Re: 2.10 release notes

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 14:48 +0100, Claus Schwarm wrote: 
> Hi,
>
> first, thanks very much for the answer. :-)
>
> You've asked for critic about the last release notes. I'll concentrate
> on the 2.8 release if you don't mind, including the press release.
> Forgive me any mistakes. I don't follow the releases very closely due to
> being a Debian user.
>
> Release notes
> -------------
>
>  * First of all, the webpage menu on the right changed after I clicked
> the link for the release notes, but I didn't see that. As a result, I
> thought the release notes is just the first page. That appeared to be a
> little bit short. A finishing sentence like "The next pages show ... "
> or "Read on to learn more about ...." would be helpful.

Very good point. 

>  * In general, the important stuff (What's new?) is on a single page,
> while the rest of the pages is just uninteresting stuff
> (Internationalization, Standards Compliance, Looking to GNOME 2.xx and
> Beyond, Getting Involved.) A re-organization might be useful, especially
> if we point the press to it. Internationalization, Standards Compliance,
> and Docs could be combined into "Base features" or something alike.

Or maybe it's good to list them as major points 

>  * I'm not used to bugzilla: Is there any way to generate numbers from
> it? Such as "234 feature requests, 5685 bugs, as well
> as 23 potential security issues have been fixed"?

Yes. We usually try to do that, but the relevant people did not have
time for 2.8.

>  * Concerning "Installation of GNOME 2.8": If we want people to use
> GARNOME, we should present the information earlier. Too much to scroll
> to get there.

We don't want people to build stable stuff from source at all, and we
don't pretend that there is any easy way for people to do it, and I
think we make that clear. The placement of Garnome on that page is not
ideal, but I fear that we'd be encouraging people to use it if we put it
at the top. I'd prefer not to mention it at all, and add a link to our
"testing" pages for unstable GNOME for people who really want to get
into all that. 

>  * I missed version numbers on the dependency list.

We should link to the release directories with the tarballs themselves
here as well as from the first page.

>  * In fact, I had the impression that the description is stripped down
> for newbies. People that read release notes are used to read funny
> words, such as HAL. As long as these are explained, this is no
> problem. It even adds a technical touch which makes it more exciting.

Personally, I think we are aiming at users, not developers, and I think
that users will stop reading quite soon after they read one or two words
that they don't understand, or that they don't find interesting. 

This is meant to be targeted at the silent majority of people who don't
read gnomedesktop or planet.gnome.org. The people who do will know
what's happening anyway.

>  * Network features could be explained in more common words. I might be
> mistaken but desktop users usually don't know about LANs, and I don't
> expect all journalists to know how this works. "This allows you to view
> locally-available shares in your Network view." means nothing to me if I
> don't know what "shares" are.

Yes, good point.

>  Is this the same as "This allows you to
> share files and directories on your local harddisk with others
> via a network."?
>
>  * "What's new" seems to follow a certain layout: Desktop, Control
> Center, Applications, System Administration, and Platform Improvements.
> "New applications" is probably the most important news. Organize
> accordingly.
>
>
> Press release
> -------------
>
>  * The quotes are usual boring management talk.

Yes, we couldn't get approval for real quotes in time, so we had to make
up some generic quotes that the individuals could not possible disagree
with.

However, I think quotes are what get printed, so quotes are a good way
to restate our major advantages. It's best to do that well though.

>  Quotes are used not just
> for convinience to journalists, but also to get a little bit of "spirit"
> in a press release.

I agree.

>  But developers are expected to be emotional about
> their own work. Jeff Waugh's quotes at the zdnet article are much better
> [1].
>
>  * Standard stuff ("GNOME is supported [...] worldwide.") should be in
> the "about" paragraph.

Yeah, I guess so.

>  * Concentrate on a short list of exciting topics, not a boring list of
> stuff that's new.

But this is all about what's new.

>  Example: "The ability to develop GNOME software in
> C++, Java, Perl, and Python, as well as C." This reads as if it's usual
> to be able to use all these languages. AFAIK,  this is not the case.
> I miss the news factor in such sentences.

I don't quite understand. Maybe you could suggest a rewording. 

>  * Do we translate press releases?

No, but that's a very good suggestion. If we finish it early enough this time then I'll ask the 
internationalization team to provide translations.

>  Does the Novell wire includes
> national press?

You mean non-US press? I'll ask Leslie Proctor.

> This is all I can think of right now. I sure, other members of the list
> can add more suggestions.

Thanks.

-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com