Attention / Interest / Desire / Action, getfedora.org, or why marketing 'the Fedora project' is a bad idea.

[Colin Charles]

On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 22:47 +1000, Mike MacCana wrote:
> > > >Based on the questions I get from folks about how to contribute,
> I'm
> > > >fairly certain you're very wrong. 
> > > >
> > > Really? You think more people want to contribute to Fedora than to
> use
> > > it?
> > 
> > Yes, they do. 
> 
> !!!
> 
> Could you please explain how? 
> 
> Do you not believe that there are users who don't contribute?

Yes, because:

a) we didn't have a contributory process
b) they don't know how to contribute
c) they feel powerless without being @redhat.com
d) even when they overcome (c), some twat @redhat.com will show them
that they're powerless
e) etc...

So definitely, we've got a lot of people wanting to contribute, but they
don't know how, or what to do. Then there's the issue of COMMUNICATION.
It just doesn't happen. Well, it's been improving steadily

If joe at redhat was designing cool_new_fubar_app, and told the community
of his intentions, bar at community might find interest in helping code the
app, or support it along the way. A classic new example of how all this
community thing works is how PUP is being developed: intention,
publicity, public CVS, friendly Paul, etc.

An example of this /not/ working is suddenly springing out new features,
etc. and I'm not going to list examples here, no.

> Do you think there are people who contribute but somehow don't use?

That too. People use Windows during the day, and at night, might have 2
hours to work with Fedora checking their mail. They may contribute
packages during that short span of time

Or what about good design folk. They'd use a Mac, but still contribute
to funky Fedora-ness (web, etc.)

And I'm sure there are people contributing in many soft ways not using
Fedora. Heck, my main work machine is dual-booting FreeBSD and Fedora,
because hey ho, day job *requires* FreeBSD. Am I not a fedora
contributor?
-- 
Colin Charles, http://www.bytebot.net/
FUDCon II @ LinuxTag
June 24-25, 2005 in Karlsruhe, Germany
http://fedoraproject.com/fudcon/