How to compete against Ubuntu

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-marketing-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:fedora-marketing-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Greg
Dekoenigsberg
Sent: Tuesday, 7 August 2007 9:29 PM
To: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base
Subject: Re: How to compete against Ubuntu

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007, Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:

> Greg Dekoenigsberg escribió:
>> 
>> Mostly I agree, but one note here: if there is one group to whom we 
>> should be more aggressively "marketing", it is to potential 
>> contributors.  Fedora needs to be more about contributors, and 
>> therefore making the lives of contributors easier.
>
> Couldn't agree more... Fedora seems to have too much "bureaucracy" for 
> contributors to, well, contribute. Some might say that it is standard 
> bureaucracy, but still quite cumbersome at times. Not that it is 
> difficult, just messy and cumbersome at times. I know that the "others 
> are not so bureaucratic" argument means nothing, at least to the many 
> Fedora contributors and community members, but I've seen my share of 
> complaints from "would be" contributors about just that.

Anyone want to gather the specific complaints in that regard?

I know we're working on some issues -- improving the CLA, working on a new
account management system, other small things -- but knowing the pain points
of new contributors is always important.

--g


I'll add some bits but put simply I know from my experience in trying to
package some things that documentation is the big one.  Every time I package
something and let someone have a look at it I find that I’m missing
something that isn't documented properly.  That’s my biggest
frustration.....gnome-yum or yum-gnome scrollkeeper?  Yet I can't find
anything relating to scrollkeeper and packages.  

I know it's improving but that would be a start.  One thing Debian does
really well is that it has a plethora of documentation on how to contribute
and everything relating to the packaging process.

I've got other questions as well but yeah while it doesn't relate directly
to bureaucracy I think it relates to contributing.

My $0.02

Marc