Note the mild subject adjustment, uttered most notable by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.
Anyway, the thread needed a quick bump, I have some F/OSS marketing experience that I think I can lend.
This project is getting ahead of itself re: defining discrete and ongoing roles, establishing baseline metrics, and decisions about who belongs here. There are some basic questions/assumptions you can line out first.
1a)What is Fedora?1b)Who is it for? (Today).
Answered partly on the homepage nicely:
"The Fedora Project is an open source project sponsored by Red Hat and supported by the Fedora community. It is also a proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products. It is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc."
That may or may not need to change as the NPO emerges, but it doesn't answer who it's for. If it's not for the average end user, then a whole suite of distros are out for comparison. Developers, hobbyists, enthusiasts, professional IT interested in the future direction of RHEL, etc.
2)Who else is in that space?
Only SuSE is built this way (community feeding and fed by a big publicly held sugare daddy with a large install base, and market cap of 3-5Billion. No, Mandriva not out of the game, and if you threw out F/OSS values you could throw Sun in mix, but it's fair to focus toeard SuSE/Novell.
3a)What is Fedora? 3b)Who is it for? (Tomorrow).
Some TBD, of course, but you'd hope that if today's mission succeeds, that you'll still have Developers, hobbyists, enthusiasts, professional IT interested in the future direction of RHEL, etc.
Now, if Fedora *is* to be comared to Ubuntu, the core mission would have to reflect that to a degree, and comparisons and metrics should be made. And you can add more Ubuntu-esque users. If Fedora definition were to stretch from "proving ground for Red Hat" to "proving ground for Linux Innovation" or similar, then you can add small IT companies, tech savvy internal IT staff, and even an eco system of VARs for SMB/SME -- *cough cough* -- I mean people deploying and supporting it for others. And the verbage invites spin-off projects. (Still seen as to Red Hat's benefit).
#3 is what needs rounding out before you decide you goes out saying what to whom, and in what medium.
When you get through 3, you need only two more:
4) So what?
What is unique and/or important about feature x, or relationship y? If I agree that I understand Fedora, and that it is for me -- so what? Every line of you PR, and every slide in your deck has to answer that question, or it's noise.
5) Who cares?
You now have your sniper shot of a message. You can stand up, in confidence, and explain what Fedora is, and articulate what it is not. (And why Ubuntu is them, and you is you.) You add that to the answer to part b, of question3, and you no who this should resonate with. And you go after events, and online venues where they are and talk to them. Or when the come to where you are, they know quickly whether and how they fit in. No dancing, no marketing buzzwords. Recruit active participants, but you should be open as many interested onlookers as possible.
4 and 5 have potential for looping.
%POST Then... -FAQ the hell out of 1-5 on -use PRWeb or a similar free service regularly (not feature releases, more like "Fedora guy writes free book in native language" type stuff, create news -- recognition is a core human need, get lots of it and attract lots of folks) -press contacts (invite a NewsForge editor to an exclusive at FudCON, send the LiveCD out for reviewers -- I like the documentary idea, but there's only so much of our collective navel the world needs to gaze into, give the project a broader context) -a media kit (zip file of the logo, the About statement, and ONE sheet giving the FAQ and spiel, contact info for one/two people at the most to follow up with) -an event or street team "SWAT" kit (swag like LiveString bracelets and LiveCDs) -etc
--jeremy
Jeepers. My apologies for the rampant typos. I drove 12 hours from NY last night, and should have been sleeping instead of typing.
--jeremy
So there's not that much. Some T-shirts, some coffee mugs. Here's an idea I had:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
We'd sell them from the store, but more importantly, we'd give them away as rewards to folks in the Fedora community who have been carrying one load or another.
I think it could be fun. Of course, I've got a lot of ideas. What do you guys think?
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:14 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
We'd sell them from the store, but more importantly, we'd give them away as rewards to folks in the Fedora community who have been carrying one load or another.
Do we get 'letters' for the releases we've participated in?
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:14 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
Do we get 'letters' for the releases we've participated in?
I'm *so* glad you asked. That is *exactly* what I'd like to do.
See, anybody can buy the jacket, because it's cool. But the *really* cool kids can letter in stuff, and get their letter pins presented directly by the Fedora folks. That way, when folks come to FUDCon, they can tell who the BMOCs are.
Jesse knows what I'm talkin' 'bout. :)
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:55 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
I'm *so* glad you asked. That is *exactly* what I'd like to do.
