As discussed by others members of the community (most notably, in To Engage the Future Generations ), in order for the Fedora Project and the Linux community as a whole to have positive public awareness, we should start taking marketing on more mainstream social media platforms seriously. To that end, I have come up with some questions that I think would generate good discussion (and the surrounding context for this post down below).
The Linux ecosystem as a whole is known as being a hacker OS for a niche group of technology hyper-literates, and the userspace desktop is seen as being held together by strings and requiring constant maintenance. What do you think the Fedora project can do right now, in order to change this image? I’m aware of efforts to reach out on Instagram and emphasize the non-technical aspects of Linux use. Could we elaborate on that?
And should we specifically try to target young people - the teenage demographic - or would a broader approach be more beneficial to Fedora?
What do you think about the relationship between the Linux community at large and mainstream social media platforms? And how do you think Fedora should best navigate cultural differences within the LInux community itself?
How does the Fedora Project gain and allocate funding? Should promoting Fedora and Linux as a whole to the mainstream be a significant priority in terms of resources?
As I understand it, one of the big, organization-wide long-term goals right now is to double the number of contributors over the next 5 years. Do you think reaching out into mainstream channels and promoting Fedora to people who have not heard of it before is an important factor in achieving this goal?
What do you think is the biggest obstacle for the average person when it comes to trying out Fedora? I’m aware that the Fedora Media Writer project is intended to make the process much more streamlined and accessible. Do you think more can be done on the engineering side, for instance, through virtualization technologies, or is this more of a promotion concern?
We are dependent on the community for support - how do you think we can better provide new users with help? It’s great when people already know to reach out on IRC, forum, or Reddit/Discord, but I’m not sure if this is a scalable solution. Should we try to scale up existing support channels by, say, encouraging users to register with the Fedora Accounts System on install and setup, or focus on experimenting with other means of providing a better new user and support experience?
For context, while I have posted these questions publicly in hopes of generating a productive and open discussion, I am also asking these questions as part of an academic research project. As part of a business management course, I have been assigned to analyze an organization of my choice and a relevant business question - in this case, “How should Fedora Linux reach out to the mainstream youth demographic?”
I have discussed arranging primary research within Fedora previously in a more private setting - you may remember me at the Mentorship Summit, Fedora Nest, and in follow-up private conversations. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, I ended up not following up with my commitments. I apologize for any disturbances caused by my actions. But hey, I’m here now!
First of all, I hope this won’t be too long or ramble-y, but I tend to talk a lot to make sure my point goes through clearly. Really hope it helps!
Sure can do. I’m leading the Instagram efforts (even though I’m just a volunteer) to do precisely that.
Most of us that are this deep into the community enjoy the more technical aspects of how Fedora works, and I’m sure that has attracted a lot of more technical people to the project, but when we market Fedora to those people it ends up biting us in two ways:
We tend to reinforce the image for the average user of Fedora (and Linux in general) being a really technical thing that is impenetrable, driving them away.
We attract more and more technical people, and end up focusing so much on the more technical aspects that we miss the forest for the trees. That’s where we tend to fail, where other options succeed. Making it simple and usable for people that have never even used a computer.
Since the Linux community in general is in this chicken-and-egg scenario when it comes to less technical users I came in with the idea of marketing these technical aspects in a simple to understand manner, so that we can gradually get less technical users to both become more interested in Fedora and see it as a viable option and get them more familiar with the technical side of things and see that it isn’t a scary thing, it just takes some time to learn. My plan is to basically boil down the technicality to familiar terms that most people already know instead of trying to “dumb things down”.
Broad approach almost always. We want to make it clear that everyone can use Fedora and become proficient with it, from the oldest seniors to the youngest kids.
Trying to focus on teenagers was what I originally had in mind if we targeted TikTok as a social media platform, but since video making and digital influencing takes a whole different skill set that we don’t have in hand I dropped that idea (at least for now).
Being honest with you here, the Linux community has such a stupid relationship with mainstream social media that it hurts. We are aware of the problems these social media have (both when it comes to privacy and in culture) and I do believe we need to promote alternatives (I’d love if we could get an actual Fediverse presence), but not occupying these spaces just turns us irrelevant in the broader scope.
