Re: happy birthday GNOME website!

[Juanjo Marín <juanjomarin96 yahoo es>]

----- Mensaje original -----
> De: Diego Escalante Urrelo <diegoe gnome org>
> Para: karen gnome org
> CC: marketing-list gnome org
> Enviado: Viernes 10 de agosto de 2012 17:56
> Asunto: Re: happy birthday GNOME website!
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Karen Sandler <karen gnome org> wrote:
>> 
>>  I'll email jrb and see if there are any materials they have that we 
> should
>>  use from their talk (maybe we can post their talk, actually).
> 
> We can ping the GUADEC team and ask them if they could have that
> keynote published in advance of the others.
> 
> Also, I think that some infographics+screenshots can be enough to
> produce awesomeness.
> 
> I could think of a slideshow or vertical scroll which goes through the
> most important GNOME versions by date (we won´t be able to get
> screenshots of everything). Each "slide" has the screenshot, a small
> memory of the context of it (from GUADEC talk) and perhaps a small
> graph (this could also be independent) of contributors, commits. The
> last one might be too tricky for the short time we have.
> 
> So I think we would have to write:
> 1. the main text on the top of the page
> 2. the memory for each screenshot
> 3. some other patches
>
> I would decide now which versions we want to have on display, proposal:
> 1.4 = the last 1.x GNOME, shows off the "age of options", emphasis on
> "the beginnings"
> 2.0 = the flamed 2.x release, with comments on the many activity it
> had, emphasis on "dare to change"
> 2.14 = the midpoint of the 2.x cycle (right?), emphasis on
> "progressive evolution"
> 3.0 = the flamed 3.0 release, emphasis on "a new vision" (or something
> that says we were brave enough to pursue our ideas)
> 3.4 = the 1 year after release of the 3.x series, emphasis on "vision
> keeps going"

I like the idea. We have to talk about the length of the texts.

Germán Poó has some old virtual machines. Maybe it would be good idea to offer a virtual machine to try it. He has GNOME 1.0.56, 1.2 and 1.4. They are based in Red Hat. Version 1.0.56  (qemu image) and 1.2 (linux 2.2, vmdk) are tricky to run. Version 1.4 (linux 2.4, vmdk) is easy to run, so I think is perfect for us. The user is gnome, password gnomehistory (same for root). If people like the idea, we can prepare other VMs of the other GNOME versions based on different distros. I think if we do this, we should use the OVF/OVA format.

http://calcifer.org/tmp/vm/

About the text, I have a selection of urls that can help to the process:

* Story of the early days of GNOME
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/gnome-history.html

* dates of the versions of gnome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME

* release notes:
http://www-old.gnome.org/press/releases/

* Press reviews of dot zero GNOME versions:
http://www.osnews.com/story/1280/A_User_s_First_Look_at_GNOME_2_0
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/ars-reviews-gnome-30-a-shiny-new-ornament-for-your-linux-lawn/

* GNOME in the Academia:
http://libresoft.es/publications/2005-developer-identification-msr
https://hostdb.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/382v-s08/papers/german.pdf
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262562278chap11.pdf
http://www.alialmossawi.com/ali_almossawi_thesis_final.pdf

As a side note, reading an old interview to Miguel de Icaza in GNOME 1.X days, I really like this reply:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/00/04/03/2344211/miguel-de-icaza-tells-all

"I understand that for a seasoned Unix user GNOME might not bring a new
paradigm for their way they work, but you have to think differently.
You have to think how many people have or will be able to run free
software on their desktops because it is easier to use. 
We do plan on continuing improving GNOME, and catering to the needs of
the people who are just starting to use computers and just starting to
use GNU/Linux."

because I think this can be told in the GNOME 2 and 3 days  :-)

Cheers,

     -- Juanjo Marin