Semi serious post.
Consider this scenario: I go around and knock commercial companies' door and offer a corporate presentation of my services, based on 100% free software.
Case 1) presentation ends up with a sale; that's business.
Case 2) the presentation does not end up with a sale. Could I label myself as a Free Software evangelist?
I mean, serious!
Ottavio Caruso
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On 22-May-2006, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
Case 1) presentation ends up with a sale; that's business.
Case 2) the presentation does not end up with a sale. Could I label myself as a Free Software evangelist?
I don't see why you condition evangelism on *not* being business; it seems to me evangelism is *all about* selling something.
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Ben Finney wrote:
I don't see why you condition evangelism on *not* being business; it seems to me evangelism is *all about* selling something.
Agreed. If we separate evangelism from the concept of selling something (be it a product, service or idea), then we're left with something quite vacuous. Evangelism for the sake of evangelism? That sounds dangerously close to selling the idea of selling ideas, a strangely circular beast that presents the obvious as something innovative.
My mind casts itself back to a book I saw at the height of the dot com era: "Designing the Killer App" was the title IIRC. The entire book basically said "a killer app is something that everyone wants, and it's a good idea to make one."
If we don't present something useful to our audience then we are potentially both wasting our own time and undermining the community as a whole. If - for instance - someone wanted a great office suite and we insisted on showing them the GNU/Linux desktop instead we're going to lose the sale and undermine their confidence in Free Software's ability to provide the solution to the problem. If we show them Openoffice.org and give them some copies on CD for free we're done the opposite: we've provided a solution and armed them with a deployment capability.
If we go into a board-room to make a sale and fail there is little point in suggesting that the presenter has accomplished the consolation prize of open-ended advocacy. A positive impression may or may not have been created. Acceptance of advocated models may or may not have taken place. It's almost impossible to measure, and the lack of a sale gives a reasonable indication that something has failed somewhere along the line.
Call me a scientist, but I prefer results we can measure.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org - --- Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc
On Tue, 2006-05-23 at 13:17 +0100, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
Evangelism for the sake of evangelism?
Probably that's what these guys will end up doing: http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=c57c93a2-adfb... :)
On 23-May-2006, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
Ben Finney wrote:
I don't see why you condition evangelism on *not* being business; it seems to me evangelism is *all about* selling something.
Agreed. If we separate evangelism from the concept of selling something (be it a product, service or idea), then we're left with something quite vacuous. Evangelism for the sake of evangelism?
Here you seem to encompass selling of a "product, service or idea" as worthwhile evangelism.
However:
[...] If we go into a board-room to make a sale and fail there is little point in suggesting that the presenter has accomplished the consolation prize of open-ended advocacy. [...] It's almost impossible to measure, and the lack of a sale gives a reasonable indication that something has failed somewhere along the line.
By this point you seem to say that the only worthwhile evangelism is to sell a product or service ("make a sale").
Call me a scientist, but I prefer results we can measure.
As do I. How then do we measure our success if the purpose of a particular evangelist is to sell an idea?
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Ben Finney wrote:
Call me a scientist, but I prefer results we can measure.
As do I. How then do we measure our success if the purpose of a particular evangelist is to sell an idea?
Excellent question.
We need to clearly define the purpose of the evangelism. For instance: (1) Teach people about an idea (2) Get people to adopt an idea
In the case of (1) the objective is simply to present an idea and allow people to draw their own conclusions. If the audience stay until the end of the talk the objective has been reached.
In the case of (2) the objective is the obtain a high percentage of 'buy-in' from the audience. If the audience absorb and adopt the presented idea the objective has been reached.
If we are genuinely selling an idea then we should expect both (1) and (2) to occur. Therefore our best measure for success might be to determine a percentage of the audience we expect to carry with us through objective (2).
What percentage is reasonable? That has to be decided by the people doing the presentations. Perhaps 50% or above could be regarded as a good level of success. If less that 50% of an audience buy into an idea after the presentation perhaps something is going wrong.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org - --- Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc
I'll answer this with another question:
Are you selling the idea because its contents, or because it will help you to profit in a near future?
You are doing evangelism when you *believe* in what you are talking. Otherwise, you are just *selling* something, just like any other businness.
for free software people, profit is just a collateral effect of evangelism... would you stop doing it if you dont have any profit?
