Bazaar still below the radar when evaluating VCS tools

[James Westby]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:33:20 +1000, Ian Clatworthy <ian.clatworthy at canonical.com> wrote:
> Ali Sabil wrote:
> 
> > I also believe bzr should work more its marketing. bzr is actually
> > very powerful, but most people just don't know about its features.
> 
> It's a question of time and priorities. The best marketing is word of mouth.

Marketing starts much earlier than the word of mouth stage. It starts
with an understanding of the goals and philosophy of the project. It is
tough to sell a system when you are unclear whether the project aims to
be a flexible, adaptive tool that allows you to achieve your aims by
choosing the correct configuration and workflow, or a system that
sacrifices some of the flexibility in order to better work for the 80%
that will never need or want to do those things. It's also really tough
to sell (let alone build) a system that is all things to all people;
when you learn about it you don't know how to pigeonhole it, you have to
spend a lot of time learning about it to form a model that you are happy
with, and will tend to dismiss it until that point.

Yes, different people will take different things from a project, and
have their own take on it when they tell their friends and people they
meet, but that will often grow from the direction the project sets for
itself. There are a few reasons for this, such as they likely choosing
the project for a feature that someone else told them about, or that
they read about on the website or in a review.

If the direction is clear, then it helps with selling it by word of
mouth, and it helps focus development. When looking at what to work on
next you can choose things that move you further forward in realising
the vision. When working on a new feature it can help you design and
pitch it.

I think part of the dearth of people writing about Bazaar unprompted,
rather than in response to reviews that ignore it or paint it in an
unfavourable light is that they aren't sure what the pitch is. A lot of
effort has been put in to convincing people that Bazaar is a viable
alternative, so it will often only be spoken of as an alternative.

What do you think is the Bazaar's vision? Do you think others agree with
you? Do you think that we, as a project, do a good enough job of
articulating that vision to the rest of the world?

Thanks,

James