Encouraging Coporate contributors? [was Re: [Clipart] Contributors and moderation]

[Bryce Harrington]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Alan Horkan wrote:
> Surely if Gnome can convince Bitstream to provide fonts for use by the
> open source community then it would be worthwhile for us to start asking
> graphics company if they might provide some small selection of their
> clipart.
> 
> So do people think this is a practical idea?  (Seems like a longshot to me
> but might be worth exploring)
> Should we ask the Gnome Foundation for help and should I strat trying to
> make a list of companies that sell Clipart?

Sounds like a long shot, but you never know.  I'd suggest waiting until
the clipart repository has wider visibility, though.  If you approach a
company at this point, when we have nothing to show, it wouldn't be very
compelling to them.  If you approach them when the clipart repository
has an audience of hundreds of thousands, that might pique their
interest.  (Of course, one could argue that at that point there should
be enough contribs by regular users that it may not be necessary to get
corp assistance.)  Also, if you can find email addresses or phone
numbers of particular people within the company (such as marketing
directors or business development personnel), that might prove more
fruitful. 

Bryce