Glad I could help.
See, anybody can buy the jacket, because it's cool. But the *really* cool kids can letter in stuff, and get their letter pins presented directly by the Fedora folks. That way, when folks come to FUDCon, they can tell who the BMOCs are.
BMOC ? Oh, Big (this should be person)Man on Campus
Jesse knows what I'm talkin' 'bout. :)
Just because I have a highschool letterman's jacket with a lot of sports letters (and a couple math team ones) doesn't mean anything....
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:55 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
See, anybody can buy the jacket, because it's cool. But the *really* cool kids can letter in stuff, and get their letter pins presented directly by the Fedora folks. That way, when folks come to FUDCon, they can tell who the BMOCs are.
Love the idea, whats a BMOC?
On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 18:02 +1000, Colin Charles wrote:
Love the idea, whats a BMOC?
Big Man On Campus
Mid-20th century originating US idiomatic acronym for persons recognized on a school campus as being at the top of the pecking order/social ladder. Most often used for athletes, a.k.a. jocks.
"Big Man on Campus".
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Colin Charles wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:55 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
See, anybody can buy the jacket, because it's cool. But the *really* cool kids can letter in stuff, and get their letter pins presented directly by the Fedora folks. That way, when folks come to FUDCon, they can tell who the BMOCs are.
Love the idea, whats a BMOC?
Colin Charles, http://www.bytebot.net/
-- Fedora-marketing-list mailing list Fedora-marketing-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
And the beta releases will of course be the JV team.
You know what this means, don't you?
We finally get cheerleaders.
Jesse Keating wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 15:14 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
We'd sell them from the store, but more importantly, we'd give them away as rewards to folks in the Fedora community who have been carrying one load or another.
Do we get 'letters' for the releases we've participated in?
-- Fedora-marketing-list mailing list Fedora-marketing-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
So there's not that much. Some T-shirts, some coffee mugs. Here's an idea I had:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
Now see i was thinking Fedora boy scout uniform, shorts and all.. with merit badges.
-jef"how ironic is it.. that there is no irony merit badge?"spaleta
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
So there's not that much. Some T-shirts, some coffee mugs. Here's an idea I had:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
Now see i was thinking Fedora boy scout uniform, shorts and all.. with merit badges.
Which one will get you more chicks/dudes -- the Fedora boy/girl scout sash with merit badges, or the Fedora letterman's jacket with varsity letter pins?
(The previous sentence was edited for political correctness, which appears to have made it even funnier and more sublimely ludicrous.)
If enough people think that this idea makes any sense, I *will* make it happen.
--g"equipment manager"dk
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 16:18 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
So there's not that much. Some T-shirts, some coffee mugs. Here's an idea I had:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
Now see i was thinking Fedora boy scout uniform, shorts and all.. with merit badges.
Which one will get you more chicks/dudes -- the Fedora boy/girl scout sash with merit badges, or the Fedora letterman's jacket with varsity letter pins?
(The previous sentence was edited for political correctness, which appears to have made it even funnier and more sublimely ludicrous.)
If enough people think that this idea makes any sense, I *will* make it happen.
With no offense to anyone/anything who likes this idea - how about we focus on things like hw and resources for time?
Then again, if those things come out of a different pile of money of however that works then, by all means, get whatever doodad people like.
-sv
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, seth vidal wrote:
With no offense to anyone/anything who likes this idea - how about we focus on things like hw and resources for time?
No offense taken.
This is a simple idea, dreamed up in the middle of a delirious 22 hours worth of travel, with a very simple plan of execution, aimed at recruitment, fun, and recognition.
Completely orthogonal to questions of hardware and resources, which we continue to work on. And since you brought it up: what hardware issues are we not focusing adequately on? Seems like we've now got build systems of every arch in Mesa, and will now work towards getting them online, yes? What are we missing?
Then again, if those things come out of a different pile of money of however that works then, by all means, get whatever doodad people like.
I'll put that in the category of "grudging assent". :) Anyone else?
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 16:41 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, seth vidal wrote:
With no offense to anyone/anything who likes this idea - how about we focus on things like hw and resources for time?
No offense taken.
This is a simple idea, dreamed up in the middle of a delirious 22 hours worth of travel, with a very simple plan of execution, aimed at recruitment, fun, and recognition.
