10:27 a.m.
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
12:36 p.m.
Jeepers. My apologies for the rampant typos. I drove 12 hours from NY
last night, and should have been sleeping instead of typing.
--jeremy
2:14 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
2:23 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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?
--
Jesse Keating RHCE (http://geek.j2solutions.net)
Fedora Legacy Team (http://www.fedoralegacy.org)
GPG Public Key
(http://geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)
Was I helpful? Let others know:
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2:55 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
3:07 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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....
--
Jesse Keating RHCE (http://geek.j2solutions.net)
Fedora Legacy Team (http://www.fedoralegacy.org)
GPG Public Key
(http://geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)
Was I helpful? Let others know:
http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=jkeating
3:02 a.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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/
4:15 a.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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.
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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8:33 a.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
"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/
--
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2:56 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Patrick Paul
patpaul(a)mit.edu
3:12 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)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
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)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
3:28 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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(a)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
3:41 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
3:47 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
3:51 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
3:48 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
4:01 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)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
4:22 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:01 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 6/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)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
4:07 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
--
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4:45 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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(a)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
--
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4:54 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
5:06 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, seth vidal <skvidal(a)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
5:09 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 18:06 -0400, Jeremy Hogan wrote:
On 6/27/05, seth vidal <skvidal(a)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
5:08 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
8:24 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
4:56 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
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
4:59 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)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 :)
--
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5:01 p.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)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
8:45 a.m.
New subject: Cool Fedora schwag idea
On 6/27/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)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.
2:03 a.m.
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
4:29 a.m.
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
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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12:24 a.m.
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
12:27 a.m.
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
5:30 p.m.
New subject: Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)
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
--
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/
5:44 p.m.
New subject: Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)
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
6:01 p.m.
New subject: Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)
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)
--
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/
6:15 p.m.
New subject: Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)
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(a)redhat.com
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
9:07 p.m.
New subject: Fedora v. Fedora (was Re: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action)
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
8:58 a.m.
On 6/27/05, Jeremy Hogan <jeremy.hogan(a)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.
4) 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
6874
days inactive
6877
days old
marketing@lists.fedoraproject.org
39 comments
15 participants
participants (15)
-
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