When it comes to navigating these cultural differences, it’s just a thing of knowing your audience and using different language for the different platforms. We’re still not 100% able to do so due to our marketing team being really small, but ideally we should offer:
a mix of simple headlines in artwork with detail-rich captions in Facebook;
a deep-dive into the technical side of things on Reddit and HackerNews;
a simple breakdown of the talking subjects in Instagram, taking advantage of the algorithm;
a mix of even simpler, faster breakdowns and showing off our main features in TikTok, trying to take advantage of the algorithm as much as we can;
a promotion of free software and our work in LinkedIn;
I’m don’t really know much about that, since I’m quite new to the team myself, but since the marketing team is really small and still in the early days of revamping our social media, we’re trying to do the best we can with free resources.
That said, I personally think we should start investing more into our actual marketing campaigns, specially in joint efforts with other teams in the project.
Absolutely. My personal goal is to make as crystal clear as possible that ANYONE can help in any way they can. Making sure we are able to tap into all of the potential inside and outside our community is extremely necessary if we want to raise the number of contributions, not only with code, but with design, marketing, translation and all other aspects that help make the Fedora Project what it is.
I do believe it’s more of a promotion concern. There are three main issues that come to mind:
A lack of awareness by people that Fedora (and Linux in general) exists and is a viable alternative;
Most people either don’t know what Linux is or still have the preconception that it is a thing for hackers, or have been traumatized by a bad experience a decade back and think “Linux” is still that. Changing the public perception is the first step into getting newer users, in my perspective.
A lack of companies that offer Fedora (and other Linux distros as well) in their machines out of the box:
Lenovo is the main one doing that currently for Fedora and it’s still not ideal, since not a lot of their models do so and not around the globe equally, like DELL does for Ubuntu. For example, I’m brazilian and here the only model that has Fedora as an option is a Thinkpad that’s out of most people reach when it comes to price. Other models that have a Linux option get Satux (an old and discontinued for almost a decade national distro that’s almost unknown even in the brazilian Linux community) for some reason.
A lack of standards when it comes to reaching the computer’s BIOS:
I’m working on a simple install guide post for Instagram and it’s a pain having to explain to people that you need to know what key to press in order to get to a boot order menu or to the BIOS itself, and that different vendors use different keys for that.
This, right here, is one of the aspects that made me become a part of Fedora in the first place. I really believe we do it the best out of any distro and it just shows how bad the situation really is overall. Having Discourse and Matrix as the main forum and chat solutions are a godsend in comparison to other distros.
On one hand it would be great if we could have support and community channels everywhere (Discord, Telegram, Facebook, etc), but that requires manpower (through moderation and maintenance) that we probably don’t have. On the other hand we should promote and support open platforms and messaging standards, through platforms like IRC and Matrix.
I believe we should at least promote more our support channels on our social media, hence I am working on an Instagram post about precisely that that is already done, just needing to be scheduled for posting. A Twitter thread and Magazine post about it would be really nice as well, specially the latter, since the last post about our support forums is from 2014 and REALLY outdated. Making people aware that we have those support platforms is at least the first step into making them more accessible for everyone.
Wow — a lot of questions here! Maybe deserving of some split-out topics. For now, let me answer the one about funding.
Fedora doesn’t have a foundation, or any other explicit legal entity. We are an unincorporated non-profit association of individuals. This makes some things dealing with money difficult.
Red Hat owns the Fedora trademark, and employs some people (fewer than is often assumed!) to work on the project full time — and a lot more with some involvement as part of their jobs. Red Hat’s Open Source Program Office also provides us with a community budget, which has historically been approximately $200,000/year. This budget is managed by the Fedora Council.
In practice, we generally follow the lead of our Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator — one of those full-time RH roles which reports into the RH OSPO (and from a RH point of view is responsible for making sure that money is used wisely). Different FCAICs have approached this in different ways.
Most of the money usually goes towards our big contributor conference — the online “Nest”, or in-person “Flock to Fedora”[1]. This is also currently our major source of non-RH funding, both through sponsorships from other companies and through the nominal admission fee for the in-person event, which could include a donation to help cover travel for others.[2]
And right now at least, most of the rest of the community spend is managed through the Mindshare Committee. This definitely would include the marketing and outreach budget you’re talking about here.
