[Linux-aus] Media Officer Now

[Jonathon Coombes]

On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 20:37, Con Zymaris wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 08:54:27PM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > > I'm with Leon.
> > > 
> > > marketing and positioning strategies, and how they are achieved, should
> > > not be information widely disseminated.
> > 
> > But hopefully not yet-another-mailing-list. Private sub-committees are
> > killers.
> > 
> 
> valid points. I don't have an easy 'out'. OSV can get away with it because 
> we have a closed list, which isn't openly published on the web anywhere, 
> but to my knowledge, linux-aus is archived and available to all.
> 
> I realise that it runs contra to the ideals of openness and
> accountability, but trying to get the consensus necessary when
> constructing press releases and related marketing projects in an open 
> forum (with hundreds of participants) can become quite arduous quite 
> quickly. This is particularly a problem when timely responses need to be 
> prepared for the media.
> 
> ideas on how this can be achieved are welcome.

Unfortunately, "secrecy" is often unavoidable. 

My example here is with the OOo marketing and in particular press
releases and media events. The point was made that it had to be
kept off the main mailing lists, including the marketing one to
a large degree, to allow for releases to be made in a singular event.
Taking into account time differences etc, they needed to coordinate
to release to all countries at about the same time rather than have
one country "jump the gun".

The of course raised many concerns about "lack of openness" and
going against the "spirit" of open source. Unfortunately, it was
something that had to be done. Open lists allow for browsing and
getting information before it may have been approved or even intended
to be known to the public. This works well for open source software,
but not necessarily some of the marketing and media related events
which surround it.

I am with Con on this one. If someone can come up with a better
model of disseminating the information, while retaining the spirit
of openness, let us know. There are many projects that I am sure
will appreciate your input to solve this problem.

Regards,
Jonathon