Public relations is the invisible force that makes things happen. Only because of a)PR or b)money the "big PC manufacturer" will start selling machines with preinstalled linux. I've been quite because so far there were no answers regards public relations, just loose opinions, that were voiced in other threads on LQ.

The driving reason is that I'm looking fo same-minded people that will establish a team that could work TOGETHER. People that have knowledge in psychology, sociology, marketing, psychoanalysis. If reading is not your thing, watch this. That might explain my point. There are enough skilled coders. Not enough pr consultants.

The "cool vid bro" doesn't seem to play.
PR is not something important -- it's just waste like advertising. Advancement and knowledge are actual, real, things and not something which needs to be wrapped in tinsel.

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@gevera: They are already selling machines with preinstalled linux (usually Ubuntu)... And the guys from Canonical are already advertising and handling it's support for their OS... You and some others I see here don't seem to understand that GNU/Linux is nothing more than a collection of open-source software offered to people to do what they want with it (including sale).. The target audience are distribution makers (Canonical, Redhat, Google)/Hardware makers (Samsung, etc) or enthusiasts that want "their hands dirty" ... Those companies already know about GNU/Linux, the enthusiasts already know about it also.. To the normal end-user you should not say "Linux", but rather "Ubuntu (Linux)", "Fedora (Linux)", etc.. and can only advertise those because otherwise you risk lying to them.. You cannot compare and sell to the same target and in the same way Slackware and Ubuntu, or Tizen and Android...

Just so we're clear, I don't think there is no room for PR in the Linux community, it's just that you seem to want to target normal end-users at a very unstable level... You won't ever see Linus giving a damn about the end-user in the kernels public mailing list.. He'll just give a damn about getting a good kernel out there to his target audience which are the developers that use the user-space..
Everything has it's hierarchy and it's space and PR-specialists or enthusiasts are only good when a final product for a targeted mass of people is ready. At least that's my view of it..

Check the link now,i've fixed it.

Thats why Linus still complaining about linux on desktop?? Thats why Stallman is making auctions on his talks of "sweet little GNUs" and sell shirts for 20$ cash. If not this guy, I wonder what we all be doing now and what the world be like. Im talking about PR of not a particular distribution, Im talking about free software, freedom of choice. Oh, and tell me, how many projects(of crucial importance) and distributions out there lacking funds and beg for money? Even though countless people use them without paying a penny. If every one will give just one freaking 1, it will make a huge difference. But no, they would rather stay in line and spend 100$ on stupid video games or 250$ clown shoes aka Jordans. Or you want to tell me it wasnt PR fault?? You can use it for good or bad.

Translation: people with different interests/skillsets from you are worthy of having their contributions diminished and minimized.

That is not true. Advertising is a waste? (And the kind of public relations referred to in this thread is promotion, which is advertising.) How successful would McDonald's have been without massive amounts of advertising? Unfortunately, advertising is important, because the masses are drawn to what appears appealing, and advertisements make things looks good. (In today's advertising industry, the purpose of an advertisement is to make a product look better than it is. That is not my foolish opinion, but the basic principle of those who work in advertising.) Humans are social animals, so most people want to be part of the group. If three or four of Michael's friends and/or co-workers have gizmo A, Michael must also have gizmo A to be one of the group. (Being an anthropologist, I know a little about human behaviour.)

Summary: Advertising is very important. People will buy what has exposure, and is therefore known, and is popular. Offering a quality product is not enough. Countless good products are introduced and quickly disappear, while inferior products are eagerly bought by the masses. I repeat the earlier example of McDonald's. If the goal is to get as many people as possible using a product, advertising, promotion, public relations or whatever other term one chooses to use, is vitally important. If that is the goal. It is interesting how many "converts" do not understand that market expansion is not the goal of most distributions. Red Hat and Ubuntu being the notable exceptions. As Smokey_justme pointed out, Linux is not a company offering a product. It is a foundation of software that many projects use to create similar operating systems. There is no single entity to promote, which makes promotion difficult.

Best answer so far. Thank you. By the way, most of the people confuse Public Relations(propaganda) with marketing or advertising. I don't blame them, as well I don't blame those who have no knowledge regarding the difference between Linux and GNU, functional programming and object-oriented as a examples.

Public relations does not equal propaganda. The term public relations has a broad meaning. Relations with the public can take many forms. Advertising and propaganda are two of them. Propaganda is information or lies meant to inform people of something or make them believe a lie.

What is a lie for you might be truth for others, isn't it so? The the whole difference between education and "propaganda" aka public relations is in the point of view. Propaganda is not necessarily lies from this perspectives. Its a tool that can and is used for good things as well. Historically thought, as anything else, people misused it, so it has a bad connotation, thats why they changed its name to public relations. So you could take the word "lie" out of your sentence and it will make sense. "Propaganda(PR) is information that is meant to inform people of something or make them believe"

No. Truth has an existence of its own, independent of who holds it.

Linux is doing well. I've stopped caring about pushing it down other people's throats long time ago. No PR campaign is needed. MS is doing it for us

You're confusing 'truth' with 'fact' :P

No. Truth is not an absolute. There is rarely one truth that is black and white. Truth is usually a matter of perspective. Are corporations and governments good or bad? The truth depends on what criteria are used to make that judgement.

There are also degrees of truth. If I tell you one-quarter of the truth, I am not lying because I did not mention the other three-quarters.

To complicate matters even further, there is usually more than one truth. Is the glass half full or half empty? It is both.

No. Education is teaching people what is believed to be true. Propaganda can be used for education or to indoctrinate (deceive). Although it is usually used for the latter.

True, but you essentially repeat what I posted.Again, public relations is exactly what the words mean; our relations with the public. My company releases an information booklet and pay for air time to explain why the public's perception of what we do is wrong is ... public relations. The public has the perception that my company does not care about the public, so we inform the public about the money we donate to charities every year, but have not advertised ... is public relations. My company makes a bright yellow product. We expand into Japan. Since Japanese do not like bright yellow in public, we change the colour to grey. That is also public relations. Public relations can also be a facade based on lies. Using propaganda to malign our competitors or using false information to convince the public we are not doing anything wrong when we actually are.

I find it interesting that you recognise propaganda has a spectrum of uses from altruistic to evil, but want to confine public relations, which has a much broader range of meaning than propaganda, to a narrow spectrum with a bad connotation.

Advertising is horrific -- think about it... Telling somebody to buy something.
PR is the same. I take it you like to do what you are told.,.