visibility at the user level (was: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?)
--- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 12/24/06, Joachim Noreiko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > --- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > When a user boots Ubuntu, they see the Ubuntu > splash, > > the Ubuntu desktop background, and the Ubuntu logo > on > > the panel. And that's as it should be -- > otherwise, > > they'd say 'Hey, I put in an Ubuntu CD, what's > this > > Gnome stuff?' > > Sure, thats true. This is a a problem of marketing. > I also think that > we have to rethink the marketing strategy here. > There are roughly two > options (but also ways inbetween): > > A. GNOME wants visibility at the user level and > therefore has to > implement a distribution mechanism that starts from > the homepage. So > this is abot: A user wants GNOME and can get it. > B. GNOME does not care about visibility of its brand > at the user > level, instead we are working with ISVs and > distributions,... . > > I think currently we have something of both but > without a clear > strategy. if we do not want either "A" nor "B" we > must define "C". Exactly, we have a bit of both: we are working with ISVs and distributions, we have no distribution system of our own, but we want to be visible at the user level. The first part we can't feasibly change even if we wanted to: we don't have the resources to implement our own distribution. But for the second part we have a choice: do we want to be visible at the user level? What are the advantages to this? > There may be other ways to circumvent the "brand > problem". I see the > way described above as a good way to move forward > for future versions > of GNOME. We can not solve this alone - we need the > distributors to > help us and they need us to make a better support > and a better GNOME. > And then we do not need to car so much about the > visibility of the > brand - we will then agree of how our brand and the > distributors brand > must or can be used. I think we can learn from the way intel managed to brand itself. They managed to raise the profile of an internal component that most users barely knew about and never came into contact with. If we decide we want user-visibility, I would suggest we devise our equivalent of the 'intel inside' sticker. We have a plan to make branding easier for distros [1], with documentation and perhaps an automated tool. If we had this, we could leave one piece of Gnome branding there, and say to distros: 'We're making it easier for you to rebrand Gnome. In return, we ask you to leave this particular bit of the Gnome identity in.' [1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/LinuxDistros Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Fwd: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
On 12/24/06, Joachim Noreiko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When a user boots Ubuntu, they see the Ubuntu splash, > the Ubuntu desktop background, and the Ubuntu logo on > the panel. And that's as it should be -- otherwise, > they'd say 'Hey, I put in an Ubuntu CD, what's this > Gnome stuff?' Sure, thats true. This is a a problem of marketing. I also think that we have to rethink the marketing strategy here. There are roughly two options (but also ways inbetween): A. GNOME wants visibility at the user level and therefore has to implement a distribution mechanism that starts from the homepage. So this is abot: A user wants GNOME and can get it. B. GNOME does not care about visibility of its brand at the user level, instead we are working with ISVs and distributions,... . I think currently we have something of both but without a clear strategy. if we do not want either "A" nor "B" we must define "C". If I should try to define it I would say: We want users to know what GNOME is and want them to request good and latest GNOME support from their sources. We then would want the sources to clerarly indicate that they have GNOME inside and how uptodate it is - and we must make sure that the quality of the packages is Ok. There is also a problem of support: If a user has a problem with one software he does not know if she should go to GNOME or distribution support. Generally I think that a distributed service would be better, although there will always be the problem of quality of the supported packages and the problem that not all package maintainers or distribution can handle bugreports for GNOME well. Also currently there is mostly no way for a user to report a bug in a language other than english. GNOME should think about the whole distribution and support cycle to make it better. Maybe one way would be to start to work with distributors to make GNOME as some kind of certification mark. GNOME and the distributors therefor have to agree on some standards and mechanisms. These should ensure a quality level for the software and the user. So these GNOME certified distributions (where these distributions could pay GNOME money for) then have a proven support and software quality. Those distribution than may advertise with this GNOME quality label. This would not mean at all to let down other channels - but GNOME today can not support all possible variations of installations - and