“Sometimes it seems that Linux fanatics are the open source movement’s own worst enemy. Perhaps it is time that the “revolution” started to employ a few marketing people.” Read the editorial at ITWeb. Our Take: I agree with the author. There were many times that I asked articles, interviews, screenshots and other “marketing” material from maintainers of open source projects and they either never replied, or they replied… months later, or their reply was rushed and half-baked. Real companies or people who understood the importance of marketing, were truly responsive. Marketing is important, and each major open source project needs at least one good marketing/PR person.
Time for Linux Geeks to Move Over
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I agree, the linux fanatics are their own worst enemy. They are great about turning new users away from their products…
most open source programmers (including myself) do not write programs for fame and fortune, but just for the fun and challenge.
we arent trying to sell anything or push anything (well, some are…) but trying to create something that serves us well.
in this respect i certainly see myself more like a carpenter than a prima-donna artiste (who would then need a PR person)…
This is true for you. But when we are talking about bigger projects like KDE, Gnome, GCC, Linux kernel, Postgresql etc, they do need marketing help. KDE already has a marketing person I think that does the press releases.
“Marketing is important, and each major open source project needs at least one good marketing/PR person.”
Marketing is important if you want to *sell* stuff. If you just enjoy writing code, and you don’t want to dominate the world, marketing is a hassle.
Oh, sure. But not when you are writting code withing a large group of coders, projects that are used by many thousands or even millions of people.
<SARCASM>
Next time I will see Linux weenies crying over and trolling this very forum because they do not like the statistics companies saying that Linux has less than 0.50% of the market, I will just delete their posts. I think that would be most fair for the other readers.
</SARCASM>
but youve got to ask yourself: “marketing to whom?” are PR people trying to market something that isnt ready for most people yet?
Eugenia, I’m gonna piss you off a bit:
So, should the same apply to this website? If a lot of people read it, should you or the owner, become more responsive to its users and fix the URL parsing, or make other improvements people may ask for?
months later, or their reply was rushed and half-baked.
Eugenia, most of your reviews are half-baked!
Welp
The URL parsing is fixed, since last night.
And if you want to know, most of the improvements people are asking, are done. I am still working on the nested forum.
That’s great
But you know what I mean… At some point (not any time soon I hope) working on osnews.com for free may stop being fun. What do you do then? You either quit, pass the baton on or start ignoring people’s requests.
> Eugenia, most of your reviews are half-baked!
Oh, really? Go and f*ck yourself, give some real evidence instead of bitching, and then make your own web site and we will see how you can do things.
Last time I checked, all my recent reviews were linked from everywhere and the companies/projects gave me big thanks for the insightful reviews. Even Lycoris, which I kicked their ass by writing my mind on the product, they were gentlemen enough to acknowledge their shortcomings.
But your post is simply a half-baked comment. Further trolling comments (either by myself or others
won’t be authorized for publication. You have been warned. Do not waste any more ink.
Nah we don’t need marketing we just need people to realize that all the real work in linux is done at #. So if you don’t like the console go and get yourself a Mac. Oh wait a minute? Isn’t Mac’s latest build of OS built on free-bsd tech. Maybe it’s best for point and clicky people to stay in point and clicky M$ land.
Just my 2 cents.
http://lynx.browser.org/
It seems to boil down to the question of the purpose of the project. Do the project developers merely work on the project for their own pleasure and satisfaction, or do they, in fact, want to achieve a large user base?
I’m sure that we’d all like to think that if you make a superior product, everybody would be clamoring to use it, but that’s usually not the case in real life. Marketing is essential, even for a great product.
Another point is that “marketing” is itself a broad activity that’s open to discretion. Multi-million dollar ad campaigns are obviously out of the question for opensource projects, but simple things such as you mentioned, like timely responses, can make a big difference to the media and the public.
I wonder if the bonehead who wrote that opinion piece has ever stopped to wonder if competing, any time, anywhere, with anyone, is really the end-all and be-all of life. Believe it or not, some people who step outside to go running aren’t doing it to get into a race.
There is no rule declaring that Linux must become a big-time commercial product.
I find it highly ironic that people who can’t even begin to believe that some people do things for reasons other than profit have the gall to point at anybody else and cry “zealot”! This is the most absurd case of the pot calling the kettle black.
And the suggestion that marketing is the savior of anything…puuuhhhhhlllllllleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaassssssseeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
alas, if only they were wasting ink maybe they’d think before writing
i think large open source projects that are serious about userbase should start marketing themselves.
openoffice.org i think would be great as a bundled office suite if they could work it out with companies like ibm or hp.
mozilla could find many places to market itself, start with palmOS, see how many pdas it can be bundled with(i think it is on atleast one) and other embedded devices along with bundled with computers(assumin the doj doesn’t screw up and ms does all ‘modularity’).
those are just 2 that i like to use and would like to see be more adopted in the computing world.
“Quit it, Quit it, don’t turn everything into a dollar sign please! Ooh the plead for sanity dollar, huge, huge market!” -Bill Hicks
should you or the owner, become more responsive to its users and fix the URL parsing
it’s not eugenia’s fault if users are complete morons and don’t realize that (http://www.be.com) would be parsed as http://www.be.com) it’s not an uncommon error guys.