Completely orthogonal to questions of hardware and resources, which we continue to work on. And since you brought it up: what hardware issues are we not focusing adequately on? Seems like we've now got build systems of every arch in Mesa, and will now work towards getting them online, yes? What are we missing?
well all access to the machines at mesa has to go through someone with @redhat.com after their username.
so as far as extras build systems are concerned, I'm out.
-sv
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, seth vidal wrote:
well all access to the machines at mesa has to go through someone with @redhat.com after their username.
so as far as extras build systems are concerned, I'm out.
I'll look into this and get back to you.
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
Hi
Then again, if those things come out of a different pile of money of however that works then, by all means, get whatever doodad people like.
I'll put that in the category of "grudging assent". :) Anyone else?
--g
I believe a redesign of the website should be a fairly important thing to do. We should also consider having a competition for the default desktop wallpaper, sound themes, etc for the FC5 release. Any decisions on whether we need a new Fedora logo?. Just putting this is in so that it doesnt get lost again
regards Rahul
On 6/27/05, Rahul Sundaram sundaram@redhat.com wrote:
I believe a redesign of the website should be a fairly important thing to do.
you mean the fedora.redhat.com site? or something new?
We should also consider having a competition for the default desktop wallpaper, sound themes, etc for the FC5 release.
+1, but i'd say limit it to just the desktop wallpaper the first time around. I'll re-iterate my previous idea. Have a competition with a pre-defined panel of expert judges. The experts come up with a theme for the competition and review in-coming submissions for basic good taste and technical merit. The panel of judges picks a winner, and then takes the top 10 or so runner up submissions and places them in public competition for community's choice. The official winner is used as the default background and the community's choice is provided as an alternative selection.
-jef -jef
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:01 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 6/27/05, Rahul Sundaram sundaram@redhat.com wrote:
We should also consider having a competition for the default desktop wallpaper, sound themes, etc for the FC5 release.
+1, but i'd say limit it to just the desktop wallpaper the first time around. I'll re-iterate my previous idea. Have a competition with a pre-defined panel of expert judges. The experts come up with a theme for the competition and review in-coming submissions for basic good taste and technical merit. The panel of judges picks a winner, and then takes the top 10 or so runner up submissions and places them in public competition for community's choice. The official winner is used as the default background and the community's choice is provided as an alternative selection.
... or actually, the first contest we really need is for a logo. Even I can make up a background if we get an okay logo.
This was also one of the top things that was brought up during the BOF at the Red Hat Summit. Unfortunately, my "whiteboard" page from that appears to have been lost somewhere between New Orleans and here :/
Jeremy
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 16:18 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
If enough people think that this idea makes any sense, I *will* make it happen.
That's a big 10-4 +1 from me, good buddy.
- Karsten
A great idea indeed, but it wil only pull in the States. I'm trying to think of something cool that would work outside of US context...
Just brainstorming around pins and jackets some more--I see a black jacket in punk-rocker look studded with pins and buttons of all sorts and sizes, some of which would be available for all, while others would have to be earned...
a
On 6/27/05, Karsten Wade kwade@redhat.com wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 16:18 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
If enough people think that this idea makes any sense, I *will* make it happen.
That's a big 10-4 +1 from me, good buddy.
- Karsten
-- Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/ gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41 Red Hat SELinux Guide http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/
BodyID:25406898.2.n.logpart (stored separately)
-- Fedora-marketing-list mailing list Fedora-marketing-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 23:45 +0200, Alex Maier wrote:
A great idea indeed, but it wil only pull in the States. I'm trying to think of something cool that would work outside of US context...
Just brainstorming around pins and jackets some more--I see a black jacket in punk-rocker look studded with pins and buttons of all sorts and sizes, some of which would be available for all, while others would have to be earned...
I have a crazy idea:
how about we stop coming up with crap to give people and maybe, you know, just be appreciative and remove roadblocks to further work.
To spend less time on the tchotchke and more time on the content.
I'm thinking take all the money for jackets and get some alternative-build-arch machines so the people who are packaging things for extras with no access to the systems can build there. Fine, maybe they can't be at rh for security concerns, but I might be able to host them at duke. Or maybe get some more folks doing some infrastructure bits and being paid for a month or so to get it done. Or get some CD/DVD's burnt and mailing out to random people who might request them.
Anyway - I think it'd be more constructive to follow out those paths and to use whatever resources fedora has available to it for that end rather than 'letterman' jackets.
