exactly...
that's one of the things that's been bugging me lately...
see, take a look at this :
http://www.linux.trix.net/mtbuild/mt...?entry_id=6927
take a look at Patola's opinion.
I think he is somehow right...
Even though Conectiva has several ways to integrate it's user into the the distro development (take
http://bugzilla.conectiva.com/ for example) hence creating a community around it, I still think it's somehow lacking something.
It really draws my attention and makes me wonder: how come Conectiva doesn't have mailing list (as seen on mdk, really active mailing lists by the way, debian and almost every other mayor distro), or a forum spesifically design to gather it's user to share experiences, ideas and overall info with each other?
Now from other perspective but in the same order of things, it also draws my attention the fact that Conectiva doesn't have any Conectiva Gear on sale (cups, mugs, t-shirts, etc...) like every other mayor comercial distro has (red-hat, suse, mdk, slackware... hell, even lycoris and other not so mayor comercial distros are selling that kind of items that tend to create the feeling that you are part of something)? or how come users can not buy printed manuals thorugh conectiva (as seen on mdk, slack, red hat, etc) with out buying the whole distro?.
I have this feeling that somehow Conectiva, as a corporation (given the fact that it is an S.A.) it's failing to create an active community around it.
For instace: mdk created the so called "RPM voting system" through wich users are allowed to vote for new rpms to be created (basically it works like this: an users proposes a software to be packed as an rpm and included in the distro, then the rest of users vote for that rpm or any other and the ones that get most of the votes get included on the distro).
Now, Conectiva has a similar system: get a bugzilla account, enter a new bug in the @@_WISHLIST_@@ and ask for some soft to be included, then the rest of the users can VOTE for your request (o.k. that does not mean it'll be included on the distro but at least give you the chance to tell Conectiva's developer: hey i'd like this or that to be included !).
But the fact is: everyboody knows that mdk has "RPM voting" but really few people knows that Conectiva implemented some sort of voting system way before mdk did...
I don't know if i'm being clear on what i'd like to discuss with you guys, but i feel that a lot of what CL developers are doing is being really undervaluated and that's maybe because given the fact that there's no organized community or "Conectiva Users Central", things don't get as promoted as with other mayor distros.
I'm really proud of the fact that most of DISTRO THAT I CHOOSE developers are actively participating in the development of a lot of GPL'ed software (from the maintance of the kernel tree to the development of linuxconf modules or windowmaker...). I'm also proud to be using a distro that's completely GPL, that's developed by people that actively supports the GNU philosophy, that takes care about me (as a latin american user), that allows me to participate on the development of the distro (through bugzilla) that has members that read this kind of stuf and take time off their work to answer and help it's users (as it happened in the past with tulio and vlad helping me to set up my printer and my cd-rw) and that kind of thing is the kind of things that seems to go undervaluated just beacause Conectiva doesn't have an organized community around it.
Well, as you can see, there are a lot of issues mixed in here, but the idea is complex so it's kinda hard to explain it properly without being extremly long and mixing diferent concepts.
what do you think?
p.d.: Xterminator, i really aprecciate your opinion's both as the hardcore Conectiva user i know your are as well as the helping linux users i came to know better trough linuxdicas.com.br, so please feel free to express yourself in portugues if that makes you feel more confortable. Sometimes the language creates the strongest barrier to express ideas, as it happens to me every time i post o linuxdicas, and i would really like to know what you think on what i've just posted
ps2: jelow Mad_fer_it_arg (a friend of mine from a forum in Argentina, just in case someone wanted to know) vas a postear aca en el foro de Conectiva??
is anyone there?
