Re: About The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative

[Alex Hudson <home alexhudson com>]

On Sun, 2007-04-22 at 12:54 +0200, Thilo Pfennig wrote:
> On 4/22/07, Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:
> > GNOME is not a desktop project, it's a user experience
> > project.
>
> Well then we should start telling the truth. From our front page:
> "GNOME offers an easy to understand desktop for your Linux or UNIX computer."

That is definitely a marketing problem.

I actually agree with both of you; I think GNOME is a desktop project
(and I think that's what most people recognise the project as being; at
least, that's what people will say if you ask them). But, I think also
what it means to be part of the "desktop" is much broader than it used
to be, and certainly includes mobile devices.

> Question is what the task of the marketing team should be? If the REAL
> marketing is neither discussed nor decided on the marketing team I
> rather suggest to dissolve it and officially give the foundation board
> the task to do the marketing and then just have action groups for
> doing specific tasks.

I think that problem will solve itself, actually. If the marketing team
can tackle real problems and make progress, it will automatically start
being consulted more - it's a bit chicken and egg, but I think it has to
be that way around.

I think further that a lot of the discussion I see about GNOME, about
what GNOME 3 should be, about what the project should do and what the
future ought to be, are all in many ways marketing issues (to the extent
that if you're building software for other people to use, it needs to be
things people want, and if they've never used it before you have to tell
them why they would want it). 

Personally, I think the marketing team could take the lead in developing
that discussion and creating coherent vision for where GNOME is going,
and I think that would also be invaluable (not least by articulating
that vision in such a way that it brings everyone in the GNOME project
together, even if they're not directly working on "The Desktop").

But I do think that, and other marketing issues, are things that need to
be proactively addressed by the marketing team, rather than simply
deferred to the team.

Cheers,

Alex.