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

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi, 

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:11:44 +0100 (BST)
Paul Cooper <pgc openadvantage org> wrote:

> 
> At the risk provoking a further rant, I suggest having a look at the
> latest SuitWatch from Doc Searls,
> 
> http://lists.ssc.com/pipermail/suitwatch/attachments/20060720/b35fd219/attachment.cc
> 
> wherein amongst other things Doc questions whether traditional
> marketing is viable any more.
>

In case you're interested in a different position, here's a quote from
Jono Bacon [1]:

 "Since my entry to the Open Source community, I have seen developers
evolve. Back in the early days, developers were largely code heads who
cared for nothing but code. Many of these developers wrote awesome
code, but produced terrible websites, ugly interfaces and terse
documentation."

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?

IMHO, in the field of FOSS, marketing is done more often by developers;
some of them excel here -- think Firefox --, others don't. Or as Jono
puts it: Some evolve! And maybe one should add: Others don't!

Stated differently: Why should the GNOME project care about usability if
its motivation is not to ease the life of as many people as possible?
And is this not marketing?

I've never really understood why so many people seem to listen to Doc
Searls. Maybe, that's because he tells geeks what they would like to
hear? Well, his points may hold within the area of geek2geek products
but they should not be generalized -- and the text you pointed to has
a strong habit of over-generalization. ;-)


Cheers,
Claus

[1] http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=720