does not want that. A nice thing would also be if one could some work somehow with distributions and the community to help supporting older distributions (like Fedora Unity and Fedora Legacy do as seperate projects for Fedora Linux) or GNOME versions. Maybe one could have a seperate bugzilla for distributions with old GNOME and then also collect all problems in this one bugzilla (merge databases?). Maybe some people than also like to make patches for these old GNOMEs that then get repackaged. But this is then more of technical discussion - just as an idea. There may be other ways to circumvent the "brand problem". I see the way described above as a good way to move forward for future versions of GNOME. We can not solve this alone - we need the distributors to help us and they need us to make a better support and a better GNOME. And then we do not need to car so much about the visibility of the brand - we will then agree of how our brand and the distributors brand must or can be used. Thilo -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Fwd: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
--- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, I don't really see "blocking". I think we will > not increase > awarenesss of GNOME from our website. The websites > are a mess - but > whoever visits GNOME websites has at least some idea > of why he visits > these pages. I mean that working on GnomeWeb is the first step towards those two goals, and we can't get much done on those goals until the new GnomeWeb is up. > Do > you mean making GNOME more visible and the > distributors wanting to > show their logos/brand are in conflict? In a way, yes. When a user boots Ubuntu, they see the Ubuntu splash, the Ubuntu desktop background, and the Ubuntu logo on the panel. And that's as it should be -- otherwise, they'd say 'Hey, I put in an Ubuntu CD, what's this Gnome stuff?' But at the same time, a lot of these users don't know that they're using the Gnome desktop. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Fwd: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
-- Forwarded message -- From: Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Dec 24, 2006 12:15 AM Subject: Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing? To: Joachim Noreiko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On 12/23/06, Joachim Noreiko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > GnomeWeb blocks 1 and 3 at least. > 3 is also blocked by the lack of good developer > documentation -- or just the lack of developer > documentation completely. See GnomeWeb/Library, which > I've not heard any updates from in a while. > > I noticed a new page on branding -- that's something > our distributors and so on want, but doesn't that go > against 1? How do we reconcile the two? > Well, I don't really see "blocking". I think we will not increase awarenesss of GNOME from our website. The websites are a mess - but whoever visits GNOME websites has at least some idea of why he visits these pages. GnomeMarketing/BrandGuidlines is not that new (april this year). Do you mean making GNOME more visible and the distributors wanting to show their logos/brand are in conflict? Thilo -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
--- Thilo Pfennig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So besides GnomeWeb where many people are already > involved and acting > - if we consider our goals what is our main > problem? > > * Increase awareness of GNOME. > * Increase the user base of GNOME > * Making it easier for GNOME users to become GNOME > contributors. GnomeWeb blocks 1 and 3 at least. 3 is also blocked by the lack of good developer documentation -- or just the lack of developer documentation completely. See GnomeWeb/Library, which I've not heard any updates from in a while. I noticed a new page on branding -- that's something our distributors and so on want, but doesn't that go against 1? How do we reconcile the two? Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
On 12/23/06, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In fact it's more about realism and pragmatism than simplification. > How many tasks have we completed and how many people has been > regularly involved assuming responsibilities in tasks? More than > 10X10? > > Having longer lists doesn't necessarily help achieving more tasks. > Said that, I'm not suggesting to delete something or somebody. Having > on the top of the list the most active or important should be enough. Agreed. But what I am rather saying that this is not a problem of long lists. If this would be the case we would have to reduce the number of possible issues in bugzilla. I think it is rather a matter of priorities. We must ask some simple questions: 1) What are our goals and our main problems 2) What tasks that we have identfied are interrelated or which tasks are blockers to others? So we might find that we must solve one or two tasks to reach one goal (first). So besides GnomeWeb where many people are already involved and acting - if we consider our goals what is our main problem? * Increase awareness of GNOME. * Increase the user base of GNOME * Making it easier for GNOME users to become GNOME contributors. Maybe we can start from here to set THE major (or first) real marketing goal where we can concentrate on removing the blockers. Do you have one goal of these above (from GnomeMarketing) where you think we should start? I am going to make links to new pages out of these, so we could start working on them right away. Thilo -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