Eugenia, most of your reviews are half-baked!
Get lost.
Nah we don’t need marketing
Okay, fine with me. But don’t complain about linux’s market share – it’s your own damn fault.
we just need people to realize that all the real work in linux is done at #.
see above. most people are not going to switch back to an os that you have to use the command line to do basic things for.
So if you don’t like the console go and get yourself a Mac. Oh wait a minute? Isn’t Mac’s latest build of OS built on free-bsd tech
Moron. Take a debate class. This arguement does not help you, becuase you don’t have to know the command line to use linux. Not all the “real work” in os x is done at #.
Man, see what happens when you say there is something wrong with linux/the linux community? Geez, this is just sad.
M$ sucks and is now a matter of fact, tested on the high court (as reported on eWeek (and slashdot^^)).
GNU works for many purpose, no need for marketing since the aim is just make things that work on spare time for fun, not conquer the world or such (at least the sane people should think that).
If there is something commercial that isn’t on par of GNU is just the commercial soft house to blame, they invested more in advertising than in real code.
my 2 cents (of euro)
simply in the altruistic sense of wanting to see more people benifit from a great OS? Not for power or jollys – but the progression of society. It seems like a good idea to me.
Linux people are either screaming that everyone should be using their software and dumping MS because their stuff is free/technically-superior/politically-correct or they are screaming that they are not interested in anyone using their software whatsoever and are writing it just for kicks.
Go over and take a look at that NewsForge story on Microsoft being chosen over Linux by the South African government to supply all of its infrastructure software. The Linux people are just so pissed that this country didn’t choose their platform and the angst is unbelievable.
Make up your f*cking minds, would you? Do you want people to use your software or not?
> Linux has less than 0.50% of the market
I wish the OS/2 user base was that large. We could get some hacker to reverse engineer that dll and insert the bloody #@!/? Anti-Aliasing.
[i]”Sometimes it seems that Linux fanatics are the open source movement’s own worst enemy. Perhaps it is time that the “revolution” started to employ a few marketing people.”[i]
Personally, I think that the exact opposite is true. I think that the marketing people are the ones who made up the whole “revolution”. Linux is not a commercial OS, it is not windows, and it is not MacOS. It is a bunch of people writing code for the fun of it to try to create something cool. Linux does not need marketers trying to come in and jazz Linux up. I think the reason articles like this are written is because people are trying to use Linux as if it were a commercial OS like Windows or MacOS and then complain when it turns out not to be like that.
Linux is what you make of it, not some marketing guy. And it comes with a price that fits it, free, and if you want to modify it, well, that’s free too. Try that on Windows or MacOS, you will not not have so much luck I think. Just because the software that comes with your local distance is starting to reach the level of commercial software doesn’t mean it has to follow it’s rules too, Linux has changed the rules and attitues out there, not supported them.
“Marketing is important, and each major open source project needs at least one good marketing/PR person.”
Euh, why?
Even for some major open source projects it’s still mostly about making a good (/better) product and provide it to users. Nothing less, nothing more. Sure if the projects want to increase their user-base or get more press coverage or whatever a PR person might be a good idea, but as I said this is not always the case. So please stop making over generalisations.
Ok well if not ink how bout wasting poor electrons, they never chose to be used in a stupid comment and their stuck there till someone deletes the comment setting them free.
if there is money it in, marketing it generally good..
if its just an individual, its really up to that person.. its their choice…
quotes like : “What the movement needs now is a little of the presentation gloss that its competitors have been employing for so long.”
this assumes that they are competitors. i don’t like “linux” is trying to compete with ms in any way. (Linux distro provider in the business of selling support are of course)
other quotes like : “If Linux hopes to make real inroads in the next couple of years, a few ad hoc processes are not going to be enough.”
Linus himself admits this (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5027) … i can’t quite understand who this person is complaining to.. is it to linus? to the kernel hackers? or to companies like redhat.
i can see a legit complait against companies like redhat (if you feel their marketing is weak.. perhaps it is) .. but why complain about the guys working on the kernel itself… they have no obligation to provide any marketing …
Note to Eugenia: don’t let the dumb people ruffle your feathers. i and many others enjoy your efforts
linux does need marketing, whether or not they sell their product. take a look at kde or gnome. they might be free products you can download. but you still need marketing of some form to show people that it is actually good. if you didn’t do this, then no one will care about your product, free or not. even word of mouth is a form of marketing. me telling people about openoffice.org and staroffice and its advantages and disadvantages gives other people something to consider in their software purchases. the fact is, if you code something for yourself, then keep it to yourself, and don’t tell anyone about it. it won’t matter. if you code something huge, kde/gnome/mysql/apache, some form of marketing is a tremendous help. apache itself is easy to market, simply because a lot of people know that it is used by a little more than half of webservers out there.
so there.
