Re: [Gimp-developer] wtf with the download?

[Robert Krawitz <rlk alum mit edu>]

On Fri, 08 May 2015 02:16:47 +0200, Michael Schumacher wrote:
> On 05/07/2015 09:39 PM, C R wrote:
> > > Yes, and to also force Bittorrent knowledge upon users.
> >
> > If I were a new user, I'd Google "torrent" and immediately get links for
> > Pirate Bay and other dodgy stuff... nothing having to do with GIMP. 
>
> Exactly.
>
> The torrent files for GIMP are there to explicitly provide
> examples that are different to e.g. movie downloads - to make sure that
> this download method is not inherently linked to those.

To what end?  Is this to help GIMP users in some way, or to promote
BitTorrent for reasons unrelated to GIMP per se?  If it's the latter,
it has the feel of "bundleware", the various "helpful" add-ons that
are included with all too many freeware downloads.  I realize there's
not the same kind of commercial tie-in, but it has the same effect of
trying to foist something on the user that isn't going to make his or
her life any easier.

> > Thought we were trying to prevent people from going to 3rd party
> > websites and downloading viruses accidentally. Having to install a
> > 3rd party downloader just to install GIMP is a pretty big hurdle for
> > a lot of people, and they are likely to encounter lots of dangerous
> > DOWNLOAD NOW buttons. ;) It takes trust in two different software
> > packages just to install one program.
>
> Yes, this is a problem - and the current way of linking the Wikipedia
> Bittorrent clients list is not as good as linking one particular safe
> client for the current platform.
>
> For example, I pondered to go for Deluge for Windows, but didn't want to
> remove people's choices in favor of my own personal preference - but if
> there is some general agreement on good client options, we may link them
> directly.

It also forces users to go through a bunch of extra steps for no
purpose that's going to make their GIMP-using lives any easier: select
a client (the wikipedia page really is all but useless for someone
who's not particularly savvy already), hope that it's not yet another
Trojan horse (the wikipedia page itself says that there are some
clients that were discovered to be Trojans), download it, install it,
and go through an unfamiliar procedure just to download GIMP.  This is
going to be more difficult for people to do than simply search el G00G
for "gimp", find somewhere else to download it from more easily...and
that download has all kinds of uglies bundled with it.  The
combination of said uglies and association of GIMP with various
unsavory things linked to BitTorrent would be a big turnoff for a lot
of people.  More persistent people will notice that there are direct
download links without the complexity, but what's the gain from
forcing people to go through this extra hassle?

> P.S. can you make your mail client reply to the list directly, instead
> of cc'ing it?

The list needs to set the reply-to: to make that work.
-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk alum mit edu>

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