In fact it's more about realism and pragmatism than simplification. How many tasks have we completed and how many people has been regularly involved assuming responsibilities in tasks? More than 10X10? Having longer lists doesn't necessarily help achieving more tasks. Said that, I'm not suggesting to delete something or somebody. Having on the top of the list the most active or important should be enough. 2006/12/23, Thilo Pfennig <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Well maybe a bit too much simplification. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
On 12/23/06, Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Following these 3 steps we may start building a successful 10x10 MT > plan for 2007. Well maybe a bit too much simplification. Maybe we do not list so much - but still there is always much todo - and just reducing tasks will not make things better - bur priorities are good. Thilo -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
Thank you for this very interesting thread. It probably contains most of what we need and will be able to complete in 2007. Let's polish the ideas contained here and focus on them. - The "glue together" and other MT tasks/goals should be explained clearly at http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing so current and new GNOME contributors (and ourselves) know what does the MT do. - There are 27 tasks listed at http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/Tasks . Good, but better if we can select and promote the 10 (or so) that are primary, essential, unavoidable, - There are 25 names listed at http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/MarketingTeam . Good, but better if we end up having 10 (or so) active in the MT day to day and responsible of one task each. Following these 3 steps we may start building a successful 10x10 MT plan for 2007. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
--- Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Joachim Noreiko wrote: > > That's something we need 'glue-people' for -- > > developers who are on several teams or hop between > > them. > > 'Glue people' is exactly how I would characterise > good marketers. The > message is the reflection of what the company > employees believe in, the > evolutions of the product are the reflection of what > the market wants, > and in both cases, the marketing team is the mirror. Right. I hadn't thought of that as part of the marketing team's job. I saw marketing as really just publicity -- but fair enough :) It strikes me as the sort of thing that would be quite easy if all gnome developers were in the same building -- just lots of coffee ;) -- but as we're scattered all over, it's actually quite a task. (So it isn't surprising that we're not doing very well at it.) > > Isn't it desktop-devel-list's job? Or if not them, > > who? > > I saw Mr. List last week - he's going to be taking > some time off to take > care of the second baby, and he just changed jobs. > So the vacancy's there. Sorry, you've lost me there ...? > The applications have perhaps not been revolutionary > in their change > recently, but the platform's been making leaps & > bounds. We haven't been > doing particularly well communicating that, yet. Actually, it's not revolutionary change in applications that think we need. Off the top of my head, the things that I would like to see happen are: - Implementation of the new revamp of Metacity window types. There's a specification waiting on the wiki. That'll then need a fair amount of work across lots of apps and a lot of communication. - Reintegrate searching across the desktop -- give Nautilus search its second coat of polish, figure out what to do with the old filesearch tool which now seems out of date and incongruous, and figure out how Deskbar fits in with all that -- it should all appear to be one coherent thing, instead of several different interfaces jostling for space in the feature landscape - Do a new spec for the notification area, and decide what it's for, which apps should use it and which should not. - Project Mallard! ;) None of those are especially sexy. But if they happen, I'm sure the publicity arm of the marketing team can make them sound good :) And some will definitely require some herding, or gentle pointing at least. > > A long-term roadmap like that would be a good > start. > > I agree, and it's our job (as the connective tissue) > to try to spot > patterns in the chaos, and federate those efforts > into movements. Think > of la résistance during the second world war as a > model. We need a Jean > Moulin to make links between the groups. We don't > necessarily need a > General de Gaulle to inspire everyone - we have, > after all, got RMS. I guess I'm waiting for someone with the required seniority and karma to get things going :) ___ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