I hated have to put up with the useless cool kids in the letterman jackets in high school, I don't intend to start to do it now.
-sv
On 6/27/05, seth vidal skvidal@phy.duke.edu wrote:
I'm thinking take all the money for jackets and get some alternative-build-arch machines so the people who are packaging things for extras with no access to the systems can build there.
I think the original idea was that you would sell some of these, which off sets the costs and may even add proceeds to the project if you do it right. I doubt the cost of the handful of gift jackets is going to get you any equipment.
What's the trade-off/balance? You can't spend every resource on technology nor on messaging. I think funding for infrastructure is a seperate discussion than marketing, and neither shoould be at the expense of the other.
--jeremy
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 18:06 -0400, Jeremy Hogan wrote:
On 6/27/05, seth vidal skvidal@phy.duke.edu wrote:
I'm thinking take all the money for jackets and get some alternative-build-arch machines so the people who are packaging things for extras with no access to the systems can build there.
I think the original idea was that you would sell some of these, which off sets the costs and may even add proceeds to the project if you do it right. I doubt the cost of the handful of gift jackets is going to get you any equipment.
What's the trade-off/balance? You can't spend every resource on technology nor on messaging. I think funding for infrastructure is a seperate discussion than marketing, and neither shoould be at the expense of the other.
except if there is a single pot of money - and especially when we're still in the 'ramping up' portion of the community interaction part.
-sv
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:54 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 23:45 +0200, Alex Maier wrote:
A great idea indeed, but it wil only pull in the States. I'm trying to think of something cool that would work outside of US context...
Just brainstorming around pins and jackets some more--I see a black jacket in punk-rocker look studded with pins and buttons of all sorts and sizes, some of which would be available for all, while others would have to be earned...
I have a crazy idea:
how about we stop coming up with crap to give people and maybe, you know, just be appreciative and remove roadblocks to further work.
To spend less time on the tchotchke and more time on the content.
I'm thinking take all the money for jackets and get some alternative-build-arch machines so the people who are packaging things for extras with no access to the systems can build there. Fine, maybe they can't be at rh for security concerns, but I might be able to host them at duke. Or maybe get some more folks doing some infrastructure bits and being paid for a month or so to get it done. Or get some CD/DVD's burnt and mailing out to random people who might request them.
Anyway - I think it'd be more constructive to follow out those paths and to use whatever resources fedora has available to it for that end rather than 'letterman' jackets.
I hated have to put up with the useless cool kids in the letterman jackets in high school, I don't intend to start to do it now.
So it was pointed out to me that this was really way too harsh a way of saying it.
I'm sorry if I hurt anybody's feelings. It wasn't my intent.
a better phrasing of this might be:
if we have a finite sum of money then it might best less beneficial to spend it on cosmetic things than on issues that have been chronically plaguing some of the development efforts.
Again, I'm sorry if it sounded mean. I didn't have any malicious intent but sometimes I suck at saying things.
-sv
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:54 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
Anyway - I think it'd be more constructive to follow out those paths and to use whatever resources fedora has available to it for that end rather than 'letterman' jackets.
I hated have to put up with the useless cool kids in the letterman jackets in high school, I don't intend to start to do it now.
Although there's a lot of rant in this post, this is a point to keep in mind. If the community understands the inherent joke in them, letterman gift jackets could be a nice humorous way of honoring certain people. But it could easily backfire and give the impression of exclusivity and make people feel they're not in the "in crowd". Probably timing is important in order to give the proper impression.
-Toshio
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Alex Maier wrote:
A great idea indeed, but it wil only pull in the States. I'm trying to think of something cool that would work outside of US context...
Just brainstorming around pins and jackets some more--I see a black jacket in punk-rocker look studded with pins and buttons of all sorts and sizes, some of which would be available for all, while others would have to be earned...
If you like the general idea, then we could come up with 2 or 3 designs for jackets that would play to various demos. The pins, however, should be for achievers only, IMHO. :)
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
If you like the general idea, then we could come up with 2 or 3 designs for jackets that would play to various demos. The pins, however, should be for achievers only, IMHO. :)
yeah, or donors. the bigger the button, the larger the donation :)
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
Now see i was thinking Fedora boy scout uniform, shorts and all.. with merit badges.
Which one will get you more chicks/dudes -- the Fedora boy/girl scout sash with merit badges, or the Fedora letterman's jacket with varsity letter pins?