I once read the difference between an “inventor” and an “Entreprenuer”. An inventor makes up new things without any concern for whether or not they are of any actual use to anybody else, he just feels pleased with himself for doing it, while an Entreprenuer originates things that are actually marketable by virtue of the fact that other people will actually want them. Linux people are more like the inventors than the entreprenuers, or at least they would be if their crap was practical. The number one core problem is this: Linux people want to be recognized, not for their accomplishments, but for their efforts. I say again, Linux people want to be recognized merely for their efforts, for the time they have put in, not for any actual accomplishments, which are somewhat harder to come by. That’s why if anyone points out that something in Linux isn’t working right or isn’t practical they start feigning indignation at the lack of appreciation for their ‘selfless’ efforts and get ugly. A commercial OS might take the feedback and make changes, but Linux people just snivel and bitch about how they’re not being paid and then attack the person pointing out the shortcomings. So Linux gets bigger and bigger as things nobody wants get added, while needful things are neglected .
Wal-Mart started selling PC’s with *no* operating system, even though Linux is *free*. Linux is *free*, and yet they don’t include it, not pre-installed, not even as a free CD. Why? Because they didn’t want customers returning a whole perfectly good computer system just because the bullshit OS pissed them off.
So yes, clueless Linux fanatics, when a new PC is actually worth *MORE* without your crappy OS than it’s worth *WITH* it, it’s time to turn over control to marketing. It’s just common sense.
… who originally posted the link on the OpenBeOS mailing list and said “you can replace Linux with BeOS/OpenBeOS and it’s just as valid”.
Never mind the flame wars, fact of the matter is that Linux would still be basement stuff if there weren’t big companies pushing it. And even if you cannot enjoy such a scenario, at least you (and with that I meant the BeOS/OBOS folks) have to have a functioning marketing structure in place.
With marketing (BTW) I didn’t mean announcing stuff that doesn’t exist, but communicating with people, gathering support, talking to developers, announcing new projects, updating on the progress etc. And for BeOS/OBOS this is way more important than any other OS.
The problematic bit here is that OBOS is trying to provide the foundation for a new OS, but that the “war” isn’t won on the OS side but on the applications side – and THERE the BeOS developer community has always fallen short. They provided the user with dijoint tools and toys rather than translators, OS-wide functions and applications that would attract what ultimately keeps an OS and its platform together: money – be it from consumers or investors.
Just my 0.02
Helmar
http://www.argo-navis.com
Anyone seen the IBM/Linux comercial? I’ve only seen it once. It was pretty cool, but the best part is that it seemed to bring some legitimacy to the none/semi computer savy people I’ve tried to discuss it with. You may say that Linux is not for non technical people anyway, but hey, if some marketing creates awareness, it may help me convince the overlords to let me replace some of my MS servers with Linux machines, and gasp, maybe even introduce it on the desktop. This is potentially a very important time for Linux, with companies feeling pressured to buy into MS’s licensing scheme, a little public nudge can only help. Hell, I’ve even a few people ask about converting to Open Office, after the recent press it’s received. Other than paranoid jealousy, a sense of entitlement, I don’t understand why the geek community should be so tight lipped and anti-social about speading the word. That doesn’t make sense.
There seem to be some rowdies in the bunch posting in this here thread. I’m sad to learn that. I likes to visit here. I likes the penguinites and I tries to like other critters too. Big surprise, the penguinites seem to has the tunnel vision that ithers has as well. They don’t like getting bounced when they know purfectley well that the writer of the “me too, yeah, I agree” article, the Eugenia, is right. And they be pickin’ fites like everyone else fur no raison at all that I can see. Oh well Ise just passin thru. By the way Eugenia-one I gots to mostly agree with you on this one. Ifn I decides in future posts and times and commentaries or what not to disagree than I plans to say so. Bowing politely. Like a good penguinite should. (the end) (-30-)
Speaking as the creator and maintainer of the PicoGUI project ( http://picogui.org ) I would like to point out the difference between PR for users and PR for other developers.
I started the project for my own use. As the months and years went by, more people started using PicoGUI. But on the whole, I still don’t care who uses PicoGUI- it’s for my own education, amusement, and use.
However, I would like to see more developers working on PicoGUI. The more people I have helping, the faster things get done (within reason of course) and the more nifty code I have to play with.
The problem here is that the average developer isn’t good at selling things, period. And the average PR person doesn’t know what developers need. So for an open source project to succeed when it needs more developers but not necessarily more users, it needs to have someone that can market to other developers.
I can’t say I’ve done this. I write code, and I’m amused when people use it, and thankful when people help with it. But I haven’t tried to market my project to users or developers. Sure, the project is still alive. But maybe it would be better with developer-oriented marketing?
It’s probably worth a try. Does anyone else feel they’re in a similar situation?
I thought the article was fair enough & was pointing to the possibilty of Linux being widely used on a large scale by gov IT depts v rolling over to MS. I was under the huge impression that most employees don’t get to choose their desktops or their apps & if a company has the guts to choose Linux, then the employees go with it or leave. It then behooves the company or gov dept to choose a useable distro & install the friendliest apps most people can actually use. I would think that most of these users will never ever use the shell.
It does make a huge difference if MS coerces govs all over the world to use Windoze since most Linux users are probably tax payers who will be paying their gov SW bills. If I were a big time Linux dev, I would be pissed if my gov was taking my money to MS when my community was offering them a possible alternative.