Hi, Joachim Noreiko wrote: > --- Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Example: module maintainer 1 is working on >> abstracting away some aspect >> (functionality X) of his module behind a library. ... > That's going to be too technical for some members the > marketing team. We're a pretty technical bunch... but there are non-technical jobs we need done too (mostly organisation, writing and advocacy, but we need to figure out how to organise writers and advocates first). > That's something we need 'glue-people' for -- > developers who are on several teams or hop between > them. 'Glue people' is exactly how I would characterise good marketers. The message is the reflection of what the company employees believe in, the evolutions of the product are the reflection of what the market wants, and in both cases, the marketing team is the mirror. >> Or, in discussing plans with 4 or 5 maintainers, you >> realise that >> everyone really wants to implement Jono Bacon's >> project spaces idea - ... > Isn't it desktop-devel-list's job? Or if not them, > who? I saw Mr. List last week - he's going to be taking some time off to take care of the second baby, and he just changed jobs. So the vacancy's there. This is another case of glue people - the marketing team should be the team that has their finger on every pulse, we need to be the connective tissue of the project to be a success. > The last few releases of Gnome I've been involved in > haven't had any sort of coherency to them. They've > just been 'here's what we all did for the last 6 > months'. > The marketing team's managed to sift through and > produce some sort of theme from that but it's not been > very successful. There was a concentrated effort to work on printing over the last year. Another concentrated effort to work on performance and memory footprint. There is a significant movement towards adapting the GNOME platform for embedded and mobile use. The applications have perhaps not been revolutionary in their change recently, but the platform's been making leaps & bounds. We haven't been doing particularly well communicating that, yet. > Like Thilo says in his later mail, we have some big > shortcomings. Take printing -- we should be able to > decide (ddl, or whichever gathering of glue > developers) that 2.20 will be all about making > printing on Gnome cool. The difference between printing in 2.14 and 2.18 is immense. > A long-term roadmap like that would be a good start. I agree, and it's our job (as the connective tissue) to try to spot patterns in the chaos, and federate those efforts into movements. Think of la résistance during the second world war as a model. We need a Jean Moulin to make links between the groups. We don't necessarily need a General de Gaulle to inspire everyone - we have, after all, got RMS. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
--- Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The marketing team should define an overall goal > for GNOME. We should > > not just invent slogans. We also should not try to > "sell" GNOME. I > > think that we do not want that because than we > would want people to > > use GNOME instead of KDE or other desktops. But > that would not benefit > > but harm us! > > Here we disagree - the marketing team does not > define the goals, it > identifies and communicates them. We should be > herding aligned efforts, > and making people realise that they are aligned. I don't think the marketing team should define goals -- though we can perhaps suggest some based on feedback from users. However, I think that *somebody* should be defining goals for GNOME. The marketing team can take part in that, but it shouldn't be solely us. > Example: module maintainer 1 is working on > abstracting away some aspect > (functionality X) of his module behind a library. > The functionality he's > abstracting away could be useful for module > maintainer 2, who has a > long-standing feature request to include > functionality X. So one module > maintainer's "tidy up code" becomes another > maintainer's "Add > functionality X". That's going to be too technical for some members the marketing team. That's something we need 'glue-people' for -- developers who are on several teams or hop between them. > Or, in discussing plans with 4 or 5 maintainers, you > realise that > everyone really wants to implement Jono Bacon's > project spaces idea - > and you get David Trowbridge together with Elijah > Newren and a couple of > key application writers (say, gaim, epiphany, > nautilus) to > cross-polinate tagging and workspaces, and have a > couple of apps support > it, and wahay! Major new feature thanks to your > insight and effort in > putting the right people together. Again, this sort of thing should happen and it would be great, but I don't think marketing team should be doing it. Isn't it desktop-devel-list's job? Or if not them, who? > It's the difference between "I'm telling you what > you're going to work > on for the next 6 months" and "Just last week I was > talking to X about > $COOL_IDEA - you guys should talk and see if you > can't work on that > together. Well there's telling and there's suggesting. I think the free software ethos of 'everybody works on whatever they feel like', with no sort of planning & goal-setting can only get us so far. The last few releases of Gnome I've been involved in haven't had any sort of coherency to them. They've just been 'here's what we all did for the last 6 months'. The marketing team's managed to sift through and produce some sort of theme from that but it's not been very successful. This isn't just about making it easier to market a Gnome release. I think Gnome needs more focus and momentum. Like Thilo says in his later mail, we have some big shortcomings. Take printing -- we should be able to decide (ddl, or whichever gathering of glue developers) that 2.20 will be all about making printing on Gnome cool. A long-term roadmap like that would be a good start. ___ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
