[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

Sun Oct 3 08:29:02 CEST 2010

Michael Scherer a écrit :
+> Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit :
+>
+>    
+>> "A distribution for Newbie" is good, but I think what Graham said is
+>> better.
+>>      
+> Well,
+> saying "a distribution for newbies" is not as good as it sound.
+>
+> If you market the distribution so people think "if you are a newbie, use
+> this distro", people will think "he use this distribution so he is a
+> newbie". This will drive knowledgeable peoples away to others
+> distribution, because they will feel they will learn more by using
+> another distro ( which is wrong ) and because others peoples will appear
+> as more knowledgeable when they use a distro that is not aimed at
+> newbies.
+>
+> In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the
+> community. Less expert users to answer to support, less experts users to
+> report bug, fix packages, create softwares or contribute, and to
+> basically teach to new users how to be good community member resulting
+> in less quality, and a less sustainable community.
+>
+> Apple does it correctly. They never say "we target newbie users".
+> See http://www.apple.com//why-mac/
+> "better computer" "most advanced os" "award winning support" "latest
+> technology" "software you love".
+>
+> Everything resolve around how they are good, not how beginner you can
+> be.
+>
+> Or see http://www.apple.com/why-mac/better-os/
+> they say "it is easy", but they never say "it is easy and can be used by
+> a newbie". They say "it is easy and you will learn how to use it fast",
+> which is more positive.
+>
+> And so I think we should also try to avoid this pitfall, right from the
+> start, if we want to have a thriving sustainable community.
+>
+>    
+how about :
+"Mageia : Linux that just works"
+"Mageia : Easy, Powerful, and Secure"
+
+The danger is to identify Mageia too much with any particular market.
+Mandriva has attracted users and developpers by its ease of use.
+Mageia starts with this strength, which we should promote.
+That doesn't stop us from communicating the range of capabilities of 
+Mageia, just that we should avoid too narrow a focus.
+
+- André (andre999)
+