[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

[Renaud MICHEL]

On lundi 18 octobre 2010 at 02:20, Graham Lauder wrote :
> On Sunday 17 Oct 2010 21:20:48 Renaud MICHEL wrote:
> > Contrary to android and macos (and mandriva) which are backed by
> > enterprises, mageia is a community project.
> > So if you throw away the community, there is nothing left.
> 
> No one is advocating throwing away the community, but being part of a
> community has it's issues, decision making speed is one of them.

Yeah, it was a little exagerated, but that's how I understood the previous 
post when he wrote

> > On dimanche 17 octobre 2010 at 03:11, LinuxBSDos.com wrote :
> > > Instead of focusing on the needs of the community, why not start
> > > thinking of building a distribution for main stream users.

Because, if mageia would no care about my needs, I don't see why I would 
contribute to it.
Because, beeing an egoist, I am willing to contribute first to have distro 
that suits my needs (which mandriva does quite well), and only secondly to 
have a distro that could fill most people needs (but that second point is 
anyway very important for me!).

> In a
> corporate environment people are hired to do a particular job, they are
> hired for their expertise in their field and they, for that reason, have
> the major in any policy in their particular area of responsibility. 
> However in a Community based OSS project everybody has the opportunity
> to have their say and that can lead to conflict, god knows I sometimes
> just shout at the screen: "JUST LET ME DO MY JOB, I HAPPEN TO BE GOOD AT
> IT!!"  and yea I can be a bit forceful at times. :D
> 
> However, it is healthy and it's a strength that Corporates don't have.
> Anybody who's been on big development projects will be able to rant long
> and Loud about those F**** marketing guys keep changing the spec and
> we're going way over budget and I'm going to...[insert mutilation of
> choice]..to those a@%*holes.

Yeah, I know that all too well...

> Well this Marketing/Training guy, often says the same thing about Project
> Managers. :/  A good project manager is gift from the gods, because he
> has a wide open communication track with HR and Marketing because he
> realises that Users aren't developers, and the gets market research and
> User experience surveys done before the project starts.  All too rare
> sometimes I think.  An RFP or spec often gets written with no
> consideration other than scratching the Writers itch and the problems
> start.  However that's another treatise entirely! :)
> 
> The point is that sometimes it's better to step back and say "OK, this
> isn't my field, let the guys whose field it is get on with it."  Let me
> stress however the sometimes and definitely not always.
> 
> Now in the Mageia Marketing group we have Teachers with deep pedagogical
> knowledge, we have Marketers and Communications people who are bloody
> good at what they do, who have been involved in marketing FOSS projects
> for years right up to and including a PHD in FOSS marketing.  I hold it
> up as a huge privilege to work with this group of excellent people, and
> guess what, we are a community, a community with a shared goal, to
> market Mageia in the best way we know how.
> 
> I look to the Founders, I look at our Marketing team and I look at the
> wider contributing community and I seriously believe that if Redmond
> isn't quaking in it's boots it should be.

I am certainly in no position to give advices to the marketing team, and I 
trust them in making a good job, as long as it doesn't dictate too much how 
the development should be headed.

Obviously, marketing and developers teams will have to communicate a lot. 
The marketing guys telling to the devs which features are really needed to 
have a wider audience, and the devs showing the marketing guys the great 
features they are working on so that they can integrate it in their 
communication.

cheers
-- 
Renaud Michel