Re: response to linus...?

[Santiago Roza <santiago roza thymbra com>]

> - As a Marketing Team we haven't sent an official response to anybody, e
> la nave va.

as a marketing team we have done pretty much nothing
marketing-related, if that was the point.



> - Starting precisely with a high profile like Linus is risky.

everything is risky, life is risky.  then i suggest we shut down the
marketing team, in order to avoid risky moves.



> A wrong
> step from our side can be magnified by someone with access to the media
> like him.

and that's why i was extremely polite and non-confrontational in my
response, something no one seemed to notice.



> - This action being done by someone who is not a high profile in the
> GNOME community is also risky.

so remove my name from the response: i don't give a f*ck about the
name, and that wasn't the point, not at all.



> So you or me send this email. Linus
> responds with a complete answer. What do you do, follow yourself the
> debate in the name of the GNOME community? Start a debate here everytime
> you need to answer him?

yes, that last option exactly.  it's called agreeing a consensual
public position, and all organizations do it when they have to deal
with issues like this.

but we don't cause we're so much cooler.



> - Now think that Linus comes with some very reasonable arguments that
> would imply changes in he way GNOME work as a product and as a
> developers community. Are you in a position to reply Linus "you are
> right here and we will address this mistake"?

it's not my fault if gnome's developers don't give a f*ck about public
relations, external communication, marketing, and pretty much
everything other than coding.

but... if developers cared to consider the marketing team as something
other than a mindless advertising puppet (btw maybe they're right
about us), we as a team (not myself as a person; again i don't give a
f*ck about myself here) would be in a position to reply linus "you are
right and we will talk to the developers so they can adress that
mistake".  but that will never happen.

anyway, the fact that we have zero communication with developers isn't
important at all; that would be marketing and we're the
gnome-advertising-puppets-team.



> What is the real power you
> or the entire Marketing Team has to change wrong things inside GNOME?

me?  no power at all, and i'm ok with that.

the marketing team?  well if we really have zero power, why don't we
just shut it down, or rename it to fit its actual tasks (did i suggest
gnome-advertising-puppets-team already?)



> For all these reasons it is clear to me that any official answer coming
> from GNOME must be generated by a high profile trusted and listened by
> the board, a body that as explicitely the responsibility of speak on
> behalf the GNOME project and community.

fine, then forward my first email to them, or whatever.  oh wait, i
remembered they don't seem to give a f*ck about these meaningless
details like our brand image, so they won't do anything.

and if they don't do anything, i guess we shouldn't do anything
either; let's not forget that we're just brainless over-enthusiast
logo-carrying advertising puppets, and that trying anything other than
that is just too risky.



> It's a pain and we could do it far better, I know.

no one seems to care so i don't see where the pain is; do you?

and it doesn't seems like it's one of our objectives, so we couldn't
do it "better" anyway, could we?



> But the solution is
> not sending an email to a prominent user, but to stablish the mechanisms
> to deal properly with prominent rants like this.

and what would "stablish the mechanisms to deal properly" be, exactly?



> Work building a public voice mechanism for GNOME. I think the gnome.org
> homepage is the obvious place for this

haha, it's always like that... one comes here with the (maybe stupid)
idea of doing something actually meaningful marketing-wise (other than
the essential smiling logos and portable gnome flags), and they say
"yeah that's very nice, but what we actually need is a drone who can
redecorate our website, translate our documentation to 84 more
languages, and make us coffee".



> when dealing with
> private communications such as an email sent to a prominent potential user.

it was supposed to be not just sent by email, but published on
websites and all (maybe reach slashdot if we were lucky, but we won't
because i can't say gnome).

and it wasn't supposed to be signed by me (that was a last resort, if
no one here would support the idea), so it was NOT "private
communication".

anyway don't worry: i don't feel like moving a f*cking finger about
this anymore; the gnome marketing team has delivered yet again!



> Sorry mate, but you (or me) sending an email to Linus discused only here
> in less than 24h is not that constructive to the GNOME project and
> community, not even to ourselves.

well maybe i was bluffing with the 24 hour thing :P, i don't know, but
it had to be discussed asap if it was to be done.

but now we don't have to worry about it, cause nothing will ever get
done (yay!).



> This shot aready caught us,
> constructivism is to build a system to dal with future shots to come.

and with our current pace and strategy (or lack thereof), that will
happen like... never.  feel like betting?



> Nobody is saying we donpt want to repair this.

yeah of course, i'm sure we do.  gnome has done everything within its
power in order to repair their image before end users: private
responses in a developers-only list, and... oh wait, there's nothing
else.



> And
> "strategy" is what I miss in you proposal, as I'm trying to expose with
> a several bunch of arguments.

which i'm responding one by one.



> Your proposal would fit better in a stronger marketing strategy if you
> would be convincing us to make your text or an improved version of it be
> sent by Luis, Jeff, Miguel, Owen or one of the high profiles in our
> community ...

yeah well i thought of that in the first place, but seeing our
nonexisting communication channels with those guys, i quickly
discarded the idea.

so i thought "gnome marketing team" (if we had agreed to send it
"officially") would have sounded more authoritative than nothing;
certainly not as good as having the big guys behind, but again better
than nothing.

but i forgot we don't do public relations, just like we don't do
anything marketing-related.



> Besides, I'm not saying yiu shouldn't send this message to Linus and all
> the websites you wish. I'm only saing you shouldn't include GNOME in
> your signature.

it was just a signature; i couldn't care less.  that's not the problem
here; problem is that without any kind of "corporate" backup, it would
be just another email amongst the hundreds that linus must have
received.  so why bother?



> the true is that today you
> can't (nor me) speak to Linus or whoever in the name of GNOME.

i said gnome marketing team, not gnome or gnome foundation or gnome
whatever.  but it seems like the gnome marketing team can't even speak
in the name of the gnome marketing team; we are THAT meaningful.



> And we won't change this on a rushed late night debate.

as a matter of fact it seems like we won't change anything here, no
matter the hour.



> Sorry if I can't continue with this thread, a deadline is byting my butt.

no problem, none of us cared anyway, not to mention it's 3 am and i'm
falling apart (so please forgive the typos i must have made :P).



--
Santiago Roza
Departamento I+D - Thymbra
santiago roza thymbra com