[kde-promo] WSJ Strikeout and TypeHeads [LONG]

[Eva Brucherseifer]

On Friday 11 April 2003 03:50, Jonathan Singer wrote:
> From: LEFEBVRE Herve <aegir at free.fr>
>
> > *BUT* I would just say that it's much easier for an american newspaper to
> > talk about an "american product" (gnome). An european product whoul'dnt
> > be so interesting for american readers.
>
> I don't think it's that clear cut. Linux gets far more attention than the
> US-originated *BSD family, for instance.
>
> My impression of why GNOME gets disproportionate attention in the US,
> relative to KDE:
>
> 1) Red Hat dominates the North American Linux market, and pushes GNOME
> along with it. That was especially true when the Linux hype started in the
> Red Hat 6.0 days.

Actually they also start to push Red Hat in Europe. Some observations:

- in the linuxpark at cebit Gnome was 4 days present, KDE only got 2 days, the 
second one only because it was "left over". There were rumours, that RedHad 
paid something.
- on LWCE Frankfurt Gnome originally had a larger booth than KDE vis-av-vis to 
our booth. But they didn't come and OpenOffice and wiki took over the (much 
too large) space.

What I found really strange was, that at CeBIT Suse had a partner booth with 
Ximian, but no KDE booth. They are cooperating with Suse e.g. in their 
Groupware project, which uses Evolution. IMHO Ximian sells itself quite good 
and is now starting to get into the European market. 

There might be no connection, but still it's strange...

Greetings,
eva

>
> 2) The people who run the various US Linux institutions (Red Hat, Slashdot,
> Debian, GNOME, VA, FSF) are all friends from way back. (Look at the
> pictures from Hemos' and CmdrTaco's weddings. See any KDE or Suse people
> there?) They gave each other a lot of publicity early on, which
> strengthened all of them. Not that it did VA much good but...
>
> 3) Someone mentioned this on IRC once, and I think it's entirely correct --
> KDE has a very European esthetic, especially the bright colors. KDE looks
> like a Benetton store; GNOME looks like a Gap or Banana Republic.
>
> 4) The story of Miguel, the brilliant hacker challenging Microsoft
> single-handedly plays well to an American audience. Linux has a similar
> hook, while KDE and FreeBSD both seem to emerge from a faceless committee.
>
> Of course, all these reinforce one another.
>
> Incidentally, I commend everyone involved in this discussion, apart from
> the original flamebait-y post. It's rare to see a "My country? Well, YOUR
> country...!" discussion remain civil, let alone become more civil as it
> progresses. That's why I love working with you guys!!!
>
>
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