Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice download page: updating the text

Although we respect every opinion, I would leave marketing decisions to 
people who have some marketing experience, and not to everyone (because 
marketing is a profession as much as software development, and I avoid 
to make comments to development decisions exactly because I know that I 
am not competent in that area).

Of course, you are free to deploy the LibreOffice version you prefer, 
but this doesn't mean that your judgement is absolute and is valid for 
millions of users worlwide. Normal users, i.e. over 98% of all users, 
are scared by technical jargon and are not able to recognize a bug from 
a feature. We have to communicate to these users, and not to developers 
who perfectly know how to manage the software they use.

So, with 42 years of marketing profession under my belt, I am rather 
tired to see people without any marketing understanding making comments 
about marketing decisions. We leave developemnt decisions to developers, 
please leave marketing decision to marketers.

On 12/06/24 16:22, Justin Luth wrote:
> I completely disagree with your definition of "stable". Stable in this
> context means "it works just as good (or better) with my existing
> documents as the version of LO that I want to upgrade from". It means no
> regressions, no crashing, no surprises. It does not mean "no new
> development" since nothing on the download page has "new development" in
> it. This is important because EVERYTHING about the download page
> revolves around the issue of whether one version is "more stable" than
> the other version, and is the whole reason why people should chose
> between "the older" and "the newer" version.
>
> FRESH is still only suitable for early adopters.  24.2 will only be
> suitable for "everyone" when it reaches STILL status. (For me
> personally, I don't even consider STILL to be stable and won't deploy it
> until it has reach the last planned point release.) [I see that you have
> dropped the FRESH/STILL wording, but the underlying concept is still
> 100% valid.]
>
> By removing "early adopter", you actually confuse the issue, because now
> there really is no distinction between what FRESH and STILL mean.
>
> It shouldn't be that hard for people to choose. Use the STILL version if
> you just want to "do work". Use the FRESH version if you want to help
> the community improve the product by testing and bug reporting.  It
> doesn't get much clearer than the current "If you're a technology
> enthusiast, early adopter or power user, this version is for you!". You
> can only be confused about that if you don't know what an enthusiast or
> an early adopter is. FRESH is for people who want to "Get Involved".
> STILL is for people who want to "take".
>
> If you change the wording now, you will just confuse the issue in a
> month, when 24.2.5 moves into STILL status, and 24.8 becomes the FRESH
> version. Are you going to imply that 24.8.0 will be "ideal for everyone
> and not just early adopters"? I certainly hope not.
>
> You need to get out of marketing mode. People are correct to believe
> that 24.2 is "not stable" yet. You shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge
> that. And until you acknowledge that, you will continue to make it
> difficult for people to "decide" which of the two options to chose from.
>
> Justin
>
> On 6/12/24 8:51 AM, Mike Saunders wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Check out the two boxes on the download page, for (currently) the
> > LibreOffice 24.2 and 7.6 branches:
> >
> > https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/
> >
> > We've heard from users on social media and at our info@ and download@
> > addresses that they're confused which version to choose, or believe
> > the 24.2 branch isn't stable etc. Obviously both branches are stable
> > (in the sense that they don't change radically, and only receive bug
> > and security fixes -- no new features in the middle of the branch).
> >
> > So let's look at updating the text for clarity! My initial suggestion:
> >
> >
> > Newer branch (currently 24.2): The very latest version, with lots of
> > new features and improvements.
> >
> > Older branch (currently 7.6): Our previous release, which we are still
> > supporting. For business deployments, we strongly recommend getting
> > long-term supported versions from our ecosystem.
> >
> >
> > What do you think? Bear in mind that we want to keep the text short
> > and snappy here!
--
Italo Vignoli - italo@vignoli.org
mobile/signal +39.348.5653829
GPG Key ID - 0xAAB8D5C0
DB75 1534 3FD0 EA5F 56B5 FDA6 DE82 934C AAB8 D5C0


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: marketing+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy