Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Christian Hergert]

On 11/19/2012 08:57 AM, Stéphane Raimbault wrote:
> If we need a marketing director to convince people to use GNOME, we failed.

This is a cute statement, but is it really true?

The people that could most benefit from our choice to build a "simple to
use" system are those that are least likely to discover it on their own.

As engineers, we often have a visceral reaction to the term marketing.
That doesn't need to be the case.

-- Christian

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Andre Klapper]

On Mon, 2012-11-19 at 17:57 +0100, Stéphane Raimbault wrote:
> It's not acceptable after 3 iterations to ignore/reject the most
> frequent complaints (I don't want to list them here...).

I don't believe in design by committee.
Software development is not a popularity contest.

Also, some questionable decisions have been reverted (I don't want to
list them here...).

andre
-- 
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http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Stéphane Raimbault]

2012/11/15 Karen Sandler 

> On Thu, November 15, 2012 2:39 pm, William Jon McCann wrote:
> > Hi Karen,
> >
> > I think these are good suggestions. But I think it would be a mistake to
> > leave this critical responsibility to a committee of volunteers. One of
> > the
> > many challenges we face is that our voice and message have been too
> > inconsistent - too infrequently heard. Heard too late. Lacking authority.
> > In want of good taste. And dealing with this is taking a huge toll on our
> > ability to attract and retain contributors. Something needs to be done.
> >
> > I propose that we hire or appoint a full time director of marketing.
>
> This is a great idea! And I agree that this is a major area of need for
> us. Given the GNOME Foundation finances, it probably is also worth
> considering someone part-time (especially if there is a team of volunteers
> that can be trained and directed by such a person) or thinking creatively
> about fundraising for the position.
>

I think the GNOME project must listen its users rather than trying to sell
products.
I already see the headlines "GNOME foundation hires a director of marketing
to defend its brand" ... and the associated flame wars.

It's not acceptable after 3 iterations to ignore/reject the most frequent
complaints (I don't want to list them here...).

If we need a marketing director to convince people to use GNOME, we failed.

Stéphane
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[meg ford]

Hi,

On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 1:27 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

>
> As is available on the page referenced in every communication about the
>> removal of fallback?
>> https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>>
>> If people skip reading it intentionally, they'll only see the headline
>> and make their (uninformed) comments.
>>
>> This is pretty much what happened.
>>
> Yeah, but the name of the feature is "Drop or Fix Fallback Mode", not "New
Features that make Fallback Mode Unnecessary for Many Users.(or however you
want to put it). How can you then blame people for focusing *only* on the
fact that we are, well, *dropping fallback mode?*
*
*
Meg Ford

>
>
> That's pretty much what was happening.  People read the headline and then
> think "GNOME is getting rid of features" and then start grumbling again.
> The whole GNOME is removing stuff is a widespread meme that just
> propagates.  A lot from people still angry from the 1.0 days I think.
>
> I sometimes vacillate from "get over it" to trying to explain the
> situation.  It depends on how deep the thread is. :-)
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

> As is available on the page referenced in every communication about the
> removal of fallback?
> https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode
>
> If people skip reading it intentionally, they'll only see the headline
> and make their (uninformed) comments.
>
> This is pretty much what happened.
>


That's pretty much what was happening.  People read the headline and then
think "GNOME is getting rid of features" and then start grumbling again.
The whole GNOME is removing stuff is a widespread meme that just
propagates.  A lot from people still angry from the 1.0 days I think.

I sometimes vacillate from "get over it" to trying to explain the
situation.  It depends on how deep the thread is. :-)
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

Em Sun, 2012-11-18 às 23:39 -0600, meg ford escreveu:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts,
> which
> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly
> communicated (!)
> without details of what was done wrong, 
> 
> 
> I think it would have made a hell of a lot more sense to announce that
> there were significant improvements made to llvm pipe, and then
> explain that we were planning to drop fallback mode. That way we would
> have given credit to ourselves as a community for thinking about how
> users would be effected by the change, and then we could have gone on
> to explain why the change was necessary.

As is available on the page referenced in every communication about the
removal of fallback?
https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode

If people skip reading it intentionally, they'll only see the headline
and make their (uninformed) comments.

This is pretty much what happened.


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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[meg ford]

Hi,

>
> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
> without details of what was done wrong,


I think it would have made a hell of a lot more sense to announce that
there were significant improvements made to llvm pipe, and then explain
that we were planning to drop fallback mode. That way we would have given
credit to ourselves as a community for thinking about how users would be
effected by the change, and then we could have gone on to explain why the
change was necessary.

That's my two cents.

Meg Ford

> and used a blog post by a troll
> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
>
> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
> loose...
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Richard Stallman]

I think that overall, what GNU could do to change it is figure out what are
the LLVM guys doing to be such an attractive compiler platform compared to
GCC. LLVM is a compiler platform, it gives you many APIs and reusable
components that you can use at different levels,

We might be able to do some of these things in GCC -- but we would
need people to implement these languages.  Does GCC have front ends
for them?  I don't know.  Would anyone here like to write them?

I don't know if it supports GPU code either.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Colin Walters]

On Fri, 2012-11-16 at 20:12 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Yes, the Mesa 3D project uses LLVM to dynamically generate machine code.
> As I understand it, one of the driving factors in the technology choice
> here was that the compiler is structured as a set of libraries with an
> API - in contrast to how GCC was historically.
> 
> So in GNOME, we depend on both compilers now.
> 
> This design decision suggests that GNOME developers are focusing
> solely on their specific goals, and not taking account the advance and
> success of the GNU system as a whole.

The intersection of people contributing to both Mesa and GNOME is pretty
small.  That's something I'd like to change, but it is the basic fact
today.

I don't see the LLVM dependency as any kind of "realignment" away from
GNU or anything of the sort - as far as I'm concerned from a release
management perspective, GCC will remain the default system compiler.





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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Alberto Ruiz]

I think that overall, what GNU could do to change it is figure out what are
the LLVM guys doing to be such an attractive compiler platform compared to
GCC. LLVM is a compiler platform, it gives you many APIs and reusable
components that you can use at different levels, for example, clang, a C
compiler built on top of LLVM, allows you to do static analysis of code,
quite handy if you are developing an IDE or if you want continuous
integration.

In the graphics stack it is used to compile GLSL, OpenCL and other
GPU/parallel languages down to the GPU native language.

>From my point of view, if GCC is not providing what LLVM does, I can't see
how using code that has a BSD-like license (and effectively becomes (L)GPL
once linked to our stuff) does any harm to the values that we spread as a
project.

While we are in the topic of keeping GNU relevant, I think a major effort
to modernize autotools and other developer tools, document them properly,
having a nice UI and make it more developer friendly is long overdue. In
general I think that the core of GNU still keeps a 90s mindset. When you
compare the developer experience of the GNU toolchain these days to, for
example, .NET, iOS/XCode, Java/Eclipse... the dissapointment is huge.

If we don't keep GNU attractive to developers people will eventually stop
writing free software. (And yes, for the wrong reasons, but sometimes being
free as in beer is not enough).

I hope you find my input constructive.


2012/11/17 Richard Stallman 

> Yes, the Mesa 3D project uses LLVM to dynamically generate machine
> code.
> As I understand it, one of the driving factors in the technology choice
> here was that the compiler is structured as a set of libraries with an
> API - in contrast to how GCC was historically.
>
> So in GNOME, we depend on both compilers now.
>
> This design decision suggests that GNOME developers are focusing
> solely on their specific goals, and not taking account the advance and
> success of the GNU system as a whole.
>
> If that is the case, what can we do to change it?
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin St
> Boston MA 02110
> USA
> www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
> Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
>   Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call
>
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>



-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Richard Stallman]

Yes, the Mesa 3D project uses LLVM to dynamically generate machine code.
As I understand it, one of the driving factors in the technology choice
here was that the compiler is structured as a set of libraries with an
API - in contrast to how GCC was historically.