The Linux ecosystem as a whole is known as being a hacker OS for a niche group of technology hyper-literates, and the userspace desktop is seen as being held together by strings and requiring constant maintenance. What do you think the Fedora project can do right now, in order to change this image? I’m aware of efforts to reach out on Instagram and emphasize the non-technical aspects of Linux use. Could we elaborate on that?
As I understand it, one of the big, organization-wide long-term goals right now is to double the number of contributors over the next 5 years. Do you think reaching out into mainstream channels and promoting Fedora to people who have not heard of it before is an important factor in achieving this goal?
I think the biggest problem is that there’s a lot of talented developers, but it’s like herding cats. Trying to get people to agree on something and then contribute to build it is difficult. You can look at Distro Watch and see all the Linux distros out there. So many people look at a distro and say “I really like it but I think I have better ideas” and then start their own. This is obvious when you look at how many Debian derivatives exist. It could be any other dumb reason too, like maybe they don’t like @mattdm because of his beard and so they don’t wanna be a part of Fedora.
Another factor to consider is that IBM bought Redhat and that’s left a bad taste in peoples mouths one way or another.
And should we specifically try to target young people - the teenage demographic - or would a broader approach be more beneficial to Fedora?
What do you think is the biggest obstacle for the average person when it comes to trying out Fedora? I’m aware that the Fedora Media Writer project is intended to make the process much more streamlined and accessible. Do you think more can be done on the engineering side, for instance, through virtualization technologies, or is this more of a promotion concern?
When Ubuntu showed up on the scene it was attractive to graphic designers and the anime crowds. I used to spend a lot of time on anime communities and, due to MegaTokyo, Linux was a common topic on anime forums and IRC. Ubuntu came around and was user friendly enough that a lot of people on these communities started giving it a try. I remember going to anime meetups or even conventions and there were free Ubuntu CDs available.
I think to target younger people or average users, Fedora needs to present itself as something more than just technical, or FOSS, or something like that. People don’t understand those things so they don’t care about them. If people shared what they use it for, like “I’m a graphic designer and run a business from Fedora”, or “I use it to make my music”, or “I’m a streamer and run all my games and stream from it”, basically show Fedora doing other things that non-technical people care about it would look more appealing.
Beyond that there have been other things that sparks interest that brings a new wave of people to Linux. Like when Android started reaching the mainstream, or now with the success of the Steam Deck.
What do you think about the relationship between the Linux community at large and mainstream social media platforms? And how do you think Fedora should best navigate cultural differences within the Linux community itself?
I think we need to attract less technical people and let them promote on social media. The artists, videographers, streamers, photographers, etc. We need more extroverts who embrace social media, instead of the privacy-centric introverts that makes up the majority of the community now.
How does the Fedora Project gain and allocate funding? Should promoting Fedora and Linux as a whole to the mainstream be a significant priority in terms of resources?
I can’t really speak to this since I don’t work for Redhat or the Fedora Project.
We are dependent on the community for support - how do you think we can better provide new users with help? It’s great when people already know to reach out on IRC, forum, or Redit/Discord, but I’m not sure if this is a scalable solution. Should we try to scale up existing support channels by, say, encouraging users to register with the Fedora Accounts System on install and setup, or focus on experimenting with other means of providing a better new user and support experience?
For starters, I’d suggest bringing the forums together under one banner, which I know is already planned. It can be confusing for new users to figure out what forum is for what purposes. Another thing I’d suggest, which I think I’d also posted before, would be a some kind of global menu across Fedora sites to help users find other tools besides the socials. Links to things like your Fedora Account management, the Bugzilla for filing bugs, the pastebin, pagure, docs, etc.
Fedora used to have great documentation and I think this would be a great starting point. When I started working as a RedHat Admin I always kept the Fedora docs opened in a tab because they were easier to navigate that the RH Docs. I wasn’t the only one on my team to do this either. After Fedora 29(?) they archived the docs and then started a new doc site and nobody has really filled it in like the old docs were. I know there’s been discussion about the docs and I haven’t read through the discussion yet.
