Re: Sourceforge page purpose

[Frederico S. Muñoz]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 10:08:58AM -0800, Jeff Bailey wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 03:15:54PM +0000, Frederico S. Muqoz wrote:
> 
> > The hurd.sf.net page should be independent of the gnu.org one, in the
> > sense that it should be continued ad also provided information to
> > users/developers; having said that, there's no need to say that any
> > content that get's into sourceforge's page can be used in gnu.org page.
> > The trick here is: the gnu.org page is an official page for the
> > GNU/Hurd, and as such IMHO it should focus on more mature things (not as
> > mature as 4 years, but things that aren't totally experimental and that
> > could even lead to nowhere), while at the same time following every
> > gnu.org policy in the book and, in fact, being the central and principal
> > page for users, developers and ppl that want to know about the Hurd; the
> > sf.net page could, since it's unofficial, include things that are much,
> > much more immature, and also contain links to things that fall short of
> > gnu policy (e.g. VMWare install instructions, for example).
> 
> I concur that we cannot include things like VMWare instructions on 
> gnu.org's site. =)
> 

Ehe, indeed, and that's the Right Thing :)


> In any place where gnu.org's style guides get in our way, I intend to 
> seek permission to bypass them.  I believe that we will get permission 
> to do this.  (Most notably, the thing is going to be filled with style 
> sheets, etc.)

I most confesse that I still wasn't able to find the standards for gnu
web pages after browsing the site for a while; still, I can imagine
what they are, and in general I tend to agree with them (wich is
strange if I don't know what they are, talk about blindingly
follow... ;)). Still, as you said, bypass some of them we must
(following your grand scheme of things), CSS being the obvious example
(and the use of tables). 


> 
> My vision for the hurd.gnu.org page is that it should reflect the state 
> of the operating system, and be useful for developpers, new people, and 
> people who just want to casually use it.  It should be distribution 
> independant (and include instructions on how to make your own 
> distribution from scratch).  Sadly, if we restrict ourselves to "mature" 
> items, we'll have a blank under construction sign there for probably 
> another 2 years.


When I said mature items I was not refering to rock-solid things, just
that things that are useful for developers and otherwise would be
unreasonable to put elsewhere. As I said before I'm not even the
project leader of the page (I've talked with both Marcus and Brent
meanwhile) and they possibly could explain this better than me (I hope
that my english doesn't get in the way of proper communication).

Anyway, the idea I was trying to convey was that I do *not* consider
the hurd.gnu page as being static, frozen, etc; it should be vivid,
rich, up-to-date, dynamic and so on. The fact that the sf.net page
will link a lot to it is a sign of that; bear in mind that is the two
pages shared indeed the same contents exctly, and behaved the same
way, there shouldn't be a use for it, but I think that the Hurd is
complex enough to bear several pages with different approaches (the
hurd.gnu one being the centre-piece of the whole thing, IMHO).


> 
> It's good to clarify this.  I certainly hope that some day we'll converge 
> and have everything together on the master site, but I'm patient. =)
> 

Ehe, as I said before, any contents that is introduced in any page in
the world could be introduced to the hurd.gnu page, that's not an
issue. The master site should indeed be a rich and complete source of
GNU Hurd information. For example, I can see the hurd.gnu page
reacting to publications about the hurd in a quick way; some other
pages prolly won't care so much; others wll not care at all, and only
focus on some obscure aspect of porting the Hurd to a pacemaker. 
The sf page is an example, it will not, IMHO get in the way at all of
the hurd.gnu page, by the contrary (I know, I'm repeating myself again
and again).


> > There is a need for a page that could be fed with all sorts of contents
> > without much care, and I think that that is sf.net page purpose (don't
> > mistake this with a bad-maintained page).
> 
> This is very much how the hurd.gnu.org site is going to be.  I want it to 
> track current events, talk about the current state of the tree.  Talk 
> about the neatest things *as they are happening*.  I want to have 
> interviews, audio recordings, and eventually have a central place for all 
> of the splinter groups that will eventually form, and all of the users 
> groups to come together and show their stuff.
> 

You see, I'm right after all :) This is not the way the sf.net page
will be at all, so there :P :)))

I'm begining to see your vision, and I'm getting thrilled by the
idea... to have a GNU Hurd page that both graphically and in dynamics
matches any of the Linux pages (mind you, I'm also not implying any
competition here). 

It's a beautifull vision indeed. My  personal experience is that the
lack of that sort of visibility leads ppl to think that the Hurd is
not even actively supported by the FSF (I've heard some comments on
this regards), and even that it's plainly dead (I saw a page today
that was a RMS bio and had a time-table; it stated: 1992:blabla Linux
blablabla; the Hurd project is severely struck. 1994: blablabla the
Hurd is dead). That page would change things I think.

Also, why the hell there isn't a simple GNU Hurd link on the main page
anymore? I can understand it if it is because the page is dated,
otherwise it only gives strenght to the kind of views stated above.


> The GNU site has tended to restrict itself to stuffy, sparse content.  I 
> beleive this needs to change.

The ideas that were behind that were prolly good ones, and they still
are; the thing is, a page that is to be viewed with any browser can
nowadays contain a lot more features; lynx and w3 are generally the
things to worry about, and they cope with tables, CSS, whatever (in
fact the only thing that get's in the way is Netscape 4.x). 

>  Our site will be the first one.  I'm 
> working out how to drive the thing from a database so that we can fine 
> tune who has access to change what and minimize the risk of losing a 
> professional level of polish.


The professional level of polish as always been kind of a 'trademark'
(arrgh, wrong word :) ) of GNU in general, at least to me.


> 
> > As I said previously I'm also available to any work on the hurd.gnu.org
> > page (in fact to any gnu.org work that is needed), and I could even
> > migrate any contents that get's into sf.net page; bear in mind that that
> > page will be linked to the gnu.org one in a lot of points, the good
> > thing about having that extra page is that sf. also makes available
> > several extra facilities).
> 
> I appreciate that.  My vision requires a fair amount of work, but much of 
> it is simple enough given enough bodies to help with different sections 
> of the site.  I want us to be able to carry on, even when people go on 
> hollidays, quit, or dissapear for any other reason.

Of course. Everybodies experience is that the initial drive usually
lasts for a short ammount of time; I know that, it has happened to me,
although in circunstances were I wasn't deeply commited.

> 
> Does this make sense?  It might be worth noting that I've spent the past 
> 2 years building portals for the second largest media company in Canada.  
> I'm looking to apply alot of what I've learned to this site.
>

Well, that's funny indeed. I'm also making a portal here in Portugal,
rather big, and will supposedly make 3 more (if I don't get fired
first, that is). 

As I said, I'm beginning to see your view. It's a good view from where
I'm standing. It's a view that must become a reality.


Best Regards,


fsm

-- 
Frederico S. Muñoz              GNU     http://www.gnu.org
address@hidden  Debian  http://www.debian.org

http://sdf.lonestar.org - SDF Public Access Unix Systems

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