I also thinks that RS running around the world does’t help the cause either, coming off like a modern day Lenin.
Linux does need some sophisticated marketing to counter all the MS lies, but if RS is the main marketing guy for OSS, I’m afraid my tax bills will only go higher.
The old saying “all roads lead to Rome” could yet become all $ go to MS.
Anybody with a lick of common sense can recognize the bogus “definition” as a pathetic attempt for someone to stereotype and belittle people. Notice how ‘”Entreprenuer”‘ [sic] is improperly capitalized, while ‘”inventor”‘ is not. That’s our first clue to the bias.
In reality, an inventor is someone who either creates something new, or improves meaningfully on an existing product to make it more useful. In reality, an entrepreneur is simply a person who works for himeslf, a ‘sole proprietor’ in legal terminology.
In reality, many inventors pursue their craft for profit, like Thomas Edison did. In reality, most entrepreneurs are delivering newspapers and mowing lawns. In other words, someone needs to come down to earth.
the only entities in this game who are good at marketing are commercial companies. Yet Loki went belly up trying to play in the Open Source realm.
On the other hand marketing at some point costs serious money, something open source developers don’t have.
“Linux people are either screaming that everyone should be using their software and dumping MS because their stuff is free/technically-superior/politically-correct or they are screaming that they are not interested in anyone using their software whatsoever and are writing it just for kicks.”
LOL … true, true! Or what about when they bitch and whine about the ‘M$’ monopoly and say that people are ‘forced’ to use Windows and that there are no viable alternatives, and then in the same breath talk about how much better Linux is than Windows. So, either it is a viable alternative or it isn’t. But the truth is, Lin-NUTS zealots just pick whatever argument suits their agenda at the time, which (as best I can tell) is to ‘free’ every man, woman, and child of the MS ‘tyrany’ and switch them to the Almighty Linux.
And they talk about Bill Gates being on a power trip
As a Linux Guy it really frustrates me to see so many fanatic dorks in the community. These aren’t the RTFM people these are the misinformed people. This weeks lie:
Linux is ready for the desktop.
This is the sort of thing people say when they actually haven’t tried to get Linux working of non Linux Gurus desktops. Sure it works in some cases but not in all cases. The amount of hoops some users have to go through to do simple things is still too hard.
As for Eugenia having trouble with authors not responding there can be several reasons behind this. Some may not reply because they are too busy, some may not trust you(Weird hey), others have no excuse.
Linux could use some marketing people high up to compliment the technical people but we don’t need them all over the place. Not every open source project needs marketing and because it is hard to work out if it does or not we shouldn’t push marketing like that. Some simple rules should be followed.
This project needs marketing if
a) It generates money for the authors
b) It is trying to gain market (some games that are not sold try this)
If these rules don’t really apply what good is marketing doing. You’ll end up like a Dilbert company trying to convince people with advertising that your latest mp3 player is the best console ripper on the market.
A preview button would solve most of the URL problems as people would be able to see how it displays. Then just say you are not responsible for people forgetting to preview.
hello helmar!
I enjoy reading articles about Linux growing market share on the server-side, and in schools (my personal opinion, but I think governments SHOULD try to use open-source software as much as possible in schools AND in government use), but I have to side with the folks that dispariage marketing. Linux and Free/Open source software was here BEFORE the hype, and will still be here AFTER the hype. If people and businesses use it, great. If not, oh-well. That’s called choice. If Microsoft out-markets Linux, so be it. The people that use Linux / *BSD / whatever will STILL use it. All marketing does is put money in the hands of the marketters (sic). How many open-source projects can afford to hire a marketing firm? Not too damn many would be my guess. Would you be willing to sponsor a market-droid to help hype your favorite open-source project? Think about it.
Someone in this thread said it very nicely:
“Believe it or not, some people who step outside to go running aren’t doing it to get into a race. ”
Bullseye!
The Linux community is a collective of amatours.
Amatours, by definition, do not have enough oomf. They cannot stand a chance in a competition game against the power of professionals!
Psychology 101: Noone is willingly admiting of weekness. Naturaly these people will deflect the argument to the altrouistic domain.
First I would like to make a comment that is more related to the tone of the post here than it is to the content of the story.
From reading the post here, it is my opinion that there is plenty of ill feelings and negativity from all sides.
The Linux people do not have a monopoly in that market. If anyting, I have seen overall more negative and insulting post from the Microsoft camp, most likely due to there far greater numbers.
Most of the post, from all sides, lump large and diverse groups of people together, (all Linux users will tell you to RTMF, for example), when in reality each community consist of many different kinds of people with different personalities and different attitudes.
Given all of this, I would like to make a plea for the end of over generalizations and maybe a little more civility.
climbs off his soapbox
I think marketing open source projects sounds like a great Idea. It could be done by the community using the same principles as open source software development.
There are already plenty of members of the community that have writing skills and graphics skills. There are even musicians, animators and video artist.
All of the material could be developed collabratively and licensed under an OSI licenses.