I think both are equally likely to get you punched in a bar. Maybe Alex's studded punk jacket would be better.
Seriously, the varity jackets we did for the Road Tour were awesome. I would vote +1 as special gifts.
--jeremy
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg gdk@redhat.com wrote:
A Fedora letterman's jacket. You know, like the one all the jocks wore in high school.
I think this idea is fun, but flawed. Letterman jackets are a great image (think competition, champions, popular kids) and are great recognition tools. They invoke a sense of belonging and achievement in the same way the green jacket does for the Masters, yellow jersey for guys named Lance Armstrong, etc.
However, as a promotional tool, I think it's the wrong direction. It sets a tone of inclusion, and possibly exclusion. Sure, people can look up to the "lettermen," but it's only a matter of time before people feel like they're being put into lockers. This is only due in part to the demographics of Linux.
Being involved in LUGs and LUG-like orgs, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to make intelligent discussion accessible. Schwag/swag/whatever is supposed to achieve that goal, but varsity jackets don't fit the profile.
Matt Frye Class of '93 "Letterman" in band and debate.
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 11:27 -0400, Jeremy Hogan wrote:
1a)What is Fedora?1b)Who is it for? (Today).
Yes.
Answered partly on the homepage nicely:
"The Fedora Project is an open source project
No. That's the Fedora Project. Not Fedora the distro. Which isn't being marketed at all.
Developers, hobbyists, enthusiasts, professional IT interested in the future direction of RHEL, etc.
Sounds like a good audience. I'd add the 'Linux curious' to that space.
2)Who else is in that space?
Only SuSE is built this way (community feeding and fed by a big publicly held sugare daddy with a large install base, and market cap of 3-5Billion.
Is Suse really that community fed? From discussion here, I'd say Ubuntu is the distro closest to Fedora - both distros aim for the 'ordinary person who may or may not have unix experience' market without the whole 'not being Unix' of Lindows. Community based, but with some corporate backing, tho Canonical is tiny compared to Red Hat.
And you can add more Ubuntu-esque users. If Fedora definition were to stretch from "proving ground for Red Hat" to "proving ground for Linux Innovation" or similar, then you can add small IT companies, tech savvy internal IT staff, and even an eco system of VARs for SMB/SME -- *cough cough* -- I mean people deploying and supporting it for others. And the verbage invites spin-off projects. (Still seen as to Red Hat's benefit).
Indeed. Many folk use Fedora in this space already - they're happy with the 2 years of community support.
Mike
On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 17:03 +1000, Mike MacCana wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 11:27 -0400, Jeremy Hogan wrote:
1a)What is Fedora?1b)Who is it for? (Today).
Yes.
Answered partly on the homepage nicely:
"The Fedora Project is an open source project
No. That's the Fedora Project. Not Fedora the distro. Which isn't being marketed at all.
!!! Semantic Distinction Alert !!!
The term "Fedora" is used in both ways, colloquially. Sometimes it is the overall project being referred to, and sometimes it's the distro (Core).
In documentation, I get to be pedantic and insist that we say the Fedora Project or Fedora Core and not Fedora. It is otherwise confusing, and confusion is the opposite of good documentation. Still, there are some who disagree, saying it is awkward to always use the full term. At the minimum, we need to be consistent in usage within the document itself.
Are we going to try to police this usage? HA HA HA HA HA
At least, amongst ourselves, we can be more careful about usage. Now we x2 as many questions to answer
1a^1) What is the Fedora Project? 1b^1) Who is it for right now? 1a^2) What is Fedora Core? 1b^2) Who is it for right now?
Notice that the answers *are* different. For example:
1a^1) [insert blurb from fedora.redhat.com] 1b^1) The Fedora Project is a superset and controller of Fedora Core, containing multiple, community run projects. It is not necessary to even care about the Project to be a user of Core. The reverse is not true.
1a^2) Fedora Core is a community distribution of the Linux operating system that focuses on leading edge technology and pioneering development. Stable releases are supported by the community for two years. This community is growing strongly.[1] 1b^2) Primarily for technology enthusiasts, Fedora Core is also seeing heavy adoption by the Linux curious. These curious are described as users from other OS paradigms who are new to Linux.
[1] Yeah, I know, conjecture, in marketing-speak too!
So, by using different values of "Fedora", I could be discussing what is and who for about documentation, the new directory server project, Extras, and so forth.
