mrgoogle wrote: market segmentation research, our target people, targeted marketing vs mass marketing, market industry, marketing experts, good product, market-share, multiple market industries, our target people, our target market, target market and objective, competitive advantage, the industry, adoption rate
It strikes me that you have 'Us' confused with some other commercial venture that is trying it's hardest to be ' Top Dog'. Here at Mint HQ, 'We' don't give a crap, if 'we' don't like 'the direction' we can jump ship, taking our donations of money, and donations of time spent voluntarily helping others, with us, or 'we' can alter, customise, and tweak to our hearts content.
'The Direction' is in part, up to the general 'wants' of the community, isn't this the reason why Mint exists in the first place? 'Someone', (the big cheese Mr L) decided to 'do it his way' in a nutshell, and on the strength of that relationship betweeen him, the devs and the users feedback, it has progressed very nicely ever since.
So you see, 'we' are not a 'company', in an 'Industry' seeking approval from a 'market', 'we' are a community, who's ideas and choices are put into action, then put out there for you to decide whether you want to use them or not, and it's fine if you don't. 'We' don't even mind helping people who have tried and found they don't like it and want help to go back to whatever they used before, without getting our jimmies all rustled, because they have the freedom to choose and that doesn't have to be because of a 'fault' with Mint, there are no 'faults', just choices. It's nobody's 'fault' that Mint isn't the biggest OS in the world, and that's not a 'direction' I'd ever personally want to see, sure it may be nice to see Mint on some hardware in a shop, but for that you need a 'company'.
The way i see it is 'Linux' has pretty much already adopted 'the right direction', it's everywhere already. Your thread could go on forever, because there is no 'One size fits all' in the desktop OS world, there is choice, and the freedom to choose, and do as you wish, and it doesn't go in a better 'direction' than that.