Hi Dave, 2006/12/18, Dave Neary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > There is a continuing opportunity for someone (or some group of people) > to get in contact with module maintainers, talk to them one-to-one, and > see how we can/should interract with the development process. The > marketing team can be a federator in getting a roadmap together, > providing feedback from users, and combining that with the good sense of > developers to set small-scale priorities, and also identify larger > trends in requests and theme releases around those trends. I have created a task page for marketing: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/Tasks maybe describe this task there. I suggest that we use this new page to add tasks and also put status back on there. > But please don't make it sound like we have not talked aout this, or > come up with plans for this, before. This is at least the third time I don't want to sound like this. i know we have talked a lot. I just ment that lastly there was nt much of action as far as I could see. > Here we disagree - the marketing team does not define the goals, it > identifies and communicates them. We should be herding aligned efforts, > and making people realise that they are aligned. Well we need an overall goal. Who else can define it? if we have no goal development goes in every direction. Sure nobody could force development but things like the HIG compliance are also goals where developers can orientate their work on. Goals are natural in development (for a release) but if only the maintainers set goals it is hard to communicate. Then success rather comes by accident. There is progress, nevertheless. The result is, that there is no clear image that can be communicated easily to the public (users / potential users). I also believe that the result is that progress is not going to be as fast as it could be. > It's the difference between "I'm telling you what you're going to work > on for the next 6 months" and "Just last week I was talking to X about > $COOL_IDEA - you guys should talk and see if you can't work on that > together. Yes, but there is yet another option. one could ask: "Who agrees, that we should work on making printing better? And what can we do to make it better? Can you do XY so that printin gets better?". So I would agree that intense communication is needed as developers act very independently - but I do not think that they would not agree to work on agreed weaknesses or to work on a common goal that might not even be an idea of a developer. Stating a goal is not the same as "stating a goal out of every context without talking to developers". > > Is GNOMEs goal to be the leading desktop? The best usable desktop? > > GNOME is currently at least 3 things - each vitally important, a > separate entity, and with its own momentum: > > 1.,2.,3. > The thing these 3 elements have in common is an adhesion to a core > principle - what Jeff calls Software Freedom, ... So you say that GNOME is not different to KDE in any way, because all three points could be easily adapted to them. I think it is extremely important to differentiate. The real important definition would be the points where we would say "This is how we do it in GNOME". This all sounds a bit too blurry and too broad. If we define ourselves like that we are competing with KDE on every subject. As they are also not working on "larger footprints" and to have a "bad plattform". We should rethink this. My vision would be that we could tell somebody that asks us: * What do I get with GNOME? Why shouldn't I use something else? * What GNOMEs strenghts are and where it is weak - when she should use GNOME and when she should not. Many my think now: No, we are for everybody! Everybody should use us. But I think 1) This will never happen 2) People like to see what they get (exactly) So if we want to be ablet to market GNOME we not only need to know GNOME well, but also the benefits of other platforms. Personally I think there are some small things that nearly make free desktops like GNOME unusable. And this is for instance that you do not get feedback of the ink status of your printer. There are some command line tools, but often that means that a simple users will have to replace all inks when he cannot print any more. So if somebody wants to print and is not a computer expert, he rather should not use GNOME or be prepared to replace all inks all the time. This is an example where a lack of a common goal leeds to less progress. For me this is not a big problem, because I know how to work with such tools (like escputil). But i did not see any priorities on that. Rather the focus was on better printing. But that only as a very personal problem/impression. Thilo -- Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