So in GNOME, we depend on both compilers now.

This design decision suggests that GNOME developers are focusing
solely on their specific goals, and not taking account the advance and
success of the GNU system as a whole.

If that is the case, what can we do to change it?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Shaun McCance  wrote:

> On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 22:44 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>
>
> > Let me add one other position.  We need to hire another sysadmin
> > person.  Along the same community support, we need to also be able to
> > have the infrastructure to support coming out with daily builds for
> > the community to test out and give feedback on the new designs that
> > come out.  Bug testing and performance testing as well so that we have
> > a quality product.  If we are serious about doing GNOME OS we are
> > going to need to upgrade our infrastructure.  We will need to do fund
> > raising to be able get the right hardware and the right person to
> > manage it.
>
> I do appreciate that both of these positions could be beneficial to
> GNOME, but please understand that employees are expensive, and the
> GNOME Foundation has a relatively small budget.
>
> Fundraising campaigns do not bring in the kinds of money you need
> to hire full-time employees. They're OK for short-term or part-time
> contract work.
>
>
I was thinking fundraising more for the hardware than the person.  Sorry if
that wasn't clear.  While the hardware is a one time cost, the support
contract is not and we will be required to pay for that.

sri


> --
> Shaun
>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Colin Walters]

Hi Richard,

On Fri, 2012-11-16 at 10:57 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:

> I am glad that this does work -- but why must it use LLVM?  Is there
> something in GNOME that is not designed to compile with the GNU
> compiler collection?

Yes, the Mesa 3D project uses LLVM to dynamically generate machine code.
As I understand it, one of the driving factors in the technology choice
here was that the compiler is structured as a set of libraries with an
API - in contrast to how GCC was historically.

So in GNOME, we depend on both compilers now.


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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Shaun McCance]

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 22:44 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 11:39 AM, William Jon McCann
>  wrote:
> Hi Karen,
> 
> I think these are good suggestions. But I think it would be a
> mistake to leave this critical responsibility to a committee
> of volunteers. One of the many challenges we face is that our
> voice and message have been too inconsistent - too
> infrequently heard. Heard too late. Lacking authority. In want
> of good taste. And dealing with this is taking a huge toll on
> our ability to attract and retain contributors. Something
> needs to be done.
> 
> I propose that we hire or appoint a full time director of
> marketing.
> 
> 
> Let me add one other position.  We need to hire another sysadmin
> person.  Along the same community support, we need to also be able to
> have the infrastructure to support coming out with daily builds for
> the community to test out and give feedback on the new designs that
> come out.  Bug testing and performance testing as well so that we have
> a quality product.  If we are serious about doing GNOME OS we are
> going to need to upgrade our infrastructure.  We will need to do fund
> raising to be able get the right hardware and the right person to
> manage it.

I do appreciate that both of these positions could be beneficial to
GNOME, but please understand that employees are expensive, and the
GNOME Foundation has a relatively small budget.

Fundraising campaigns do not bring in the kinds of money you need
to hire full-time employees. They're OK for short-term or part-time
contract work.

--
Shaun


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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Richard Stallman]

Well, have come you forget Radeon free driver,

I didn't forget, I remembered -- that ATI's driver requires nonfree
firmware blobs.  At least that was true about 4 years ago.  I tried to
recruit someone to reverse-engineer it, but never did.

Would you like to help?

b) ATI/AMD Radeon - most of them are supported by 'radeon' Xorg driver,
newest ones require closed source drivers

Please don't use the term "closed source" -- using that term supports
the open source ideas and opposes the basic ethical principles of the
free software movement.

d) and finally, all of these machines *can* run GNOME desktop trough
software rendering using LLVM, altough is not as snappy as it can be, it's
really works.

I am glad that this does work -- but why must it use LLVM?  Is there
something in GNOME that is not designed to compile with the GNU
compiler collection?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Richard Stallman]

If we call it "Director of Marketing" we will encourage that person,
and ourselves, to adopt "success" as the primary value and communicate
that value to others.

Thus, I suggest calling it "Director of Communication"
or "Director of Public Activism".

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Dave Neary]

Hi,
On 11/16/2012 11:43 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 23:54 -0500, Chris Leonard wrote:

http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-1/31011o0.packages.txt

http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-4/31011o4.packages.txt


Do they have OpenGL acceleration available? You say that we should
consider them in our decision making, but the majority (all?) of us
don't have access to them, so we rely on people like you telling us
about those things.


Looking at the package list, they both have GNOME Panel 3.6.0 and 
Metacity, and no GNOME Shell, so it is fair to assume that they're 
running fallback mode without 3D acceleration.


Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary, Lyon, France
Email: dne...@gnome.org
Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 23:54 -0500, Chris Leonard wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:
> > On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 08:40 -0500, Chris Leonard wrote:
> >> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Alan Cox  wrote:
> >>
> >> > If you've got a fast CPU and reasonable but unusupported graphics
> >> > hardware then it's usable but not great.
> >> >
> >> > No idea what Gnome 3 is like on a Raspberry Pi which would be the most
> >> > useful other guide as its got fairly snappy graphics but naff CPU and
> >> > relatively limited memory (512MB now)
> >>
> >> I suggest keeping an eye on the OLPC hardware as a low-end hardware
> >> benchmark for the GNOME desktop.  As for "market share" there are over
> >> 2 million XO-1 and XO-1.5 out there and AFAICT the ARM based XO-1.75
> >> is shipping and the touchscreen enabled XO-4 (in may ways similar to
> >> the XO-1.75) is on the way soon (FWIW ,I like the prototype I test
> >> on).
> >>
> >> OLPC builds are dual boot in Sugar and GNOME and I would love for
> >> GNOME to consider these users in their decision making.
> >
> > Have you shipped GNOME 3 on any of those, and, if so, were you using
> > GNOME fallback or GNOME shell?
> >
> 
> You can see the packages used for x86 and ARM builds respectively, for
> the most recent development build from OLPC
> 
> http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-1/31011o0.packages.txt
> 
> http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-4/31011o4.packages.txt
> 
> These are basically Fedora 17 (or 18) spins. I can't really answer the
> fallback or shell question as I do not fully understand the details.

Do they have OpenGL acceleration available? You say that we should
consider them in our decision making, but the majority (all?) of us
don't have access to them, so we rely on people like you telling us
about those things.

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 11:39 AM, William Jon McCann <
william.jon.mcc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Karen,
>
> I think these are good suggestions. But I think it would be a mistake to
> leave this critical responsibility to a committee of volunteers. One of the
> many challenges we face is that our voice and message have been too
> inconsistent - too infrequently heard. Heard too late. Lacking authority.
> In want of good taste. And dealing with this is taking a huge toll on our
> ability to attract and retain contributors. Something needs to be done.
>
> I propose that we hire or appoint a full time director of marketing.
>
>
Let me add one other position.  We need to hire another sysadmin person.
Along the same community support, we need to also be able to have the
infrastructure to support coming out with daily builds for the community to
test out and give feedback on the new designs that come out.  Bug testing
and performance testing as well so that we have a quality product.  If we
are serious about doing GNOME OS we are going to need to upgrade our
infrastructure.  We will need to do fund raising to be able get the right
hardware and the right person to manage it.

Regarding the community management, I think it will be challenging to find
such a person in the near term.  Going with the a team of volunteers who
are trained to do this will at least let us work out what changes we need
to make internally and externally.

Certain changes will need to be talked over with both the release team and
the marketing or community management team.  Currently, marketing team is
just a bolted on team in GNOME.  So, I think to realize your goals below we
need to change how we do things internally.

