Cameron,
Well stated.
As an organisation that is implementing Open Source spatial, we are looking to
applications that have graduated from OSGeo Incubation as an indication of
quality.
If this is not the case, as has been indicated in this thread, then IMHO, we as
OSGeo need to devise an approach that will allow organisations to select
quality applications for deployment.
The last thing that anyone wants is for a major player to implement a poor
quality application and have problems with the bad publicity that would follow.
We cannot expect that knowledgeable OS Spatial people will always be doing
product selection. This is often a function assigned to an IT group through
Enterprise IT Governance processes. The people doing the selection, may or may
not have appropriate skills and experience.
Bruce
On 9/06/10 8:24 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote:
Michael,
Your comments have been good in that they have made me think deeper
about what OSGeo stands for and then how we market that. Successful
product companies first find out what the market wants, the build a
marketing message, then build the product to fit the market. Developing
a shiny product then discovering no-one wants it is a sad but common story.
In our case, we have created a brand called OSGeo Incubation. What
does that mean? Why is it valuable? How can we get that message across
to our target market of GIS users who are interested in Open Source but
don't know what OSGeo is?
If OSGeo Incubation doesn't represent quality or maturity (which is what
the market are looking for) then what is the point of spending years of
volunteer time going through incubation?
I'm afraid that OSGeo Project is not a compelling sales message to our
target market, unless we can tie the message to quality or maturity (or
another word with similar meaning).
Unless we can provide such positive marketing, I expect that we will
have spin off projects or organisations defect from OSGeo create their
own marketing message. (I wouldn't be surprise if OpenGeo had similar
thoughts before they created and then marketed the OpenGeo suite.)
Marketing like everything else has positives and negatives.
Positives:
+ Lots of users which draws in money and developers and we all make
money and thrive
Negatives:
- We need to distill our messages down into marketing sound bytes and
generalised rating systems and the like
- We need to be honest in describing ours and others projects because
that is what the market wants to hear before they will spend money on us
On 08/06/10 09:17, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
Since this is an OSGeo-based CD, presumably with the OSGeo logo all over it
in various places, I'd suggest there are only three kinds of projects:
- those which are Approved by OSGeo
- those which are Undergoing OSGeo Approval
- everything else
With two simple logos you can indicate projects of the first two categories;
I don't think much explanation should be required up front, especially if one
avoids jargon words like graduated and incubation.
-mpg
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:57 PM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
There have been some passionate views against rating projects.
Maybe I should start by explaining the drivers which led to the proposal for
a 5 star rating.
Previously only OSGeo graduated and incubation projects were promoted by
OSGeo at conferences and the like, however, with the OSGeo LiveDVD, we are
packaging and hence promoting many non-graduated projects. How do we credit
that a project has gone through the extensive graduation process in our
marketing material in a manner that will be understood by the target audience?
Unfortunately, putting OSGeo Graduated against a project is meaningless
because the target audience usually hasn't heard of OSGeo and is even less
likely to know what Graduated means.
We could write a paragrah explaining what OSGeo and Graduation are on each
Project Overview flier, but that wastes valuable marketing real-estate.
Note: I'm basing our target audience on the typical profile of people who
drop by the OSGeo booth at conferences. They pick up a LiveDVD and fliers
which have Open Source on the cover. They are typically GIS users, have
heard of Open Source and want to know what Open Source packages are available
to replace their existing , but usually haven't heard of OSGeo and almost
certainly don't know about the graduation process. They want to know about
the best 2 or 3 packakges they should consider, and they definitely don't
want to have to trawl through 350 software packages on http://freegis.org .
They spend 5 to 20 minutes talking at the OSGeo stand, then walk onto the
other 50 exhibition booths at the conference.
Visitors to the OSGeo website are
