Re: Fwd: [libreoffice-marketing] BrOffice product and community will be called LibreOffice

I am copying the marketing and the discuss mailing lists, because I do 
not think that private messages are a good sign of community work, and 
because you have raised several questions that deserve an answer, 
especially for those not familiar with TDF.

I apologize in advance for the length of the message.

On 4/23/11 10:07 PM, Riemer Thalen wrote:

> But before I unsubscribe I would really appreciate you answering a few
> questions that still bother me.

Why you should unsubscribe. We need people enthusiastic about marketing, 
but we also need people willing to learn how to work inside the 
community. So, my intention was not to throw you away, but to tell you 
that working together inside the community - and accepting all the 
peculiarities of the community - is the best solution, and the most 
"profitable" for the community.

Anyway, I'm happy to answer you questions.

> Given the fact that OOo/LibO is free and MSO costs a lot of money, do
> you think OOo did a splendid job as product developers and marketers in
> the last ten years?

Sun did a terrible job, probably the worst possible marketing job of all 
times. I have been criticizing Sun inside the community and also in 
private meetings for years.

The community of volunteers, on the contrary, did a fabulous job. If you 
think that with a limited number of people proficient in marketing, with 
a workforce devoting their spare time to the project and with a budget 
of 0 (zero) the community has managed to grow from nowhere to 15 per 
cent market share worldwide and over 20 per cent in some countries, the 
result is amazing.

FOSS is not supposed to reach market dominance using the same tools of 
commercial companies (otherwise it would not be FOSS), but to educate 
users willing to discover the advantages of freedom in software.

> If you really want to compete with MSO, shouldn't you be working for the
> market rather than the community?

We are not working for the community, we are working to grow the 
community from the community. It is true that many users are and will 
never be community members, but we cannot forget that without the help 
of the community a software like LibreOffice would not exhist.

In addition, we do not want to compete with MS Office in the same way 
that Microsoft is competing with us. We want to offer an alternative to 
users, but if they feel that MS Office is a good solution for them and 
are willing to pay the associated costs, then we are happy as much as 
these users are happy in using MS Office.

> Is it possible the community focus and the neglect of market orientation
> are important factors LibO still is no match for MSO?

LibreOffice will never match MS Office, because it lacks the same 
resources. It is already amazing how much we are doing without a real 
budget and without any paid employee, against a company with a budget of 
several hundred million dollars. This is a matter of fact, and we accept 
the situation.

The progress of FOSS projects is necessarily slow, in comparison with 
commercial ones. FOSS simply belongs to a different environment, which 
is based on ethics, mutual respect, reciprocal trust and support, and a 
number of other reason which are frequently specific of each individual 
(and you will discover them only with time and patience).

> Last quarter (!), MS made a 6 billion (!) profit on MSO. How come when
> there is a free alternative? Put bluntly, the world is paying 24 billion
> dollars MSO tax for not having to use LibO. Isn't that something the
> community should worry about?

As I have told you before, we are not worried by MS results, although we 
follow them with a great deal of attention. Therefore, we know that MS - 
although it still makes an awful amount of money from MS Office - is 
worried by FOSS to the point of mentioning it in the Q-10 form they 
provide to the SEC, because their turnover has not been growing at the 
same pace of the PC market for several years.

> Why aren't those "people with a decent
> marketing background" more vocal? All marketing posts are about logo's
> and folders. Don't you think that improving the product and meeting user
> demands should be the main topic?

If you look further than the mailing lists, you would discover that we 
have a respectable coverage on media in many countries (in some cases, 
on par with MS Office), thanks to several people inside the community, 
and that we are - of course - discussing about the future developments 
of the product.

A FOSS project based on a community has very little in common with a 
commercial software project. Judging from a single mailing list is not 
enough, and is limited and misleading.

> Do you really think product specifications should be determined by
> technical developers and geeks? Or do you agree that the only judge of
> what consitutes a "good application" is the average user nobody seems to
> be interested in?

First of all, we are the first users of our software, and we do care 
about ourselves. In addition, we care for the average user as well. Do 
you know that there are user@ mailing lists in several languages, where 
volunteers answer user requests? Do you know that there is a constant 
exchange of information between the developers and the users on the 
development mailing list?

We do care a lot for users, but we do care in a completely different way 
from commercial open source software.

> If you had read my post properly, you would have noticed I don't want to
> ask what features average users want. I'm not that stupid. I want to ask
> them what made them dump OOo/LibO.

First, if someone dumps OOo or LibreOffice because he prefers to use MS 
Office for any reason (features, ribbon, document format, etcetera), we 
are happy for him.

If someone dumps OOo or LibreOffice because he feels that he has been 
mismanaged by the community, then we are worried. We do not offer just 
features, we offer a different experience. Of course, the majority of 
users looks at features but we would like them to understand that we 
offer something completely different and more inclusive.

> Finally,  do you think it is a good idea to change the brand name in
> Brazil without any precautions? I don't know Brazil, I don't know the
> Brazilian community. And you are right, I have no knowledge of the
> Brazilian "producer issues". But I simply do not believe the average
> Brazilian user is so different from the rest of the world that a change
> of brand name does not affect him and a goodwill transfer is a
> superfluous step.

You have probably received a message from Olivier Hallot, explaining the 
situation with further details.

The brand BROffice is owned by an individual, and we must switch to 
LibreOffice now, without any goodwill transfer, for reasons that are 
probably difficult to understand but cannot be discussed. The owner does 
allow to use the BROffice brand any more.

Of course we know that the transition is going to be difficult, and that 
there are challenges which are difficult to overcome. This is the main 
challenge of volunteers: going against the unknown, or against all odds. 
It is an unvaluable lesson for every individual, because it helps to 
understand the value of working together against the selfishness of 
fighting against each other.

> Italo, I will unsubscribe and bother you nomore. I trust you will crush
> MSO with a free top-notch product and superior marketing.

We will never crush MS Office, because we do not need to crush any 
product. We believe that FOSS has a superior model, which is good for 
many but not for everyone, and we are happy with our choice.

By the way, MS has appointed a product manager against OOo/LO in the 
main European markets, starting from Italy (where I have been handling 
OOo marketing activities since 2004). Commercial suites from IBM and 
Corel have never achieved 5% market share (while OOo/LO is well over 20 
per cent), and have never been mentioned in the Q-10 statement from MS, 
although they were from respected companies handling marketing in a 
traditional way.

So, although we have used our somehow weird development pattern, we have 
been able to create more problem to MS than companies well know for 
their sales and marketing skills. Something to think about, as MS itself 
is doing (I can tell you that they keep a close eye on what we do, at 
every level inside the company).

Best regards, Italo

--
Italo Vignoli
italo.vignoli@gmail.com
mobile +39.348.5653829
VoIP +39.02.320621813
skype italovignoli

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