I just read these responses. They are all excellent and wise, just as I expected.
My suggestion is that Tim's initial proposal, which he conveyed from Theo de Raadt, was not fully understood. Please allow me to "re-propose it", and Tim, and everyone, please don't hesitate to correct me. This is not a marketing issue. This is not about the product or corporate dynamics, or market strategies. (It so happens that we as a group are fortunate to start out with some very high powered help in that dept., but that's not what this thread addresses.) This proposal is about personality. It should not surprise anyone that Theo wants us to stand up and be counted by taking a strong stand, and being vocally critical of what is wrong in our world. He is as loud and uncompromising an activist as they come and he encourages everyone else to be one also. That may or may not be our chosen stance, but do consider what made Linux. Yes, in 2006 Linus is a positive seller, a team player, etc. but think back to what made open source possible. It was rebellion. It was RMS and Linus and Raymond raising a huge and a horrible stink, a smell so bad that everyone just had to make room for this extremely threatening new way of doing things. I say to you that the industry did not cave in to their clever arguments and political acumen. I say it caved in to all the attention they got and all the speculation that attention bought them on the Nasdaq in 1999. I suggest to you that, corporate and marketing strategy aside, you want to do the same. Success on the open market means the general consumer -- especially so when you are trying to cover manufacturing costs -- and the general consumer is not impressed with product quality. Let me say it again. The general consumer is not impressed with product quality. It's not my opinion, it is an absolute fact. The general consumer will choose Windows, every time. So we are competing in a theatre where corporate backing is absolutely nonnegotiable (this is not software!) and, compared to our competition, we have none. The general consumer does not care about us and without him/her we are dead. We cannot impress the general consumer with quality or low price (because we can't compete there either). What's left? Doing nothing? That's not going to help. We need that consumer, and if there is anything that consumer cares less about than quality, it's nothing at all. We can't get their attention with anything we achieve, and we can't lower the price. I propose we get their attention with a little drama. Ever notice how big stars always get in big trouble just as one of their movies is about to be released? Drama. I say we stir up a little controversy. Stand up and say something inappropriate. All we have to do is get people to talk about us. When that happens, in big biz, resources start coming out of the woodwork. If people are talking about us, we have attention, and what is more important in high tech? To investors, to executives and directors, attention is everything, they will forget every shortcoming, every disadvantage, every strategic reality of our situation, if we only get some attention. That's what I'm suggesting, and Theo suggested a great way to get it. Stand up and start talking about why we're doing this. Neither one of us is suggesting we promote our product, we don't need to say anything about what we're doing. We are only suggesting we get some attention by using our very real achievement to back up WHY we're doing it. Because something is wrong! Because there is danger in the industry, because there is abuse, monopoly, unfair restriction on competition -- whatever you believe is wrong, just say so. And we all believe there is something wrong, or why are we here? This is only about attention for us. But there is a positive spinoff if we do it Theo's way. It opens a real dialog and it facilitates real agendas that real people are fighting for to make this industry better for all of us. I see a win-win situation. Thanks a lot for hearing me out, this is a request for comment. On 10/12/06, Nicolas Boulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I beleive the project need more exposure only if a product will be sell. (OGD1). If you make too much noise for nothing, it will look like vaporeware. 2006/10/12, Attila Kinali <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:12:56 -0400 > "Timothy Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > What do you think we should do? What can we do to get ourselves on > > the radar of more people on the FOSS community and in IT in general? > > IMHO we don't need that at the moment. We are already quite > known[1] and currently don't need much exposure until OGD1 > is ready to be shipped. Otherwise we will look like another > vapor-ware project out there. > > [1] I recently talked with a friend from the aikido class > who does an internship at ageia. Although he is not in > OSS or anything like that, he knew about OGP. But he > also said that he does not believe that we'll able to > create a product and successufly sell it. > > Attila Kinali > > -- > egp ist vergleichbar mit einem ikea bausatz fuer flugzeugtraeger > -- reeler in +kaosu > _______________________________________________ > Open-graphics mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics > List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com) > _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
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