Re: WGO : GNOME Software Map

[Gergely Nagy <greg gnome hu>]

> Here's what I believe is the major mistake in the discussion: Everybody
> seems to assume that an ordinary user is interested in reading all this
> stuff on our main page.

I'd say the major "mistake" is that everybody assumes something
different :) IMHO what causes the confusion is that the goals of the SW
map have not been written down explicitly. todolist.add(swmapgoals).

The main goals site [1] says:
 * Be the primary resource of information and materials about the GNOME
project

According to this, I would assume the goal of such apps pages is to be
the one-stop authoritative info source on gnome applications, that is
translated into multiple languages. As such, I see no other existing
resource that matches.

> An ordinary user has better things to do to surf to GNOME's homepage.
> If they do, they will probably spend, well, maybe a minute or two on
> the page and that's probably an overestimation.

That's why we are trying to make it more useful ;)

Jeff: I was getting into technical details 'cause that's my table. It
was more like brainstorming ideas than making decisions already.

> Even the minority of guys and gals who are interested in this somehow,
> don't mind some pages sorted under wgo -- there's no advantage using
> some strange wgo/apps/app/ pages when gnomefiles.org lists them all,
> without the politics, but including the opportunity to exchange comments
> with other users.

My point was to not make the naming under /apps/ totally arbitrary, so
that it can be pointed to (semi)automatically from _where-ever_... For
example, if an app crashes, and we display a bug reporting dialog we
could try to guess the wgo/app/appname url (perhaps do a HTTP HEAD in
the background to see if the page actually exists--or not, for privacy's
sake) to give more info about the crashed app. Just a silly example, but
hopefully illustrates that the possibilities are endless...

Gnomefiles has an unfriendly url scheme. Try guessing the app id...
Also, gnomefiles.org is _not_ authoritative, and not translated.
Additionally, AFAIK app info can only be updated by the single person
who registered it.

> There is no need for another software map, anymore.

I think the goals are misunderstood.

> All we need are some homepages for GNOME's projects so each one can
> offer a complete collection of relevant material or links for the
> minority who *really* needs some more information. This is why
> projects.gnome.org/* makes sense -- we get it out of the way of the wgo
> revamp, and can help each projects piece by piece when there's time and
> sufficient resources. Meanwhile, they can continue doing whatever they
> do with their homepages anyway. And we can link to these pages from wgo
> if we *really* need (but with the exception of some showcase projects
> we don't need that anyway.)

I agree we need a projects.gnome.org for that purpose. I don't agree
that's all we need. That said, prgo is definitely out of scope for this
release.

> Referencing what Apple does is useless. Just because Apple offers
> these pages, who says their pages are used by any relevant amount of
> visitors?

I think apple would not make such pages it they were useless :) I don't
know many mac apps, but i know there is something like iLife. I think
it's pretty cool I can just type www.apple.com/ilife. And I think they
get it quite right just how much info is necessary to pimp their
product. Clearly we cannot just copypaste it, but it's definitely
something to look at.

> What we really should look at for reference is download.com -- when one
> count the number of applications in the sub-categories, one gets over
> 14.000 desktop applications! 14.000!
>
> And (nearly) all of them are easy to install.

I think download.com is not relevant at all for wgo. d.c was meant for
the poor souls without a proper package manager :) Also, according to
the latest, our most numerous users are in (large) deployments, who
cannot just go out and get a random app. Yet, I think they might find an
info page about their email client useful. See what cool features are in
it, etc.

> Even gnomefiles.org is miles away from download.com and this is our
> major marketing problem.

Yes and no. :)

> To summerize: People interested in a software map will probably use
> gnomefiles and/or kde-apps because these provide better overview. Those
> who are not interested (yet) in getting information about more apps are
> unlikely to visit wgo for getting detailed information that GNOME
> includes Evolution or other -- from their point of view: strange
> -- stuff. They are satiesfied when we tell them that GNOME offers a
> default E-Mail client.

Agreed, gnomefiles.org does a great job at being a software map. I see
wgo as a middle ground between the official fullblown home page of an
app (_if_ such a site exists at all!) and a spartan software map with
minimal info. Keywords here: authoritative, localized. 


Sooo, that's my point of view, looking forward to hear others. Maybe I
have it all backwards? :) 

Greg

ps: we really need to make progress on determining what will appear on
wgo. Jeff may be right after all, it's not quite the time yet to dive
head first in the technical details. Perhaps an IRC session could give
things a boost?


[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/Goals