[]s, gandhi
At Wed, 24 May 2006 16:14:01 -0300, Ricardo Andere de Mello wrote:
I'll answer this with another question:
Are you selling the idea because its contents, or because it will help you to profit in a near future?
You are doing evangelism when you *believe* in what you are talking. Otherwise, you are just *selling* something, just like any other businness.
for free software people, profit is just a collateral effect of evangelism... would you stop doing it if you dont have any profit?
I don't agree with this. Profit is important and not some collateral effect. Everybody needs money to buy food, clothes, a place to live, etc. So you're obviously selling the idea to help make a profit.
There is nothing wrong with making money, especially not if you use Free Software to make money.
Jeroen Dekkers
you missed the point... profit is not a crime, neither money. what Im asking you is:
what is your main reason to do/teach/talk free software? (you should know by now)
I know people whose primarily reasons are social, ethical, philosophical, but I know some that are in this just because they see this as a businness.
Actually I think this is directly connected to that thin line that separates free software from open-source. If you dont know the difference about them, I doubt you can understand the difference about doing for fun and for money. (please, when I say *you*, I say in a generalized way, not specifically you).
Can you say you are a hero if you did something to save a person, without really knowing, just because you were at the right place and time? suppose you were at the street, and someone falls in front of you and you grab him, so this person dont crash his head at the street. You did this because of two reasons: first because it came into your direction, and second because humans have the reflex to grab falling things, like a simple ball. You actually dont *thought* about what you were doing. So, can you still be a hero?
[]s, gandhi
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Wed, 24 May 2006 16:14:01 -0300, Ricardo Andere de Mello wrote:
I'll answer this with another question:
Are you selling the idea because its contents, or because it will help you to profit in a near future?
You are doing evangelism when you *believe* in what you are talking. Otherwise, you are just *selling* something, just like any other businness.
for free software people, profit is just a collateral effect of evangelism... would you stop doing it if you dont have any profit?
I don't agree with this. Profit is important and not some collateral effect. Everybody needs money to buy food, clothes, a place to live, etc. So you're obviously selling the idea to help make a profit.
There is nothing wrong with making money, especially not if you use Free Software to make money.
Jeroen Dekkers
Your previous question seems to be based on the assumption that 'for profit' and 'for believe' are mutual exclusive. I think they are not. I believe in Free Software and still am looking for ways to earn money, because I need to. If I could earn money by 'selling' Free Software I would consider it a good thing, since I could combine something I need to do with something I want to do. But if I would be 'selling' Free Software - for whatever reason - and do not believe in or care for the philosophy of Free Software then I would be a fake, no evangelist.
In your example about the hero, I think he is by this definition "hero:the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem" :) But by this definition: "hero:man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength" I think there is not enough information in the example to tell.
Also note that for the person falling it makes no difference. The result is the same. This is also true for spreading the word about Free Software.
cheers,
Steven Ottenhoff
On 5/25/06, Ricardo Andere de Mello gandhi@quilombodigital.org wrote:
you missed the point... profit is not a crime, neither money. what Im asking you is:
what is your main reason to do/teach/talk free software? (you should know by now)
I know people whose primarily reasons are social, ethical, philosophical, but I know some that are in this just because they see this as a businness.
Actually I think this is directly connected to that thin line that separates free software from open-source. If you dont know the difference about them, I doubt you can understand the difference about doing for fun and for money. (please, when I say *you*, I say in a generalized way, not specifically you).
Can you say you are a hero if you did something to save a person, without really knowing, just because you were at the right place and time? suppose you were at the street, and someone falls in front of you and you grab him, so this person dont crash his head at the street. You did this because of two reasons: first because it came into your direction, and second because humans have the reflex to grab falling things, like a simple ball. You actually dont *thought* about what you were doing. So, can you still be a hero?
[]s, gandhi
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Wed, 24 May 2006 16:14:01 -0300, Ricardo Andere de Mello wrote:
I'll answer this with another question:
Are you selling the idea because its contents, or because it will help you to profit in a near future?
You are doing evangelism when you *believe* in what you are talking. Otherwise, you are just *selling* something, just like any other
businness.
for free software people, profit is just a collateral effect of evangelism... would you stop doing it if you dont have any profit?
I don't agree with this. Profit is important and not some collateral effect. Everybody needs money to buy food, clothes, a place to live, etc. So you're obviously selling the idea to help make a profit.
