Re: Development news

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   It's not our job to care with which tools people consume our
   provided information, as long as it can be done with free software
   in a reasonable way.

No, as long as it can be done with free software in a _perfect_ way.
It is not our job to support anti-social behaviours like using
non-free software.

   Fortunately we have HTML and CSS standardized, and for gnu.org you
   have to follow these standards.

And this isn't www.gnu.org, this is www.gnu.org/software/hurd.  We
haven't followed the design of www.gnu.org since day one.  If you want
to update the Hurd project pages to be in sync with www.gnu.org, send
a patch and have Marcus bless it.

   > And really, what is the point of having a "good looking page",
   > with no useful information?  The Hurd project lacks a lot of
   > documentation.

   Aren't we talking about increasing the level of valuable
   documentation?

No, we are talking about providing an easy mean to get development
news, see the subject of the thread.  You are talking about having
pretty pages, which is off topic for this thread.

   I think work should start as near as possible to potential testers
   that may become users and developers.

And that is working code and documentation.  Not pretty pages.

   I don't want to confuse marketing and information.

Then stop doing it, "information is the best marketing" is just such
confusion.

   There's no use of people trying the Hurd and telling their friends
   that it does not work.

Right, and having pretty pages does not make things work.  And that
means that people should send bug reports, patches, suggestions.

   We must make clear what you can expect, so it must be made clear
   what one gets when she tries the Hurd.

   Good, true information is the best marketing.

Bull shit, working software is the best marketing because that is
something that can be used for practical work.  And the Hurd is far
from working software, it lacks documentation for one.  In a real
world one shouldn't even need to go to hurd.gnu.org, one should be
able to open the info page and get all the information one needs.

Infact, the ideal goal is to have as minimal web pages as possible.
They should only link to where you can download the package, and a
html version of the manual.  Everything a user would wants to know
should be in the documentation.

   > How in heavens name would statistics help?  They don't produce
   > code, documentation, bug reports, help new users, etc.
   > Statistics are completly useles.

   Are nice to look at.  Give information.  I'd like to know if people
   use the links. That would mean they want to know more. And I want
   to know if they come back again and how often they check the news.

Oh please... Just because they use the links does not mean that they
want to know more.  And knowing how often they visit the main page is
completly useless.  If you want to argue for collecting statistics,
atleast put forth some concrete arguments.  The _only_ way you will
know what the user is missing is by them giving actual feedback, and
that is to send to this mailing list.

   >    I could happily live with some people trying to run the Hurd
   >    just because of the good impression they had looking at the
   >    pages.
   > 
   > I wouldn't, trying to use something does not help to develop it.
   > And having "nice pages" don't help in that regard in anyway what
   > so ever.

   So you would send everybody away who is not actively doing
   something in code?

No, I would send everyone away that do not want to mail bug reports,
send suggestions (asking for help is just this, it shows that
documentation is lacking and so is a suggestion of what should be
documented), etc.  Those are all forms of development.

   Maybe I should do something to make the pages nicer. You wouldn't do 
   this obviously.

Why don't you work on documentation instead? Having good looking pages
is not important, never has been and never will be.  Having easy
access to (good one at that) documentation--which "pretty pages"
obscure--is.

   > Irrelevant.  The web pages should serve for everyone, including
   > those who use speech syntesiers, or those who use the CVS version
   > of Xfree86 and Gnome.

   Instructions for cvs already exist. Insert a link to the NEWS file.
   Would that be sufficient for these?

If the NEWS file is updated, I don't see why not.


You still haven't put forth any kind of argument whatso ever why
having nicer looking pages is important.  If you can't do that, then I
don't see why we should continue this discussion.  And this discussion
is going nowhere really really fast...