Mageia's Guiding Principles

[Ovocean]

Greetings magas and magos,

After departure from the slightly dictatorial and commercial Ubuntu, I searched through distributions for a more welcoming home and found Mageia, this popular, community-driven distro supported by a nonprofit with elected board of directors. All's for the best it seems, but it lacks something: clearly defined goals ensuring that Mageia will evolve in an expected way beneficial to all the target users and that us all, the users, have and will keep the power of decision on all important topics that affect us directly or indirectly.

I'd like to see the destiny of Mageia carved on a stone, so that we can all be sure that it will stay the tool we need for a very long time.

Let's see what we have at this point (quoting the website):

Mageia is a GNU/Linux-based, Free Software operating system. It is a community project, supported by a nonprofit organisation of elected contributors.

Alright!

Our mission: to build great tools for people.

Couldn't be more vague.

Further than just delivering a secure, stable and sustainable operating system, the goal is to set up a stable and trustable governance to direct collaborative projects.

A few goals for the OS and the governance, it's a start. But it's also where it ends, as far as I can see.

Oh wait, I missed the Values page. It's pretty good! Though it should be linked to on the About page and the key points extracted from it and put on the About page directly. It also lacks a few things for me.

So, here's my try at outlining Mageia's guiding principles, that should ensure a predictable future:

The software

• Mageia is a powerful, Free software based operating system. We intend it to be simple to install and use.
• We aim for a good balance between stability and keeping up with the latest progress in the Free software world.
• Mageia is available free of charge but we encourage donations to help with what the community's voluntary efforts can't do.

The users

• Mageia is primarily made for PC home users, but also for professional PC users, for servers and (probably in the future) for tablet users. Though, if catering to any of these groups' needs detract from the experience of the other groups, a separate branch of the project will be created for this particular category of users. (E.g. Mageia Pro, Mageia Server, Mageia Tablet...).
• We understand that these main groups are comprised of individuals with various needs and tastes. We strive to provide a wide range of options when there is a demand for it.

The organization

• We are a community distribution, valuing all contributions.
• We strive to improve communication streams between users and developers and other groups of contributors.
• Notably, we ease public discussion of changes and new features *before* they are made.
• We embrace open standards and collaborate with other open source projects to allow for the best interoperability.

The philosophy

• We value integrity, community, trust and will always adhere to the highest ethical standards.
• We love and support Free/Open source software. However, we are open to non-Free contributions, to provide alternatives for our users' diverse needs and expectations.
• Above all things, we enjoy ourselves in participating to a project we love.

This is a draft. I believe it should be presented in a shorter form but I'd like to see something close to this on the About page. Let me know your opinions.

[marja]

So, here's my try at outlining Mageia's guiding principles, that should ensure a predictable future:

Welcome in the Mageia community, Ovocean, and thanks a lot for your draft

The software

• Mageia is a powerful, Free software based operating system made simple to install, use and customize.
• We aim for a good balance between stability and keeping up with the latest progress in the Free software world.
• Mageia is available free of charge but we reasonably encourage donations to secure a steady, professional backing to the community's benevolent efforts.

first item: Nice, but maybe say it is intended it to be simple to install, use etc. What is simple for one person, might be very complicated for someone else (I remember an angry forum post of a user who didn't find Mageia simple at all)
2nd item: agreed
3rd: atm, donations are mostly used for hardware for the project http://www.mageia.org/en/about/reports/2012/

Sorry for not having time to go over the rest of the draft now. Maybe others will

Have a nice day!

[Ovocean]

Thank you marja!

I have changed the first and third bullet points according to your comments:
- Mageia is a powerful, Free software based operating system. We intend it to be simple to install and use.
- Mageia is available free of charge but we encourage donations to help with what the community's benevolent efforts can't do.

[marja]

Thank you marja!

I have changed the first and third bullet points according to your comments:
- Mageia is a powerful, Free software based operating system. We intend it to be simple to install and use.
- Mageia is available free of charge but we encourage donations to help with what the community's benevolent efforts can't do.

To me, that looks better, thanks

I'll continue with the other bullet points. Please keep in mind that I'm just giving my personal views, I'm not commenting on behalf of a team I'm in, others might have different opinions

The users

• Mageia is primarily made for PC home users, but also for professional PC users, for servers and (probably in the future) for tablet users. Though, if catering to any of these groups' needs detract from the experience of the other groups, a separate branch of the project will be created for this particular category of users. (E.g. Mageia Pro, Mageia Server, Mageia Tablet...).
• We understand that these main groups are comprised of individuals with various needs and tastes. We strive to provide a wide range of options when there is a demand for it.

