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

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi, Dave!

Open Source is useful in a number of ways but there's no need to
exaggerate its influence, especially not because some projects
re-invented a known wheel after they threw the existing one away.

As a very simple example: Traditional marketing theory tells you to
care about the distribution of your product. Firefox cared about it,
and made it as simple as possible for its potential consumers:
it offered a binary package taht worked on most distributions IIRC.

Could you imaging Spreadfirefox's success when they would have
offered a source tarball, only? Do you really think, some people
blogging about the new, cool browser would have had any effects
when people were required to compile Firefox first? But that's how the
majority of open source projects deal with distribution.

Seems to me traditional marketing considerations are still working:
Firefox is one of the most successful open source projects ever. ;-)

However, the main point is: Neither Open Source nor the Internet removes
the basic economic and psychological circumstances that determines
marketing; they merely change the rules slightly. Whether or not one of
these technologies influences what you do depends on the market you're
in.

And I already wrote that the points made by Doc Searls seem to fit a
geek2geek market very well.


Cheers,
Claus