Luckily, I work in the marketing department at SUSE. I’m not sure if that qualifies me as the world’s foremost expert on the topic, but I have opinions! What follows are my personal reflections on my experiences here over the past two years.
Being in marketing within a company focused on, and dedicated to, Open Source (and Free) software is an interesting thing; Open Source projects are not often associated with being particularly great at marketing and communication. The focus tends to be on the software being developed, with a mindset to let the quality of the software speak for itself. That doesn’t negate the need for great communication and marketing, though. (Even truly amazing software won’t have a lot of users if nobody knows it exists.)