[Promotion] Fitting apps into the picture

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

I've been vaguely taking notice of the discussion on the GNOME marketing list 
about the web site changes. They look really impressive, it's great to see a 
project tackling such an enormous subject in such an organised manner :o)

My eyebrows were raised, however, when reading about the GNOME application 
pages. Quim Gil has drawn a nice diagram summarising the idea [1].

It raises an interesting question: where does GNOME (or KDE for that matter) 
draw the line between promoting applications that are central to the 
platform, and those that are completely independent? Gergely Nagy says apps 
will be listed if they are "relevant to GNOME" [2] but that's not a very 
useful guide.

This relates to the huge issue of defining what "GNOME" is, what The GNOME 
Project should be marketing specifically, which in turn raises many, many 
complex questions. We could go into that if people want, though I'm aware that 
the GNOME Foundation is working on an answer. What I'm interested in is this: 
what are the implications for the "Linux desktop" or the "open source 
desktop" or the "free desktop" marketing ploy, if GNOME.org promotes Inkscape 
as being "related" to GNOME? [1] Inkscape uses GNOME libraries, and conforms 
to the GNOME HIG, but is otherwise a fairly independent project. They don't 
mention GNOME prominently in any of their promotional pages (just mentions of 
the FAQ and possible inclusion in GNOME office in their FAQ) [3].

I roll my eyes when I hear people say "we need a GNOME version of K3B" or "a 
KDE version of The GIMP", as though the libraries used are relevant. Over the 
past few years lots of effort has gone into making that distinction 
irrelevant to the end user. But are we in danger of reinforcing it by 
suggesting that Inkscape is part of, or relevant to GNOME and not KDE, or 
vice versa with K3B? Does it make sense for us to pit Digikam and F-Spot 
against each other in that way, rather than on their own merits?

I can see how it makes sense to include promo slots for lots of high quality 
apps on the GNOME web site, and I like the new focus that has been decided 
upon, but I wonder what the wider implications are. I see the future of our 
marketing efforts as positioning KDE and GNOME as key parts of "the free 
desktop", with apps like Inkscape and Digikam being separate parts (except 
when targetting developers, of course). In fact if I was Dictator of the 
World I'd be tempted set-up a cross-desktop web site promoting apps, and have 
each "desktop project" point to that, then highlight how their framework 
contributes to those apps. If that makes any sense.

It partly depends on where we apply our marketing effort... at the level of 
the libraries, that plus the "desktop environment" (i.e. panels, background, 
file mananger), all of that plus the really cool applications that make 
extensive use of GNOME/KDE technologies, or even just abandon that and help 
Canonical, Ark, Novell, Mandriva, etc. market their products!

I'd love to hear some thoughts from others on this. 

Regards,
Tom


[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/marketing-list/2006-August/msg00047.html
[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/marketing-list/2006-August/msg00025.html
[3] http://www.inkscape.org

-- 
The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their 
transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the 
name of the betrayed ideal (Fromm – Beyond The Chains Of Illusion)