Re: Signing off our target audience (was Re: Example of targetted release notes)

["Thilo Pfennig" <thilopfennig foresightlinux org>]

On 3/16/07, Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net> wrote:

IMHO, your suggestion needs improvement: What should the Marketing Team
do, even it would agree on your proposal?

I like to add my view to this discussion: I think that we cant discuss this whole thing as abstract as we so often. In the end you need the people to do what you think is right. And its also true that most of us are active in other relations - not only GNOME - but also in distributions, companies or self-employed.

The last release of Foresight gave me some new experiences. I think what we have done and will do is take GNOME and construe it for our users. So what is really needed is an active communication. I think it is hard to focus on one group or the other because I think things are changing very quickly.

Instead of one central view and marketing I would vote for a collaborative, decentralized approach. A marketing of the small steps. A marketing of those who know what fits best. GNOME needs to get better, GNOME needs to fulfill users needs better. Foresight is interested in better GNOME as well as GNOME is interested in more and better GNOME in distributions - and as users like to have a better desktop. When the circle is working we are doing the right things. I don't really care about what we should do - I am only interested what people really do.

I also like to look where GNOME is weak and encourage to get better - or encourage developers to fix the weaknesses. The user is often right, but not always - but still I think i the past GNOME too often thought it would know better than the users - and also did not meet their daily needs because the developers did not have the same needs - and instead focused on theoretically better usability - which is nice if it really works - but still users need to get things done. So everything that makes a better desktop experience is GOOD or BETTER.

That's my understanding of marketing, also: We talk to the developers - we make some experiences that the developers may not make because they focus on other stuff. And also we each have and make different experiences which we can exchange. Its nice if we agree on a consensus - but if we do not still each of us will continue his/her work. So no matter what the marketing team will decide or do I think I will continue to work inside Foresight and above that for the vision of a desktop or GNOME. I dont see much sense in starting the marketing from a central viewpoint. I rather like to see our marketing as a compromise.

So rather start different projects. We dont have the ressources to do a big marketing. if we had or web launch would have worked in time. Lets not pretend that we have the ressources as long as we dont have them - as long as 
GNOME.org does not have the ressources to pay full time workers to do a good job. So lets be realistic and do what we can and make some cool projects and help to make GNOME better. I think this is what we can do and it would still be a lot.

The 'centralistic' way has the effect that some things wont get done - or that some goals are set and will not be accomplished if nobody works on them. I rather like projects with a limited timeframe and clear goals.


Thilo

-- 
Thilo Pfennig
http://wiki.foresightlinux.com/confluence/display/~vinci/