Re: OpenCD & GNOME

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:10:43 +0200
Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Claus Schwarm a écrit :
> > I've not looked at the OpenCD yet, so the following may sound
> > foolish. However, promoting the GNOME development platform to end
> > users seems somewhat misguided.
>
> The sell is not the development environment, it's the applications... 
> "Use top-quality free software on Windows!", "GNOME desktop software
> for  free on Windows", "Put yourself on the road to enlightenment with
> Abiword, GNUmeric, the GIMP, and many more!"

I'm afraid you gotta be a litte bit more precise: Who should care about
these claims? Windows users?

Try to imaging a Windows users who has never heard about GNOME before.
To them this reads like:

 "Humpfty desktop software for free on Windows"

If you read it like that, you get a good impression what they will
think: "WTF is Humpfty?"

Additionally, where would you like to place such advertising
claims? On the CD?


> > Would the launcher thingy allow to include information about
> > additional GNOME apps that are related to a certain application or
> > category, but have not yet been ported to Windows?
>
> Not a good idea, IMHO. Get people using free software, learning about 
> the philosophy, the community, the freedom. Force-feeding Linux, or 
> software that they're not ready to use yet (otherwise, why use the 
> OpenCD? Why not install GNU/Linux directly?) is not a good idea.
>
> Plus, it's in bad taste. People don't like that kind of thing.

I'm sorry. There's a Ubuntu LiveCD on the OpenCD, isn't it? Are you
expecting OpenCD users to be computer beginners?

I really fail to understand you here. Why use the OpenCD? Maybe because
the point of the CD is to feed people piece by piece? Let them explore
the options in small steps?

However, where's the point in distributing the CD if there's no
additional information about other apps? Should users get the impression
these handful of apps are everything they can get for Linux?

If we don't make people curious about exploring a whole new world, why
do we expect them to switch at all?

Force-feeding... wow! In the forums I read regularily new users often
ask for recommendations about apps! And given the mess that freshmeat or
sourceforge is, who could blame them? Pick a usual PC magazine and what
do you find? Lots of app reviews. And people like to read it.

I've roughly 25 CDs lying around here from my last Windows years, and
all major apps on them want a password that will be sent to you after
registrating at the vendors homepage. Magazines didn't stop doing that,
I guess. Of course, nobody likes that but everybody agrees that it's
better than paying!

So, why should we be worried about about a small recommendation for
apps people could only install after installing Ubuntu? The only thing
that made me interested in Linux years ago was my (false) impression
that you get LaTeX only for Linux.

OpenCD users are very unlikely to be beginners who download
Gnumeric because they can't figure out it's not a Windows app. Or who
start wondering where Windows has gone after they partitioned their
whole disk (A valid option in Ubuntu the last time I looked).

I really don't mind if the idea is not what you've been looking for but
I'm wondering about your arguments.

If you're afraid to promote, put a GNOME logo under the app description
with a note: "Made with the GNOME developement framework." and you're
done. Maybe people will recognize it later but usually the awareness
effect of such one time exposure is rather low.


Cheers,
Claus