Framework is looking for Linux Community Ambassadors

"We will send you merch"

I get how paying somebody adds complication, but "we can't pay you but we can cover your travel, room, and board for these conferences we want you to advocate for us at" would be a much much better sell.

As someone who used to run a similar program and be part of programs like these in the past, I am a bit underwhelmed by the structure of the program.

This is framed like a way to get free labor, and is a PR miss on the company. Ambassador programs work best when you "deputize" community members who are already doing a good job spreading the word and you give them the maximum allowable resources. This is not that, at the minimum I would be giving priority to batches, free test laptops, and access to the engineering team to people already doing the most promoting the Framework ecosystem.

Hoping that they adjust to the feedback, I love my Intel 11th 13 and would hate to see them accrue brand damage.

I would love to see the following:

  Coreboot support
  Better speakers
  ECC RAM support
  LPCAMM2 support (modern RAM to save power and space)

Then it would be near perfect with Ryzen...

> Am I going to be paid?

> Framework Linux Community Ambassadors are not paid, they are volunteers. We will however be sending special merch packages to Ambassadors!

The messaging is off. Framework is not a non-profit, right? At least IBM paid employees to be linux evangelists.

I like Framework and their mission but they're not a charity. I think if they want unpaid ambassadors then they should register as a non-profit of some sort.

Maybe us on HN aren't the audience? I could see myself doing this in college for the free conference trips.

If I may, I think the schism of opinion is caused by two things:

1) Those who view Framework as a mission vs. those who view it as a company.

2) The tone of the call-to-action being too formal to differentiate it from an employment opportunity at Framework-the-company.

Many of us remember when Framework’s dream seemed like a moonshot, and many of us rallied behind it and evangelized. Now it seems like Framework “made it” and is successful, so a lot of people have started viewing it as a company rather than a mission. But I think its position is still FAR more precarious than it gets credit for - hardware is a very very difficult business and Framework still only barely has cash to roll out new models. Its still just one small recall or design error away from the edge of failure. Those who see this as an opportunity to help “Framework-the-mission” would be excited for support in doing what they’re likely already doing! It’s cool! It’s fun!

But the original posting makes it hard to view yourself as an independent white knight finally getting recognition from Framework. Many people would hear it as an invitation to become a vassal instead.

I think it would be better received if they had phrased it more like

“Hey! We’ve recognized how so many amazing people have been out and about through the linux conference circuit evangelizing our products! We LOVE your support, it means so much to us, and we want to support you too. Let us know what you’re doing and when you’ll be going to your next linux conferences this year and we’ll do our best to get you some really cool Framework swag to show off and give out to your friends. We’ve already reached out to a number of superfans that we’ve personally seen talking us up at conferences, but wanted to post here to catch anyone we might be missing. If you know someone like this, send them a link to this post so they can get in touch with us. We’re working hard to extend our personal and professional networks throughout the linux community, because we still have so much work to do to open up the hardware as radically as we’d like to. Everything all of you folks do genuinely makes such a huge difference - the long term success of Framework still isn’t guaranteed and we really, truly appreciate all the love and support that you’ve given us. We don’t take it for granted, and while you deserve so much more, we hope this shows you that we see you, we love you for everything you do, and hopefully we can partner together with the linux community on some really cool stuff down the road!”

As a side note, I think huge companies have in the past (and often still do) really abuse this language, but I think it would be fine for Framework. Similarly, plenty of scrappy non-profits and community organizations lean way too far towards “formal business language” when they’re recruiting volunteers — and I think Framework made that mistake here. You may spend 90% of the week as a business leader, but you still have to know when to bring things back down to earth and reach humans where they’re at emotionally. Express to them why they should care.

Also, there is of course always a danger in support $COMPANY-the-mission: many of us remember when OculusRift-the-mission was still all the rage one Monday and by that same Tuesday it had transformed into Oculus the billion dollar Meta acquisition.

At the very least they could refund your money for the computer.

Am I gonna get paid? No.

As a fan of framework and a customer. It really seems a bit pathetic for them to be trying to get free labor from people. Framework is a standard for-profit company and as such nobody should be doing anything for them for free.