[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

Thu Oct 14 14:40:54 CEST 2010

Hey everyone,
+
+so, to re-frame a bit things and cool down.
+
+First, thank you all for this conversation. That shows you care. And
+that's great. At times, we may disagree with each other, we may not
+manage properly yet how we say things, we may look or be a bit slow or
+too fast. But we still can make something together - provided we aim
+something in common, we trust and respect each other and we know how
+to step down and apologize when needed.
+
+That's not to say it's easy. It's probably the hardest part. We just
+have to take it into account and build our way with it.
+
+
+A quick note the about logo proposals thing. Right, we may pause it,
+however everyone started to propose logos even before we talked about
+it; so at least we reframe the proposals a bit without making a full
+stop. That gives more info to graphic designers at this point and we
+can refine the technical specs as well.
+
+
+So...
+
+#1 Yes, marketing has a say in how we do things in this project. So
+does each team. We didn't listed all these teams without intending to
+articulate their contributions.
+
+One of the crucial points in this project is to make everyone respect
+and understand each other; knowledge, feelings, opinions, unknowns are
+all in the game and we all have to learn how to deal with this to go
+forward.
+
+Marketing, communication (and coordination/inclusion into the project
+main decisions) are indeed, in our inherited culture, not quite known
+& understood. Each team has its own culture, process. Without all
+becoming experts of each others' specialties, we need to understand,
+value and trust our reciprocal contributions to benefit the whole
+project.
+
+Of course we are in a Open Source project so it makes some teams more
+in technical power of decision (because they don't approve or because
+they don't deliver or because there are technical obstacles or...).
+That's true and that makes even more important that all participants
+acknowledge that we all have
+
+So whether it takes more time, more discussion, an agreement or it's
+up to the Council or the Board to decide in last resort. We will
+strive to base our decisions on three things: project mission, values
+and facts. Feelings are here as "warning signals" of dissonance and
+understood as such; and should be resolved hopefully.
+
+Disagreements may appear from diverse reasons; one may be that we've
+not been specific enough about the direction (because we didn't or
+because we still don't know well enough how to be specific enough;
+that's something to refine as well).
+
+
+#2. Mageia.org does not target desktop users especially. Well, we do;
+as we do target servers and embedded devices. As well.
+
+Nor does it compete with other Linux distributions or other operating
+systems. Yes, we do compete in some way. But we don't see ourselves
+like this at first.
+
+The big difference we expect for Mageia.org is not to compete, but to
+become a inter-disciplinary collaboration community of excellence for
+free/libre projects; the Mageia Linux distribution is only one (huge,
+central and first) "game" in this. As a project, as a platform, as a
+product, as a showcase.
+
+As a hint, two teams were not listed for now, because we thought that
+we need to roll out our first working ISO first and because we didn't
+explained how their role would fit: ergonomics/users study and
+electronics/hardware devices.
+
+The goal is not only to produce a ~horizontal Linux-based system that
+will empower people; it's to create the conditions to build ~vertical
+solutions with it, within or from the Mageia.org community.
+
+Mageia.org is not a commercial project but a community project; where
+people/companies will bring in and bring from. Both as users and as
+contributors.
+
+That does not prevent to design it through marketing, but that must be
+aligned with the project direction.
+
+
+So, to draw this in perspective now, here are the next big milestones
+we have in sight for the coming months. That does not define long term
+strategy (which is still buried in the announcement and in the
+vision/mission statements being worked on) but I guess it will help:
+
+ 1. releasing a test drive ISO before the end of November; this is to
+test drive four things:
+   * packaging/translation/build system as a whole,
+   * community council and teams work & coordination,
+   * final product stability,
+   * concurrent discussions for future plans.
+
+ 2. having December to cool down and prepare the next run; having end
+of December free of any stress in this regard;
+
+ 3. preparing coming FOSDEM in February 2011; where we shall meet more
+people to discuss future and hot topics.
+
+Concurrent to these, Mageia.org community must form and learn on itself.
+
+For the marketing team, for instance, the first step could to market
+the project itself toward people that will _contribute to it_, first.
+
+That's who we want to work with and who we want to be in love with the
+product, the technology, the project and the processes first. That's
+who we want to care about first. Then we will have to see how what we
+love can be a fit for other people.
+
+(and no, that doesn't exclude all users, but only users that don't
+expect to contribute to the project directly)
+
+That helps in three ways:
+ - helping refine the whole project vision as whole and advocate it;
+ - help contributors get a firmer grasp on who they are, and what
+they're going to build;
+ - inform users community of what it may be going to look like.
+
+This, with time, will help to discuss targets with more data and more
+perspective. For everyone. Notwithstanding that other teams have quite
+a lot of work as well and may need to advocate it as well.
+
+Yes, that's a short roadmap. We can expect to have a larger one later.
+But that's what we have to focus on at this time.
+
+We will dig into some of these points in dedicated meetings in the
+next days (marketing/communication, roadmap and weekly progress).
+
+
+Cheers,
+
+Romain
+