Re: draft GNOME 2.10 press release

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 12:48 -0500, Luis Villa wrote:
> FYI to everyone, I'm currently completing a new draft of the release,
> what I have is attached. Murray, I've taken your framework and rebuilt
> it quite a bit, I hope I'm not trampling on your toes too much.

No problem. It seems good. Would you like to take over responsibility
for the press release? I'm a lazy delegater.

Some of the awkwardness of the quotes results from trying to squeeze
everyone's points into them. I still kind of like "worked hard so you
don't have to", because it gets 2 ideas into few words.

Straightforward writing interests me personally, so I'd replace, for
instance, "continues to improve" with "improves", "continues to
demonstrate" with "shows", and "helping make" with "makes", "distracting
or confusing" with "confusing", "that have been added" with "added",
etc. It's the principle of less words is better. I'd also avoid words
like "power" where they have no obvious meaning.

I'd also try to break up some long sentences. You can do that by
breaking some sentences at the ands and buts. But I guess PR people
don't need to write only for narrow newspaper columns anymore, so styles
change.

The autodetection of "servers" on local networks is
- gnomemeeting detects other gnomemeeting users.
- Some games detect networked players
 
By the way, I don't mind adding .doc exports for the disadvantaged, but
let's not use it as a primary format.

> 
> Some notes on John's comments:
> 
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 09:47:51 +1300, John Williams
> <JWilliams business otago ac nz> wrote:
> > "The GNOME architects have worked hard for the past six months, so you
> > don't have to, fixing over 1200 reported bugs"
> > 
> > Should be replaced with
> > 
> > "The GNOME architects have worked hard for GNOME users over the past six
> > months, fixing over 1200 reported bugs"
> > 
> > (I suspect that is a made-up quote, i.e. Elijah didn't actually say
> > that)
> 
> It is just generally so awkward that I dropped it altogether, and put:
> 
> "* Continued polish and stability work. GNOME 2.10 will include
> literally thousands of bug fixes and usability improvements that have
> been added since GNOME 2.8 was released in September."
> 
> in a revamped 'feature' list. The entire list in my draft is at the
> end of this email.
> 
> > Add to:
> > 
> > GNOME makes stable releases every six months according to a reliable
> > schedule, allowing ISVs and distributors to plan their own products with
> > confidence.
> > 
> > With:
> > 
> > Planning and development of GNOME is conducted in publicly available
> > electronic forums, such as open email lists, WWW pages and IRC channels.
> 
> Hrm. I like this, but it just seems awkward in the context of the
> press release. Maybe in the 'About GNOME' section? My current
> paragraph on release goes like this:
> 
> "In keeping with GNOME's 'users first' philosophy, GNOME makes stable
> releases every six months, which gets improvements to users rapidly,
> and allows ISVs and distributors to plan their GNOME-based products
> with confidence. As a result of this predictability, leading
> distributions like Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu have planned to include
> GNOME 2.10 in the next release of their products, getting GNOME out to
> millions of users."
> 
> > Replace:
> > 
> > "GNOME 2.10's enhancements and attention to detail total to an even
> > better user experience", said Owen Taylor, GNOME Foundation chairperson.
> > "The addition of multimedia applications complements that."
> > 
> > With
> > 
> > "GNOME 2.10's enhancements and attention to detail deliver an even
> > better user experience", said Owen Taylor, GNOME Foundation chairperson.
> > "The addition of multimedia applications showcases that."
> 
> I'd like to drop this completely in favor of one/both of the quotes
> appended at the end of this email.
>  
> > ------------------------------------
> > Replace:
> > 
> > The software includes the GNOME 2.10 desktop interface, file manager,
> > menus and utilities, as well as the complete set of development tools
> > and libraries.
> > 
> > With:
> > 
> > The software includes the GNOME 2.10 desktop interface, file manager,
> > applications and utilities, as well as the complete set of development
> > tools and libraries.
> 
> Done. Current availability section from my draft:
> 
> "Availability
> GNOME 2.10 will soon be available as part of most popular Linux
> distributions. For those who can't wait, the new GNOME LiveCD
> (available from www.gnome.org/start/2.10/) will allow users and other
> interested parties to test the latest GNOME desktop by burning a CD
> and rebooting- no installation necessary. It is a great way to get a
> view of the latest and greatest in the Linux desktop, not just GNOME.
> 
> Developers and advanced users wishing to install the GNOME 2.10
> Desktop and Developer Platform now may freely download the software at
> www.gnome.org.  The software includes the source code for the GNOME
> 2.10 desktop interface, file manager, applications and utilities, as
> well as a complete set of development tools and libraries."
> 
> > ------------------------------------
> > The "About GNOME" section really, really needs some information on
> > adoption.  An estimate of the number of users, and a few major corporate
> > and governmental installations, would help tremendously.
> > 
> > I know estimating users is hard.  Most vendors seem to use number of
> > downloads as a proxy.  Can we do this?
> 
> If we counted only number of downloads, we'd be hosed- the vast
> majority of our end-users wouldn't and shouldn't know how to download
> an entire desktop :)
> 
> > Hope this helps
> 
> thanks a ton, John.
> 
> My current feature list:
> 
> "Key features users can look forward to:
> * An integrated video player, one-click CD 'ripping', and improved
> media format support, helping make the Linux desktop's multimedia
> support more competitive with the leading proprietary operating
> systems.
> * More auto-detection of hardware and servers [FIXME: servers? what is
> the example here?], continuing to demonstrate GNOME's focus on
> software that 'Just Works' without distracting or confusing users.
> * Better integration between applications, including improved links
> between GNOME apps [FIXME: what are the examples here?] and new
> implementations of cross-platform standards that improve both the user
> and ISV experience.
> * The release of version 1.0 of the GNOME Onscreen Keyboard (gok),
> marking a major milestone for the accessibility of the free software
> desktop.
> * Continued polish and stability work. GNOME 2.10 will include
> literally thousands of bug fixes and usability improvements that have
> been added since GNOME 2.8 was released in September."
> 
> I have two quotes I've got in, one unsourced ATM:
> 
> "This GNOME release is exciting. Not only is GNOME continuing to fix
> problems for end users, but by working with other free software
> communities like freedesktop.org, GStreamer, ans GTK, all of which
> have improvements demonstrated in this release, GNOME is helping drive
> forward the entire Free Software desktop." I'm thinking it would be
> great to source this from Jim, Keith, one of the fluendo guys, or
> (dream world) someone from GuadaLinux or Linex.
> 
> "We're putting our money where our mouth is", said Luis Villa, GNOME
> Foundation Board member. "Instead of talking about vaporware that
> users and ISVs may or may not see in 2005, or 2006, or 2007, GNOME's
> regular release process is getting visible improvements to users twice
> a year, something no proprietary desktop vendor matches."
> 
> Sort of aggressive but I like it ;)
> 
> Note on the attachment: it is .doc because I opened it in OOo 2.0,
> which (mind-blowingly) seems to export .sxws which OOo 1.1 can't read.
> Abi seems to have problems importing the exported version,
> unfortunately. Yargh. Attaching several versions....
> 
> Luis
-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com