It'll be a tough slog, people don't think about community outreach.  We're
primarily a technical project and still have a lot of the hacker culture
and doing this kind of stuff is against it.  Then again, nobody ever done a
designed focused open source project either, have we? :-)

With the following responsibilities:
>
>  * Organize and work with a team of "advocates"
>  * Grok and channel the voice of the project rather than impose a separate
> agenda
>  * Consult with the design, development, testing, and documentation teams
>  * Help us clearly and effectively communicate our goals and objectives
>  * Organize the creation of press releases / release notes
>  * Blog regularly about ongoing initiatives and progress
>  * Be a beacon of light to counter the darkness
>  * Help us communicate proactively instead of reactively
>  * Educate misinformed journalists
>  * Be a point of contact for external parties that want information
>  * Reduce the burden on volunteers
>  * Delegate the above responsibilities
>
>
The one thing I wanted to do with the advocates as you call them is to
really go onto blogs and popular social media places and actually address
people who complain.  I think this works and I know I have made some
in-roads using this approach.  It's amazing how a simply listening changes
a person's perspective on GNOME.  There are of course some people who are
completely deranged but in general, I believe people turned positive. At
the very least their last interaction with us was pleasant and might be
willing to look at GNOME again later.


If nothing else, it is clear that we are failing to perform these critical
> duties. We are paying a dear price for it. I think we need to admit we need
> professional help - a point I'm sure even our harshest critics will agree
> with.
>
>
This is good to hear.  I hope others also are in agreement.  Acknowledging
we have an issue is a good first step to solving it.

sri

Jon
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Karen Sandler  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, November 14, 2012 8:40 am, Bastien Nocera wrote:
>>
>> > - And "discontent". Well, I think that I have reasonable doubts to think
>> > that those community managers wouldn't be able to carry the message of
>> > developers truthfully if said developers aren't being talked to.
>>
>> I think it's a fair point to raise issues of quality control for this
>> committee. One of the things I think we should start with for this
>> initiative is the creation of GNOME talking points/FAQ type of document.
>> The new team could do this by working with the release team, the board and
>> others in the community who would like to contribute. I think some of the
>> conversation we're having in other threads on this list are a good start
>> for that too. By going through that process, we'd be able to train the
>> volunteers and provide material to work from for the individuals to use in
>> formulating their own responses (so not a cut and paste document, but a
>> formulation of key goals, ideas and decisions). We could also create
>> infrastructure to help them out, like an IRC channel and private mailing
>> list where posts can be vetted.
>>
>> We'd also need to set up mechanisms for communication so that developers
>> can be consulted. In the end, 

Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:

>
>
> A lot of work. I simply hope that communication is inwards as well as
> outwards.
>
>
Absolutely.  It has to be both directions.


Do you want that job? :)
>

Bastian, this is pretty much mostly what I've been busy doing since 3.0.
:-) It's kind of fun actually.

sri
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 1:40 AM, Benjamin Otte  wrote:

>
> The general response I got to that post was either no response at all,
> talking
> behind my back about what what a bad person I am (at least that's what
> others
> told me) or - and this was the most concerning response for me - "You
> shouldn't
> say things like that." And that response came multiple times from very
> different
> GNOME contributors. So the lesson I learned back then is that rule number 1
> about the GNOME project is that you don't talk about the GNOME project.
>
>
My main problem with your post was that you did it as a protest and not
attending GUADEC.  You didn't trust us enough to air your grievances or
felt you wouldn't be heard.

if you feel that way we probably have work to do in this community if a
major contributor to GNOME is uncomfortable coming to a conference and
talking about his issues and thinking there was one big happy echo chamber.

sri
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Chris Leonard]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 08:40 -0500, Chris Leonard wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Alan Cox  wrote:
>>
>> > If you've got a fast CPU and reasonable but unusupported graphics
>> > hardware then it's usable but not great.
>> >
>> > No idea what Gnome 3 is like on a Raspberry Pi which would be the most
>> > useful other guide as its got fairly snappy graphics but naff CPU and
>> > relatively limited memory (512MB now)
>>
>> I suggest keeping an eye on the OLPC hardware as a low-end hardware
>> benchmark for the GNOME desktop.  As for "market share" there are over
>> 2 million XO-1 and XO-1.5 out there and AFAICT the ARM based XO-1.75
>> is shipping and the touchscreen enabled XO-4 (in may ways similar to
>> the XO-1.75) is on the way soon (FWIW ,I like the prototype I test
>> on).
>>
>> OLPC builds are dual boot in Sugar and GNOME and I would love for
>> GNOME to consider these users in their decision making.
>
> Have you shipped GNOME 3 on any of those, and, if so, were you using
> GNOME fallback or GNOME shell?
>

You can see the packages used for x86 and ARM builds respectively, for
the most recent development build from OLPC

http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-1/31011o0.packages.txt

http://build.laptop.org/13.1.0/os11/xo-4/31011o4.packages.txt

These are basically Fedora 17 (or 18) spins. I can't really answer the
fallback or shell question as I do not fully understand the details.

cjl
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 08:40 -0500, Chris Leonard wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Alan Cox  wrote:
> 
> > If you've got a fast CPU and reasonable but unusupported graphics
> > hardware then it's usable but not great.
> >
> > No idea what Gnome 3 is like on a Raspberry Pi which would be the most
> > useful other guide as its got fairly snappy graphics but naff CPU and
> > relatively limited memory (512MB now)
> 
> I suggest keeping an eye on the OLPC hardware as a low-end hardware
> benchmark for the GNOME desktop.  As for "market share" there are over
> 2 million XO-1 and XO-1.5 out there and AFAICT the ARM based XO-1.75
> is shipping and the touchscreen enabled XO-4 (in may ways similar to
> the XO-1.75) is on the way soon (FWIW ,I like the prototype I test
> on).
> 
> OLPC builds are dual boot in Sugar and GNOME and I would love for
> GNOME to consider these users in their decision making.

Have you shipped GNOME 3 on any of those, and, if so, were you using
GNOME fallback or GNOME shell?

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 16:56 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 4:08 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
> > The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features
> > for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
> > guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.
> 
> Are you saying that a fallback mode was never guaranteed ?
> 
> As I recall, providing a fallback was indeed a blocker for GNOME 3
> initial release... it was also around then that somehow gnome-shell
> was included in gnome releases without the regular module proposal
> period.
> 
> Actually a non-negligible number of desktops as I understand running
> gnome based desktops just don't have the graphics hardware
> needed to run the shell (from my personal experience, in south
> america many, if not even most of the public desktops found in
> hostels etc, used by travelers... were actually running gnome).
> 
> What has changed since the initial GNOME 3 release and now ?

A number of things already mentioned in the d-d-l thread and on the wiki
page, but mainly loads of bug fixes to the LLVMpipe renderer, and a
better idea which use cases we want to support.

> Is gnome-shell now optimized and usable on said, older hardware ?

There's a number of bugs blocking the 3.8 release about disabling
animations in a number of cases (exported displays through VNC or SPICE,
low-end machines). They're all linked from the wiki page and the
bugzilla.

> Perhaps what we need is not a person/group of people working
> for 'good press' and telling people that we have their best interests
> at heart, but rather a bit more transparency in how we make our
> decisions... reinstating our module proposals might be a good
> first step towards including the whole community and getting them
> more involved in decision making again.

There was a discussion 6 months ago where we decided to keep fallback
mode, and another one happened about a month ago where we ended up
deciding not to.

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Karen Sandler]

On Thu, November 15, 2012 2:39 pm, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Hi Karen,
>
> I think these are good suggestions. But I think it would be a mistake to
> leave this critical responsibility to a committee of volunteers. One of
> the
> many challenges we face is that our voice and message have been too
> inconsistent - too infrequently heard. Heard too late. Lacking authority.
> In want of good taste. And dealing with this is taking a huge toll on our
> ability to attract and retain contributors. Something needs to be done.
>
> I propose that we hire or appoint a full time director of marketing.

This is a great idea! And I agree that this is a major area of need for
us. Given the GNOME Foundation finances, it probably is also worth
considering someone part-time (especially if there is a team of volunteers
that can be trained and directed by such a person) or thinking creatively
about fundraising for the position.

