Re: evangelist users- the other key note from LCA marketing BOF

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Thu, 19 May 2005 21:15:31 +0200
Marcus Bauer <mbauer tiscali fr> wrote:

> Some major flaws in current gnome marketing:
>
> Gnome does not really promote its ease of use. Havoc's README that
> comes with the metacity package simply needs to be polished up into a
> press-printable form (shorter, less rant, less technical).

I already pointed out a GNOME agenda (a paper on goals) would be useful to
attract more developers, and use it as a kind of reference for design
decisions.

Maybe you could move the README into the wiki so it could be polished?

> KDE embraces Gnome apps where there is no equivalent (gimp,inkscape)
> as well as technology (gnome-volume-manager). These apps are often not
> perceived as Gnome apps from KDE users. So one just needs to tell
> them ;-)

With an application that allows configuration of KDE apps, we'd be able
to do the same. There was once somebody who wanted to do something alike
but he probably stopped his efforts.

> The Gnome website is - what? It exists. But from a marketing point of
> view it is not much. The navigation is sub optimal. And the layout is
> sub optimal. Some good information is now on gnomefiles but unless you
> know what you are looking for it is far from perfect.

I already pointed this out several times. However, the problem is the
infrastructure: You don't get many Python hackers for web design, and
all PHP hackers have lost interest a long time ago. There's even a sort
of official decision not to deploy _any_ web 'application'.

You can even find people complaining about the live.gnome.org wiki even
on the foundation mailing list, suggesting to use MediaWiki. But since
it's PHP, it was probably not even considered in the beginning.

I also tried two times to get a gnome application listing site
'accepted' - the first mockup presented roughly two month before
gnomefiles started - but all I recieved was a simple 'No, we want
something else'. No explanation what they wanted, and no hint what to
improve to get your own solution accepted.

Right now there's another guy on the web-hackers list trying to solve
the problem but I guess it will end in a similar 'decision' to do
nothing.

One simply looses interest when you get such 'feedback'.

Cheers, 
Claus