We are still lacking (human) resources to work on the following topics:

• Link button revolution. We’d like to go from the current ugly stack of buttons, to something authoritative, elegant, and simple —think spreadfirefox. We’d be much better off with five sizes and ten buttons, with a single icon.
• Screenshot perfection. We’re looking for extremely well thought-out sets of screenshots for getgnulinux.org and translations, localized in eight languages. (this is ticket #41)
• Precise visit statistics tracking. If you think that you could write a script that outputs, say, the number of Windows visitors who visited at least two pages in the past week, we’d love to hear from you!
• CSS mastership. We’re maniac about accessibility and legibility, but could still do better. Improving font rendition on IE6, making sure things will display fine when we release a Chinese translation, adapting to mobile devices browsers, are things we’re thinking about.
• Linking module. Managing an affiliate system for linking to our websites will be the first milestone of Animador, our grassroots marketing platform. If PHP development is your thing, you might want to have a look.
• Articulate writing. We have just started working on GetFreedomware.com, the upcoming replacement of SoftwareLiberty.com. We are looking for polished, concise, powerful phrases to get the message to everyday visitors. (more to come very soon in the forum).
• Elegant web design. Our Linux FAQ page has grown to be difficult to read and navigate. Accessibility and simplicity are your mottoes? This might be for you.
• Multi-cultural expertise. If you know what it takes to reach the Japanese community, or what kind of domain name would suit an Arabic translation, or how to best manage cross-border variations in languages —well, you can educate us =)

Enthusiastic coulda-woulda-shoulda talkers are easy to find. Participants who get things done are priceless. If you think you can help, feel free to start working, make yourself known, and we’ll hand you the keys. Thousands of daily visitors will benefit from your skills, and you’ll get eternal gratitude from the rest of us! =)

• First, the second GLM summit is over. Gustavo and myself were able to meet for 4 days in April, which allowed us to work on the roadmap for the current semester, as well as work out many technical decisions.
  We will write more about this, but the main priority that we defined was community growth. This translates into better community tools, more translations, measurement of website growth, more internal communication.
• Our lists of vendors selling GNU/Linux pre-installed computers are growing continuously, which is very encouraging. Both the French (LinuxPréinstallé.com) and English (LinuxPreloaded.com) websites show that things are getting brighter in the USA and in the EU.
• We have the great pleasure to note that translations of GetGNULinux.org are progressing nicely. At the time of writing, the Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian languages have over 20% of the website translated.

In the background, a myriad of technical improvements, exchanges within communities are getting us ready to grow faster.

We want and need everyone’s trust — our projects, activities, and aspirations are for all to see and take part in. Finances are not an exception.

Our financial report for 2007 is a 4-page clear and human-legible PDF document. It summarizes our income and expense for the year ranging from April 2007 to March 2008, and presents our expectations for the year 2008.

I (Olivier) also endorse the role of treasurer of the organization, and remain available should you have questions regarding this.

First, we are now able to grow quickly and efficiently in other languages and that is important to us. As small organization, (hopefully) heading in the right direction, we had been missing this ability for a long time. We hope to see more translations developed soon.

But the exciting part is the big number in the title. Today, approximately 1,000 Windows web surfers find us through search engines every day¹. If we manage to bring this number to 8,000 , over one year we can successfully inform one million people of the merits of Linux and freedomware.

With your help, this is reachable.

• Let’s learn more languages. Help hundreds or thousands of daily visitors to learn about GNU/Linux by translating to your language.
• Let’s get linking seriously. With a great number of links towards our sites, we can make it to the first page of search engines, and be found by newcomers. The status of our link buttons could greatly be improved.
• Let’s get organized. We have started the development of Animador, a PHP application that will help us do what SpreadFirefox does, and more. Among our wish-list are:
  • Better tracking of link button usage, allowing the creation of referrer accounts;
  • Better tracking of visits on our websites, with public reports so everyone can track progress;
  • A variety of tools to build a vibrant multi-lingual community for on-line marketing.

If this wakes a programmer’s, translator’s, or advocate’s itch in you, you’re warmly encouraged to participate.

1. The long-time GNU/Linux enthusiasts coming from Lxer or Digg are always welcome, of course, but our intended audience is made of Windows users just curious enough to type “linux” in search engines

MULTINGUAL GROUP OF MARKETING DEVELOPERS WANTS WEBSITE TURNED INTO INTERNATIONAL LINUX HOMEPAGE; INITIATING SPREADFIREFOX-LIKE CAMPAIGN.

Mennecy, France (March 31st, 2008) – In an announcement to the FOSS communities and enterprises, the GNU/Linux Matters non-profit organization expresses its intent to establish a recognized, multilingual homepage for the Linux operating system.

The organization, registered a year ago to further the work of a small group of volunteers, promotes the website GetGNULinux.org and its translations, each of which has its own tailored domain name and content. “Many websites display the merits of GNU/Linux, but we found none that was both relevant to a very wide public and of professional marketing quality”, said Olivier Cleynen, president of GNU/Linux Matters. “This is what we focus on. We are releasing material that is appealing and relevant to everyday users and those who have no time for software matters”.

The non-profit implemented a powerful on-line system enabling easy participation for translators, and expects to grow significantly in 2008. “We are now able to release and maintain multiple translations of our websites rapidly and efficiently”, said Gustavo Narea, General Secretary of the organization. GNU/Linux Matters warmly invites community members of all languages to participate in building and maintaining further translations. The organization leaders view multilingualism as a key to increase Linux market share.

Building on its momentum, the organization has set the ambitious goal of reaching out to 1,000,000 web surfers within one year. “About one thousand Windows users find us through search engines every day. With more translations and an organized linking campaign, we can bring this to eight thousand - effectively explaining GNU/Linux to a million people over the course of one year”, explained Gustavo Narea. GNU/Linux Matters plans to construct an active linking community similar to SpreadFirefox, imitating the Mozilla community’s successful model to benefit the Linux operating system.

GNU/Linux Matters believes that high-quality marketing for Linux needn’t be distribution-specific – the organization wishes to re-establish Linux as a recognized, important and exciting topic on the Internet. “There’s more to it than simply being another GNU/Linux enthusiasts group”, said Olivier Cleynen. “The Linux OS – not merely individual distributions – deserves professional-quality marketing; and we strive to provide just that”. With a handful of members of six nationalities in its Committee, the small organization is determined to increase its reach and become a multi-lingual Internet reference for freedomware marketing.

————————

About GNU/Linux Matters:
A forefront actor of Internet marketing for software freedom, GNU/Linux Matters is a non-profit organization registered in France. Consisting of a small team of passionate members, it provides free software communities with high-quality, multi-lingual websites aimed at everyday computer users. Its main project, GetGNULinux.org (http://www.getgnulinux.org/), is focused on the Linux operating system.
Read more at http://www.gnulinuxmatters.org/

Contact:
Paris: Olivier Cleynen,    +33 (0)6 28 410 948    (French, English, German)
Madrid: Gustavo Narea,    +34 (0)6 29 247 034    (Spanish, English)
http://www.gnulinuxmatters.org/contact