My opinion however would be to replace the docs in their current format with a wiki instead. Most people would agree that the Arch Wiki is the best resource for Linux documentation. I think Fedora should take the same approach because younger people like that style of “Anyone can edit” and they do that to add what they know. I think making the process simpler would encourage people to contribute more to it too. I’d also suggest not keeping it limited to core Operating System docs either, but really anything Fedora related.
For example maybe some kid uses Fedora to play MineCraft. Maybe they feel like they wanna share what they learned to do that. They make a wiki entry saying how to install the Flatpack, where the files get stored in the home directory, how to add mods, etc. Afterwards they feel like they’ve added to the knowledge base are like “I wanna write more of these”. I say this because Arch has the same approach. I’ve used their wiki for all sorts of stuff because sometimes the official site is lacking or out of date.
Another reason I think a wiki would be better is because the Fedora ecosystem has been expanding. There’s all the spins, there’s Fedora CoreOS, Fedora IoT, Server, and it supports more architectures than before. The docs are currently split up like CoreOS and IoT have their own docs site and are out of date. A wiki can bring all that together into a centralized doc site for all things Fedora.
To get new contributors, you have to make people feel like they have something to contribute. Most people look at Fedora and think “I’m not a computer programmer so I have no way to contribute”. A wiki gives users something to contribute to. Creating a bug report is a way to contribute. New art is a way to contribute. The Fedora “Brand” is very bland (sorry, not sorry). The flat blue and white vector art all the time. I know it’s upstream RedHat and wants to be professional, but it needs to appear less “stuffy” and a bit more “fun”
I agree Fedora document needs to be focus more on “Task Based”.
When I get in touch of Ubuntu, it is becase I need to upgrade a Mail Scanner server running on Ubuntu in the Cloud.
Even I know about Linux (via Fedora), but I know nothing about the Mail Scanner system.
I just need 2 documents - one to do online version of the Ubuntu, and the second one to install the Mail Scanner and all dependence in another.
Fedora’s focus to use upstream document is Developer friendly - but not user friendly. Normal user is not knowledgeable to locate all the related topics, and then integrate all the settings into a working way.
To promote Fedora amoung the users, Fedora documentation need to be more “Task Focused”.
One good topic is File and Print Sharing between differ Linux favours and macOS and Windows.
The average user doesn’t care about their operating system. They shouldn’t have to. The best thing we can do to improve Linux adoption among mainstream users is to have it available pre-installed from hardware vendors.
The other thing we can do is to showcase how Fedora Linux can be used to solve a particular problem people have. People aren’t using their computers because they like computers. They’re using their computers to do something.
A broad approach is great, but to be effective, you have to be focused. We don’t have infinite resources. Part of the reason that commercial software companies offer cheap/free licenses to university students is because those students end up getting jobs and if they’re familiar with a software tool, they’ll ask their employer to buy a license for them.
I’m not sure if high school and university students are the best group to target, but they’re a good group.
I’m not sure what you’re asking here.
Funding primarily comes from Red Hat, much of it in the form of paying people to do work in Fedora. We do also get funding for events and swag from other sponsors. Funding allocation is ultimately the job of the Fedora Council, with much of it delegated to Fedora Mindshare Committee.
I don’t know if a broad marketing campaign should be a significant priority. The question is “to what end?” But it would be good to have a more coordinated and directed marketing approach. The Marketing team is coming back to life, which is great, but I’d like to see Red Hat make more contribution in this space. (An argument I’ve made internally without much success so far.)
It could be. Contributor acquisition is like customer acquisition: there’s a funnel. Most contributors are going to start as users, so getting more users gives us a bigger pool to attract from. On the other hand, I think a bigger priority is reducing the barriers to contribution.
As I said above, the biggest issue is that Fedora Linux doesn’t ship on much hardware. If people buy a computer and it comes with Windows or macOS and it works for them, why should they switch? Defaults matter. To get the average user to try Fedora Linux, we need to show them how it solves a problem that they care about that their current OS doesn’t solve well.
This is a tough one. The work the Docs team is doing to improve the usability of the documentation is a big step. I think more of that is best. If we can make it so that users can self-solve their problems/answer their questions, then that scales best.
