expanding Fedora user base

I've followed these marketing discussions for a couple of months now. I've
been into Linux for about 4 months now. I'm older, single parent, got two
teenagers, a business and a total of 4 machines to think about.
I love Fedora; after looking at a number of distributions I consider it to
be the premier distribution. And it appeals to the "geeky" side of my
nature. Unfortunately, I just don't know that I have time for it.
The reasons are the ones that you've heard a million times before: "lab
rat", "crash test dummy", too many kernal changes.

Now to turn to my marketing and sales experience:
I've got a pretty good idea of what Fedora is. Question is: Where's it
going? Here are some observations from listening here and hanging around
the forums.

1. Fedora will remain developmental. Seems to be fundamental to
management's mission.
2. Fedora is not "warm and fuzzy" to newbies. I really love the parrot but
efforts toward a masot may lead to a sense of "misrepresentation" by
newcomers. Not a good long-term strategy.
Further, I think the marketing team has done a great job of
differentiating Fedora from the rest of the distros. You don't want to
give that away.
3.  What's happening in Linux is fantastic and important. I know of no
other international, cross-cultural effort that's produced such positive
results. All involved should be proud and work to preserve it.
4. It's probably going to explode across the world. You've been "under the
radar" so far. As you get larger you'll likely attract a lot of intention
from big business that tries to own everything. Staying legally "clean" is
imperative.
5. With expansion things will change. The newer folks on the team want to
run with that. Maybe some of the older guys are not so sure; maybe they're
content that it stay in their private world.

Of course I don't know all your issues. I'm an outsider looking in but
here's a loose suggestion.
With expansion (if that's what you want) will come an expanded workload
for everyone. Go ahead and organize that into defined entities.
Perhaps you could split off FC6 (or FC7) as a separate entity. It's
clearly powerful enough as it stands. Freeze the kernal. Give it its own
site, documentation, and forum. Make it simple. Make it clean. Make it
work all the time.
Find community members who are willing and able to support the concept.
Turn them loose on the "warm and fuzzy" stuff and the tools that newer
users want and need. Make it sort of an "entry level Fedora" (bad choice
of words but you get the idea).
Now that's not a misrepresentation. It imparts new users with the idea:
"Whoa! This is the most powerful distro out there and they've got even
hotter stuff coming."

Enough said. Good luck.

Rick Rushing
President
Liberty Rubber Co., Inc.

[Rahul Sundaram]

rerushg(a)homexpressway.net wrote:

>  
>  Now to turn to my marketing and sales experience:
>  I've got a pretty good idea of what Fedora is. Question is: Where's it
>  going? Here are some observations from listening here and hanging around
>  the forums.
>  
>  1. Fedora will remain developmental. Seems to be fundamental to
>  management's mission. 
What do you mean by "developmental"?

>  2. Fedora is not "warm and fuzzy" to newbies. I really love
> the parrot but
>  efforts toward a masot may lead to a sense of "misrepresentation" by
>  newcomers. Not a good long-term strategy. 
A parrot has not been decided as a mascot nor have we even decided that 
e need a mascot at all. Your comment on it seems premature.

>  Further, I think the marketing team has done a great job of
>  differentiating Fedora from the rest of the distros. You don't want to
>  give that away. 
We don't really have much of a marketing team so I don't think we done 
the differentiation. It happened elsewhere.

>  3.  What's happening in Linux is fantastic and important. I know
> of no
>  other international, cross-cultural effort that's produced such positive
>  results. All involved should be proud and work to preserve it. 
There are certainly other efforts but I think ours is a good example 
too. So thanks.

>  4. It's probably going to explode across the world. You've
> been "under the
>  radar" so far. As you get larger you'll likely attract a lot of intention
>  from big business that tries to own everything. Staying legally "clean" is
>  imperative. 
That isn't optional. Red Hat is the legal entity behind Fedora and it 
always makes the conservative choices which we do get flamed every now 
and then.

>  5. With expansion things will change. The newer folks on the team
> want to
>  run with that. Maybe some of the older guys are not so sure; maybe they're
>  content that it stay in their private world. 
As long as we understand the objectives and retain the same culture we 
can continue growing and accommodating newer contributors.

>  Perhaps you could split off FC6 (or FC7) as a separate entity.
> It's
>  clearly powerful enough as it stands. Freeze the kernal. Give it its own
>  site, documentation, and forum. Make it simple. Make it clean. Make it
>  work all the time. 
I don't we have enough contributors to split off versions into its own 
entity and maintain it for long period of times at this point.

>  Find community members who are willing and able to support the
> concept.
>  Turn them loose on the "warm and fuzzy" stuff and the tools that newer
>  users want and need. Make it sort of an "entry level Fedora" (bad choice
>  of words but you get the idea). 
I don't know what "warm and fuzzy" means her. If we are making any 
changes to increase usability it should be part of the main codebase 
instead of a sub branch or derivative. Usability enhancements is not a 
category like server/desktop or gnome/kde to be created as derivatives.

Rahul

[Matthew Miller]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 12:28:06AM +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  >2. Fedora is not "warm and fuzzy" to newbies. I really
> love the parrot but
>  >efforts toward a masot may lead to a sense of "misrepresentation" by
>  >newcomers. Not a good long-term strategy.
>  A parrot has not been decided as a mascot nor have we even decided that 
>  e need a mascot at all. Your comment on it seems premature. 
Although this brings up an important point -- parrots have a lifespan of
decades....

