Re: WGO : GNOME Software Map

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Gergely Nagy">

> 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

Yeah, modulo the expansive view of 'products' rather than 'applications'. I
want to see these pages as the #1 hit in Google for their product name. That
implies a few things:

 * These pages need to be useful for users - they should link to everything
   about the product that is relevant, be it documentation, bug trackers,
   downloads, news, whatever. They're basically mini websites.

 * These pages need to be easily maintained by maintainers and web hackers.
   A fairly big chunk of the information can still be machine processed even
   if we're not looking at the plaid, database style gnomefiles/download.com
   model.

 * We need to know what is the primary site and what's not, or change the
   game. For instance, basically none of the Novell sponsored apps will be
   on here because they have their own sites - is that a good thing?

 * It must be awesome enough for maintainers to want to host their product
   pages here.

 * Distros and other places that point to product websites should all be
   using these, if they're the primary pages for the product.

I'm starting to think 'structured wiki' (some people call this a semantic or
application wiki) more than anything else, in terms of how to approach the
problem. Make it easy to create a basic project site, automate the boring
things like cvs/bugzilla/documentation links, but also make it flexible for
the needs of the product... Because /desktop/ will be different to /gedit/.

(Just throwing thoughts into the ring, really.)

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia           http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
 
   "Everyone says they like Free Software - not everyone is ready to make
         the tough choices to make it happen." - Maciej Stachowiak