On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 1:26 PM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <
gdk@redhat.com> wrote:
On Sat, 24 May 2008, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
2008/5/24 Scott Thistle <scott@tekkie.org>:
I just don't understand why a lot of companies and papers think that distros are pitted against each other. The single most aggravating statement I ever hear is when a company's #1 goal is "Increase shareholder value". Wow. I hate those three words.
It's because for the traditional software 'marketplace' it is about
competition. And the technical laypress are deeply rooted in the
experience of that traditional way of how software is developed and
marketed. The machinery or software review is geared around things
you can purchase in a store, so you see open source software reviews
is approached like its a console game title or an electronic gadget
or even a car.
We speak a completely different language, we speak a language of
'coopetition.' I think Paul's imagery of a community of farmers
helping each other out at a barn raising, has a lot of appeal. There
are probably some other farming analogies that we could use in talking
points. Things like long term sustainability versus short term yields,
which
The laypress by and large don't understand how 'coopetition' is meant to work, or what sustainability means, or where the real value in the open source process lies...in the ability to contribute beyond laying down cash on a counter. Its a disruptive concept for the software marketplace, and if Fedora's marketteers do one thing, and one thing only.. I'd want it to be to educate the laypress about coopetition and the power of contribution.
It will take a multi-release effort before we see a substantial change in the laypress. I hope some of the talking points this time around are remembered by particular people in the laypress, so we see the quality of their questions improve next time around. I'm thinking about creating a methodology so I can rank particular laypress 'journalists' are doing in terms of understanding concepts like coopetition and sustainability.
Read Michael Tiemann's brilliant paper:
http://people.redhat.com/tiemann/STS-Forum-Tiemann-2006.pdf
Our goal at Red Hat, and the goal that participants in the Fedora Project share with us, is to put our money where our mouth is, and lead with Radical Collaboration and Radical Transparency.
--g