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm(a)mattdm.org          <http://mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>              <http://linux.bu.edu/>

[Rahul Sundaram]

Matthew Miller wrote:
>  On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 12:28:06AM +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> >> 2. Fedora is not "warm and fuzzy" to newbies. I really love the parrot
> but
> >> efforts toward a masot may lead to a sense of "misrepresentation" by
> >> newcomers. Not a good long-term strategy.
> > A parrot has not been decided as a mascot nor have we even decided that 
> > e need a mascot at all. Your comment on it seems premature.
>  
>  Although this brings up an important point -- parrots have a lifespan of
>  decades.... 
... and penguins are fat and clumsy, Devil and daemons are evil, 
chameleons cannot be trusted since they change colors so often.

Mascots are supposed to be fun. Don't read too much into them.


Rahul

[Jeremy Hogan]

Parrots to 95% of the world are just pretty birds that are smart enough to
learn to speak. Unless you've owned one, or spent more than a visit with
someone who has one, you don't know how cranky and high maintenance they
are. On that note, cranky and high maintenance aren't that far off the
Fedora brand, are they? ;-)

/me ducks.

Seriously though, if we wanted to be exact with our mascot, it'd be a
pimply, pasty fat kid who laughs at you when you can't configure X on your
widescreen laptop. After all, the American Bald Eagle is a glorified
buzzard, but it looks noble and majestic and fits on coins and has grown to
embody the meanings US propagandists have made it mean. The mascot, if we
choose to have one, just needs to be recognizable as being ours. Unless we
have an animal commonly found wearing a felt brimmed hat, parrots are fine.
So are dolphins, monkeys, and Kodiak Marmosets if we choose to create an
identity around them.

--jeremy

[Mohd Izhar Firdaus Ismail]

On 4/13/07, Jeremy Hogan <jeremy.hogan(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Parrots to 95% of the world are just pretty birds that are smart
> enough to
>  learn to speak. Unless you've owned one, or spent more than a visit with
>  someone who has one, you don't know how cranky and high maintenance they
>  are. On that note, cranky and high maintenance aren't that far off the
>  Fedora brand, are they? ;-)
>
>  /me ducks.
>
>  Seriously though, if we wanted to be exact with our mascot, it'd be a
>  pimply, pasty fat kid who laughs at you when you can't configure X on your
>  widescreen laptop. After all, the American Bald Eagle is a glorified
>  buzzard, but it looks noble and majestic and fits on coins and has grown to
>  embody the meanings US propagandists have made it mean. The mascot, if we
>  choose to have one, just needs to be recognizable as being ours. Unless we
>  have an animal commonly found wearing a felt brimmed hat, parrots are fine.
>  So are dolphins, monkeys, and Kodiak Marmosets if we choose to create an
>  identity around them.
>
>  --jeremy
>  
<OT>
ei?? .. suddenly this thread become another mascot discussion thread
:P  .. perhaps we really do need a mascot coz since that topic came up
everyone looks so happy & excited with it + I want more fedora-related
artworks @ gnome-look .. its a pity that almost all wallpapers in
gnome-look are ubuntu stuff
</OT>


I do agree Rick that we need more marketing efforts .. or at least
some good  impression to first timers .. Information for fedora are
scattered all over the internet and the wiki is scary to those who
doesnt know how to use it .. that alone already put potential new
users away ..

what I see so far  Fedora seems to attract tinkerers and serious
people (business, tech experts, etc)  rather common people .. I
believe thats what Rick meant by "warm and fuzzy" .. we need to have
more marketing resources  (presentations, videos, , handouts , etc)
targeted to this type of people who are dont really mind about the
technical details behind fedora

-- 
-----------------------------------------------
regards
Hikaru
-----------------------------------------------
Mohd Izhar Firdaus Bin Ismail
Amano Hikaru
天野晃 「あまの ひかる」
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
ICT 2nd Year 1st Semester
mohd.izhar.firdaus(a)gmail.com
-----------------------------------------------
kagesenshi.87(a)gmail.com
Blog: http://kagesenshi.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------

[Rahul Sundaram]

Mohd Izhar Firdaus Ismail wrote:

>  
>  
>  I do agree Rick that we need more marketing efforts .. or at least
>  some good  impression to first timers .. Information for fedora are
>  scattered all over the internet and the wiki is scary to those who
>  doesnt know how to use it .. that alone already put potential new
>  users away ..
>  
>  what I see so far  Fedora seems to attract tinkerers and serious
>  people (business, tech experts, etc)  rather common people .. I
>  believe thats what Rick meant by "warm and fuzzy" .. we need to have
>  more marketing resources  (presentations, videos, , handouts , etc)
>  targeted to this type of people who are dont really mind about the
>  technical details behind fedora 
Are you willing to help and do any of the above?

Rahul

[Nicu Buculei]

Mohd Izhar Firdaus Ismail wrote:
>  <OT>
>  ei?? .. suddenly this thread become another mascot discussion thread
>  :P  .. perhaps we really do need a mascot coz since that topic came up
>  everyone looks so happy & excited with it + I want more fedora-related
>  artworks @ gnome-look .. its a pity that almost all wallpapers in
>  gnome-look are ubuntu stuff
>  </OT> 
We hope to have our own place to host and share artwork (and why not 
multimedia content):
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/Communication

>  what I see so far  Fedora seems to attract tinkerers and serious
>  people (business, tech experts, etc)  rather common people .. I
>  believe thats what Rick meant by "warm and fuzzy" .. we need to have
>  more marketing resources  (presentations, videos, , handouts , etc)
>  targeted to this type of people who are dont really mind about the
>  technical details behind fedora 
Some of the solutions proposed for hosting an Art community would suit 
other formats beside graphics (ccHost), so maybe having such an 
infrastructure would stimulate people to provide content.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro