[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

[Tux99]

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010, Graham Lauder wrote:

> It is a well known fact, that you cannot be all things to all people, to try 
> to do that would end up being everything to noone.  I would prefer to be the 
> best we can be to those who grow to love the brand.  

True, but you are forgetting to take into account the views of the 
developers and packagers of Mageia. Without them there will be no Mageia 
distro and since partecipation is on an unpaid volunteer basis, no 
grand plan of shaping the distro from a marketing POV will succeed, if 
it doesn't match the views of a large part of the devs and packagers.

This is not a criticism of your work (which I'm sure is well meant), but 
it's a simple but crucial fact that you have to take into account.

> All linux distributions at the moment have a less than 1.5% of the total 
> market, however in the area where they have targeted a particular user set, 
> Webservers, the market penetration is somewhere around the 65% mark.

And that's because of the simple fact that Linux is the best technical 
choice for that specific application and the decisionmakers are techies 
who know that, it has nothing to do with marketing.
If anything it shows how marketing counts for nothing when techies and 
experts make choices.

> How many users does Mandriva have worldwide, compare that to the number of 
> computer users and you will see that the "one size fits all" does not equal 
> significant market share.   

Mandriva is not a "one size fits all". It is the best Linux desktop 
distro, but it's not the best choice as a server distro or for many 
other uses.
The fact that it doesn't have more users is primarily due to the unfair 
advantage that Windows has because it comes preinstalled on PCs.
 
> OOo is targeted at office productivity people for obvious reasons, 
> it's branding, colour design (Blue engenders a feeling of  reliability and 
> efficiency) is aimed at that market group.  The Logo design  is aimed at a 30 
> to 45 age group, who are the decision makers in this group and to whom "Gulls" 
> = Freedom.    

I very much doubt any OOo user chose it because of the logo, personally 
I chose software on technical and usability merits, not logo design and 
even all non-techies I know do the same.

Software is not a car or a handbag or a jacket, those are items where 
looks and design counts a lot, with software the only design that counts 
is UI interface design aimed at maximising usability.