Success at what? The reason I say it's shallow is because it isn't
sufficient alone and when alone is pretty crass. It's obvious that you
don't think popularity is the final objective either, and the strategy
you laid out has merits.

Popularity is a necessary first step. If you want to push people towards Linux, 2 things have to happen first, regardless of what the end-game is:

1. Linux has to be a choice in the retail market space: You need to be able to buy a computer with Linux pre-installed and problem free, at least to the extent that Windows is (though probably better, since Windows 8 was a mess of unbelievable proportion). Once Linux is a choice for users, it will be an option. Most users are not going to switch their OS, and risk damaging their computer to the point of being unusable, just to use free programs.

2. Inkscape must be so popular as to be ubiquitous with vector-based graphic design. It has a good start, but if you start pulling the plug now on Windows development, it will fall out of favour with people who must use windows machines for their work. If you lose your user base (popularity), you lose all the hard-won pushing power. It is way, way to early to do that.

Once those two things are satisfied, you can start pushing, but do not make the hubristic mistake of thinking you can force users to switch based on high-minded values of freedom (which I agree with completely, so don't taze me, bro ;) ). The industry has proven that people don't care as much about freedom as they do about convenience. If you take away the convenience, they will leave en-masse, and be all the more happy to just pirate Illustrator, or fork over Adobe subscription fees.

One of the huge advantages to Open Source software is it is cross-platform. That's not something you can say about the Adobe Creative suite, and it's one of the things that allows me to use Open Source software in my workplace, and tout it all over the internet as the best solution for vector graphics work.

But you've got to offer more depth to what you want so I can understand
and the project can get a good sense of what each of the different
developers want. Project objectives like the project code are as much a
consensus as possible. You want success? What does that look like to
you?

I want exactly what you want (I think). I want a world free of the restrictions of Windows and Mac OS. You should not have to pay money for operating systems that entrap and exploit you (and hide their source code from you, so you never know exactly what they are doing), or be forced to use them for your work. I am a long-time Linux user and open source advocate, and have had a lot of success getting the company I work for on board with using Open Source software, especially Inkscape. I, myself use Linux at home, but at work, they are all Windows machines, so ending Windows support would effectively force me to have to use Illustrator just to get work done during the day, and of course undo all the hard work I've done to popularise Inkscape within my own sphere of influence. I fix old windows laptops for free by installing Ubuntu Linux. It turns what would be a throw-away computer into a useful laptop again, and I've only ever gotten one back (a kid wanted to play his windows-only games). So I offer convenience of not having to buy a new laptop, and getting a new safer operating system. That is the reason people I know have switched to Linux. It was the convenience of having it done for them. A computer is just an appliance to most people. It's like a phone, or a microwave, or a washing machine. If you can give them a good worry-free experience, you can get them to switch to Linux.

Getting really preachy and privacy-fearmongering has never worked for the FSF (of which I am a member, so again, don't taze). And it's because it makes us look lake crazy religious people. People do not trust evangelists, and why should they? They have an agenda, and it's one that from the outside looks like it's based on paranoia and fear. If people cared about privacy, they would not use services like Facebook or Google, etc. They do, and in numbers so large that one can not deny that no one really cares. Or they may care for about a week after a news story about how Facebook is now selling your information to *whoever*, and they make a big stink about leaving, and then don't actually, because the convenience offered is so great in the end it was worth having your info bought and sold just to keep in contact with friends all over the world.

You can write out the end-game of Inkscape, as a mission statement, but you have to be really really careful of the wording... and I don't recommend it. It's very easy for it to be misconstrued as an attack on corporations, and corporate environments, and that's a very large user base. Most professional artists and designers need those corporate jobs, and if you scare off the companies with your mission statement, you will alienate the vast majority of the people who are likely to use Inkscape. If the corporation you work for says no, you have no choice.

So what do you do? You say the mission of Inkscape is to provide a free, simple, and easy to use Open Source vector design program that can be used with any OS you have.

That is what will give us the future power we need to win the battle. If Facebook told users that the end-game was to sell all their personal info to various companies and governments from the start, do you think they would be as popular as they are today? Of course not. :) So provide the convenience first, gain the popularity you need to push (and wait for Canonical to gain enough traction that you start seeing Ubuntu machines in stores), and then you will have the traction you need to make the changes we want.

On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 20:47 +0200, Maren Hachmann wrote:
> We could
> - add a tutorial named Introduction

A welcome tutorial is a good idea. I like it. It helps us with our oft
educational objectives.

Instead of a tutorial, how about an introduction? Tutorials generally take a long time, but an introduction is fast and simple, and shows the kinds of things you can do with Inkscape. I also like the idea of this. I am glad to help if you need graphics, animations or ideas.

> - if we want to include a donation link, we can put one in, too
> I think a lot of people love tutorials, and we could use that to
benefit

It's definitely a good idea. We can end the introduction with an option to help the project.

Also have a suggested donation link on the Inkscape download page.

Maybe with some nice graphics showing what industry professionals are doing with inkscape, and a suggested (optional) donation of just £5 or something.

Canonical seems to have had success with this on the Ubuntu download page.

-C