Hi Thilo, Thilo Pfennig wrote: > I have scanned our mailing list archive and found out that WGO revamp > had taken much of our energy, while discussion about how we should do > marketing were rare. I have had many thoughts on this, and the BOF from GUADEC had a reasonable list of actions associated with it - those concrete actions concentrate on what I think is the key to our success - federating ground-roots support around GNOME - as I have said in the past, "converting GNOME users into advocates, converting local free software developers into GNOME developers, and converting local hobbyists into free software and GNOME users." > We can state: We need lobbying Not really, I wouldn't agree with that. Well... what we need is to empower our community members to lobby (and provide infrastructure that allows them to collaborate). > I think that we do should not plan actual deployments, because this is > the job of distributors and ISVs. It is nice to have the data that is > collected at http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam/GnomeDeployments for > ourselves - as motivation and also as an argument and BestPractice. > But I think we should rather learn from the deployments and work on > feedback also for the usability team ( > http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityTeam) I've talked a lot about setting up a feedback loop - unfortunately because of life, all I have done is talk. There is a continuing opportunity for someone (or some group of people) to get in contact with module maintainers, talk to them one-to-one, and see how we can/should interract with the development process. The marketing team can be a federator in getting a roadmap together, providing feedback from users, and combining that with the good sense of developers to set small-scale priorities, and also identify larger trends in requests and theme releases around those trends. > My understanding of marketing for GNOME would be to develop strategies > and to help in communication between different parties like usabilty > people, developers, freedesktop.org, KDE people, distributors, ISVs, > companies, governments or simple users. Absolutely. We've been at this stage for several months. I have a file listing the names of most of the module maintainers in GNOME CVS, and when I realised that I would be dropping that ball, I asked who wanted it - one person asked, and then promptly got a new job & moved to Finland - you can't get good help these days ;-) It's good that you're bringing this up again, it increases the odds of getting something done about it this time (reminder: release in 3 months, it's time to start collecting material about the 2.18 release). But please don't make it sound like we have not talked aout this, or come up with plans for this, before. This is at least the third time that the role of the marketing team cas come up - we agree on what the role is, we now need to get moving (slowly) towards fulfilling that role. > The marketing team should define an overall goal for GNOME. We should > not just invent slogans. We also should not try to "sell" GNOME. I > think that we do not want that because than we would want people to > use GNOME instead of KDE or other desktops. But that would not benefit > but harm us! Here we disagree - the marketing team does not define the goals, it identifies and communicates them. We should be herding aligned efforts, and making people realise that they are aligned. Example: module maintainer 1 is working on abstracting away some aspect (functionality X) of his module behind a library. The functionality he's abstracting away could be useful for module maintainer 2, who has a long-standing feature request to include functionality X. So one module maintainer's "tidy up code" becomes another maintainer's "Add functionality X". Or, in discussing plans with 4 or 5 maintainers, you realise that everyone really wants to implement Jono Bacon's project spaces idea - and you get David Trowbridge together with Elijah Newren and a couple of key application writers (say, gaim, epiphany, nautilus) to cross-polinate tagging and workspaces, and have a couple of apps support it, and wahay! Major new feature thanks to your insight and effort in putting the right people together. It's the difference between "I'm telling you what you're going to work on for the next 6 months" and "Just last week I was talking to X about $COOL_IDEA - you guys should talk and see if you can't work on that together. > Is GNOMEs goal to be the leading desktop? The best usable desktop? GNOME is currently at least 3 things - each vitally important, a separate entity, and with its own momentum: 1. A development platform - see Maemo, Sugar, VMWare, Acrobat Reader, the GIMP, Abiword, ... as examples of excellent platforms or applications which are built on top of the GNOME platform. 2. A graphical computing environment - which is heavily modified (with the addition/removal of third party applications, patches and theming) by our distrib
How do we want to do GNOME Marketing?
