[Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?

[Fernando Parra]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:28:32 +0200
Luca Berra <bluca-1WC7Or56Oao at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 10:41:31AM -0500, Fernando Parra wrote:
> >On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:56:06 +0200
> >Luca Berra <bluca-1WC7Or56Oao-XMD5yJDbdMReXY1tMh2IBg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:00:14PM -0500, Fernando Parra wrote:
> >> >The basic/novice user doesn't read anything,
> >> remove basic/novice from the sentence and i will agree ;)
> >> 
> >
> >Are you agree with some like that?
> >Only the geek/expert/professional users read?
> I think most people don't read, sometime even geek/expert/professional
> don't. This is probably due to an overload of information, and trying to
> create messages that are actually 'seen' by users is becoming a new
> branch of science.
> 

I will try to answer. Nobody reads, yes it's the true (I'm a teacher I really know about the situation), but there are a magic exception. The user reads when he wants something. By example a lot of my students has a Notebook or a Laptop, and always have installed the last version of MSN Live, and of course the latest versions of their favourite games. How we can explain that? Are all this programs magically installed? No they install them as their wishes. But first appear a nice message invite them to upgrade.

> >> > doesn't request anything to some like a bugzilla,
> >> but give him a forum and he probably will
> >
> >Here I'm not completely sure, How many forums, blogs, etc. about software are there (including Windows, Mac and others)? and How many users they have? At present time the number of pc's in the entire world are estimated in 1,500 millions, the number of users can be estimated without force the numbers as a twice of this number. Worst, we are in the Wikipedia age; in example, when I request an investigation to my students, about any theme. I need strictly keep out Wikipedia (Oh well, yes Encarta too) as a valid source.
> 
> Then it is difficult to do what user want, if we don't get any feedback.
> 

Well, you are right its difficult, but it isn't impossible. The big share of software publishers has statistics about at least of the number of downloads of their programs. And there are a lot of independent statistical measures. More, we have common sense (I hope!). And a final resource: we can make experiments, The Rolling Ligth program list shouldn't be like the 10 commandments (static per secula seculorum), As the software it is permanent state of change, the user's preferences are in a permanent evolution.

> ...
> >> Seriuosly speaking, i'd like to make a distinguo:
> >> The real basic(*) user just uses a computer to get her work done, he
> >> does not give a damn about a new version of firefox, kde or wathever, as
> >> long as the version she is using is functioning.
> ...
> >Are you sure? I'll try to explain me with a practical example: I really don't remember what of the versions of the Open Office 3.x branch open the road to read and write the MS Office 2007 (docx, etc) but when its happen, it was "the great success" How many users really need this particular "goodie", I think a big share of them!
> 
> well i had in mind a real life example when i wrote the above
> ...
> >> we should not mix the needs of this two categories, neither would like
> >> it.
> >
> >Ok, I call these users "intermediate users" and here in Mexico we have an idiomatic expression for these situations: "El qué quiera azul celeste, ¡que le cueste!" A poor translation of that is: If someone want something special, pays for get it!
> the above stands, these categories have different needs and whishes.
> 
> >> btw, we also have users interested in backports of stuff like openldap,
> >> samba or such, these users will actually contribute to the technical
> >> making of the distro, either by using bugzilla when they find bugs or
> >> actually doing packaging work. Ignoring the will of such users will,
> >> sooner or later, force mageia to employ paid personnel to do packaging
> >> work.
> >
> >I disagree here, a big share of the users are sick (including me) of an illness called "versionitis gravis". Good I'm sick!:) As I can see there are two variants of the illness:
> I just meant that many people working on packaging are also using the
> distro for running servers, so we are interested in server stuff, which
> the average user wont' prolly give a sh@@@ about.

Well, I'm thinking a lot in the server users, As a server administrator I'm very conservative (but it is only my POV) before to say anything I'm reading more opinions about the Rolling Light in servers.

You can read an interesting thread a the discuss mail list, specially one of the mails is about a college that prefer install CentOS in their desktops PC, because they don't want to support two different distros, and they choose CentOS as a server.

Well the ball is on the air. The Mageia Server should be a Rolling Ligth distro, yes or no?

Regards from Mexico.
-- 
Fernando Parra <gato2707 at yahoo.com.mx>