On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 01:17 -0400, Andy Watson wrote: > If you want to make money, sell it. If you want contributors, focus on > people that will contribute.
Ah, do you equate selling with proprietary? Another maddening myth that seems to be put about far too often to dull the understanding of foss. What we are selling is services; the services a programmer sells is Development. If users don't want to be involved then they get no consideration. They are as it were not-deserving of functional improvements or bug fixes and can only really claim to be getting the scraps of what other people pay for. But of course this isn't because people _are_ lazy or petty but because the cynical assume the human race is lazy, petty _and_ selfish to self destruction. Not that the current situation in the world doesn't suggest that. But there is a very large slice of people who will do the right thing when they know; many more people who look to those first set of people as guides on what to do. If we can inform enough of the tribal leaders then we can move this forward. I don't think we even need to push for general mass marketing. Just getting enough decently written and presented documents into the hands of community leaders should have a big effect. The mistake, I think, is in assuming that we need to reach everyone, or in fact the lowest common denominator. Society isn't quite that simple, not even for McDonnalds or US presidents. > A lot of people don't care enough to contribute or donate. It's our job to make sure we communicate why it's important to care, and if that's not possible then we have to teach by example. I'm getting tired of hearing how irresponsible the human race is on this mailing list with sweeping generalisations, even that we should make extra effort not to mention anything that may introduce honorable production to the delicate constitutions of the debauched general masses for fear of confusing their poor brains. Just the part where I point out how much non-participation takes user's needs and flushes it clear down the toilet should be enough. No participation, no communication, no progress. Programmers get what they want, users get to use what programmers needed. Yes Ubuntu is technically awesome, but also FOSS is awesome and it shouldn't be just the programmers and big businesses that get to take advantage of it because of selective dumb-down marketing. Martin, -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
