On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 5:23 AM, Derek O'Connell <doconnel at gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe the idea of exclusive content (whatever that may be) is not
> a solution to funding. In fact I think it will even have the opposite
> effect of alienating many of the *178* who bothered enough to vote.
> Much better to foster a more *inclusive* community spirit and try to
> increase that number a 100 times.


Squeak has been around more than 10 years now.  It's not evident to me that
the community is significantly larger today than it was just a couple years
after its debut.  As for alienating, I don't see anything exclusive or
alienating about this approach.


> Then you may have the critical mass
> to offer value-added extras. Blender is a good example and despite
> past failures it now seems to be doing pretty well.


Blender happened under almost the exact same circumstances that I propose,
only by accident (and on a much longer timeframe than I would envision).


> Outside of the
> product itself, I put most of Blenders success down to the very
> vibrant BlenderArtists FORUM with "over 20,000 registered users". IMHO
> a modern style forum is essential these days as I suspect most of the
> younger generation are simply not inspired by mailing lists. There is
> a sense of "congregating" around a forum while a mailing-list appears
> as a somewhat intrusive cluttering of already busy mailboxes. It would
> also help if there was a more visible focus on new users and usability
> in general.


This is a different topic...but, yes, I'm with you on it...anything that
could enhance the community experience would be a good thing.

- Stephen
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