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Brand Voice in Open Source: Staying Human Without Losing Credibility
very open-source project and company struggles with “how do we market without being cringe?” Open-source audiences have finely tuned “BS detectors.” They reward honesty, competence and value-alignment, and they punish hype, vagueness, and corporate gloss. CodeWeavers’ “Chaotic Good” voice (individualistic, pro-user freedom, a bit rebellious, but benevolent) is a deliberate strategy to earn trust while still being a business. This talk is a field guide for how marketing teams do that on purpose.
1.) Why brand voice matters more in open source
2.) “Chaotic Good” as a practical framework (not a vibe)
3.) How brand voice shifts by context
4.) Staying authentic when you sell something
5.) Handling controversy or skepticism
Jana Schmid
Marketing Director
CodeWeavers
Jana Schmid serves as the Marketing Director at CodeWeavers, the company behind CrossOver, where she leads brand voice, go-to-market strategy and storytelling for software that runs Windows apps on Mac and Linux using Wine. She’s been in the marketing profession for over 20 years and joined CodeWeavers in 2010, which in tech years is basically a geological era.