There is nothing wrong with making money, especially not if you use Free Software to make money.
Jeroen Dekkers
-- Ricardo Andere de Mello Presidente do Quilombo Digital 55 (11) 3271-7928 / 55 (11) 9917-7722
Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This discussion is getting interesting. ;-)
Steven wrote:
Your previous question seems to be based on the assumption that 'for
profit' and 'for believe' are mutual exclusive. I think they are not. I believe in Free Software and still am looking for ways to earn money, because I need to. If I could earn money by 'selling' Free Software I would consider it a good thing, since I could combine something I need to do with something I want to do. But if I would be 'selling' Free Software - for whatever reason - and do not believe in or care for the philosophy of Free Software then I would be a fake, no evangelist.
Of course that having money and doing what you like is a good thing, and that you can have both things, but Im again asking you, if you could only choose between a normal job with free software, and a more profitable job without free software, what would you choose?
In your example about the hero, I think he is by this definition
"hero:the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem" :) But by this definition: "hero:man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength" I think there is not enough information in the example to tell.
My definition: Hero-> someone that saves another person. ;-)
Also note that for the person falling it makes no difference. The
result is the same. This is also true for spreading the word about Free Software.
Of course that for the people that is falling, it has no difference, but does it makes difference for you?
If you say to this person that you grab him just for reflex, that you would not do this normally, what would he learn? And if you tell him that you grab him because you care to people, what would be the lesson?
[]s, gandhi
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Ricardo Andere de Mello wrote:
Of course that having money and doing what you like is a good thing, and that you can have both things, but Im again asking you, if you could only choose between a normal job with free software, and a more profitable job without free software, what would you choose?
I think this has drifted a long way from the point of the thread. The original point was about what constituted success in promoting something like the idea of Free Software. Tying that into vague and inherently subjective views on 'good', 'bad' and 'worthy' is both confusing and unhelpful. I believe sticking to the point is important.
I stand by my original assertion that any unmeasurable advocacy is less useful than measurable advocacy. Whether the advocacy is geared towards profit or not is a mute point. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Free Software as a concept. Free Software is about Freedom for the user.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org - --- Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc
I believe Ottavio started the thread with the question whether or not you could call yourself an evangelist when you also trying to make money out of it. Maybe this wasn't the first post, then I've missed it.
You can measure the amounts of products you sell, but to my knowledge, you can't 'scientifically' measure the amount of believe or sympathy one has (or gained during your speech) for Free Software. Your assumption says believe in Free Software is *always* less useful than buying the products simply because believe is not quantifiable as the amount of products. I don't agree with this.
For instance you give a speech and sell no products at all. But a group of people decide after hearing you talk to do some research and decide to start their own Free Software project. You can't measure it so it is not or less useful than selling a single or more products ?
I think the ability to measure something depends on our knowledge and skills to measure it and says nothing about the subject being measured. Simply because we are not able to measure something doen't make it less effective of useful.
On 5/27/06, Shane M. Coughlan shane@shaneland.co.uk wrote:
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Ricardo Andere de Mello wrote:
Of course that having money and doing what you like is a good thing, and that you can have both things, but Im again asking you, if you could only choose between a normal job with free software, and a more profitable job without free software, what would you choose?
I think this has drifted a long way from the point of the thread. The original point was about what constituted success in promoting something like the idea of Free Software. Tying that into vague and inherently subjective views on 'good', 'bad' and 'worthy' is both confusing and unhelpful. I believe sticking to the point is important.
I stand by my original assertion that any unmeasurable advocacy is less useful than measurable advocacy. Whether the advocacy is geared towards profit or not is a mute point. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Free Software as a concept. Free Software is about Freedom for the user.
Shane
Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk
Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org
Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk
OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.4-svn4127: (MingW32)
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Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
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Steven wrote:
You can measure the amounts of products you sell, but to my knowledge, you can't 'scientifically' measure the amount of believe or sympathy one has (or gained during your speech) for Free Software. Your assumption says believe in Free Software is *always* less useful than buying the products simply because believe is not quantifiable as the amount of products. I don't agree with this. For instance you give a speech and sell no products at all. But a group of people decide after hearing you talk to do some research and decide to start their own Free Software project. You can't measure it so it is not or less useful than selling a single or more products ?