Creating a new branch would require that we first learn to attract (and keep) many more people who are willing to invest time in contributing to Mageia. If there are not enough volunteers to work on a new branch, it'll only lead to frustration. In my opinion, we are already short on volunteers, now. If not many respond in this thread, they'll be too busy with more urgent things.

The 2nd item is fine with me, because it says "We strive to". I would not have agreed with "We will"

The organization

• We are a community distribution, valuing all contributions.
• We strive to improve communication streams between users and developers and other groups of contributors.
• Notably, we ease public discussion of changes and new features *before* they are made.
• We embrace open standards and collaborate with other open source projects to allow for the best interoperability.

The above 4 items all look good to me

The philosophy

• We value integrity, community, trust and will always adhere to the highest ethical standards.
• We love and support Free/Open source software. However, we are open to non-Free contributions, to provide alternatives for our users' diverse needs and expectations.
• Above all things, we enjoy ourselves in participating to a project we love.

To the first line, I'd like to add "that are within our power".
Also, if I knew how to put that into words, I'd also add that we are aware that the highest ethical standards in one culture might differ from, and even partly conflict with, the highest ethical standards in another culture, and that we strive to have understanding for the different backgrounds many of us have in this respect.

The other lines look good to me

Cheers,
Marja

[Ovocean]

Creating a new branch would require that we first learn to attract (and keep) many more people who are willing to invest time in contributing to Mageia. If there are not enough volunteers to work on a new branch, it'll only lead to frustration. In my opinion, we are already short on volunteers, now. If not many respond in this thread, they'll be too busy with more urgent things.

That's right. Though my idea is simply to ensure that we have a pure experience for at least one main group of users, that we won't try to cripple the PC version so that it works the same as the tablet version for example.
So perhaps it would be best to just say that we target PC home users, and wait that we get a big enough demand for server/professional/tablet specific branches to – maybe – create them ?

To the first line, I'd like to add "that are within our power".
Also, if I knew how to put that into words, I'd also add that we are aware that the highest ethical standards in one culture might differ from, and even partly conflict with, the highest ethical standards in another culture, and that we strive to have understanding for the different backgrounds many of us have in this respect.

Right, this line was taken straight from the Values page. I agree that it can be better. What about "As a community we value integrity, openness, sharing, freedom. As individuals we recommend kindness and wisdom in our relation with each other." ? Individual notions can link to their definition.

If not many respond in this thread, they'll be too busy with more urgent things.

The fact that this thread is at the bottom of the forums page and that many contributors mostly follow the mailing lists (I guess) doesn't help either. But that's fine, it permits to refine the text before presenting it to a broader audience.

[marja]

So perhaps it would be best to just say that we target PC home users, and wait that we get a big enough demand for server/professional/tablet specific branches to – maybe – create them ?

That sounds better

Right, this line was taken straight from the Values page. I agree that it can be better. What about "As a community we value integrity, openness, sharing, freedom. As individuals we recommend kindness and wisdom in our relation with each other." ?

I like this proposal

......But that's fine, it permits to refine the text before presenting it to a broader audience.

As a side note, I'd like respond to a line in your first post, to:

Notably, we ease public discussion of changes and new features *before* they are made.

Well, new features for a new release are discussed openly, everyone in council is reminded to tell their teams how they can propose new features or offer their help to make a proposed one happen. Related discussions are done on the mageia-dev mailing list.

However, many new features, for instance for KDE or GNOME, just come from upstream and we don't even consider undoing them.

Also, it can happen that someone files a bug report because he thinks something is a bug and that someone else fixes it without being aware that there are users who had no problem with the "bug" at all, but do have a problem with the "fix"

And, sometimes a proposed change is only discussed in one team or in council plus one team.

If you want to lessen the chance that something that is important to you is changed after you missed the opportunity to discuss it, please make sure you are subscribed to at least the following mailing lists:

mageia-dev https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
general discussions https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-discuss
bugs https://ml.mageia.org/l/info/bugs
council https://ml.mageia.org/l/info/council

And add any mailing list you are interested in.
You cannot directly mail council ml, but you can read how to contact them here: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Contacts

Aditionally, it would be good to keep an eye on the meeting logs. http://meetbot.mageia.org/ (mageia-meeting is council)

Cheers,
Marja