Board efforts: scope, concept, and permission?

[chasd]

inode0 <John> wrote :

> To be clear I wasn't suggesting there actually was a marketing
> problem, although there is probably always a marketing problem in the
> absence of a monopoly.
>
> I can imagine other approaches though. What are the characteristics of
> good contributors? Market to that segment of the population. What the
> desktop spin is or isn't probably doesn't matter in that case to the
> marketing effort.
>
> Why hasn't marketing defined *its* target audience(s)? Why can't
> marketing identify the characteristics of groups they wish to market
> Fedora to and do it?

The term " marketing " is judiciously sprinkled through that quote.

For some people, " marketing " has a bad connotation.
Images of a sweaty, poorly-dressed loud-mouth ramming something
you don't want down your throat.

( If " marketing " didn't have a bad connotation for you,
I've ruined it for you now. )

Anyway, before this discussion gets all riled up about " marketing "
please sit down, take a breath, and use the word " outreach " instead
of  " marketing " and see if that makes you feel better.


I had one thought that was actually close to being on topic.
Fedora does not exist in a vacuum, or Linux in general.

Were there many people looking for alternatives to current OS
products from Microsoft, and now that has changed with the
recent release of Windows 7 ?

That event wouldn't impact contributors, who for the most part are
committed to Linux if not Fedora. However it would impact the total  
number
of downloads, and general interest in Fedora as seen by hits to the  
web site.


One last thought.
Marketing is like optimizing code.
Profile, so you know what to optimize, instead of optimizing
random snippets of code hoping that will work.

The numbers posted by Mr. McGrath are similar to the results of  
profiling code.
If you don't think the numbers are representative,
find a way to get numbers that that you think are representative,
and justify why you think that.

That is, if you think he profiled the wrong use-case for code ;)


We can only market, er optimize, given the data we have.

Anyone have any data that provides a different perspective ?



-- 
Charles Dostale