Fwd: [Promotion] Rolling up things

[Thilo Pfennig]

sorry this one only did get to quim

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thilo Pfennig <tpfennig at gmail.com>
Date: 15.12.2006 00:38
Subject: Re: [Promotion] Rolling up things
To: qgil at desdeamericaconamor.org


2006/12/14, Quim Gil <quimgil at gmail.com>:

> If we start agreeing the 2-4 target audiences we want to market, then
> we will probably have a better foundation to start designing common
> marketing strategies.

We should/could distinguish between markets and audiences. I think
very general everbody is a potential user, but maybe GNOMEs 10x10 goal
led us to a wrong direction? Maybe we should rather try to get 90% on
small markets for our niche to survive and from where to grow?

We could try to split potential markets. The smaller the better. Maybe
a good way is to look at our products and what the can provide NOW -
and then we should find out where the current application is
sufficient or maybe better than propriatery desktops?

NGOs come to the mind. But in the free software magazine lately
somebody made the point that NGOs often do get huge discounts so that
often the money is not such a big argument. And also NGOs still think
that Microsofts or Apples products are superior. Another market that
quickly comes to the mind are Developing Nations. But statistics show
that very few developers today come from these countries.

I still think that FREE is really the key to the best markets. I think
we need to present packages for those potential markets. And I also
think that the real power does not come from one or two local
goverments that implement GNOME or KDE, but it really gets interesting
if maybe 5-6 countries get together to help develop software. I have
read that Switzerland gives away tax software for free, Germany too.
But both efforts are only partial free software as far as I know and
totally unrelated. That is the "not invented here syndrom". Certainly
every country has its own tax system, nevertheless the principles of
taxation are very similar and also a common module that could handle
all taxes around the world would be a real great thing!

On Free Software the development is often much, much more important
than with proprietary software. I am always thrilled on the feedback I
get if I send bug reports to a proprietary project (or my online bank)
- mostly they can not handle this adequately - they are not used to
customers giving helpful feedback. This is our power. I think we get a
lot more good feedback and better bug reports in free software.

And marketing is not the same as selling (not sure who emphasised that
in GNOME?). this means that marketing is not only to find markets but
mainly a strategy for the future of the free desktop. We have some
points that are unique to what we want:
 * We (as freedesktop.org, GNOME, KDE and others) do not need to make
money out of selling copies.
 * We are happy if others take the software and use it, even if we do
not make money with it.


BTW: Our team is not really complete without some other major
organisation, I think as there are primarily:
 * Mozilla Foundation
 * OpenOffice.org

Both are very important for the current user experience - and they
have a foot in the Windows and Mac desktop market. Are there any folks
from these organisations subscribed to this list? Should we invite?
What we should develop first is a common understanding of what a free
desktop is and we should exchange different strategies.

We have a lot things still going wrong: OpenOffice.org for instance
uses incompatible licenses (PDL) for its documentation. In their
documentation they explain some DTP terms. I came accross this problem
as I tried to enrich Wikipedia with OpenOffice.org documentation.
These terms are so common that every DTP related project would love to
have a good description of it. But mostly we provide different
documentations for different packages that are either incompatible
because of the licenses OR technically (so that you can not simply
copy). Fedora for instance uses OPL for its documentations rather.I'd
like to say: Please dont be creative with licenses! What should at
least be done is dual licensing (I suggest under GFDL), so that
projects can exchange data. This could eventually enable new projects
to start with a great documentation about many things that are not the
core functionality. Great documentation also makes users happy.

Ok, I know I tend to write long emails, so I stop here for now.

To start I think we should discuss our core strengths and where they
are most powerful. And then it would be important to make a strategy
and a combined effort/attack that should also lead to encourage
developers to reduce the weaknesses in this field or develop a new
product that closes a hole in a possible solution.

Maybe we get more ideas from a nice IRC session with a lot of random
ideas in short time. is #freedesktop in freenode the right place?

Thilo

PS: Sorry for making wind. ;-)
----
Nice article: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/ubuntu_for_non-profit_newbies
The 10x10 goal: http://live.gnome.org/10x10


--
Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig


Addition: http://christopher.aillon.org/blog/dev/mozilla/20061204-linux-alliance.html
Mozilla Corp. to work more closely with Linux distributors

I think this is a good sign...

-- 
Blog: http://vinci.wordpress.com
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig