Fwd: Inquiry - General marketing questions from a student of international business

[Tejas Dinkar]

Hey all, 

I'm responding directly to the original poster as well

As I am not "The Head of Marketing", I may be wrong, and don't sue me if
I am spouting rot.

Dear Patrick,

Perhaps, before you attempt to understand how marketing in Fedora works,
you should understand how Fedora, or any open source project in the
world works.

The concept of Fedora is Freedom. This doesn't just mean that you can
take our product and run away with it. It also means you can modify our
product, redistribute it, for free, or even for a fee.

Consider this example:



Chef Super-Gja has generated a recipe for Vegetable Stew that is
AWESOME!!!!

Chef Super-Gja decided he wants to help as many people as he can with
his amazing Vegetable Stew.

so he starts producing 1000 Litres of Stew every day, and giving it away
for no cost. He feels that his Stew is Free.

However, one day, his friend tells him that he is allergic to the
carrots in the stew, and that many people have requested for Stew
without carrots in it.

Now, Chef Super-Gja gets a great idea. Rather than giving away just the
Stew, what he does is give away some stew, as well as the RECIPE for the
stew. This way, if everyone has the recipe, then they are allowed to
modify the soup, improve it, and customize it to their needs.

Pretty soon, his friend comes back. His friend has modified the recipe,
and the following side note: by adding a spoon of butter to the soup, it
will make the stew a lot thicker.

The Chef decides that this suggestion is so good, that he includes it in
the original recipe for the soup.

Chef Super-Gja realizes that by giving out the recipe of the soup, and
not just the soup itself, he has ensured that everyone has access to his
soup, and that everyone can easily make it and improve it. By doing
this, he has made an entire community of stew cookers, who are all eager
to help improve the original recipe.

Also, Chef Super-Gja also has ensured that people will be drinking his
soup, long after he has retired.



This is the way open source works. Here, software is the soup, and the
source code (a text document from which software is made) is compared to
the RECIPE of the soup.

Some companies, like Red Hat, do make money out of open source. They
give out the `recipe` for their product. In doing so, they will have a
large community behind them. This community will continuously be sending
back improvements to Red Hat's soup, and will be in close contact with
Red Hat. Not just the Marketing or Support teams, as happens with most
companies. But the end user is in contact with the developers. In fact
THE END USERS ARE THE DEVELOPERS.

Some products, like fedora are not commercial. They are maintained
entirely by volunteers, so that it can benefit their neighbor.

Now as far as marketing goes.

Except for (perhaps) 5 of the ambassadors, none of us are Paid to
Promote Fedora.

The rest of us, simply use Fedora. We love Fedora, and we want to tell
people about it. We want to help spread the message that Fedora
symbolizes. That message is the Following:

`Fedora Is Free! We want to use Free Software. Not free as in Zero Cost.
Free as in Freedom.`

We are volunteers who help to promote an idea we believe in, during our
Free time. We do not really expect to be rewarded in any way. We are
doing it because we know it is the right thing to do.


For Further Reading on this Topic, I suggest you read this essay:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/

Gja

On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 14:51 -0500, Alex Maier wrote:
> Dear mrs. Maier,
> 
> So if I get this right, seeing that you are indeed head of marketing,
> the fedora marketing team focusses their attention on promotion. Is
> Fedora Core not adapted to fit the needs of it's members, by lets say
> a broad survey, or is it estimated what the target audience wants?
> 
> Does the fedora marketing team have any firm strategic or operational
> targets to obtain?
> 
> I'm mostly interested in fedora's marketing strategy since it is very
> much different from a regular company. It is indeed non profitable and
> you do not have a tangible item.
> 
> Friendly greetings,
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 
> On 3/20/06, Alex Maier <lxmaier at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Patrick,
> >
> > Thank you very much for your inquiry. I lead the Ambassadors project,
> > and this is what I can speak for :)
> >
> > The Ambassadors project is a grass-roots initiative mostly centered
> > around "getting the word out" to the people outside the Fedora project
> > and also helping Fedora Project communicate with Fedora and Linux
> > community.
> >
> > If you have any more questions, please feel free to get in touch with
> > me or the entire Steering Committee (Famsco) for more help.
> >
> > Thank you very much for your interest in Fedora,
> > Alex
> >
> > On 3/18/06, Patrick Windt <paddy.windt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Dear mrs. Maier,
> > >
> > > As an international marketing student, I was wondering in what aspects the
> > > marketing department of "fedora" is integrated in the final product release.
> > > Or is the marketing of fedora solely based on "getting the word out" ?
> > >
> > > I would love to get some insight in the marketing plan of Fedora...
> > >
> > > --
> > > Kind regards,
> > >
> > > Patrick Windt
> > > paddy.windt at gmail.com
> >
> >
> > --
> > Check out the new content on Fedora Project page! http://fedoraproject.org
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Patrick Windt
> paddy.windt at gmail.com
> 
> --
> Check out the new content on Fedora Project page! http://fedoraproject.org
> 
> --
> Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> Fedora-marketing-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list