- Karsten
On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 02:29 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 17:03 +1000, Mike MacCana wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 11:27 -0400, Jeremy Hogan wrote:
1a)What is Fedora?1b)Who is it for? (Today).
Yes.
Answered partly on the homepage nicely:
"The Fedora Project is an open source project
No. That's the Fedora Project. Not Fedora the distro. Which isn't being marketed at all.
!!! Semantic Distinction Alert !!!The term "Fedora" is used in both ways, colloquially.
Yes.
REPEATED GROUND ALERT
But:
a) very few people give a stuff about the project when compared to the distro
b) nobody will give a stuff about the project unless the distro is any good.
c) the current web page assumes people can contribute before they can use. This is retarded.
I'm not reading the rest of your post, because you didn't read any of mine.
Mike
Hi
a) very few people give a stuff about the project when compared to the distro
One of the goals here is to generate more interest on the project itself
b) nobody will give a stuff about the project unless the distro is any good.
It goes both ways. If you dont have a good project, people dont contribute which means that you get a less attractive platform at the end
c) the current web page assumes people can contribute before they can use. This is retarded.
Help us fix it. design a prototype or write the content.
regards Rahul
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 15:24 +1000, Mike MacCana wrote:
a) very few people give a stuff about the project when compared to the distro
Perhaps we should have a guideline of only using the word "Fedora" to refer to the distro.
I'm not reading the rest of your post, because you didn't read any of mine.
I'm sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.
I was merely pointing out that we are using the same word to mean different things, and this creates confusion.
This confusion is happening in this thread, not made any easier because everyone keeps asking what "Fedora" means. It doesn't mean anything, it means several things, and what can we do about that?
- Karsten
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Karsten Wade wrote:
This confusion is happening in this thread, not made any easier because everyone keeps asking what "Fedora" means. It doesn't mean anything, it means several things, and what can we do about that?
Fortunately, we're not alone in this quandary. We need only look as far as the Apache Software Foundation and ask, "what did they do about this?"
Well, for starters, they came up with identifiable names for all of their projects. HTTP Server. Ant. Tomcat. Cocoon. Maven. NOT: "The Apache Web Server Project" and "The Apache Java Build Tool Project" and "The Apache Java Servlet Engine Project" and so forth. And when you talk about the Apache Software Foundation, you talk about "the ASF", not "Apache". I wonder if we could take a lesson from that.
It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but the further we go down this path, the more it becomes clear to me. I will make the following statement, and I will make it in an absolutist way, and ask people to agree, or not:
The goal of the Fedora Marketing Project is NOT to "market Fedora" as an entity. The goal, rather, IS to explain, promote and recruit for individual Fedora projects.
Do these conversations make more sense if we cast them in this light?
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 18:44 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Karsten Wade wrote:
This confusion is happening in this thread, not made any easier because everyone keeps asking what "Fedora" means. It doesn't mean anything, it means several things, and what can we do about that?
Fortunately, we're not alone in this quandary. We need only look as far as the Apache Software Foundation and ask, "what did they do about this?"
Well, for starters, they came up with identifiable names for all of their projects. HTTP Server. Ant. Tomcat. Cocoon. Maven. NOT: "The Apache Web Server Project" and "The Apache Java Build Tool Project" and "The Apache Java Servlet Engine Project" and so forth. And when you talk about the Apache Software Foundation, you talk about "the ASF", not "Apache". I wonder if we could take a lesson from that.
Certainly could. /me ponders what to call the documentation project
We get our current practices somewhat from Red Hat branding habits. It's the branding debate of "Porsche 911" v. "Ford family of automobiles." Red Hat is firmly in the Porsche camp.
Still, projects gain some visibility and credentials by having the Fedora word as part of the name. There are many Apache projects I wouldn't know are Apache related until I see the project URL. I don't know if this is good or not.
One good thing would be the dropping of all these extra TLAs.
It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but the further we go down this path, the more it becomes clear to me. I will make the following statement, and I will make it in an absolutist way, and ask people to agree, or not:
The goal of the Fedora Marketing Project is NOT to "market Fedora" as an entity. The goal, rather, IS to explain, promote and recruit for individual Fedora projects.
+1 for the IS part
The first part leans on an unexplained definition of "marketing".
AIUI, the point is, stop thinking of Fedora as a singularity and start thinking of it as a multilarity. Or just plain hilarity.
