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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    [kde-promo] Re: Application letter
From:       Thomas Thym <ungethym () mevin ! net>
Date:       2011-04-22 12:19:25
Message-ID: 201104221419.25584.ungethym () mevin ! net
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Hi Lukas,

On Tuesday 19 April 2011 01:48:07 wrote Lukas:
> Hi Jos,
> 
> I must to agree with you - a do-it attitude works better than a talk-it
> <..>. The BIG question is how significant change it can give?
> 
> If a single article can bring 2 new Linux users, we can call it an increase
> of 10e9999% (if counted against zero from ML directly). Looking at the big
> picture - it's too minor to minor to even discuss about. Various marketing
> analysis shows, that it takes ~7-30 adds to convince person to buy the
> product. If we want to have a real change and convince someone to "buy" the
> ideas/benefits behind FOSS/KDE/Linux, we must ensure we can reach the
> necessary scale to do so. Otherwise its just the same trolling on ML's :)

Other marketing analysis show that most people had enough of traditional marketing, \
"convincing" the customer. Novell produced some "Linux" commercials, really well \
made, but the success... you know the answer.  IMHO the more promissing way is to use \
viral marketing etc. The basis of that are / could be screencasts, small videos (e.g. \
showing the power of our software of the benefits of our communtiy), the booklet, and \
other really cool stuff, made by members of our community. There are enough ideas on \
the promo todo list. We don't need a big buget for that. But people who actually do \
the work!

> It rises another issue. KDE is mature and still growing community. At the
> same time, the management hadn't changed almost at all, and the
> communication infrastructure simply fails under such enormous(how many
> *_thousands_* contributors KDE has?) loads. 

I just don't have the same impression. For me your communication methods work rather \
well.

> It means that we are fast
> approaching (if not yet) the tipping point, when it will have to stop
> growing (because its hard for new people to join and contribute efficiently
> (working alone is never efficient/funny)). 

Sure, there are powerful group effects and we can surely improve our processes to \
integrate new contrutors even better in a team.

> While tragedy of the
> commons<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons>does not
> talk about IT, it describes very similar situation - once it
> becomes impossible to know each other, the morality/productivity/etc drops
> and community fails (imho, some smaller parts still can live separately).

The most "moduls" which are the small, tight bound, important groups are not more \
than 20 people (in general). 

> Take a look at e.g. Amarok radio streams plugins, for each country we have a
> separate reinvention of wheel. If time used to develop each plugin would
> have been to create single solid system, I have no doubt - ShoutCast would
> look like a tiny amateur project.
> 
> Also, its damn hard to get a team even for the most interesting project (a
> simple plasmoid can also be a project), unless you are either senior
> developer either have to spend years developing it as a one man project.
> Both leads to slower development of KDE, than its potential.
> 
> The 20 (wo)men team can attract more webdevs, than 200 writers working
> individually :)

As I mentioned above I think we work in teams.

> Answering your mail about project management software. It was suggested to
> the promo people, and in more pilot project like way. I doubt there are
> stock tool to fit KDE needs in general, but it doesn't change the fact, that
> reworking this area will bring both time saving, and productivity increase.
> 
> But that is a bit to deep issue to be solved on ML and I just hope sooner or
> later it can be marked as done.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Lukas

For starting contributions that matters to the community, I can underline what Jos \
wrote. 

Cheers,
Thomas


> > In general, if you are serious about making a difference, a do-it
> > attitude works better than a talk-it. Ideas are cheap - we all have more
> > ideas on what to do than time to execute them. If you want to do something
> > KDE webdeve related, just start doing it. Maybe others have time to join
> > you, maybe not. Brainstorming on the subject brings quite little value -
> > while plenty of people will help you brainstorm, few will actually have time
> > to contribute anything ;-)
> > 
> > 
> > I'd recommend to pick a small thing that will obviously bring KDE closer to
> > webdevelopers and do it. Writing an article about what KDE has for
> > webdevelopers will help more than 100 threads on this ML, for example ;-)
> > 
> > 
> > The LiveDVD idea is not bad at all, if it gets picked up it might be a nice
> > tool. Or - do something for the websites of KDE to get web developers
> > involved. Anyway, as I said - ideas are cheap, we've got plenty :D
> > 
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Jos
> > 
> 
 
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