Example of targetted release notes

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Coincidentally, RHEL 5 came out teh same day as GNOME 2.18 - so we got a
chance to compare how Red Hat did its release to how we did it.

Have a look at this:
http://www.redhat.com/videos/real_tech/

This is a series of videos, each one focussing on a real benefit of RHEL
5. Ignore the fact that it's videos, and that they spent lots of time &
money on them.

Concentrate on this: each one is a story.
"Hi, I'm an IT manager. Here's a problem I had. Here's how RHEL 5 fixed
 it." They don't talk about how something is done, they don't talk about
virtualisation, they talk about problems and solutions.

In techie release notes, you might have one item about virtualisation,
but you wouldn't make the link to real user problems (managing legacy
systems with new servers, adding redundancy without adding hardware,
etc). I think that Red Hat really got their focus right on this.

Also, this: They're clearly aimed at CIOs, sysadmins, IT managers. Not
too many "Hi, I'm a mother of 4, and RHEL helps me print my photos
easier". Targeting. The law of sacrifice. Red Hat make their money in
data centers and on servers, not on the desktop, and they're not going
after that market. That doesn't mean that they're not interested in it,
and they're certainly not going to refuse your money if you want to
install RHEL on desktops, but taht's not where their target is.


So - provocative question of the day - what are the problems which our
target audiences have with their computer infrastructure (that is, ISDs,
hobbyists, public administrations)? And what did GNOME 2.18 do to
address those problems? How about GNOME 2.20? Do we have a concrete idea
of the things that need to be made easier?

Cheers
-- 
Dave Neary
dneary free fr