RE: Marketing list action: Market Research for GNOME and GNU/Linux

["John Williams" <JWilliams business otago ac nz>]

> But I must admit that "goal" meant to me something
> 1.) advanced (or challenging),
> 2.) specific and measurable, and
> 3.) binding.

Me too.

> For example, Mozillas "1 Million downloads in 10 days" was 
> such a goal.
> OpenOffice.org's "50% selection rate until 2010" is such a 
> goal. 

These are tactical-level goals and as such can only be sensibly defined
once a strategy has been defined.  What is needed is strategic thinking.
What I mean is answers to questions like:

(1)  Who are "we"
(2)  Why should we give a toss how many GNOME users there are?

And then

(3)  Is it better to have as many users as possible, or to focus on a
select few? (Why?)
(4)  If it's better to focus, on whom do we focus?  (Why?)

I see a basic split of possibilities:

1.  Focus on existing users in order to make GNOME better for them
2.  Focus on non-users in order to induce them to use GNOME

There is no reason why it is not possible to do both, but it would
require separate strategies.