The other challenge will be to find the right person for the position. In
the past, organizations I worked with who hired for these kinds of
positions had a really tough time finding someone with the right skillset
already and who also understood free software and was affordable. But we
can tackle that and set up a hiring process if we decide this is what we
want to do and can raise the funds.

We'll take it to the board! In the meantime, as I return from maternity
leave (I'm not fully back for a few weeks), I can help push forward some
of these tasks - some of them have gone in and out of my queue over the
last year depending on my other commitments - though many of them require
someone more trained than me to do well. We've been talking about various
ideas on the marketing list, including a weekly podcast/oggcast about
GNOME.

If we can get that together, mind being on the first one, Jon? :D

karen

>
> With the following responsibilities:
>
>  * Organize and work with a team of "advocates"
>  * Grok and channel the voice of the project rather than impose a separate
> agenda
>  * Consult with the design, development, testing, and documentation teams
>  * Help us clearly and effectively communicate our goals and objectives
>  * Organize the creation of press releases / release notes
>  * Blog regularly about ongoing initiatives and progress
>  * Be a beacon of light to counter the darkness
>  * Help us communicate proactively instead of reactively
>  * Educate misinformed journalists
>  * Be a point of contact for external parties that want information
>  * Reduce the burden on volunteers
>  * Delegate the above responsibilities
>
> If nothing else, it is clear that we are failing to perform these critical
> duties. We are paying a dear price for it. I think we need to admit we
> need
> professional help - a point I'm sure even our harshest critics will agree
> with.
>
> Jon
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Karen Sandler  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, November 14, 2012 8:40 am, Bastien Nocera wrote:
>>
>> > - And "discontent". Well, I think that I have reasonable doubts to
>> think
>> > that those community managers wouldn't be able to carry the message of
>> > developers truthfully if said developers aren't being talked to.
>>
>> I think it's a fair point to raise issues of quality control for this
>> committee. One of the things I think we should start with for this
>> initiative is the creation of GNOME talking points/FAQ type of document.
>> The new team could do this by working with the release team, the board
>> and
>> others in the community who would like to contribute. I think some of
>> the
>> conversation we're having in other threads on this list are a good start
>> for that too. By going through that process, we'd be able to train the
>> volunteers and provide material to work from for the individuals to use
>> in
>> formulating their own responses (so not a cut and paste document, but a
>> formulation of key goals, ideas and decisions). We could also create
>> infrastructure to help them out, like an IRC channel and private mailing
>> list where posts can be vetted.
>>
>> We'd also need to set up mechanisms for communication so that developers
>> can be consulted. In the end, I think this could wind up being a lot
>> easier for our core developers, who seem to be often put on the spot to
>> defend their work. Having a team that these developers can talk to and
>> count on to repeatedly respond on behalf of the project seems to me like
>> a
>> great way to preserve those people's time. Are there other ways we could
>> improve this side of the conversation?
>>
>> karen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Raphaël Jacquot]

On 15 nov. 2012, at 22:19, "pec...@gmail.com"  wrote:

> d) and finally, all of these machines *can* run GNOME desktop trough software 
> rendering using LLVM, altough is not as snappy as it can be, it's really 
> works.

which prevents from running gnome on things like raspberry pi and the like...
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[pec...@gmail.com]

Well, have come you forget Radeon free driver, who supports impressive
number of cards which work without a glitch with GNOME Shell, Unity and
similar software :)

In fact, most of the machines than can run has
a) Either Intel graphics - works perfectly
b) ATI/AMD Radeon - most of them are supported by 'radeon' Xorg driver,
newest ones require closed source drivers
c) Nvidia cards
d) and finally, all of these machines *can* run GNOME desktop trough
software rendering using LLVM, altough is not as snappy as it can be, it's
really works.

So Richard, things *are* improving :) We are at much less mercy of closed
drivers than before.

Respectfully,
Peter.

2012/11/15 Richard Stallman 

> Actually a non-negligible number of desktops as I understand running
> gnome based desktops just don't have the graphics hardware
> needed to run the shell
>
> Even worse, most of the machines that CAN run it
> need nonfree software to run it -- which means that we
> should urge people not to buy them.
>
> The only graphics accelerators I know of that don't require nonfree
> software are some Intel ones, and the nVidia devices which Nouveau
> supports.
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin St
> Boston MA 02110
> USA
> www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
> Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
>   Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call
>
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>



-- 
mortigi tempo
Pēteris Krišjānis
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[William Jon McCann]

Hi Karen,

I think these are good suggestions. But I think it would be a mistake to
leave this critical responsibility to a committee of volunteers. One of the
many challenges we face is that our voice and message have been too
inconsistent - too infrequently heard. Heard too late. Lacking authority.
In want of good taste. And dealing with this is taking a huge toll on our
ability to attract and retain contributors. Something needs to be done.

I propose that we hire or appoint a full time director of marketing.

With the following responsibilities:

 * Organize and work with a team of "advocates"
 * Grok and channel the voice of the project rather than impose a separate
agenda
 * Consult with the design, development, testing, and documentation teams
 * Help us clearly and effectively communicate our goals and objectives
 * Organize the creation of press releases / release notes
 * Blog regularly about ongoing initiatives and progress
 * Be a beacon of light to counter the darkness
 * Help us communicate proactively instead of reactively
 * Educate misinformed journalists
 * Be a point of contact for external parties that want information
 * Reduce the burden on volunteers
 * Delegate the above responsibilities

If nothing else, it is clear that we are failing to perform these critical
duties. We are paying a dear price for it. I think we need to admit we need
professional help - a point I'm sure even our harshest critics will agree
with.

Jon



On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Karen Sandler  wrote:

> On Wed, November 14, 2012 8:40 am, Bastien Nocera wrote:
>
> > - And "discontent". Well, I think that I have reasonable doubts to think
> > that those community managers wouldn't be able to carry the message of
> > developers truthfully if said developers aren't being talked to.
>
> I think it's a fair point to raise issues of quality control for this
> committee. One of the things I think we should start with for this
> initiative is the creation of GNOME talking points/FAQ type of document.
> The new team could do this by working with the release team, the board and
> others in the community who would like to contribute. I think some of the
> conversation we're having in other threads on this list are a good start
> for that too. By going through that process, we'd be able to train the
> volunteers and provide material to work from for the individuals to use in
> formulating their own responses (so not a cut and paste document, but a
> formulation of key goals, ideas and decisions). We could also create
> infrastructure to help them out, like an IRC channel and private mailing
> list where posts can be vetted.
>
> We'd also need to set up mechanisms for communication so that developers
> can be consulted. In the end, I think this could wind up being a lot
> easier for our core developers, who seem to be often put on the spot to
> defend their work. Having a team that these developers can talk to and
> count on to repeatedly respond on behalf of the project seems to me like a
> great way to preserve those people's time. Are there other ways we could
> improve this side of the conversation?
>
> karen
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

Em Wed, 2012-11-14 às 11:08 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna escreveu:
> The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing
> features for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode
> was never guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.
> 
> Having a good relationship with the general public is more important
> now than it was in the past thanks to social media.  For example, with
> Ubuntu (who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no
> longer the default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to
> GNOME.  If they do the research, I don't want them to see a pile of
> ridiculous blog postings that aren't challenged by calm and simple
> rhetoric.

A lot of work. I simply hope that communication is inwards as well as
outwards.

> Regarding, Emily's post.  You need to look at the overall message
> there.  Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are
> having this discussion with other people who clearly have the same
> concerns is indicative that we do have a problem.  If you think there
> is no problem, we an drop this whole thing.
> 
> Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without
> some training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our
> volunteers understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and
> the community at large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and
> purpose.  That means, release team, designers, and relevant parties
> will need to help these volunteers in understanding it before going
> out there and speaking in our name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of
> us.
> 
> The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real
> feedback without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to
> produce awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity.  The
> only thing I ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is
> being provided to you.  If the feedback is negative, help us engage
> with the community with the right approach.  If the feedback is
> positive, then I hope you will take that as encourage and motivation
> to keep doing it.