Surely there are a few Marketing/Advertising gurus in the community that could lend guidance to the project and to help get the material on the air and in print.
“I am still working on the nested forum.”
I hope you don’t mean a forum like they got over at http://www.zdnet.com/ and http://www.osopinion.com/ . I prefer all the posts on one page like it is now. If i have to load a new page for every post i want to read, it takes way too long to get through all of them, and it would be impossible for me to read everything in a reasonable time frame. That’s why i don’t read the posts at http://www.zdnet.com/ and http://www.osopinion.com/
No, it will be similar to the old BeNews one, if you had ever seen it…
Darius,
Have is it occured to you that the statements were made by different people. Therefore, it is not a double standard; each person is being consistent with what he or she believes.
As the original article pointed out, Linux does not have a marketing department; there is no single person/commitee/whatever that decides what should be said.
Lets put the broad brushes away.
Amateur Am`a*teur”, n. [F., fr. L. amator lover, fr. amare to
love.]
A person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science
as to music or painting; esp. one who cultivates any study or
art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it
professionally.
I would not say that accepting pay for an activity automatically makes someone good at that activity. No more than doing something for the love makes one bad at it.
Incidentally, much important work has been done by amatuers; for example Issac Newton was an amatuer physicist.
Richard, repeat after me:
“Linux is an operating system
Linux is an operating system
Linux is an operating system”
continue 50x
The lie is that Linux is not ready for use on desktop PCs. In reality, that’s the one place where Linux really stands out.
Richard may simply be another one of the sheeple who perpetuate the unfounded rumor, or he might be speaking from a poisition of ignorance. Just because MS and Apple market the OS, utilities, desktop/GUI and applications as single products doesn’t mean that KDE == Linux or XFree86 == Linux.
And IME of installing Linux and Windows from scratch on a variety of PCs, the stumbling blocks in a typical Linux distro installation aren’t much different than those that I encounter when installing Windows onto a bare disk. The fallacy of the “desktop” lie is manifold, but the best argument is still far from being objective. The nitpicking is always done about installation. But since Windows and MacOS come preinstalled, the condemnation is not really of Linux/X/WM, but of the manual installation process in general. Try an objective “apples to apples” comparison (no pun intended) that’s as sweeping as the hypothesuis, and then tell me what you find.
RH 7.1 and Ximian Desktop are working just fine on my old Celeron 500, thank you. Much more pleasant than working on Win2000 (on my laptop). Even my wife prefers it (loves AbiWord). Easy to update, also. Love those multiple workspaces. Can’t beat Galeon.
Just wish fonts were easier to add (why can’t we drag-n-drop them as in Windows, Mac, BeOS?), and that my CD burner would work (though it hardly works under Windows, either…avoid Pacific Digital at all costs). Linux is not yet a COMPLETE replacement for Windows, but that improves as new apps come out.
Linux is a foreign language and culture to most people, but it CAN be learned! If I did it, ANYONE can do it.
There were many times that I asked articles, interviews, screenshots and other “marketing” material from maintainers of open source projects and they either never replied,
So what ? Who do you think you are to expect open source developers to do your job ? They don’t ask anything, there are some companies which have marketing material, but that’s useless for non-commercial projects.
Real companies or people who understood the importance of marketing, were truly responsive.
In your world where half the people are paid for non-productive work : marketing. The ones who are responsive are only commercial people or companies. They just do this or profit, not for the users, and it’s a shame.
Marketing is important, and each major open source project needs at least one good marketing/PR person.
No, marketing is useless. If you want to promote some open source product, then no-one prevents you to do it. There is already lots of capiltalist crap around free software, but it’s ok because it’s free, you can do what you want. But don’t expect developers to do anything as stupid, useless and non productive as marketing.
So what ? Who do you think you are to expect open source developers to do your job ?
You think it is Eugenia’s job to promote someone else’s products?
But don’t expect developers to do anything as stupid, useless and non productive as marketing.
Then don’t expect anyone to listen to them when they complain that nobody uses their software. I hope these developers who think marketing is stupid are independently wealthy.
Moron. Take a debate class. This arguement does not help you, becuase you don’t have to know the command line to use linux. Not all the “real work” in os x is done at #.
To the first post.
I don’t do all my real work at #. That’s a good way to get yourself into trouble. Log in as a regular user (may be different on OSX. Don’t know.
To the second post.
Don’t make fun of my favorite file manager please.
“Linux does need some sophisticated marketing to counter all the MS lies, but if RS is the main marketing guy for OSS, I’m afraid my tax bills will only go higher.”
Stallman, marketing guy for Open Source?
*ROTFL*
You should probably learn to differenciate between OSS and Free Software before speaking on what “linux need”.
You should probably learn what linux is too, because linux is a kernel, one of the best known kernels in the world, I’ll wager.
As for the rest, the whole article sound like a big troll or just some blurb written by one who Does Not Get It. As pointed out by previous posters, the Great Fallacy is that “linux” is run by some kind of hive-mind where everyone thinks the same, and are all doing it for the same reasons.
This ignorance is especially apparent in the people who are unable to understand the points above, that linux is a kernel and that Open Source and Free Software are different, though related, things.
