openSUSE:Board election 2010 platform ketheriel
Platform
Introduction and Biography
My name is Nelson and I come from Portugal. My initial contact with Linux was made through SuSE Linux 5.2, which I got from a friend. Back then during the dial up days, it was important to have a good stock of software, SuSE provided it. I was also very enthusiastic about SuSE's kernels and X11R4 releases, which provided 'bleeding edge' features. I recall SuSE being the first distribution to ship i740 and Voodoo Banshee drivers (which I owned back then). Due to professional demands around the release of SuSE 7.1 I've moved to Red Hat and later to Fedora, I would return to openSUSE though in 2009 seeking for FireGL support (since all the pre-requisites were already present, strong package repository, availability of - wicked - software on pacman and fairly strong 3D support for ATI). I'm happy I've returned.
I don't have a list of accolades or lots of knots in my victory belt, for the most I see myself as an end user, and Linux as a tool to satisfy my everyday computing needs.
I'm a Marketing Management student (and will remain like that for a couple of years more, I have no real benefit in finishing my graduation yet. There's a couple of goals to achieve before such happens). In the past I've done several works around linux:
- 1999 - Developed and implemented an exterior kiosk based on SuSE Linux 5.3 and Mozilla. This kiosk saw the light of the day through 4 City Halls in Portugal, back then it was something new in the country.
- 1999/2001 - I've implemented a Firefighting management solution in tens of Firefighting departments in Portugal. This solution was based on a small Cobol application and run on SuSE Linux 5.2 as well.
- 2000/2002 - I've participated as a 'handy man' (jack of all trades, johnny on the spot, whatever you want to call it) in two projects from Portugal Telecom R&D (PT Inovação S.A.) regarding mobile networks. Mainly the platform for GPRS services and an internal project that provided a customer extension service of the traditional analog phone land network gifting it of features that were only present at that date on the GSM networks (mail boxes, email notifications, etc etc etc).
- 2004/2008 - I've developed and implemented several game server provider solutions for one of the biggest US based GSP's (Game Server Provider) based in Illinois. This was implemented on bleeding edge Fedora.
Currently, I'm implementing Ubuntu's Ayatana software on openSUSE for the upcoming release of 11.4 (Indicators (panel applets) and Unity). I would love to keep contributing in the future to improve openSUSE Desktop offer and making it more friendly to everyday's computing needs of non-technical users. In a way, I'm a dreamer, as most seem to support the claims that Desktop is dead on Linux, I'll try to prove them otherwise.
Major Issues
The following I wouldn't believe to be considered major issues, instead topics that should have a priority:
- Promote the openSUSE Guiding Principles. From the statistics shown in http://users.opensuse.org we can see that only a very short percentage of our users subscribe the Guiding Principals. This is very own foundation of our community. We aren't delievering the message to our users.
- Promote more active contributions/updates/posting on the Planet. The Planet can be a good source of materials for other sub-projects of openSUSE, I remember at least Marketing and News, which could benefit from higher participation on Planet in the form of workable contents to deploy. Unfortunatly, this doesn't deppend on a board seat, it depends on our users counscience, nevertheless, the Board can appeal and advertise for strong participation.
Planet > Contributor Updates Media > Users
> Community
> Press
> News
> Others
- Contributor Projects - Some contributor projects seems to have a very low profile, I can recall some software repositories like 'Emulators', 'Games' and other projects like Prusnak's Game Shop. Unfortunatly, many projects seem to have a good kick off and then openSUSE as a whole fails in advertising them and keeping them alive (Marketing is failing hard on this). This needs to change.
- Ambassadors - There's currently no way to measure and analyse our investment on Ambassadors. The budgets allocated to this projects should be supported by a process that can allow us to improve and take action when required. We need stronger self assessment methodology to support strong investments o this area, as much might be related to this.
- Stronger cooperation between engineering sub-projects, downstream projects and support sub-projects like marketing and news. It is important (if not the most important thing at this moment) to make sure there's optimal communication channel's between sub-projects and they work.
- Give a stronger voice to end user concerns and establish openSUSE as the ultimate choice for end user Desktop experience.
- Relaunch 'Membership' campaigns, and wider the contribution fields on openSUSE.
- Create a stronger content distribution network, specially with press (general and specialized). Ambassadors should have a stronger role on this, and help syndicate locally the Project's message. The board is most likely the best organ in openSUSE to give head to this.
- Prepare a 'anti burnout' campaign and secure metodology to act upon extraordinary events that might happen, specially if they are related to conflict management. I don't agree in booting people off the project (no mater what) and a very dangerous precedent was opened some days ago regarding this. From this point on 'cry babies' and 'prima dona's' have a background event to support personal targetted attacks on other people and boot them from the project. I'm sorry to say, but I compare this to the 'death sentence', should never happen. Anti social people can not be considered as criminals, it's a psychiatric disturbance, not a crime.
Minor Issues
None.
Role of the board
- Conflict Management role;
- Guardian of the Guiding Principles and Foundations of openSUSE Project;
- Beacon of Light in orientation and strategy fields.
- The voice of everyone.
- The big pusher.
Why you should vote for me?
- A man of the people without affiliations, only concerned about the future and the lack of a more 'daring' attitude from openSUSE.
- If you want to drop conservadorism and go for new paths.
- If you want to take higher risks and higher benefits.
Aims/Goals
- Promote activelly the Free Desktops, GNOME, KDE et al.
- Increase the software packages availability in openSUSE.
- Provide openSUSE users the widest choice possible of software.
- Reinforce, expand and activelly promote openSUSE Artwork.
- Promote activelly more content creation and sharing through the Planet and other resources.
- Increase the openSUSE visibility on wider audiences.
- Promote contributors projects and openSUSE Projects such as OBS.
- Increase the Memberships on openSUSE.
- Extend and increase cooperation with upstream projects and other Linux distributions in areas where we can help each other for the greater benefit of all.
- Fight the anti-Ubuntu feeling!