Do you want that job? :)

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Richard Stallman]

Actually a non-negligible number of desktops as I understand running
gnome based desktops just don't have the graphics hardware
needed to run the shell

Even worse, most of the machines that CAN run it
need nonfree software to run it -- which means that we
should urge people not to buy them.

The only graphics accelerators I know of that don't require nonfree
software are some Intel ones, and the nVidia devices which Nouveau
supports.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Chris Leonard]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Alan Cox  wrote:

> If you've got a fast CPU and reasonable but unusupported graphics
> hardware then it's usable but not great.
>
> No idea what Gnome 3 is like on a Raspberry Pi which would be the most
> useful other guide as its got fairly snappy graphics but naff CPU and
> relatively limited memory (512MB now)

I suggest keeping an eye on the OLPC hardware as a low-end hardware
benchmark for the GNOME desktop.  As for "market share" there are over
2 million XO-1 and XO-1.5 out there and AFAICT the ARM based XO-1.75
is shipping and the touchscreen enabled XO-4 (in may ways similar to
the XO-1.75) is on the way soon (FWIW ,I like the prototype I test
on).

OLPC builds are dual boot in Sugar and GNOME and I would love for
GNOME to consider these users in their decision making.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-1
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-1.5
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-1.75
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-4

Just a thought about a large definable "community segment" where
hardware is tightly defined.

cjl
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Alberto Ruiz]

2012/11/15 Benjamin Otte 

> The general response I got to that post was either no response at all,
> talking
> behind my back about what what a bad person I am (at least that's what
> others
> told me) or - and this was the most concerning response for me - "You
> shouldn't
> say things like that." And that response came multiple times from very
> different
> GNOME contributors. So the lesson I learned back then is that rule number 1
> about the GNOME project is that you don't talk about the GNOME project.
>
>
If you ask me, I think you should have thought twice on whether what you
were writing was accurate, whether those opinions came out of actual facts,
or whether you were just somewhat disappointed and decided to rant as an
emotional outlet.

You have to admit that when someone is a somewhat relevant member of the
community, saying such things implies certain responsibility and sends
certain message to the outer public.

I joined GNOME in 2003, and it is very easy to see how thriving this
community is right now, we have more contributors than ever, we have more
focus than ever.

The one thing that was somewhat true is that we have less corporate
support, back then IBM, Sun, Novell, Nokia and many other people were
looking at GNOME as a platform to build products from. These days that's
not the case. Market has changed, and sure, getting a job where you can do
GNOMEy stuff is hard.

But let's be honest, this is, by no means, any worse than the state of
affairs in 2001, we've been in a way worse situation before, with way less
contributors and way less accumulated knowledge and experience. And we
moved forward.

I think that some of the old farts like us are somewhat discouraged that we
are not in the place where we thought GNOME would be by now (10x10 or GNOME
based phones, or something like that), and it is easy to lose enthusiasm
over time.

The reason why a lot of people were upset about that blog post is that it
could take enthusiasm away from newcomers or people considering joining to
help us.

Now let's check the facts, look at what we've accomplished in the latest
couple of years. 3.0 was a major effort, GSettings, Gtk+, GNOME Shell,
PyGObject...
I am humbled by the ammount of cordination and shared vision that it takes
to come up with all of what we've done.

Sure, it's not perfect, sure we have many challenges, but it's hard to look
at the hard facts and not be amazed.

Yup, some of the old farts might be tired, people evolve, change, and want
to do new things, but it is our responsibility to encourage the newer
generations.

If the message we send to the new contributors is "Don't bother, this is a
dead end", who is going to want to join? Would you imagine Linus Torlvads
saying how awful the Linux kernel project is just because he is tired of it
or somewhat discouraged?

TL,DR;

There's nothing wrong with expressing your opinion, none is asking you to
stop doing that, but what we say have consequences, and being a relevant
member of the community as yourself, poses some responsibility in what you
say. Plus, we have many reasons to celebrate and enjoy GNOME as a project
and a community these days.

Fwiw, I still don't think Emily should characterize me as "break[ing] API’s
> at
> random" and "purposefully ensuring that [..] themes cease to work", but I
> think
> she has all the right in the world to do that as long as I get the right
> to use
> my choice words to answer to that. I'd rather have her calling me that than
> nobody saying anything at all.
>
> > I can understand that their intentions are noble, but the last time
> someone
> > took their chances we ended up with:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#cite_note-6
> >
> Fun fact: I didn't know I ended up on Wikipedia (Someone should file a bug
> against Wordpress' pingback feature). Isn't it discouraged to cite blogs on
> Wikipedia? [1] :)
>
> Benjamin
>
> 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blogs_as_sources
>
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-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Vincent Untz]

Hi Tristan,

Le jeudi 15 novembre 2012, à 16:56 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom a écrit :
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 4:08 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
> > The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features
> > for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
> > guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.
> 
> Are you saying that a fallback mode was never guaranteed ?

I don't think it was guaranteed for the whole GNOME 3 lifecycle
(although, I personally believe it might have been nice to do so, but
our resources makes it impossible). Keep in mind that when 3.8 will be
out next March, it will be nearly two years since the 3.0 relese --
that's quite some time already.

[...]

> Perhaps what we need is not a person/group of people working
> for 'good press' and telling people that we have their best interests
> at heart, but rather a bit more transparency in how we make our
> decisions... reinstating our module proposals might be a good
> first step towards including the whole community and getting them
> more involved in decision making again.

Did you miss the discussion on desktop-devel-list about the future of
the fallback mode [1]? If no, how could it have been made more
transparent?

To me, the discussion clearly highlighted that there was a problem of
manpower to keep maintaining the fallback mode an official part of
GNOME, with the quality standards we expect from such an official
component.

Cheers,

Vincent

[1] 
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-October/msg00107.html

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Allan Day]

Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
...
> Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without some
> training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our volunteers
> understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community at
> large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose.  That means,
> release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these
> volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in our
> name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of us.
...

One thing that I've wanted to do for a while is hold regular marketing
meetings, where marketing contributors can find out what is happening
in the project, so that they can follow up with news posts and
articles. This could fit in well with what you are proposing here, and
would be a good opportunity for people who want to contribute to get a
foot in the door.

Allan
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Alan Cox]

> What has changed since the initial GNOME 3 release and now ?

The software rendering in Mesa improved dramatically and also has some
limited ability to use GEM to optimise data paths on certain cards.

> Is gnome-shell now optimized and usable on said, older hardware ?

Some of the problem hardware is quite current. On netbook type devices
with Imagination graphics (and thus unaccelerated) for example it's sort
of usable but feels sluggish, while other desktops are quite snappy. On
the x86 tablet with Imaginationg graphics I have its horrendous
(especially when doing 1080p external video)

Even on a decent x86 box the inability to run without a compositor is a
killer for doing some kinds of graphics work as the latency it adds is
sufficient to be painful.

If you've got a fast CPU and reasonable but unusupported graphics
hardware then it's usable but not great.

No idea what Gnome 3 is like on a Raspberry Pi which would be the most
useful other guide as its got fairly snappy graphics but naff CPU and
relatively limited memory (512MB now)

> Perhaps what we need is not a person/group of people working
> for 'good press' and telling people that we have their best interests
> at heart, but rather a bit more transparency in how we make our

You can do all the telling you like. It's the listening and explaining
which matters.

