Re: On breaking the woohoo barrier...thoughts on how GNOME can get great

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi Claus,

Claus Schwarm wrote:

<snip>

> If Doc Searls' thesis about the viability of traditional marketing is
> correct, why are OSS projects that care about this traditional
> marketing more successful than those who not?

I think you have the cart and the horse in the wrong order there.

What has happened is that while maturing, free software has not just
changed the way we produce software, it has also changed the way we
market it. From spreadfirefox and firefox flicks through the phenomenon
of blogging software producers (Sun, 37signals, mozilla (again), but
also GNOME, KDE, ...) free software has changed the entire culture of
software over the past 10 years, including its marketing.

The most successful free software products are the ones who have been
leading this change, they are the ones who have clued in to the
cluetrain the quickest, and who have added the slightest amount of order
and direction to the massive community of users around the projects.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
David Neary
bolsh gimp org