Dave Neary wrote: > "we just don't get why this one is important to our business".
desktop-FOSS drives innovation. => if your business is content creation (downstream industries): it opens up new creative possibilities for content producers (look at the enfuse story), or at least puts their suppliers under pressure and expands the toolbox of creators => if your business is enabling content creation (upstream industries - hardware) it drives professional and consumer demand for newer, higher margin hardware - digital cameras with more bracketing / dynamic range options; GPUs, CPUs (any useful non-FOSS 64bit desktops out there?) <thought provoking> => if your business is enabling content creation (upstream industries - software) it drives innovation, build a pool of human resources to tap into for the continuation of the business model, enable you to focus on your real unique selling proposition while commoditizing non-strategic areas. it is not a zero-sum game, together we can make the cake bigger and everybody has its share. Sometimes the FOSS model is superior, sometimes the proprietary one is. Together they are both better off. </thought provoking> > Graphics applications rank among the most desired applications on Linux take that "Linux" away. compromise. Graphic apps are the most desired apps, full stop. > And yet there's no corporate money being spent improving the free > software apps out there. The investment from Google and others is going > into making commercial apps on Windows work better on Linux. accept it. embrace it. use a strategic argument: competition is good. collaborative competition is better. LGM is about collaborative competition (or isn't it?). When the likes of Google invest in FOSS they make it primarily out of a strategic stance. They inject competition into a supplier's market to reduce dependency and/or get better performance/features. Sometimes the outcome is the adoption of the alternative supplier (i.e. true love of FOSS). More often it is "only" an incremental improvement at the supplier. Good enough for the pragmatic sponsor. Next cycle. As a user, I want Photoshop's functionalities at my fingertips ASAP. Many ways lead to Rome. I'll try the shortcut first (buy Windows and Photoshop). But it's in my interest to have alternatives. Getting rid of the Windows dependency is a significant step forward. Next cycle. I suspect Google's objective for the next cycle is to push Adobe to release Linux native software. Adoption of a FOSS alternative is a few cycles away, and may even never come. It will take a FOSS copycat of Photoshop, like OpenOffice for M$ Office. Interoperability and compatibility. <thought provoking> have you thought of inviting the Adobe's of this world to LGM? or even to sponsor LGM? </thought provoking> Only after the copycat stage comes the innovation stage, where FOSS can take the lead without being too far out for the mainstream to adopt. And the commercials take note (and advantage). This is currently the case with enfuse, a revolutionary exposure blending tool I've been involved in. Commercial implementations are popping up. If the users behave like lemmings and run into the arms of the commercials, so what? I'm an advocate of 6$/litre 20$/gallon gasoline, with the excess revenue redistributed equally among all citizens. The bottom line won't change for a citizen with average consumption, but there will be a net transfer from those going shopping in Urban aSsault Vehicles to those more conscientious of the environment - a flow of money to the smart. But I'm diverging here. @Louis: thank you for the link to the wiki - your work on LGM 2007 was spectacular. I am missing travel sponsorship for the current event, but I understand the difficulties. Also: even with travel sponsorship, I won't make it. Higher priority: <http://blog.yuvallevy.com/2008/02/14/first-picture/>. After that we move to Oxford UK in November. I will need a job there. > What we need to do is publicise the Create project, publicise the > concrete results we've achieved out of the last 2 LGMs (XCF2, improved > drag & drop between graphics apps, shared swatches, other shared > resources, SIOX integration into Blender, ...). The list is pretty long. > Above all, we've achieved a cohesion across different projects which > will benefit us all moving forward. Sure - you want to talk about collaborative competition as opposed to obstructive one, and of its advantage for everybody - *including* the current monopolist. > And then we say that we're short money for the conference, and we ask > for donations. everybody's always short of money. ask for donations because what you provide is valuable, not because you're short of money. if what you do is good, it is worth throwing money at. If you can do good with $10K, you can do better with $20K. Of course marginal utility diminishes (as in: the first glass of water is worth more than the second one to a thirsty person in the desert), but we're talking marketing here, not economics. Don't tell them what would be enough to cover your needs. Tell them that the more the merrier, and what you have to offer will give them a huge return on investment. E.g. when approaching a company like Pentax, the line of reasoning is: you will be selling thousands of K20D, with its extended bracketing capture. A tool like enfuse would drive larger sales number for your great hardware. You have spent millions in R&D to get it where it is. You could sell thousands more with a few thousands dollars in sponsorships to those that promote software that drive the adoption of your hardware. See the synergy? hope this helps Yuv _______________________________________________ CREATE mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/create
