Re: marketing: master or servant?
From: Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com>
> I am not sure why I answered this post. I am certainly not
> opposed to calling in the marketing folks to help sell Debian. And
> yet, deep in me, there is this irrational unease ...
Fear of the unknown. A good way to master it is to learn more about
the topic.
> Can marketing understand a developer not caring about whether
> his product gets any market share? Or caring more about a percieved
> `it feels right' more than any marketing ploy?
Sure. Marketing is not equal to a lack of sensitivity, ethics, or ideals.
The goal need not be money. Ideas have to be marketed, too. All political
movements are marketed if they are successful. Richard Stallman markets
free software very effectively to hackers like us. He has not successfully
broadened the appeal to others than hackers, and that is a marketing failure.
> At times, as a programmer, I have written code for the sheer
> joy of creation. And I do not need external validation -- and I
> certainly am not making money on it.
You are very definitely getting a reward for something you put in.
It's just not money. You get the joy of creation, the community,
the sight of others running your software. There is a _transaction_
here, though not a financial one. Marketers study things like this
and use the information to tailor their appeal to you.
> Can you understand what makes me tick? I think that other
> developers possibly can. I am afraid that it may be too alien a
> concept for people from marketing (as I'm sure their deepest moments
> of professional joie de vivre is a closed book for me)
It is not unheard of for a hacker to encompass marketing, just as it
is not unheard of for a hacker to be a priest or a sailor. You just
need to find individuals that can serve as that sort of bridge.
> And if marketing folks have not been involved in the project
> till the end, when they come in and start telling me how to dispose
> of my work; umm, I have this atavistic feeling
You want to bring them in as co-developers, just like any new maintainer.
Not as bosses. Fine.
> If market domination was my goal, you would be entirely correct.
How about self-defense? I don't want to be controlled by MS. That's
what it is about now.
Thanks
Bruce
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