Re: university outreach project

[Paul Cooper <pgc openadvantage org>]

John Williams wrote:

> > Re: the "marketing" vs "selling" issue.  It seems to me that the
> > marketing team doesn't have any tangible control over the 
> > "product" (due
> > to its FOSS nature).  So this rules out what John calls marketing*.
> >    
> Sigh.  True.  I was hoping that the individuals involved in the
> marketing list (myself excluded of course) would be sufficiently
> integrated into the GNOME developer community (i.e. actually coding
> GNOME libraries and applications) that they could control the product.  
>
> Again, my question is: Who does?  The GNOME foundation?  If not, who?
>  
The foundation don't control the product (that's enshrined in it's 
constitution) - each piece is 'controlled' by the maintainers and 
contributers to that piece (roughly speaking) - have a look at luis talk 
from guadec 2003;

http://tieguy.org/talks/

Paul

> > Since we can't change what we have, I think the next question is "who
> > would want to 'buy' what we have, once they learn what we have?"
> >    
> I think we can change what we have.  This is called "adding features".
> And again, I firmly believe that looking for buyers for what you already
> have is sub-optimal.
>
>  
>
> > I think there is a large number of people that could and 'should' be
> > using Linux/Gnome today that aren't.  (This means people 
> > who's needs are
> > satisfied by FOSS and who decide they like it, after having tried it.)
> >    
> OK.
>
>
>  
>
> > Why aren't these people using Linux/Gnome yet?
> >
> > A) they don't know it exists
> > B) they don't know how well it fits their needs
> > C) they want to, but don't know how to switch
> > D) they want to, but don't think they can switch without help
> > E) general laziness, fear, uncertainty, doubt, whatever.
> >
> > It could be divided many ways, but I think this list is in 
> > the ballpark.
> >
> > Let's forget group E, they would require more hand-holding than we can
> > deal with (not a very desirable group, anyway).
> >    
> Interesting.  I think that if we can subdivide (E) into (Ei)=laziness
> and (Eii)=FUD, then (Eii) should be a major target.
>
> Here is a useful tool for thinking about why people don't use your
> brand.  Think about your closest competitor.  Why don't "your" users
> user your competitor's brand?  In this case, think about why GNOME users
> don't use KDE.  
>
> Does A--E still make sense?  I would guess that the only reason is:
>
> SATISFICING.  This means that
> (1) you are choosing a sub-optimal option
> (2) the cost of optimising is greater than the (marginal) benefit 
>
> I will use myself as an example.  I use GNOME rather than KDE, but the
> only reason is that I started using GNOME when QT was non-free.  Because
> GNOME satisfies by computing needs on GNU/Linux I have no real impetus
> for change, or even INVESTIGATING my options.  Again:
>
> It's all about the APPS.
>
> And you can run GNOME apps on a KDE desktop, and vice versa.  So why
> change?  Only if either GNOME or KDE becomes _hugely_ better than one
> another will users change.  At the moment I believe that the choice is
> largely a matter of visual aesthetics and chance (i.e. whatever you
> started using first).
>
> I would be very, very interested to know if I am talking shit here.  In
> fact, if anyone who is reading this feels motivated to reply; If you
> reply to nothing else, please answer this question:
>
> Why do we care about _how many_ people use GNOME?
>
> (In the for-profit marketing world this is easy.  In the FOSS world it
> needs to be made more explicit.)
>
>
>  
>
> > While the LiveCD is still in the works, I'd like to start 
> > brainstorming
> > what a university outreach project might look like.
> >    
> All this makes sense to me. 
>