Re: Another online survey

[Steve George <slgeorge gmail com>]

Hi Dave,

I know you have distributions as one of your target customers and I
can see your thinking.  However, for those distributions that already
have a default desktop I think you have a difficult task.  From their
perspective if they add another desktop all they are looking at is a
more complexity and the associated cost with this.  There can't be a
distribution manager who doesn't know of GNOME, they're just making a
business decision that there isn't sufficent benefit.

My view would be that the way to get distributions to add or change
their default desktop is to get end-users giving them feedback that
they want GNOME.  Customer demand is one of their strongest drivers. 
So the message would be not just 'use gnome' but 'tell your
distribution to include gnome'.  It would be useful if there is some
differentiation in capability between GNOME & KDE in areas that meet
the distributions target customers needs - maybe someone knows some
features?

I'm about to go off topic.  I personally think that convincing
distributions directly is too difficult; you could market for enduser
feedback but I'm not sure how effective it would be.  And while GNOME
either loses penetration or has a perception of doing so you've got a
problem.  An alternative strategy would be to try and make inclusion
less important.  The old ximian packaging was extremely successful at
bypassing the distribution entirely.  Consequently, having an end-user
binary installation of the latest and greatest would enable you to
remove the distribution blockage.

I think that the third way would be best because it has positive
messages, makes GNOME more of a product (which is easier to market)
and improves end-user touchpoints.   Since this falls outside the
marketing list I'll leave this argument thread at this point.

Darn, what a classic "this isn't a marketing problem it's systems
development issue" email.

Cheers,

Steve

On 5/9/05, Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Claus Schwarm a écrit :
> > On Mon, 09 May 2005 13:59:44 +0200
> > Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
> >>Simos Xenitellis a écrit :
> >>>The real fight to get GNOME even higher is to win more distros.
> >>Right. Anyone have any idea how we can go about that?
> >
> > Is the basic assumption correct?
> 
> Yes. Most people get their desktop from a distro. Being on more distros
> means more users. More users means more happy users.
> 
> > Given the political issues surrounding
> > the question (UserLinux rejecting KDE, Ubuntu adding Kubuntu), you'll
> > have a hard time trying to convince a distribution to change its
> > desktop default.
> 
> That's not necessarily the goal - equal status would be a good improvement.
> 
> > It seems more promising to promote GNOME to end users (institutional and
> > private), and feature those distributions that use GNOME as default.
> 
> I disagree. Your target audience is much larger and more varied. We have
> a problem concentrating on a central message. Bigger target audiences
> (like "institutional and private end-users") is a big part of that
> problem. Let's stop trying to be all things to all men.
> 
> > For
> > example, remember Davyd's blog entry about GetFootware:
> 
> Our goal should be to get all distros that matter on that list, and the
> bigger ones on the top part of it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.
> 
> --
> David Neary
> bolsh gimp org
> 
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