Hi, I have scanned our mailing list archive and found out that WGO revamp had taken much of our energy, while discussion about how we should do marketing were rare. You can many nice ideas in http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing, but the question is not only what target markets we have (http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam/TargetMarkets), survey, market segmentation, etc. It is also a question on HOW we want to do marketing. We can state: We need lobbying But who is going to do this? We are not distributors. What we are selling is the idea of a free desktop. if the GNOME Foundation is not paying somebody to actually do all the stuff that is discussed at the end we need to build on voluntary work and this means that it it very likely that these nice people are not going to do all we have dicussed on page. So I'd like to suggest to switch focus. In fact I think we should also learn from the developers. We should create marketing projects and have the tools that we need - and just start. I think that we do should not plan actual deployments, because this is the job of distributors and ISVs. It is nice to have the data that is collected at http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam/GnomeDeployments for ourselves - as motivation and also as an argument and BestPractice. But I think we should rather learn from the deployments and work on feedback also for the usability team ( http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityTeam) My understanding of marketing for GNOME would be to develop strategies and to help in communication between different parties like usabilty people, developers, freedesktop.org, KDE people, distributors, ISVs, companies, governments or simple users. The marketing team should define an overall goal for GNOME. We should not just invent slogans. We also should not try to "sell" GNOME. I think that we do not want that because than we would want people to use GNOME instead of KDE or other desktops. But that would not benefit but harm us! What I would like to see from the marketing team in the next months are efforts to define GNOME and to define its niche. What should GNOME be and who should want to use, what needs does GNOME fullfil ? How should GNOME "feel" (or how does it feel)? Keep on asking simple questions. The marketing team should combine all informations and experiences that are available. GNOME should define a core metaphor (rather than a message or goal). I think what we have so far at http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/CoreMessage is not sufficient. We have to analyse where we are now, what makes GNOME special and what the overall direction of GNOME should be. We must look at our history and question the goals of yesterday. What have we accomplished? Many questions seem to be trivial, but the problem is that those that are heavily involved in GNOME tend not to see where GNOME is strong or week, because they ARE GNOME. They also often know how to circumvent problems. I like to write some things about how I see GNOME: As stated above I don#t think it is possible to state goals that nobody is going to work on. So we must be very realistic. GNOME is strong as one of the major free desktops. It is strong, because it listens to its users. My impression also is that it gets more interesting as a development platform for companies. Many users are satisfied with GNOME. There are also some interesting innovations like the NetworkManager and also some of the long-year annoyances are more openly spoken about and are worked on (printing, audio). Also usabilty was and is a focus of GNOME. Many things are not under GNOMEs control alone but have to do with other projects like the Linux kernel or the Mozilla project. Generally it seems that users that just want a working, elegant desktop grab GNOME and those who want to change everything grab KDE. But there is also much collaboration between those two projects and users use applications from both projects. On the community level my impression that in KDE there is more going on and people are generally more friendly to each other. OTOH GNOME is more stable and more often started projects to the benefit of every desktop or other projects outside of GNOME. GNOME has still great potential but is also very dependent on the success of Linux (and also other free software projects). Important projects like Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org are not part of GNOME but are part of the users experiences of what she thinks or sees as "her GNOME". So a users view is mostly completely different from the GNOME insiders view. What to make of it? The fact that users loose a bunch of software means that a good GNOME marketing must take this into account. Rather than thinking of "promoting GNOME" we should do what is best in the users interest and also help in communication between different projects. Help defining a GNOME metaphor that inspires developers and users alike. And that should help GNOME to make its way. The marketing also should help to spread the ideas of
