[Marketing] SoaS change in engineering direction: marketing questions

[Mel Chua]

SoaS engineering just proposed a major change-in-direction for the 
upcoming (Mirabelle) release. See 
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/soas/2010-March/000906.html

Some questions for the Marketing group about this idea, based on 
discussions with Sean today (Sean, are we missing anything?)

0. Sanity check - what do you think about this notion in general? We 
apologize for the time crunch, but Beta Freeze is coming up on Tuesday, 
March 23rd, and we need to have a clear notion of our forward path by then.

1. There was concern expressed that a SoaS image that doesn't have a lot 
of Activities "out of the box" would be less optimal for demo purposes. 
Is there a need for instructions on how people can make their own "demo 
sticks" with more Activities (any Activities they want)? Can this need 
continue to be filled by Strawberry and/or Blueberry until the next 
release (in November 2010)?

2. How can SoaS engineering keep track of development releases in a way 
that makes sense to us (for instance, this change would be a significant 
departure from the past releases, and would therefore warrant a full 
version number) while not interfering with Marketing's plans? (We 
realize this release would not be marketed to users - it would be used 
as a recruitment tool for contributors instead.)

Feedback? Questions? Comments? Firestorm?

We'll be tinkering further on this over the weekend - we can do another 
kickstart on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so we have 3 drafts left to 
figure this out with. Please join us (sdziallas & mchua on #sugar) and 
ask questions if you have any, or join in and help if you have ideas on 
how to improve this.

Thanks,

--Sebastian and Mel