On Thursday 19 April 2007 04:38, Russell Jones wrote:
> How is it doing this? Or is it just a perception? Is it sustainable?
> That is, are users going to become disillusioned when these contortions
> cease, as they must if they are such?
Yes, some of it is perception... that's the art of marketing. What I am
about
to say is not *critical* so please no one flame me... (nor swear at me,
please)... its just a perception point... take the icon for openSUSE (which I
love, by the way) of the little chameleon lizard... "simply change" ... this
is cute and to the point... but its also reptilian... and people don't like
change... and chameleons are not very friendly... on the other hand take a
look at the Ubuntu logo... a circle of different colored people holding hands
making a unit and being friends and fostering community... and they have two
versions of this logo... one is graphical and the other is (from above)
actual people looking up holding hands in a circle... an "ubuntu" (people
together) community. One of the logos is friendly (read warm and fuzzy human
marketing appeal) and the other one is geeky. Please dont flame me--- I love
my lizard stickers... and in fact I make them for my friends on my color
printer... and when I install a system with openSUSE it has a little green
lizard on the front that says, "simply change".... and "have lots of fun"...
but hey (!) ... and this is the point... if I were a complete newbie looking
things over and trying to decide who to trust and what to install... I would
go with the folks with the warm and fuzzy human logo who have not signed a
business pact with M$, and who never ever ever tell me to RTFM. I am not
sure I would trust the little grean chameleon not to simply change back! And
an international community of friends helping each other in a symbionic
"ubuntu" would have a strong appeal for me... do yous guys see my
point...??
> This is more to do with PR. Development of technical features are not
> PR. Are technical lists for technical discussion, or for PR? Or both? If
> so, how would that work? I think the latter creates inappropriate
> expectations.
Yup. But, technical lists (although for technical discussion) are a
beautiful interface for public relations that are good for business... and
good for community. Unless, of course, there is swearing, cursing, flaming,
back-biting...
> > Fred's point is very helpful, if you can get past your arrogance
> > long enough to get your head (and heart) around it.
> You mistake pragmatism for arrogance. FWIWTTD, I'm a Christian myself,
> but open source is not based on unconditional charity. It's based on
> perceived mutual benefit. Ignorant, lazy users with expectations of
> automatic entitlement (a subset, of course) provide little or no benefit
> that I can perceive, unless they pay their way.
When I worked development support for the AS/400 compilers (RPG, COBOL,
C)
back at IBM land I would have to answer some of the same mundane (read that
stupid) questions and concerns over and over and over and for crying out loud
it could be frustrating... but that's the art of technical dicussion and
support... answering that same stupid question for the umpteenth time as
though it was the first--- with the same enthusiasm, warmth, and concern as
the very first client you ever helped... what happens all too frequently
in the linux community, however, is that we're usually too geeky to go those
extra miles with folks... particularly the really apparently dumb folks... or
lazy folks... and all too often out of our mouths comes something really
foul like RTFM. Instead, what the linux communities need to learn are some
basic babysitting skills... gentle hand holding and coddling... and the
community that does that the best will win.
Kind regards,
M Harris <><
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