It is a common assumption that companies who distribute free software will promote it, leaving the community to concentrate on the meat of the project itself (including code, documentation, graphics, and so on). But this is untrue; companies generally devote few resources and little expertise, leaving communities to fend for themselves in the big scary world of media and marketing.

Thankfully, all is not lost. Projects such as Mozilla Firefox, KDE and GNOME are fighting back with increasingly sophisticated promotion teams. In the past year we’ve seen massive fund raising initiatives, ever increasing community press coverage and a blossoming free software media market. If you’re in an under-promoted project, or you’re in a position to help, then this article is for you.

Community or marketplace?

Most free software projects operate in non-profit communities whose products are commercially distributed in the marketplace by third-party companies. This relationship has always benefited both parties, with most work done by one party benefiting the other. But this isn’t the case with marketing, where in general neither the communities nor their commercial distributors promote the products directly.

From the distributors’ point of view, this isn’t useful. They’re in the business of differentiating themselves from the GNU/Linux-based competition, and most free software projects will be used, without significant modifications, by all of their competitors. Instead they focus on promoting the value that they add to the projects’ products, and to a lesser extent the major features that make the project stand out from Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS. So community projects do get promoted, but only indirectly.

In general neither communities nor their commercial distributors promote the products directly

For communities, a lack of people, resources and expertise tend to mean that promotion work is neglected. Time spent developing a watertight marketing strategy tends to be spent instead fixing bugs and implementing features, which is a reasonable compromise. The problem, then, is whether or not communities can effectively promote themselves in the marketplace. Even if your project attracts a few people with the requisite skills and you have the finances to print materials, attend trade shows and pay for advertisements, there is a wider problem: is your project commercially comprehensible? Will a company or public body be attracted to your community because of your adherence to free software principles, and will they be interested in learning about how they can interface with your volunteers? These hurdles aren’t insurmountable, and as the case studies I will examine will show, there is plenty that a community can do.

The spread of Firefox

Enter the fox. With relatively little company backing, a product from a major free software community achieved one of the most remarkable marketing successes of the year. The community headquarters, Spread Firefox, gained over 50,000 volunteers in a little under four months, and generated 13 million downloads in only 45 days. There won’t be many people in the IT industry this year who won’t have heard of Mozilla Firefox.

Spread Firefox gained over 50,000 volunteers in a little under four months, and generated 13 million downloads in only 45 days

The community’s technique was based on word of mouth, far more persuasive than any advertising campaign. From the early days of Phoenix and Firebird (Firefox’s previous incarnations), enthusiastic users were already telling their friends and family to try the web browser out. These users naturally developed shared beliefs about the benefits of using Firefox, and values relating to free software and open standards, which provided the basis for a rare commodity in the free software world: a genuine community of users. But it was still just an undeveloped basis, when in reality they had been a loosely connected fan club.

The first change came with an overhaul of the Mozilla web site: The homepage for each product presented a simple, coherent frame that fans could adopt. The frames were ideologically congruent with the fans, meaning that the fans passionately agreed with the spirit of the project presented by the frames, and the frames presented a short list of features that were popular with the fans (focusing on tabs, pop-up blocking and security). As fans began to consolidate around this shared message, a nascent community of marketers developed.

In September 2004, five enthusiasts announced Spread Firefox (sfx for short), a hub around which volunteers could gather to discuss and promote their favourite product. Sfx introduced three new techniques: targets, incentives and tools. From their first target of one million downloads in ten days, they expanded to other download figures, as well as raising funds for a full page advert in the New York Times.

To spur volunteers on, they cleverly presented simple incentives like web referral points (for each click on an advert), a regularly updated volunteer spotlight and plenty of community tub-thumping. Finally, they provided volunteers with consistent branding by way of advertising buttons for web sites, email signatures, leaflets, posters and literature. Armed with these tools, volunteers were able to spread the word more quickly and consistently than in any previous free software community effort.

Spread Firefox offers a range of targets, tools and incentives

Sfx matured with time, creating a wide range of positions for the most keen volunteers involving programming, writing materials, acting as a press contact, designing adverts, handling CDs, attending events and posing as college reps. Some teams worked on specific target markets such as colleges and home desktop users, tailoring materials to suit their audience.

They cleverly presented simple incentives and tools and were able to spread the word more quickly and consistently than in any previous free software community effort

The most spectacular success was the New York Times advert. The team set out to raise US$50,000 to finance a full page advert, and provided an incentive by offering every donor a space in the advert for their name. By the time the advert was in print they had raised over US$250,000 from 10,000 people, with the overflow going to the Mozilla Foundation.

The Firefox community is a clear example of how a simple frame, which is good for volunteers and the press, combined with some clever marketing techniques can propel a good free software product from obscurity to fame.