Alrighty, time for my opinion! For context on myself, I’ve been working on the Marketing Team to try to get us to a good place of consistent productivity along with others. We are not there yet, but we’re trying to figure out how to have a consistent and valuable marketing effort that can continue long-term in a sustainable way.
I’m going to answer with some ideas and thoughts I have, some of which have already been shared by previous replies. I’l try to add on top of what they’ve said.
One avenue to explore is how much easier Linux has gotten to use. When I first heard of Linux, I heard it was cool and free, but also could be complicated to install and could have bugs and problems that go over your head to solve. The one day a friend happens to screen share their desktop and I’m blown away at how clean, polished, and functional everything looked! When I saw what Linux was actually like, I could immediately see myself using it.
Now, I was interested in technology already, but I am also not an IT person. I did have to do things that were totally new to me like pulling up the BIOS and running a few commands. In the end it worked out and once I had Linux installed I was relatively smooth sailing.
If more of your average person saw what Linux was and what it could do, I think that would help make it more of an option when it comes time to upgrading a computer, for example. Because they’ve seen how slick Gnome looks, for example, it may make them think twice about continuing with their current OS.
This works together with another point that others have made about the value proposition of Linux. We need to communicate what exactly is the value you get from it in exchange for all the trouble it causes to install. If we can show that it solves certain problems while running pretty smoothly, that will seem like a stable enough OS to switch to.
I think that young people and even teenagers are a demographic who could be more willing to try Linux than older generations, though I think anyone who is slightly technologically inclined could be reached with this. However, I don’t think demographics are the biggest hurdle to get over.
The potential benefit with reaching young people specifically is that they may use Linux for longer and are more likely to stick with it. It also increases word of mouth among a demographic that may be more interested in talking about technology. From that perspective, I actually think college students are a good demo to target for all the same reasons, but also because they’re likely to be walking around campus with the Linux and end up with more opportunities to be seen using it.
The Linux community definitely overlaps with the digital privacy community online, and that will lead to friction at the mention of mainstream social media. There have been calls (that hopefully we can address one day) for always maintaining FOSS alternative social media presences whether we’re on Instagram or not.
The community also has a ton of overlap with the tech community as well, which I think leads to preferences towards topic-based platforms like Reddit, Hacker News, forums, IRC, Discord, and Matrix. These are spaces that are about something and not inherently about connecting with other people just because. The one exception is Twitter. Tech folks really like Twitter.
From the perspective of the Marketing Team, we want to be on the platforms that are used by the people most likely to convert to Linux. However, that bias neglects the other channels that are more likely to be used by the average person, like Facebook and Instagram. We have been actively working on posting more to Instagram and hope to continue that.
Answered by others. Short answer is that Red Hat sponsors the project.
100%. Converting users to contributors is most likely where more will come from in my opinion. Mainstream channels will likely point to increased usage rather than contribution directly, but we may target certain kinds of contribution opportunities to some channels based on who’s there. For example, non-technical contribution opportunities may be shown more on Instagram or they won’t be shown as many technical opportunities. But this is not a for sure thing - it’s just an idea I had as I wrote this.
In my opinion, the biggest obstacle to trying Fedora or Linux for the average person is installing the OS itself. Even though there are videos to show you how to do it, everything about installing an OS screams daunting. I have to imagine that 90% of people who use Linux have to have at least some form of interest in tech or a particular distro to have given it a shot. Or they really had a reason to use Linux.
As Ben mentioned, I don’t think we’ll see any kind of mass adoption for Linux as it’s known in the FOSS community until you can go to a store and buy a Linux computer. Therefore, I believe that Fedora needs to end up on hardware that can be bought and that hardware needs to increase in variety and accessibility.
That’s not something that can be fixed with our fledgling marketing effort. In fact, I think that trying to market the computers that can be bought with Fedora out of the box could be perceived as sketchy by the community. It will likely be a discussion to be put out to the whole community before we try anything like that.
I think our current support solutions may be as much as can be expected of a community-driven distro. We don’t have a company that can hire support staff or what have you. Similarly to using Windows, if you have a problem you will probably have to find an answer online, take it to a computer store, or ask a friend who can provide tech support.
For the spaces that the Fedora Project can control, we can better market our existing channels. You’re question makes me wonder if there are a lot of people using Fedora who don’t know there are places they can go for help with questions.