Yeah, I've both started and participated in various Linux and OSS advocacy groups formally and informally over the years with varying degrees of success as well as observing others in their efforts. If there's one thing I've learned along the way is that it is more or less another form of negotiation with the other person and that the key to success at it is trying to understand the other person's specific needs and what appeals to them, what their problems are from their own perspective and then trying to find and present a solution to them that may potentially meet their needs. We're all attracted to things based on our own needs and preferences ultimately, so the key to winning someone over is to show how a given solution may be able to meet their needs from _their_ perspective. I believe that is very key to success in advocacy of anything.

Where I've seen people's advocacy efforts fail is in presenting their information in terms that don't mean anything to the other person, don't solve their specific problems from their own perspective. As an aside, a few years ago I was researching buying my first vehicle and getting different people's opinions on vehicles. A friend of mine was adamant that I should by an enormous king cab track because they're the best vehicle money can buy. He advocated this to me because he is a burly guy that loves trucks just because he loves trucks. His high level of enthusiasm for trucks and recommendation to me did not even slightly take into account what I wanted/needed a vehicle for, what I planned to do with it. His argument was "you'll thank me when you go to move drywall" - as if that is something I'd ever see myself doing in my entire life. I should buy an 8 cylinder gas guzzler truck that is expensive to maintain because I'll look cool and impress people and I'll have that drywall transportation problem solved in advance when I need to do it even though I never will. His form of advice/advocacy was useless to me because it completely ignored the problems that *I* was trying to personally solve. He didn't even ask me what I needed the vehicle for and what I planned to do with it, rather he made his own assumptions based on what _he_ would want and do with it.

I think that's part of the problem, is that when people advocate/recommend things to others in that fashion they're ultimately not being terribly useful to the other person because they're unaware or even ignoring what problem(s) the other person is trying to solve. So it is key to advocacy understanding the other person's problems on their terms without judgment, and making polite positive recommendations that may meet their needs, steering them in the right direction as it were. It also however means realizing that once someone documents their needs/requirements that the thing we'd like to advocate might or might not actually be beneficial to them too, such as my buddy recommending the truck he was in love with personally. Sometimes even when advocating, we need to recommend things to others that are not what we're actually advocating but are a better fit to their own specific problem and needs per se. In other words, we should always put the other person's need first in our mind frame and not try to smother our favourite/preferred solution on them blindly or religiously while ignoring their actual needs.

There are a lot of advocacy groups out there of all tastes, but of course there's always room for more given the problem perceived at hand. It could be contributing to something pre-existing out there as you suggest, or it could be someone starting their own more targeted advocacy group/meetup/etc. For example, someone could create a GOG specific Linux advocacy group, including web pages, discussion forums or threads within the forum here (although I think moderatable forums elsewhere are better for that sort of thing.) The key to the success of such efforts I believe is keeping the entire effort a positive and friendly and inviting environment.

Yeah, the market tends to go where the money is in general, so Linux distributions, enthusiasts, users, developers alike simply need to continue making Linux an attractive platform for solving other people's problems. It's a fantastic system for solving our own problems (which is how a lot of the OSS ecosphere was built - a developer or developers solving their own problems by scratching a personal itch), and it continues to grow and expand to become a more generic platform that is accessible more and more to the average person. Android for example has helped that become more of a reality, which is also rather amusing as many if not most people who use Android on any device are probably unaware that they are running Linux. :)

It's been a 25+ year ride so far in Linux-land, but things have come a long way and I think the future looks bright. It does seem to be taking forever at times though too hehe.