technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
You quite evidently don't.
Your idea of the market is the commercial, money driven, advertising heavy world of big business. You seem unable to grasp that not for profits target a market of their own, the people who use it (you (and I)) are the market, and aspects of the product, usually cost but also sharing and development are drivers for that market to use it. You might like to feel all superior because you've deprived MS of a few quid for Office by using OpenOffice but the 4Ps still apply- they're just coming from a different angle. I use OO, can't tell any difference with the 'real' Office, so the product is essentially the same, its free and easily available online (price and place). It's been downloaded 125 million times. Why can't you see that it's simply a different target market, and hence different routes to it?
This is just completely facile - I'm not talking about the users of open source, per se - I'm talking about the people that actually do - you know, create it.
And it's not all just some end product - it's people collaborating to understand - much of it is development of OSs like Linux, Android - people collaborating to understand, make something work, write a driver for something that's not currently there, and contribute it to the rest of the community.
All you can see is commercial product vs free product.
I'm talking about how and why people actually do - you know, create, open source software - in a direct parallel to you saying marketing people design and create product, then make it and send it out there.
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
Likewise with Pi, who is going to use the product and stimulate innovation if not end users? An idea without thinking of who will use or benefit from it isn't much of an idea.
The goal wasn't some product or device from the outset - it was an ethos - a question: how to stimulate innovation in software development, in the youth, that's been eroded over time?
The Raspberry Pi was something they came up with in order to stimulate - it was a means to an end - they may well come up with others.
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
Neil":3qxtlqm7 said:
Marketing was used to achieve that, but it didn't start out as notion created by those in marketing as you'd have claimed in some of your earlier posts.
I don't think I claimed anything of the sort.
Really? From earlier:-
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
You keep believing you're above it and I'll keep creating stuff you want to buy.
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
My central point is that it doesn't have to be 'marketing people' driving things. My dad had a garden nursery for 20odd years. He couldn't spell marketing but he successfully found customers, made a profit and grew the business to sell it. In other words he marketed the business and it's products to consumers. Without a 'marketing person' in sight.
No argument - people have been doing this for centuries without some manufactured label to put on it.
They followed example, or worked things out organically. Nobody is trying to claim that marketing doesn't make big business considerably more effective.
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
Your language and tone clearly suggests you find something about the subject distasteful, but however you dress it up you're a user, a consumer like everyone else. And where there are consumers there are marketing people. Whether it's in the job description or not.
I don't find the concept distasteful - I simply reject the revisionism, absolutism, or the notion that if not for clever marketing people, things would never get done.
Some of the most dogmatic, fvckwitted people I've ever had to work with, were in marketing. There was always a certain commonality about them - funky glasses, or some outward statement that they were clearly free and clever thinkers, making the business work. But for me, personally, at least in a couple of prominent examples, were completely dogmatic about something that they had no evidence, beyond a bit of hearts-and-minds mithering, but were still determined to try and rail something through, regardless of the cost and risk. In the end, for these couple of decisions, the BUSINESS decided (for once, in wisdom) that the unsubstantiated claims by them couldn't be reconciled by the true cost of having to do what they'd advertised before having the presence of mind to actually check, beforehand - guess that was just too tedious and mundane for those particular free-thinkers.
technodup":3qxtlqm7 said:
Neil":3qxtlqm7 said:
All the same, though - soup kitchens? Have you ever actually spoken to anybody who volunteers? They're not thinking about product or anything else
I'd strongly suggest otherwise. A soup kitchen won't last long without soup.
Nor people to cook it and dish it up - good job there's marketing out there to provide for that need, eh.