Re: [Gnumed-devel] Windows distribution

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 05:02:03PM -0700, Jim Busser wrote:

> Maybe the first approach (version) is suitable for:
>
>       "Try it! (Windows)"
>
> I would propose that clicking on the above would not cause immediate  
> download, but would instead bring the user to a page or a page section 
> that points out that:
>
>       ... this version is easiest to try but, at 22Mb, is large and not  
> updatable. Entire, newer replacement versions would need downloading.
>
>       ... if you do try this version and decide you would like to follow  
> GNUmed forward through its updates, we suggest that, next time, you try 
> the updatable version <link to>.
>
> Maybe the second approach (version) could be
>
>       "Use it! (Windows)"
>
> with its own associated comments:
>
>       ... this version supplies GNUmed as a collection of "parts", enabling 
> you to download smaller updates as you desire. A simpler (but larger) 
> all-in-one Windows .exe is available as <link to>.

I recently read a piece on "marketing" OSS and associated
blunders (Sebastian read it, too, and as a consequence the
wiki now has a big "download" button right on the front page
;-)   One of the things they stressed is that most users
just want to download when they click download and there
needs to be a short and concise path to the actual file
download. Many of us know the tangled web one gets into when
trying to download from, say, sourceforge.

So, while the above differentiation and description is good
I wonder whether we shouldn't interpose too many
informational pages between when the user first clicks
"yeah, I want to download" and "now the download starts".

Karsten
-- 
GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346