[ale] Putting Open Source Apps in front of Consumers

[Sigmascape1 at cs.com]

Hi, Everyone!

In an earlier thread, I started a discussion on how to get oss apps in front of people. Because the oss community doesn't have a central marketing department or a truly organized marketing effort, the task of spreading the word is really everyone's responsibility that supports oss. That means telling someone how great Mozilla is at stopping pop-ups, how OpenOffice.org's presentations are easily converted to Flash files and how you can rip your entire audio cd collection to MP3s using CDex... all for free. Word-of-mouth is powerful, but what other ways can we spread the gospel? I cringe everytime I see an AOL display box at Office Depot full of 'free' cds. I'd love to see a box full of OpenOffice.org cds put into places like Borders and Barnes & Noble, and other places where it would not be considered a profit drain. Hell, I'd like to see a OO display box at Starbucks. What would it take? Money, of course. Money to create the cds in a professional way, some packaging and, of course, the display box. Once we have a finished product (cds, packaging and display box), we have to reach out to companies (retailers, etc) and get permission to place these things in their stores and places of business. There will be places where these boxes are not welcomed, such as Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buys, and other retailers who depend on the sales of software to keep the doors open, but that doesn't mean that we are totally out bullets when it comes to these types of places... another set of cds can be made up with Mozilla as the primary product featured. CompUSA, Best Buys and the like are not selling web browers, so Mozilla cds would be a practical fit.

I need help with more ideas. This idea has been floating around in my mind for a while, and I want to act on it. 

Anyone else game?

Mitch Featherston