[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

Sun Oct 17 22:16:16 CEST 2010

Le jeudi 14 octobre 2010 14:40:54, Romain d'Alverny a écrit :
+> 
+> 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
+> 
+> 
+
+This somewhat buried announce could be given more visibility in its own thread or as a forum message, couldn't it ?
+
+Regards
+
+Samuel
+