[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

Michael Scherer misc at zarb.org
Wed Oct 20 15:24:35 CEST 2010


Le mercredi 20 octobre 2010 à 14:24 +0200, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
> 2010/10/20 Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org>:
> >
> > "Jeroen: One of the big, essential differences between Fedora and other
> > distributions is that we’d rather gain one contributor than a dozen
> > users. In fact, if I could lose 1000 users right now and gain a
> > contributor, I’d do it. It’s not up to me, but if it were, I’d do it."
> 
> This seems to me a very short-sighted point of view. It may be right
> if you start a project and you do not have enough contributors to get
> it going at all. But for something where the basic number of
> contributors is already available it's time to turn users into
> committed users. 

Which basically mean "gaining contributor". He do not say where the
contributors come from, and there is no indication they should come from
the userbase. So, maybe you agree with him. ( maybe not on the scale,
which is a little bit extreme ).

> Besides, the PR footwork done by a large user base is
> cost-free and a powerful instrument. PR is as essential as
> development. You can have the best product in the world but no success
> if you have no PR (that was one of Mandriva's faults).


Fedora has a system of ambassador, who exactly do this, PR. So they
recognize this as a form of contribution.

Then if some users do PR work, they are contributors, not users ( in the
sense I understand it which would be "someone who do not contribute" ).

When he speak of users, I think he speak of someone who download the
iso, install and do noting more. No proselytism, no bug report, nothing.

Basically, having this person as user or not do not change much the
project. Now, if the person start to contribute by helping on forum, it
bring value to the project, and can be counted as someone who
contribute.

> How are contributors become attracted to a new project? Besides other
> means (fellow contributors, friends, etc.) they become attracted as
> users. They look at the product from a user's point of view, they like
> it and decide that this is something they want to spend some time,
> sweat and tears on  (remembering the fact that contributors primarily
> work to scratch their own itches with the project they like (IIRC it
> was you who wrote that)). So, if you can find a contributor, fine. But
> finding 1000 users bears the chance that there may be more than one
> contributor or user-turns-contributor among them.

Well, his point, imho, is that if you have to decide between helping
someone to contribute or helping someone to use ( in the sense we
defined previously ), you should help people to contribute.

His view is just a uncomfortable truth  :

- ressources ( ie contributors of all kind ) are scarce
- ressources diminish with time ( ie, people leave for various reason )
- so we should aim to increase the ressources to survive and to counter
the erosion 
- so we should allocate more priority into getting contributors than
simple non contributing users, because some of them will come whatever
we do. 
- in turn, having more contributors lead to more contribution, which
lead to a better project, and more satisfied users, who are likely to
grow into contributors who simply attract people because they contribute
with positive PR.

Ie, attracting contributors are likely to be a much better way to invest
time than attracting non contributing users, as it has a better ROI ( if
I may use such dehumanizing term ).

Of course, there is no clear separation between the 2 ( even if when I
say "we should treat everybody as potential contributor" ( which is a
negation of the divide ), there is always someone who remind  that
"there is some people that do not want to be treated as such" ) ).

And the fact that everybody will tell "but users also bring
contributors" is the sign that we agree that contributors are a asset.

-- 
Michael Scherer



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