[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

Thu Oct 14 05:16:39 CEST 2010

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.
+
+