Other than that; World Domination shall be ours — Bow before the mighty penguin!
Dr.P: “Then don’t expect anyone to listen to them when they complain that nobody uses their software.”
Please be more specific and provide us with a concrete example of a developer who first complained that nobody was using his software, end then blew off a chance to do PR.
It helps if your example is high-profile or at least known, since the argument wouldn’t be very convincing being about some anonymouse 15-year old writing YA irc-client or something like that.
Because you DO know of a specific example, no?
Dr.P: “I hope these developers who think marketing is stupid are independently wealthy.”
Again with the fallacy that OSS/FS is about making money for the developers.
You’re not getting it, are you?
… has it right. Marketing is a scam. While it can temporarily boost sales, marketing in general has no intrinsic value. In the long run, dependance on marketing enriches nobody but the marketers.
“You think it is Eugenia’s job to promote someone else’s products?”
OSNews. If someone sends you promotional materials, it’s not news.
A lot of you apparently don’t realize that most free software developers write free software for love, and write other software for money. It’s an avocation. Have you ever considered that after putting in a long day at work in business, that the last thing they want is more of the same? Lighten up!
What you say could be true if it wasn’t for the fact that I use Linux all the time and regulary help people out on usenet with it. For example there is one guy lets call him Peter. Now Peter wants to use mandrake he has tried other distros but they are too hard for him. He wants to play DVD’s but he can’t because they are encrypted. Now this is not Linux’s fault nor is it mandrakes. But it is a big pity that he has to go back to windows to play DVD’s. The real problem here is that every fix he has tried has failed.
So Speed would you say the Linux Desktop is ready for Peter? Or do you so believe the lie that you can’t conceive of people who cannot use Linux as their desktop?
and BTW I never mentioned installation.
Please be more specific and provide us with a concrete example of a developer who first complained that nobody was using his software, end then blew off a chance to do PR.
Since you are replying to my response to the post about how marketing is useless, I assume you agree with the statement above: “No, marketing is useless….stupid, useless, and non-productive.” If you do, then you are admitting that oss developers DO blow off chances to do PR. Why would you need examples from me for what you have already admitted is true?
As others have said here, we have all heard many times from those is the open-source/free software field that they aren’t in this (as developers) for anything other than personal gratification (which is fine), while also hearing many complaints that Linux (the poster child of oss) isn’t gaining popularity. Maybe these aren’t the same individuals, but the Linux “community” (if there really is one), can’t have it both ways. I use Linux and like it. I wish, though, that some of its best potential spokesmen would at least make some positive noise for a change. Maybe M$ would feel the heat. Maybe other developers would find the resources to create good oss apps that replace the closed source apps that have no oss alternative right now.
Marketing doesn’t have to involve Madison Avenue glitz and big $$$…sometimes just printing a simple flyer, or creating a good, usable, and informative web site, is enough.
Again with the fallacy that OSS/FS is about making money for the developers.
You’re not getting it, are you?
I get it just fine. You, however, have decided not to even consider that some of them might NEED to make some money from their work, and maybe they just don’t know how. After all, not all oss developers are 15 year olds. Anyway, this thread isn’t about money. It is about the popularity of Linux and oss software, and spreading the word. YOU made it into a discussion about money.
However, from your obnoxious tone and lack of understanding of the importance of marketing, I assume you may be one of those 15 year olds, no?
Richard, repeat after me:
“Linux is an operating system
Linux is an operating system
Linux is an operating system”
continue 500x this time…
Some people never learn.
No, marketing is useless. If you want to promote some open source product, then no-one prevents you to do it. There is already lots of capiltalist crap around free software, but it’s ok because it’s free, you can do what you want. But don’t expect developers to do anything as stupid, useless and non productive as marketing.
When you add your project to sourceforge, or on a website for download, you are promoting and indirectly marketing it. Since you live in a capitalist society, there is the chance that someone may offer you money for what you have made.
Even if you don’t sell it, you’re bound to put it on your resume if its not a worthless steaming pile of alpha-code. Now you are marketing yourself.
I suspect you have done all or some of the above. In which case, stop being a hypocrite. If not, please don’t make software development your day job — because you are going to be too poor to support yourself, let alone the price of your monthly internet dialup/dsl/whatever.
This story on EETimes about MS lobbying DOD
“The Washington Post reported Thursday (May 23) that Microsoft Corp. aggressively lobbied the Department of Defense to curtail use of open-source software. ”
http://www.eet.com/sys/news/OEG20020523S0065
If Linux & OSS doesn’t need marketing in the $ sense, it certainly needs kinder Advocates to counter MS propaganda.
But then acording to elug I need to learn to diferentiate between OSS & Linux etc etc.
Well if you want to get really anal about it I don’t give a sh1t. I do give a sh1t that MS is actively trying to remove Linux, OSS, whatever from gov depts all over the world including US & install their crap.
“Other than that; World Domination shall be ours — Bow before the mighty penguin! ” like that will ever happen,
MS will break up the federal gov 1st.
I love the old benews style forum, can’t wait to see it here, it was the best forum i have ever seen
If it is, why isn’t any desktop Linux company really doing it right? Let me see a few companies that is still focused on the desktop.
