Distributions

The openSUSE Board appointed last November is a step towards giving the community more control over governance of the project.

I also want to work on developing a recognition system so that contributors are acknowledged for their work, which we're doing more on already -- we just announced our membership program for contributors to be recognized. I also want to make sure we're providing a "roadmap" so that potential contributors have a clear path into the project and know where to get started -- whether that's development, artwork, documentation, quality assurance, advocating openSUSE, or supporting other users.

Also, organize the first openSUSE conference, make sure openSUSE is better represented at other conferences, and help provide potential contributors with a roadmap to becoming contributors. I'd like to make it as easy as possible for people to participate.

Finally, but not least -- I want to do what I can to help coordinate increased cooperation between Linux distros and reduce duplication of effort. While a lot of folks might like to portray the situation as openSUSE vs. Fedora, Ubuntu, or any other distro, I don't see it that way -- if someone is already happily using another distro, then I consider that a win. I want to focus on attracting people who aren't running Linux at all yet. There's plenty of work left to do, and I hope we can do a better job of pooling our resources to attract those people.