On distro users feedback

["Lucas Rocha" <lucasr gnome org>]

Hi all,

Every time we release a new major version of GNOME, I have this habit
of googling in search of comments, reviews and discussions about our
new release. In general, I find:

 * User comments and blog posts about specific changes and new features
 * Distro developer opinions about how we should or shouldn't handle
certain issues
 * Discussions in mailing lists and web forums about the new release

In the middle of all the (usual and useless) noise, it's very common
to see things like:

 * "I don't understand why bug X is not fixed since release Y"
 * "Why do they keep this crappy way of doing X?"
 * "I really miss Z in GNOME"

And a big part of this feedback happens inside the distro communities.
Well, it's a known fact that end-users don't use "GNOME". What they
see/perceive is "Ubuntu", "Fedora", "Debian", "OpenSuse", "Mandriva",
and so on. Therefore, most of the real end-user feedback happens in
the distro scope and I have this feeling that we're not really aware
about the whole mass of feedback that happens out there.

So, I think we should talk with our distributors in order to find
efficient, lightweight and smart ways of exposing/transfering this
user feedback from distros to GNOME. Also, we could use this
opportunity to get feedback from distro developers as well.

I have some ideas about how to make this happen but I'd like to know
the opinion of you, marketing fellows, first. My first-step-plan is to
(maybe) schedule an IRC meeting with members of GNOME Packaging Team
and other people involved with the distro communities to discuss some
ideas and know what they think.

Comments?

--lucasr