Alan
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Benjamin Otte]

Sriram Ramkrishna  ramkrishna.me> writes:
>
> There was nothing more damaging than Company's post which is still quoted
> even today.  Benjamin even today said that nobody refuted his "staring at the
> Abyss" post.  So his Benjamin's post true?  Because people are still talking
> about it and referencing it.  It was  gift that continues to keep on giving.
> What Benjamin posted was totally fine by me, he has a right to air his
> concerns in public.  It is a public project after all.
>
The general response I got to that post was either no response at all, talking
behind my back about what what a bad person I am (at least that's what others
told me) or - and this was the most concerning response for me - "You shouldn't
say things like that." And that response came multiple times from very different
GNOME contributors. So the lesson I learned back then is that rule number 1
about the GNOME project is that you don't talk about the GNOME project.

Fwiw, I still don't think Emily should characterize me as "break[ing] API’s at
random" and "purposefully ensuring that [..] themes cease to work", but I think
she has all the right in the world to do that as long as I get the right to use
my choice words to answer to that. I'd rather have her calling me that than
nobody saying anything at all.

> I can understand that their intentions are noble, but the last time someone
> took their chances we ended up with:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#cite_note-6
> 
Fun fact: I didn't know I ended up on Wikipedia (Someone should file a bug
against Wordpress' pingback feature). Isn't it discouraged to cite blogs on
Wikipedia? [1] :)

Benjamin

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blogs_as_sources

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On 14 November 2012 10:03, Dave Neary  wrote:

>
> While I don't quite like the title "community managers", I appreciate the
> role and the sentiment.


I agree as well, as a developer I often have desired that someone would
coordinate efforts to make our community a better place to contribute to.


> Would love to see people working inside and outside the GNOME community to
> do better at communicating our goals, vision, and work. I would hope that
> this doesn't end up being "sit on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,
> and send happy messages to anyone complaining about GNOME".
>

I think a community manager would have a broader role, as hinted above.

Regards,

Tomeu


> Cheers,
> Dave.
>
> --
> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
> Email: dne...@gnome.org
> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Andy Tai]

Managing the community... or the community manages?


On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

>
> I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help engage
> with our community.
>
> We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea of
> what we're trying to do.  I'm looking for some talented folks who can help
> us engage with the press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our
> vision.
>
> Send me some email, I want to hear from you!
>
> sri
>
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>


-- 
Andy Tai, a...@atai.org, Skype: licheng.tai
Year 2012 民國101年
自動的精神力是信仰與覺悟
自動的行為力是勞動與技能
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Tristan Van Berkom]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 4:08 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna  wrote:
> The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features
> for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
> guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.

Are you saying that a fallback mode was never guaranteed ?

As I recall, providing a fallback was indeed a blocker for GNOME 3
initial release... it was also around then that somehow gnome-shell
was included in gnome releases without the regular module proposal
period.

Actually a non-negligible number of desktops as I understand running
gnome based desktops just don't have the graphics hardware
needed to run the shell (from my personal experience, in south
america many, if not even most of the public desktops found in
hostels etc, used by travelers... were actually running gnome).

What has changed since the initial GNOME 3 release and now ?

Is gnome-shell now optimized and usable on said, older hardware ?

Perhaps what we need is not a person/group of people working
for 'good press' and telling people that we have their best interests
at heart, but rather a bit more transparency in how we make our
decisions... reinstating our module proposals might be a good
first step towards including the whole community and getting them
more involved in decision making again.

Best,
 -Tristan

>
> Having a good relationship with the general public is more important now
> than it was in the past thanks to social media.  For example, with Ubuntu
> (who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no longer the
> default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to GNOME.  If they do
> the research, I don't want them to see a pile of ridiculous blog postings
> that aren't challenged by calm and simple rhetoric.
>
> Regarding, Emily's post.  You need to look at the overall message there.
> Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are having this
> discussion with other people who clearly have the same concerns is
> indicative that we do have a problem.  If you think there is no problem, we
> an drop this whole thing.
>
> Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without some
> training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our volunteers
> understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community at
> large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose.  That means,
> release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these
> volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in our
> name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of us.
>
> The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real feedback
> without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to produce
> awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity.  The only thing I
> ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is being provided to
> you.  If the feedback is negative, help us engage with the community with
> the right approach.  If the feedback is positive, then I hope you will take
> that as encourage and motivation to keep doing it.
>
> sri
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:
>>
>> Hey Sri,
>>
>> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>> >
>> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
>> > engage with our community.
>> >
>> > We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
>> > of what we're trying to do.
>>
>> Which is?
>>
>> > I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
>> > press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
>>
>> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
>> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
>> without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
>> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
>>
>> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
>> loose...
>>
>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Paul Cutler]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Karen Sandler  wrote:

> One of the things I think we should start with for this
> initiative is the creation of GNOME talking points/FAQ type of document.
>

We did something similar prior to the GNOME 3.0 release[1] to help dispel
myths / FUD around GNOME 3.0.

Paul

[1] https://live.gnome.org/GNOME3Myths
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Karen Sandler]

On Wed, November 14, 2012 8:40 am, Bastien Nocera wrote:

> - And "discontent". Well, I think that I have reasonable doubts to think
> that those community managers wouldn't be able to carry the message of
> developers truthfully if said developers aren't being talked to.

I think it's a fair point to raise issues of quality control for this
committee. One of the things I think we should start with for this
initiative is the creation of GNOME talking points/FAQ type of document.
The new team could do this by working with the release team, the board and
others in the community who would like to contribute. I think some of the
conversation we're having in other threads on this list are a good start
for that too. By going through that process, we'd be able to train the
volunteers and provide material to work from for the individuals to use in
formulating their own responses (so not a cut and paste document, but a
formulation of key goals, ideas and decisions). We could also create
infrastructure to help them out, like an IRC channel and private mailing
list where posts can be vetted.

We'd also need to set up mechanisms for communication so that developers
can be consulted. In the end, I think this could wind up being a lot
easier for our core developers, who seem to be often put on the spot to
defend their work. Having a team that these developers can talk to and
count on to repeatedly respond on behalf of the project seems to me like a
great way to preserve those people's time. Are there other ways we could
improve this side of the conversation?

karen





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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 5:37 PM, Debarshi Ray  wrote:

> > Maybe private email? Maybe bringing it up in a different way? Sri's
> > initial email didn't mention Emily at all - were you just waiting for an
> > opportunity to bring up your discontent?
>
> The point still remains that people posting on Planet GNOME should be more
> informed about what they write. Especially when they are writing about a
> sensitive topic and their words can be interpreted by outsiders as coming
> from
> a position of authority.
>
>
I take some responsibility for the post.  Emily ran it by me before posting
it and I thought it was fine.  She did attempt to get feedback before
posting.  Maybe I failed her there.

There was nothing more damaging than Company's post which is still quoted
even today.  Benjamin even today said that nobody refuted his "staring at
the Abyss" post.  So his Benjamin's post true?  Because people are still
talking about it and referencing it.  It was  gift that continues to keep
on giving.  What Benjamin posted was totally fine by me, he has a right to
air his concerns in public.  It is a public project after all.  I will
argue the same for Emily.

All most people will get out of Emily's post is that communication is
important.  Maybe it was a bit inartful, but I think we should forgive that.


> I can understand that their intentions are noble, but the last time someone
> took their chances we ended up with:
> http://en.wikipedia.orgkeeps/wiki/GNOME#cite_note-6
>
>
Again, nobody refuted it.  So is it true?  Did we have a legion of
developers saying otherwise?  How many posts did we have refuting that?
Two or three?


> Biting the hand that feeds you [1] is not the answer to effective
> communication.
>
>
Is communications both internally and externally not important?

sri


> Happy hacking,
> Debarshi
>
> [1]
> http://todoentiempo.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/open-communication/#comment-574
> --
> There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming
> things and off-by-one errors.
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Andrew Cowie <
and...@operationaldynamics.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 11:50 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
>
> > Sheesh.
>
> Seems an over-reaction, Dave. We've had some abysmal press lately, and I
> agree with Bastien; a number of the things generating headlines have
> little to do with facts or with what people who are "in" GNOME are
> actually doing. But we still look bad all the same.
>
>
This is precisely why you want someone to just engage and state the facts.