– Lycoris –> Its main goal is to emulate the XP UI, instead of making a new one. If an UI is really easy, the user can learn it, regardless of what he is used too.
– Xandros —> Frankly, they have no marketing stragety….
– Mandrake –> Makes an regular bloated distribution, simplified. Really, does an average Joe needs 11 WMs, 5 browsers, 4 email clients, 4 text editors, 6 terminal emulators etc.?
– Lindows –> They are doing the impossible. They are trying to emulate the entire Win32 API on a platform foreign to Win32. If Windows NT took so long to support most Win32 applications…. I wonder about Lindows. Besides, Lindows is just planing to get consumers by bashing MS…. they should really learn marketing and advertising….
I don’t know :-). I’m pretty happy with Linux now… But then, I doubt Linux is gonna kill Windows. Maybe the DoJ would do it for us… but thats kinda lame.
Your failure to provide a specific example of the thing you criticize has been duly noted.
“Maybe these aren’t the same individuals, but the Linux ”community” (if there really is one), can’t have it both ways.”
Unless you can provide a specific example, then yes, I would think you’re talking about widely different people. There _is_ a community, but there isn’t a clear border to bound it. The fact that there exists a community whose only shared idea is that the source should be available to anyone who wants it, does not mean that you should be free to attach other attribute to that community, just because you feel like you should be able to.
About the money, you’re just reiterating that you Don’t Get It. You simply assume that “FS/OSS developer == career”, which is NOT the general truth. Few developers live that life. On the other hand, being a commercial developer by day and FS/OSS developer by night is very common.
Many people share my own view on FS, which is that FS is developed _and_ good for such projects where the developer(s) are doing it for fun. This is where FS really shine. Then there’s the “boring” software, often highly customized solutions for businesses, where I feel commercial development is the most viable option, because no one _enjoy_ writing that kind of software, it’s just too boring.
Also, there’s the matter of rate of change. My feeling is that FS is developed faster than users change how they use it, so FS is slowly nearing the point where there are viable solutions for everything your everyday user like to do, and when that time comes, “mindshare” is gained. There will come a day when Mozilla is good-enough, when OpenOffice is good enough, etc, after which a user can say “both FS and this commercial solution is good enough for me”, and then what will the commercial solution do? It will go the way of MS Office, I’ll wager (a product which for a good deal of all users has been feature-complete for years).
The point of all this? FS is slowly moving forward. Classic “PR” as we know it is probably find for projects which have reached the ‘good-enough’ mark for a large userbase. For the rest, I’m not so sure, there I think a ratio of users to developers nearing ‘1’ might not be so bad.
You think it is Eugenia’s job to promote someone else’s products?
No. But when people want to promote or talk about products, if there’s no marketing material, they do the job themselves, or they don’t do anything. They just don’t have to expect anything if developers are not interested in marketing.
Then don’t expect anyone to listen to them when they complain that nobody uses their software.
They don’t complain that nobody uses their software. (actually lots of people use their software).
When you add your project to sourceforge, or on a website for download, you are promoting and indirectly marketing it.
No. Most projects on SourceForge are just public because this is the way to work : public sources, public bug-reports, mailing lists, etc.
Since you live in a capitalist society, there is the chance that someone may offer you money for what you have made.
So what. They are the non-productive people, I’m not interested in their offers.
Even if you don’t sell it, you’re bound to put it on your resume if its not a worthless steaming pile of alpha-code. Now you are marketing yourself.
This is not marketing. Unless you’re lying in your resume or trying to sell yourself. However is the resume is used to marketing oneself, this is because of the capitalist society, so this is off-topic : free software development doesn’t need this capitalist society, it would work the same in other kinds of societies.
The resume is informative, nothing else (at least, it shouldn’t be more than that, and I don’t care if people use it as “marketing” material).
I suspect you have done all or some of the above. In which case, stop being a hypocrite. If not, please don’t make software development your day job
I have a free software project (as a hobby). The software I’m working on for my day job is in the process of becoming free software (LGPL). Both have or will have a website with information, and documentation. (I hope you don’t consider, for example, the Linux Documentation Project, a marketing project ?). Maybe we’ll post some news on an -annouce mailing-list, if there are any where it’s useful. And we’ll put useful information to our users on the website. (objective information, with the disadvantages, bugs, etc., we don’t want to convince anyone to use our product if it doesn’t fit their needs). Information is not marketing. And of course, if users say they’re lacking information, we’ll do our best to provide more, when we have time.
“Marketing is important, and each major open source project needs at least one good marketing/PR person.”
Marketing takes on many forms – some subtle, others(IBM ads?)not so. Do you consider Linux books at your local bookseller marketing ? I do. I like to see this debate in 2 views – 1, that “linux’ is just the OS and 2) linux is the complete OS and apps, whole ball of wax. THe OS itself needs no ‘marketing’ in any form. THe combination OS+apps will need marketing and support; I see no way that the latter(OS/apps/sales/support) can survive without some marketing>advertising>support> and ultimately $$$.. I like seeing these IBM ads and expect to see more. I want a good alternate OS and I am willing to spend a few $$ to help make this happen. Those coders who don’t want to participate, then keep on coding to satisfy whatever your ego needs are. The rest of us will benefit as well. And we all win..
