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

[Luca Berra]

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 ;)

> doesn't request anything to some like a bugzilla,
but give him a forum and he probably will

> If you show on his screen some like your proposal, he usually take one of two different ways: 1) Check all the options or maybe worst 2) Close the window and he will think: "Oh hell, Why Linux is so hard?"
then we shall abuse the user like most windows installers do, and
install all sort of crap with preselected checkboxes?

>Anyway, after decide what packages will be in the Rolling Light
was the model decided yet?

>The OS must be gentle with the user and show a Window with a Message like that:
>
>There are available a new version of Firefox(as an example). Do you want to install it?
>NO,   Maybe Later,   Show me more information,    Yes
popups like this are not gentle, they are annoying, users will try to
get rid of them as soon as they can and go on with what they were doing.

>Please take in mind that we are trying to get a considerable number of new users. If we just keep doing things like today, we will certainly have new users, but they probably come from other distributions.

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.
A popup stating about a new version will probably cause a call to her
son, either before or after having got rid of it, depending on the
moment.
The problem with this kind of user is getting them to apply security
updates.

(*) i won't call them novice because they might have been using a
computer for a good deal of time.

Another kind of user is amused by computers, he will read some
semi-technical magazines, every leaflet from big electronic shop, some
news site, he will buy a lot of gadgets, and will try to install new
versions of everything, just to see how they work.
This user is probably interested of seeing backports of firefox, gnome,
kde, Ooo, and such.
He will probably not bother with bugzilla (why the **** do i have to
input all this crap, cant they just provide me with gizmo 1.99.2.3 like
every windows user has?), but probably will do such a request on a forum
like media.

we should not mix the needs of this two categories, neither would like
it.

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.

L.

-- 
Luca Berra -- bluca at vodka.it