws/44305/Nieuwe-versie-Gnome-ziet-het-levenslicht.html (Dutch) regards, -- Reinout van Schouwen -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Spreading the press release/release announcement and collecting press coverage
these are the sources i found so far: http://slashdot.org/articles/06/09/07/0240207.shtml http://arstechnica.com/articles/columns/linux/linux-20060905.ars http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6261033378.html feel free to add more... -- Santiago Roza [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