But we can measure this. There will be an increase in Free Software projects. There will also be a corresponding increase in support for Free Software projects in that locality. Therefore your speech is successful at promoting Free Software as a concept and unsuccessful at obtaining a sale.
If there is a mission to establish new projects we could examine the following:
If X gives a speech in Berlin and Berlin subsequently has an increase in Free Software projects we can assume that X is likely to have a part in that. If Y gives a speech in Berlin and there is no measurable increase in Free Software projects we can assume that Y did not effectively encourage people to set up projects.
According to this X is more effective at establishing support for new projects than Y. X would therefore be more useful to deploy into environments where new Free Software projects need to be encouraged.
Whether or not money is involved is not important. The key thing is to have defined targets that are measurable. This allows results to be understood and methodology to be refined.
Something like belief or sympathy is difficult to measure. However, results can be measured through other things: people signing up to organisations like the FSFE and contributing ideas is one example.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org - --- Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc
On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 00:17 +0100, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
If X gives a speech in Berlin and Berlin subsequently has an increase in Free Software projects we can assume that X is likely to have a part in that. If Y gives a speech in Berlin and there is no measurable increase in Free Software projects we can assume that Y did not effectively encourage people to set up projects.
While it's a nice idea, I don't think it works in practice. You're trying to measure indirect effects, and if that were in any way possible, marketing would be an engineering science.
You can't assume that the speeches were anything to do with the number of projects in an area (correlation doesn't imply causation), you can't measure the quality or importance of a project in any quantitative manner, and it would probably be very difficult to get an accurate number of the projects active in any given geographic area.
Cheers,
Alex.
Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
I think this has drifted a long way from the point of the thread. The original point was about what constituted success in promoting something like the idea of Free Software. Tying that into vague and inherently subjective views on 'good', 'bad' and 'worthy' is both confusing and unhelpful. I believe sticking to the point is important.
You keep dealing with the symptoms, try to find the cause...
I stand by my original assertion that any unmeasurable advocacy is less useful than measurable advocacy. Whether the advocacy is geared towards profit or not is a mute point. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Free Software as a concept. Free Software is about Freedom for the user
<MetaLanguage> An *assertion* is a measurable advocacy? </MataLanguage>
Free Software is not about freedom, its about constraints... there's no freedom without constraints.
[]s, gandhi
So you mean if I could make more profit by exclusively using or developing proprietary software than with Free Software, would I still choose Free Software?
If it was up to me, yes I would. But if I could make a *lot* more money using or developing proprietary software I think I probably would.....and buy off this sin by investing heavily in Free Software. :) No seriously I would so I can eventually stop working for food and other necessities and spend more time on things I choose, like Free Software. Money buys different kinds of freedom.
Although I like to think that no amount of money can make me say or do things I don't believe in. Like for instance talking only bad about Free Software.
[]Judas ;)
On 5/26/06, Ricardo Andere de Mello gandhi@quilombodigital.org wrote:
This discussion is getting interesting. ;-)
Steven wrote:
Your previous question seems to be based on the assumption that 'for
profit' and 'for believe' are mutual exclusive. I think they are not. I believe in Free Software and still am looking for ways to earn money, because I need to. If I could earn money by 'selling' Free Software I would consider it a good thing, since I could combine something I need to do with something I want to do. But if I would be 'selling' Free Software - for whatever reason - and do not believe in or care for the philosophy of Free Software then I would be a fake, no evangelist.
Of course that having money and doing what you like is a good thing, and that you can have both things, but Im again asking you, if you could only choose between a normal job with free software, and a more profitable job without free software, what would you choose?
In your example about the hero, I think he is by this definition
"hero:the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem" :) But by this definition: "hero:man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength" I think there is not enough information in the example to tell.
My definition: Hero-> someone that saves another person. ;-)
Also note that for the person falling it makes no difference. The
result is the same. This is also true for spreading the word about Free Software.
Of course that for the people that is falling, it has no difference, but does it makes difference for you?
If you say to this person that you grab him just for reflex, that you would not do this normally, what would he learn? And if you tell him that you grab him because you care to people, what would be the lesson?
[]s, gandhi
-- Ricardo Andere de Mello Presidente do Quilombo Digital 55 (11) 3271-7928 / 55 (11) 9917-7722 _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion