Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

Quoting Cory Schmidt <sourcemage AT schmidtsite.us>:
> On Friday 23 April 2004 05:33 am, Jaanus Heeringson wrote:
> 
> I realize I may be putting the cart before the horse at this point since we 
> don't even have a plan yet, but I thought I'd submit some ideas that came 
> immediately to mind:
> 
> > Eric Sandall wrote:
> > >>This is a very rough outline of how these things usually work:
> > >>
> > >>1. Before I/we start working on some kind of marketing proposal we need
> > >>to decide where we want to head. That means we/you need to clarify and
> > >>decide on the general goals and visions of the project. What are we
> > >>working against?
> > >
> > >Would our Social Contract[0] help in that?
> >
> > Yes it helps, but all it actually says is "We are another open source
> > distro, and we play nice & have ethics". We might want to be a bit more
> > specific. Who is SMGL suitable for? What differentiates us from other
> > distros? As a user i would probably like to know what the intentions of
> > the project are. Debian[0] states this well.

I believe our Social Contract has people wanting it updated/refined, so we 
could
work on that as well as adding more history about our project as well as it's
general goals.

> One of the huge selling points of Sourcemage as a source-based distro for me
> 
> was that it was much more intuitive than that other big source-based distro 
> that shall remain nameless. I tried Gentoo (oops!) but came back to 
> Sourcemage. Maybe we could have some testimonials to that effect. Consider 
> me
> 
> an official vounteer :-).

One of the pages we now have for that is here:
http://wiki.sourcemage.org/index.php?page=User+Comments. Feel free to add
yourself. ;)
  
> > >>2. When the above is settled we can move on to goals and visions for the
> > >>marketing effort. Basically, what outcome would you like? Do we want
> > >>more users, developers or just piece of mind? We need to set up some
> > >>targets for the future. Another important thing: goals are measurable
> > >>(there are specific conditions for success), while visions are not.
> > >
> > >I'd say that our primary goal is enough developers to fill every Lead
> > > position, every guru position, and have extras for the "general"
> > > positions (list of positions is available on our wiki[1], after that
> more
> > > users are icing on the cake.
> >
> > Sounds totally resonable.
> >
> 
> Another selling point for Sourcemage (right now at least) is that it's small
> 
> enough that someone who knows what they're doing can contribute right away. 
> I
> 
> think it's harder to do that in other larger projects.

There was someone on IRC who mentioned that very reason. ;)
  
> > >>3. When we have the goals and visions in place we can start defining our
> > >>target audiences.
> > >
> > >Developers! Developes! Developers!
> > >/me does a monkey dance
> >
> > Wouldn't users also be part of the priority since they also contribute
> > to the project by reporting bugs etc?
> > Do we wish to bring in experienced developers and put them to work
> > directly, or do we need users who we can "educate"?

Users aer always helpful, but we need more developers first, IMO, so that we 
can
get cracking on the already filed bugs faster. We don't want to burn out our
current gurus by having them continue to take on the work of what over a
hundred do in Some Other Distro.

> > >>4. Figure out what attracts the target audience and adjust our
> > >>communication accordingly (redesign of visuals and information etc.)
> > >
> > >Hmmm....easy one: women. However, that probably won't work out as we
> want,
> > > so perhaps a cool-sounding project? One with lots of prospects? Able to
> > > put your name on the web?
> >
> > My experience is that most OS people are motivated by needs, ego and
> > cash. Since we can roule out cash in the short term, that leaves us with
> > needs and ego.
> > 1. What needs do SMGL fulfill with end users and developers? Control?
> > Speed? Who might use it commercially?
> > 2. The larger and more well-known the project, the better for the
> > ego-related attraction.
> >
> 
> I think with any source-based distro users are attracted by the manly surge
> of 
> adrenaline that comes with compiling your own stuff. So if we market to 
> regular Linux users we should play on that. If we market to "competing" 
> source-base distro users we should probably focus on Sourcemage's 
> intuitiveness (if that's a word) and ease of use.
 
Control and the amount of options available is the main reason I use SMGL, 
and I
believe probably others. One of our mottos is, "The more options the better"
(paraphrased). There are some working on adding options to Sorcery which would
help do mass installs of SMGL on similar hardware (Beowulf clusters, office
machines, labs, etc.) which would be of immense help in a business setting (at
least initially) and the Cabal option allows for relatively easy maintainence
of those machines (especially if you turn on the e-mail option so you get
reports back).

> > >>5. Find the best places to come in contact with the target audience.
> > >
> > >Slashdot, OSNews, Penny-Arcade, Newsforge, others?
> >
> > Mainstream tch-press is also good, but a very illusive target.

Where else then? ZDNet? CNN? I'm not sure those would be the target audiences
we're looking for.

> > >>6. Bring'em in!.
> > >
> > >Areed!
> > >
> > >>7. Follow up on progress and goals. Adjust accordingly.
> > >
> > >Gotta get #1 going first. ;)
> >
> > This is actually one of the most important points :) If jou don't do
> > this you might end up putting effort into something that simply does not
> > work.

Yes, we've been through that before. ;/ I'll work on getting a preliminary
Roadmap setup.

> > >>Now would also be a good time for those of you who wish to be involved
> > >>in the creation of the marketing plan to sound of.
> > >
> > >Hrmmm...I'm not much of a marketing person myself... ;) I'll help where I
> > > can.
> >
> > If you wouldn't I'd be really worried ;)

As well as I, and probably others. :)

> > [0] http://www.debian.org/intro/about#what

-sandalle

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Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us                  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285  |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

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