> I'm not sure how creating a "community manager" position is going to
> change that. Ubuntu has a community manager. The job description seems
> to be slavishly saying how great everything is. Admittedly, that *is*
> PR, but I ended up unsubscribing/unfollowing/uncircling him from all my
> networks because the banging-the-drum was incessant.
>
>
I'm not really trying to do PR here.  I'm trying to address certain
misconceptions that come about constantly every time a GNOME is brought up
in a post.  There aren't enough positive reactions from users to
counterbalance.

As I said, I've been doing this since 3.0, engaging members of our
community from Linus on down to some random poster on G+.  When you do
engage you do create a positive outcome.  Even if they don't agree with you
in the end and you part ways they will leave at least respectful.  Tha'ts
good enough for me.

The idea here is not to be GNOME rah rah rah.  If you don't agree with
where it is going, then that's fine.  But I won't stand to hear the
standard FUD about removing features or that GNOME developers are taking
over and doing things over the community.  It's all a bunch of crap.  You
have to address it before it becomes common wisdom.


> So how can we communicate effectively without making it seem we're being
> slavish?
>

It's simple, you trust that the path you're going on is the right one and
then explain, sometime ad nauseum what we're trying to do.  Ask them to
give it a chance.  If you still don't like it then ask them what they
didn't like about it.  If you have a large number of people saying the same
thing then maybe there is something we need to look at.  If it is because
it is some kind of ego trip or whatever then I'll ignore it.  I've done
this enough times to figure out what is what.

sri

>
> AfC
> Sydney
>
>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Debarshi Ray]

> Maybe private email? Maybe bringing it up in a different way? Sri's 
> initial email didn't mention Emily at all - were you just waiting for an 
> opportunity to bring up your discontent?

The point still remains that people posting on Planet GNOME should be more
informed about what they write. Especially when they are writing about a
sensitive topic and their words can be interpreted by outsiders as coming from
a position of authority.

I can understand that their intentions are noble, but the last time someone
took their chances we ended up with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#cite_note-6

(Yes, I know Wikipedia is a community project and anyone can edit a page, and
so on, but GNOME is a community driven free software project too and we are
not that different from them.)

Biting the hand that feeds you [1] is not the answer to effective
communication.

Happy hacking,
Debarshi

[1] http://todoentiempo.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/open-communication/#comment-574
-- 
There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming
things and off-by-one errors.


pgp6kBohLMEU8.pgp
Description: PGP signature
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Andrew Cowie]

On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 11:50 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:

> Sheesh.

Seems an over-reaction, Dave. We've had some abysmal press lately, and I
agree with Bastien; a number of the things generating headlines have
little to do with facts or with what people who are "in" GNOME are
actually doing. But we still look bad all the same.

I'm not sure how creating a "community manager" position is going to
change that. Ubuntu has a community manager. The job description seems
to be slavishly saying how great everything is. Admittedly, that *is*
PR, but I ended up unsubscribing/unfollowing/uncircling him from all my
networks because the banging-the-drum was incessant.

So how can we communicate effectively without making it seem we're being
slavish?

AfC
Sydney



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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Karen Sandler]

On Wed, November 14, 2012 2:28 pm, meg ford wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna
> wrote:
>
>> The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing
>> features
>> for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
>> guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.
>>
>> Having a good relationship with the general public is more important now
>> than it was in the past thanks to social media.  For example, with
>> Ubuntu
>> (who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no longer the
>> default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to GNOME.  If they
>> do
>> the research, I don't want them to see a pile of ridiculous blog
>> postings
>> that aren't challenged by calm and simple rhetoric.
>>
>> Regarding, Emily's post.  You need to look at the overall message there.
>> Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are having this
>> discussion with other people who clearly have the same concerns is
>> indicative that we do have a problem.  If you think there is no problem,
>> we
>> an drop this whole thing.
>>
>> Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without
>> some
>> training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our
>> volunteers
>> understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community
>> at
>> large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose.  That
>> means,
>> release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these
>> volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in
>> our
>> name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of us.
>>
>
> I'd like to request that Karen also provide the members of the board with
> the information she shares with the volunteers. It's demoralizing to see
> members of the board arguing about GNOME's vision and purpose. If we are
> going to present a positive image of ourselves to the public, I think we
> need to at least have the board members agreeing on the basic message. I
> hope this doesn't offend anyone; I'm just saying this because, as a member
> of the foundation, I would really appreciate it if the board members could
> present a united front.

Great point, Meg. I think the board should definitely be involved in this
process, as they are our elected representatives. I of course commit to
doing everything I can to help make that happen.

In any event, I agree with you that a coordinated basic message (with
flexibility for individual perspectives) should be of the utmost
importance.

I'm glad we're undertaking this effort - I hope it will help drive us to
be more coordinated all around.

karen

> Meg Ford
>
>>
>> The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real
>> feedback
>> without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to produce
>> awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity.  The only
>> thing I
>> ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is being provided
>> to
>> you.  If the feedback is negative, help us engage with the community
>> with
>> the right approach.  If the feedback is positive, then I hope you will
>> take
>> that as encourage and motivation to keep doing it.
>>
>> sri
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Bastien Nocera 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Sri,
>>>
>>> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>>> >
>>> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
>>> > engage with our community.
>>> >
>>> > We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong
>>> idea
>>> > of what we're trying to do.
>>>
>>> Which is?
>>>
>>> > I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
>>> > press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
>>>
>>> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
>>> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
>>> without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
>>> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
>>>
>>> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
>>> loose...
>>>
>>>
>>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[meg ford]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

> The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features
> for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
> guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.
>
> Having a good relationship with the general public is more important now
> than it was in the past thanks to social media.  For example, with Ubuntu
> (who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no longer the
> default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to GNOME.  If they do
> the research, I don't want them to see a pile of ridiculous blog postings
> that aren't challenged by calm and simple rhetoric.
>
> Regarding, Emily's post.  You need to look at the overall message there.
> Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are having this
> discussion with other people who clearly have the same concerns is
> indicative that we do have a problem.  If you think there is no problem, we
> an drop this whole thing.
>
> Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without some
> training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our volunteers
> understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community at
> large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose.  That means,
> release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these
> volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in our
> name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of us.
>

I'd like to request that Karen also provide the members of the board with
the information she shares with the volunteers. It's demoralizing to see
members of the board arguing about GNOME's vision and purpose. If we are
going to present a positive image of ourselves to the public, I think we
need to at least have the board members agreeing on the basic message. I
hope this doesn't offend anyone; I'm just saying this because, as a member
of the foundation, I would really appreciate it if the board members could
present a united front.

Meg Ford

>
> The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real feedback
> without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to produce
> awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity.  The only thing I
> ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is being provided to
> you.  If the feedback is negative, help us engage with the community with
> the right approach.  If the feedback is positive, then I hope you will take
> that as encourage and motivation to keep doing it.
>
> sri
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:
>
>> Hey Sri,
>>
>> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>> >
>> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
>> > engage with our community.
>> >
>> > We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
>> > of what we're trying to do.
>>
>> Which is?
>>
>> > I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
>> > press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
>>
>> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
>> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
>> without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
>> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
>>
>> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
>> loose...
>>
>>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

The wrong idea of course is that people think we're just removing features
for no apparent reason even though for instance fallback mode was never
guarantee.  We need to correct those misconceptions.

Having a good relationship with the general public is more important now
than it was in the past thanks to social media.  For example, with Ubuntu
(who holds the largest share of users right now), GNOME is no longer the
default and so it takes a conscious effort to change to GNOME.  If they do
the research, I don't want them to see a pile of ridiculous blog postings
that aren't challenged by calm and simple rhetoric.

