From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 30 05:51:20 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCC5616A4CF for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 05:51:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp0.euronet.nl (smtp0.euronet.nl [194.134.35.141]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95A8E43D58 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 05:51:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dodell@sitetronics.com) Received: from sitetronics.com (zp-c-13e65.mxs.adsl.euronet.nl [81.69.92.101]) by smtp0.euronet.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4769824811; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:51:19 +0200 (MEST) Message-ID: <40697A82.2070402@sitetronics.com> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:47:46 +0200 From: "Devon H. O'Dell" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Paul Robinson References: <002f01c4165c$a0c0d1d0$6f01a8c0@miter.local> In-Reply-To: <002f01c4165c$a0c0d1d0$6f01a8c0@miter.local> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Website X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 13:51:21 -0000 Paul Robinson wrote: > [snip; poor formatting] > > > Well, this is the problem FreeBSD generally has. A lot of people would > actually like to see more developers move to FreeBSD and contribute to > the project. It then follows that as the "product" improves, we are able > to see a rise in the number of users. Pedantic, yes, but I'm becoming > less convinced of the need for us to get FreeBSD onto the family PC. I > would like to see it on a lot more developer's desks though. And in more companies. FreeBSD is already used by many (large) companies (including those in the Fortune 500). I know that even MS uses FreeBSD for the SFU software. > [snip; poor formatting] > > > Won't you expect the competition's product to be a better alternative to > the one you currently use? Do you honestly believe that OS choice is > dependent on what the website looks like? If so, how did Mandrake ever > take off? I have to agree here. > [snip; poor formatting] >> the moment it looks like a three column url listing with no >> really strong visual cues to things important to capturing, >> converting, and supporting new users. > > > Well, you know what the answer is then, don't you? You can grab the > source, talk to the web team, produce a better version. Remember it has > to be readable in text browsers, conform to WAI and Internationalisation > standards and everyone has to agree by mutual consent it's a better > design than the existing one. AMEN. This is a bikeshed that gets discussed every 6 or so months. Search advocacy@, doc@ and any number of other mailing lists for the amount of complaints about the webpage. As per the suggestion always posted that the FreeBSD page is too ``simple,'' my answer remains: http://www.google.com http://www.sun.com Simple, huh? As I stated on your other thread regarding the post on the ZDNet.au site; if you can't put up, shut up. I say that in a coarse manner not to be obtuse, but to discourage you and others from continuing with a bikeshed that nobody seems to care to fix. If you want to make a new site for FreeBSD, make a template, see what you can do, but don't expect it to be used. > [snip] Kind regards, Devon H. O'Dell