Help to choose a Mission Statement for Ubuntu Mate

Thoughts & Feedback
#1

Hello, everybody!

I’ve watched a TED talk and it left an impression on me. I’ve decided to write this post. I would like to share my thoughts on this and hear your opinion as well.

So basically the talk is about the three question:

  1. Why?
  2. How?
  3. What?

The front page describes Ubuntu-Mate as “A community developed, Ubuntu based operating system that beautifully integrates the MATE desktop” and the about page and What is Ubuntu Mate answers only the last question.

Well how about the other two?
Here, here and here are graphics of what doest mean to answer these questions.

Mission Statement wiki

Let’s have a brainstorm and come up with a mission statement that reflects Ubuntu Mate core values. Why we do what we do?(Purpose, Reason) How we do it?(Process, Culture) What do we do? (The result> product or/and service) Whom do we do it for?(Our target niche)

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#2

The last graphic is the reason why this is nonsense.

Don't take me wrong @Denis_Donici. I'm not directing this critic at you, but at the whole crappy self-improvement industry. It's no surprise that I stopped visiting TED. They already did all the good stuff they could possibly have done some 10 years ago. More or less about the time they went online. And starting some 7 years ago, TED became an absolute horrendous marketplace for dubious self-improvement authors.

Don't worry much about answering those three questions. Them at Marketing will love you for it, but real people, people that actually want to use Linux, do not care for cookie-cutter, sententious and meaningless aphorisms. Those are best left for morning TV commercials on some crappy product that can't stand on its own without someone having to be clever and come up with a catch phrase. Or for corporate internal motivational pitches, to sell the boss or the employees some bad idea. As long as I speak like my mouth should belong on a circus and I like to hear myself talking as well, I'll sell anything.

Linux users of any distro require:

  • explicit (not implicit) communication.
  • concrete (not abstract) information.
  • objective (not symbolic) data.

Product marketing selling rules do not apply to consumers who already know what they want and just don;t know what to choose. When you already know you want the best survival tool money can buy, you will go to the store with the intent on gaining precise information to be able to choose between the various Leatherman or Wenger models.

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#3

He has a point. I believe he doesn’t mean it in a marketing way. There is nothing to sell here. It’s more of a belief system, or ideology if you will. Just my 5 cents

#4

This seems really simple to me as a long-time Ubuntu user. We can even leverage Ubuntu’s old motto for this;

Ubuntu MATE is a classical desktop Linux system made for human beings which prioritizes familiarity and customization through use of the MATE desktop.

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#5

I wrote the About page and the Objectives contained therein before an image existed. They define what Ubuntu MATE is and, I believe, it’s mission. The project is still guided by those objectives today.

And the project tag line remains the same: For a retrospective future

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#6

and that in my opinion is the definitive answer. :slight_smile: