29 September, 2011

MeeGo and openSUSE - an invitation

Dear MeeGo friends!


Yesterday a big announcement was made by Intel and Samsung. It entails another big change of directions for Moblin/Maemo/MeeGo.

Where to go Next

Many people in your community wonder where to go now. Yesterday, at a MeeGo meet in Tampere, many wondered if Intel will let the community contribute to Tizen. Will Samsung work in the open? Intel and Linux Foundation didn't build a great track record with MeeGo and some said they simply didn't believe in it anymore. Many clearly care about the great community which was build over the last years and are afraid it will break up.

Aaron Seigo spoke some wise words. He said: "don't rely on what big companies might or might not do. Find out what YOU want and how to get there!" And indeed, community is about making your choices together. Not depending on corporate players acting as ADHD kids in a candy store, tasting every candy then dropping it.

We've got room

So, I invite you to a community which you already know. A community which, like MeeGo, is young and vital. You're familiar with the Open Build Service and with tools like zypper. You know these come from a community looking beyond their borders - projects like Smeegol and Ayatana are good examples. Of course I talk about openSUSE.

And while we do have a large, corporate sponsor, they depend on us. Yet we don't exclusively rely on them. Many independent developers and companies are active in the openSUSE Community. Moreover, SUSE has proved on several occasions to respect the wishes of its community, even if it's uncomfortable with the choices, and we've been working on setting up an openSUSE Foundation with SUSE buy-in as well.

We're open to innovations

openSUSE is very flexible and open as a community. No complicated governance, no top-down management, like our large competitors. Just FUN. As result, we do awesome stuff! From OBS and the upcoming new thing, to the übercool Tumbleweed.

And timing is excellent: Andrew "Smeegol" Wafaa has recently announced the start of an effort to bring openSUSE to ARM devices. Progress was already made during this week's SUSE Hackweek and the mailing list is buzzing with activity!

You're welcome at openSUSE

In short, I would like to welcome you in openSUSE's ARMs. We've got the attitude which will fit you and we've got the technology and infrastructure to support you!

There is a nice wiki page on participating in openSUSE if you want to learn more. But to get things going, I suggest to start a discussion about how we can help you guys and girls on the openSUSE Project mailing list. Of course, feel free to visit our IRC channels.

See you at openSUSE and have a lot of fun!

6 comments:

  1. Let me make one thing clear. I don't want to 'prey' on poor MeeGo. The MeeGo community has done a friggin' awesome job! My N900 loves you and so do I. My next phone will be the N9 - because I trust the community will do what they can to keep it alive.

    And you don't have to join openSUSE. Heck, go to Fedora, go to Debian, Gentoo, Join KDE, work on GNOME or Qt. The most important thing: follow your dream. Find a community which is open, welcoming, which won't die anytime soon and where you can be who you want and do what you want! Don't let any dictator or big company ('benevolent' or not) tell you what you can and can't do!

    I do believe openSUSE is such a place but surely it's not unique and there are plenty of other projects where great things happen.

    May the Source be with you ;-)

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  2. Oh, and if you want to breathe new life in SmeeGol I'm sure Andrew would be delighted :D

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  3. Met you at OpenMind and you got me more interested about OpenSUSE. Why? Mostly because I have/had some ideas for OBS which we discussed briefly. I will definitely dig deeper to understand OBS in details and if possible contribute to it.

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  4. Maybe you should write to http://lists.meego.com/pipermail/meego-dev/2011-September/484156.html

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  5. @anonymous: if you have access, please spread the word! I'd love to see the MeeGo folks find a good place - even if it's NOT openSUSE. I'd be more than satisfied if I got a discussion started, no matter the outcome.

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  6. I would be delighted if mobile Qt/Linux developers joined the opensuse community.

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Say something smart and be polite please!