Kon, you’re ignoring what SourceForge is all about! What SourceForge really does is give FS/OSS developers a central repository for code, complete with the tools needed for groups of people to work on the same project. If all you know is the SourceForge website, then you’re missing the point. The website is like the tip of the iceberg.
And I would hardly call a directory like the SourceForge website “marketing”. Making information available to those who want it isn’t promotion at all! Pro motion is by definition an active thing. SourceForge doesn’t actively advertise the projects, so it’s not promoting or marketing. SourceForge does promote its own product now (you know, the one that you were apparently unaware of), but that’s a commercial product, not FS or OSS.
As for resumes and the hiring process, well it may be analogous to marketing, but it’s not marketing.
So you see Kon, what you’ve said is the product of ignorance and faulty logic. You owe someone an apology for calling them a hypocrite.
Mad props to eloj for holding DrP’s feet to the fire. It’s good to see a bigot get his comeuppance!
No, it will be similar to the old BeNews one, if you had ever seen it…
oh, please no. they ones on benews drove me up the wall. I like the system you have now for comments, where the replies are posted at the end… that way you don’t have to go thorugh 12 pages to find new posts. and option to have the posts nested would be fine, ut don’t have it so it has to be like on benews, that is the one thing i didn’t like about benews.
Speed, maybe you should read more closely. Notice where I said indirectly.
I never said Sourceforge was not about x, y or z. Its a public site. Anyone has access to it. Including people who may see a public project and recruit someone because of their project and/or skills.
Now, if SourceForge doesn’t promote, why don’t you tell me what the purpose of the ‘most active this week’ lists on the front page are. Nevermind ‘top downloads’. Or new release versions posted in the news. Its all about information and promotion and like I said before indirect marketing. It may not be the purpose but like it or not, this is one of the results.
As for resumes, they are analogous to marketing. The definition of market is ‘to sell’. A resume’s sole purpose is to sell yourself to a potential employer. If you think this isn’t the purpose, then you must be unemployed.
As for ‘…’ and his anti-capitalist views – please move to China or Cuba and go to work for a communist farm or something along those lines. I hate hypocrites who live in the ‘capitalist society’ yet badmouth it for being so evil.
Alternatively, code for free to satisfy whatever twisted political views and ego you may need to have/sustain, and people like myself who sell products will eat your lunch while you starve. Fine by me and my capitalist ways.
Kon, please…find yourself a dictionary and learn what marketing means. It doesn’t mean “all that is not secret”!
Are you not a native speaker of American english? It appears that you may not be understanding the American idiom. You’re taking something literally (sell … resume) from a context where the meaning is not literal.
The rules of the language are not in casual conversation, they are in reference texts. Please learn a little humility and quit nitpicking over details that you’re ignorant of. You’re trying to present fanciful thought as Gospel, and it isn’t working.
We are talking about free software. Anyone can help out. The developers are busy developing software. Please dont try to force your view on them and try to make them do what you think they should be doing. If you think it need better marketing then start marketing it or try to find people who can help do this. If developers and graphics artists and technical writers, etc can use their spare time to help out, then marketing people should be able to do this too right? Stop whining and try to solve the problem instead…
Oh damn yea we NEED marketing assholes to tell us “I don’t care if it works or not, we have to release it now !”.
We need them to scream “THINK $$$$$$$$$$$$$” to our ears while we’re coding.
We need them to say “You’re fired because you didn’t improved your productivity by the 50% we asked you”.
We need them to tell us “You’re not coding for fun but to pay my brand new Corvette”.
Do you want more ?
I think MS products are that bad because MS is way too focused on marketing instead of writing good code, and that’s why never want to see marketing about GNU products !
What I code on my spare time is just for FUN, and I release it under GPL because of Philosophy/Ideology.
Just a quote to finish : “…suffocating in a world full of schemers, taking advantages of the hopes of the dreamers” (“So what’s the word”, Mike MUIR). I’m a dreamer, marketing people are schemers and I will never let them taking advantages from what I do in my hobby :p
I was skeptical about Desktop LX so I e-mailed the company with my questions. They replied with straight-forward, well-worded responses concistently. Now I’m running Desktop LX on my print server, sharing files and a USB printer.
People who are paid to answer Eugenia’s daft (and frequently offensive) questions, answer them quickly, while other people often either ignore them completely or don’t pay much attention.
Big surprise. Of course the Helmars and Bill McEwens of this world respond instantly to people like Eugenia. For them publicity is air, and they’ll gulp down all they can regardless. Is it proposed that those who volunteer their time and effort, or are paid indirectly to produce Free Software should hire more parasites like Helmar? I hope such an idea is suggested only in jest.
When a user queries something about my software or offers improvements (either concept or source code) I try to respond quickly. The users count, that’s the whole point of Free Software, we are all users.
However I don’t feel much inclination to help people on the fringe who are only writing a story. If you use my software, write about that, if you don’t then why are you even talking to me?