- Karsten (yes, I know it is "multiplicity", but then the joke doesn't work)
I'm kinda new here, and this is an interesting conversation about fundamentals...which is important to agree on.
What does 'Fedora' mean? All the up-stream Red Hat-related development activities based in "the community," maybe?
-Sam
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 16:01 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 18:44 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Karsten Wade wrote:
This confusion is happening in this thread, not made any easier because everyone keeps asking what "Fedora" means. It doesn't mean anything, it means several things, and what can we do about that?
Fortunately, we're not alone in this quandary. We need only look as far as the Apache Software Foundation and ask, "what did they do about this?"
Well, for starters, they came up with identifiable names for all of their projects. HTTP Server. Ant. Tomcat. Cocoon. Maven. NOT: "The Apache Web Server Project" and "The Apache Java Build Tool Project" and "The Apache Java Servlet Engine Project" and so forth. And when you talk about the Apache Software Foundation, you talk about "the ASF", not "Apache". I wonder if we could take a lesson from that.
Certainly could. /me ponders what to call the documentation project
We get our current practices somewhat from Red Hat branding habits. It's the branding debate of "Porsche 911" v. "Ford family of automobiles." Red Hat is firmly in the Porsche camp.
Still, projects gain some visibility and credentials by having the Fedora word as part of the name. There are many Apache projects I wouldn't know are Apache related until I see the project URL. I don't know if this is good or not.
One good thing would be the dropping of all these extra TLAs.
It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but the further we go down this path, the more it becomes clear to me. I will make the following statement, and I will make it in an absolutist way, and ask people to agree, or not:
The goal of the Fedora Marketing Project is NOT to "market Fedora" as an entity. The goal, rather, IS to explain, promote and recruit for individual Fedora projects.
+1 for the IS part
The first part leans on an unexplained definition of "marketing".
AIUI, the point is, stop thinking of Fedora as a singularity and start thinking of it as a multilarity. Or just plain hilarity.
- Karsten (yes, I know it is "multiplicity", but then the joke doesn't work)
-- Fedora-marketing-list mailing list Fedora-marketing-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 15:30 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 15:24 +1000, Mike MacCana wrote:
a) very few people give a stuff about the project when compared to the distro
Perhaps we should have a guideline of only using the word "Fedora" to refer to the distro.
Yes. Terms are defined how they're used. To most people:
The distro is Fedora. Which is made up of Core and Extras. Which is made by the Fedora Project.
Unlike Apache, I don't think we're going to try to change how people refer to our main app just to promote other things we do.
Mike
On 6/27/05, Jeremy Hogan jeremy.hogan@gmail.com wrote:
Note the mild subject adjustment, uttered most notable by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.
Another GGR reference seems appropriate... "It takes brass...to sell...."
If Fedora definition were to stretch from "proving ground for Red Hat"...
Should be played down if we want the community to feel the Fedora love.
...to "proving ground for Linux Innovation"...
Played up for the same effect.
- So what?
The most powerful of questions, but can we answer it? What's the value of Fedora to the user/developer/etc? What consideration does that crowd get? Are we interested in providing any consideration beyond, "You can see our code, and that's inherently awesome, although admittedly not vertical in any way."
Recruit active participants, but you should be open as many interested onlookers as possible.
+1. Yes, recruit active participants, but make it accessible. No more RTFM, self-righteous bullsh*t.
-use PRWeb or a similar free service regularly (not feature releases, more like "Fedora guy writes free book in native language" type stuff,
We need to go one step further. Encourage it. Bounty for it. S*wag for it. Recognition, not simply promotion.
-press contacts (invite a NewsForge editor to an exclusive at FudCON, send the LiveCD out for reviewers
I'm on the ed board at LinuxWorld. How can I be of service to Fedora?
there's only so much of our collective navel the world needs to gaze into, give the project a broader context)
It's called Revolution OS, and I already saw it.
-a media kit (zip file of the logo, the About statement, and ONE sheet giving the FAQ and spiel, contact info for one/two people at the most to follow up with)
+1
Matt Frye
marketing@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Alex -
Colin Charles -
Greg DeKoenigsberg -
Jef Spaleta -
Jeremy Hogan -
Jeremy Katz -
Jesse Keating -
Karsten Wade -
Matt Frye -
Mike MacCana -
Patrick Paul -
Rahul Sundaram -
Sam Hiser -
seth vidal -
Toshio Kuratomi