Regarding, Emily's post.  You need to look at the overall message there.
Not everyone is on the same page, and the fact that we are having this
discussion with other people who clearly have the same concerns is
indicative that we do have a problem.  If you think there is no problem, we
an drop this whole thing.

Community enthusiasts won't go out there using the 'royal we' without some
training.  This stuff isn't easy, and it is important that our volunteers
understand how to engage in both the GNOME community and the community at
large.  They will need training on GNOME's vision and purpose.  That means,
release team, designers, and relevant parties will need to help these
volunteers in understanding it before going out there and speaking in our
name.  I'm having Karen be in charge of us.

The end goal is to reduce the signal to noise ratio and get real feedback
without hyperbole and let developers and designers be able to produce
awesome stuff without feeling buried in undue negativity.  The only thing I
ask in return is that you consider the feedback that is being provided to
you.  If the feedback is negative, help us engage with the community with
the right approach.  If the feedback is positive, then I hope you will take
that as encourage and motivation to keep doing it.

sri


On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:

> Hey Sri,
>
> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> >
> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
> > engage with our community.
> >
> > We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
> > of what we're trying to do.
>
> Which is?
>
> > I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
> > press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
>
> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
> managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
> without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
> to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
>
> You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
> loose...
>
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

I could go with community enthusiasts if that makes it better.  But their
stated role is to help communicate to the general public what are goals and
visions are, but also take relevant feedback to the community.

To some extent, yes it does involve sitting on social networks, or popular
blogs and magazines.  But more importantly, the idea is to be visible.  It
doesn't necessarily mean "happy messages".  We aren't going to apologize
for where we are headed.  Not everyone can adapt or change to what we
want.  But we do want to address issues or gaps that maybe we have not
taken into account.

sri


On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:03 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> On 11/14/2012 01:07 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help engage
>> with our community.
>>
>> We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
>> of what we're trying to do.  I'm looking for some talented folks who can
>> help us engage with the press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain
>> our vision.
>>
>> Send me some email, I want to hear from you!
>>
>
> While I don't quite like the title "community managers", I appreciate the
> role and the sentiment. Would love to see people working inside and outside
> the GNOME community to do better at communicating our goals, vision, and
> work. I would hope that this doesn't end up being "sit on Google+,
> Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and send happy messages to anyone
> complaining about GNOME".
>
> Cheers,
> Dave.
>
> --
> Dave Neary, Lyon, France
> Email: dne...@gnome.org
> Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Liam R E Quin]

On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 11:38 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote:

> On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > 
> > I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
> > engage with our community.

This is a good idea, along with building up resources describing goals.

> I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts,

Communication will need to be both ways - outward from developers and
people heavily involved in gnome, and back inwards from the outside.

It's usually more important to give a clear and correct message (and to
be seen to do so) than to quick to respond. If speed is important, a
response on a blog (say) saying, "we are aware of these comments and
will respond in more detail later" can be enough at times.

Liam

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 13:59 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi,
> On 11/14/2012 01:52 PM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> > Telling X you'll teach them how to communicate with Y and then creating
> > a problem with X because of the way you communicated with Y.
> 
> I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. What are X and Y?

Developers and "the community" respectively.

> > Tell me how exactly I should have brought this up "privately". We have
> > very few private mailing-lists in GNOME, and it wasn't discussed on any
> > of those I would be on [1].
> 
> Maybe private email? Maybe bringing it up in a different way? Sri's 
> initial email didn't mention Emily at all - were you just waiting for an 
> opportunity to bring up your discontent?

There's so many things wrong with the above paragraph.

- "Assume people mean well". Well, seems that I'm not granted the
benefit of the doubt.
- Sri's initial email made me think that it was an initiative by the
marketing team, which Emily is a part of. It seems reasonable to think
that she would be involved in this at one point or another.
- And "discontent". Well, I think that I have reasonable doubts to think
that those community managers wouldn't be able to carry the message of
developers truthfully if said developers aren't being talked to.

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Dave Neary]

Hi,
On 11/14/2012 01:52 PM, Bastien Nocera wrote:

Telling X you'll teach them how to communicate with Y and then creating
a problem with X because of the way you communicated with Y.


I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. What are X and Y?


Tell me how exactly I should have brought this up "privately". We have
very few private mailing-lists in GNOME, and it wasn't discussed on any
of those I would be on [1].


Maybe private email? Maybe bringing it up in a different way? Sri's 
initial email didn't mention Emily at all - were you just waiting for an 
opportunity to bring up your discontent?


Dave.

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Email: dne...@gnome.org
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Seif Lotfy]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Bastien Nocera  wrote:

> On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 11:50 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> > On 11/14/2012 11:38 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > >> I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
> > >> press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
> > >
> > > I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
> > > managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
> > > without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
> > > to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
> > >
> > > You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
> > > loose...
> >
> > Really? Your solution to "we have a PR problem" is "criticise the only
> > people trying to address that problem by publicly saying they suck at
> it"?
>
> Telling X you'll teach them how to communicate with Y and then creating
> a problem with X because of the way you communicated with Y.
>
> Tell me how exactly I should have brought this up "privately". We have
> very few private mailing-lists in GNOME, and it wasn't discussed on any
> of those I would be on [1].
>

Maybe a private IRC discussion?

> Sheesh.
>
> Yeah, me too.
>
> [1]: Not a cabal, it's Board-related lists.
>
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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

On Wed, 2012-11-14 at 11:50 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> On 11/14/2012 11:38 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> > On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> >> I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
> >> press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.
> >
> > I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
> > managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
> > without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
> > to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.
> >
> > You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
> > loose...
> 
> Really? Your solution to "we have a PR problem" is "criticise the only 
> people trying to address that problem by publicly saying they suck at it"?

Telling X you'll teach them how to communicate with Y and then creating
a problem with X because of the way you communicated with Y.

Tell me how exactly I should have brought this up "privately". We have
very few private mailing-lists in GNOME, and it wasn't discussed on any
of those I would be on [1].

> Sheesh.

Yeah, me too.

[1]: Not a cabal, it's Board-related lists.

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Dave Neary]

On 11/14/2012 11:38 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:

On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision.


I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.

You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
loose...


Really? Your solution to "we have a PR problem" is "criticise the only 
people trying to address that problem by publicly saying they suck at it"?


Sheesh.

Dave.


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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Bastien Nocera]

Hey Sri,

On Tue, 2012-11-13 at 16:07 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> 
> I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help
> engage with our community.
> 
> We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
> of what we're trying to do.

Which is?

> I'm looking for some talented folks who can help us engage with the
> press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our vision. 

I hope it's slightly better handled than Emily last 2 posts, which
managed to say that the removal of fallback was badly communicated (!)
without details of what was done wrong, and used a blog post by a troll
to make false assertions about GTK+ 3.x's API stability.

You might want to vouch for your community managers before you let them
loose...

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Re: Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Dave Neary]

Hi,

On 11/14/2012 01:07 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:

I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help engage
with our community.

We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea
of what we're trying to do.  I'm looking for some talented folks who can
help us engage with the press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain
our vision.

Send me some email, I want to hear from you!


While I don't quite like the title "community managers", I appreciate 
the role and the sentiment. Would love to see people working inside and 
outside the GNOME community to do better at communicating our goals, 
vision, and work. I would hope that this doesn't end up being "sit on 
Google+, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and send happy messages to 
anyone complaining about GNOME".


Cheers,
Dave.

--
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Email: dne...@gnome.org
Jabber: nea...@gmail.com
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Looking for community managers or enthusiasts!

[Sriram Ramkrishna]

I'm looking for some charismatic, happy GNOME folks who can help engage
with our community.

We've had a bad run of late with a lot of folks getting the wrong idea of
what we're trying to do.  I'm looking for some talented folks who can help
us engage with the press, on blogs, on mailing lists and explain our
vision.

Send me some email, I want to hear from you!

sri
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