Strategy voting has started!

Awesomeness!!!

Yup - we've got a strategy proposal under vote. Sorry it took so long. Everyone, both from the board and the strategy team, has been busy with the openSUSE 11.4 release and the upcoming openSUSE conference. But the board has asked Thomas Thym to get it out 2 weeks ago and he asked me to create a openSUSE Members poll (he's not a member yet). And I did. So if you're an openSUSE member, go to connect.opensuse.org and cast your vote!

Meaning

I've blogged before about what this strategy is and isn't about but I'd like to re-iterate it one more time.

No, it's not about finding a perfect description of all of us. We're way too diverse for that to ever work. It also isn't about carefully describing a grand, detailed plan for what we will do. We don't tell our contributors what they can and can't work on. And it's not about writing a sexy and engaging text. The marketing team will do the marketing texts, this is too much based on compromise for that to be possible.

It is about having a reasonably accurate description of who we are, what we want and where we stand.

Yes, it does say some things about where we might not want to go or where we focus. That is because the majority of us focuses on certain things and doesn't care about other things. IF someone wants to take those things on, change that focus, fine. But they have to be prepared to do a LOT of work and get little support. In a sense, this 'strategy' can tell people they should join openSUSE because we are the perfect community to do what they want. Or not...

Now surely we can and will revise it in the future, but in small steps. We'll update it if people start doing cool new stuff, for example. We already had to add Tumbleweed and Evergreen! And if enough people want to work on mobile devices, ARM or other stuff - well, we just do it and then change our 'strategy'.

So, now go to connect.opensuse.org and cast your vote!

green picture in the article

On the green "I want you" picture on news.opensuse.org: I got it off the web and used Krita to make it green. I know, Krita is meant as an artist tool, a painting app. Wrong tool for the job. I just didn't think about using the Gimp... Actually, on my laptop I usually use Showfoto for these things which is far superior to both for basic photo manipulation. Forgot to use that too. Yes, right tool for the job isn't always high on my agenda, hehe.

The image in the previous Milestone 1 article WAS made with the right tool: Krita again. Just 5 minutes with the right brushes and layers and it's awesome... Obviously, this is NOT a serious proposal for openSUSE 12.1 artwork.