Re: [Savannah-hackers] Re: www: GIF files

[Leonard H. Tower Jr.]

   Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 17:03:39 +0100
   From: Loic Dachary <address@hidden>
   Cc: address@hidden

I don't understand why this came from address@hidden and not
the webmasters.  It seems the webmaster's responsibility.

   Leonard H. Tower Jr. writes:
    > Hi GNUers,

   > 2A) My project "http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/www/"; is the whole
   > site, and all the files you list are really controlled by others.
   > 
   > 2B) There are others in the project team.  Did they get this e-mail?
   > It be less confusing, if you made who got the message clear!

           I think sending this mail to people registered to the www was
   a mistake. It won't happen again. Instead, a report will be sent to
   address@hidden, just listing the GIF files that exist. Or if it's
   too much trouble no report will be sent at all.

           Cheers,

   Loic   Dachary         http://www.dachary.org/  address@hidden

* It was not a mistake.  It was just confusing.  There are files and
directories that the www group are in charge of, are the original
authors for.  Optimally the two would be distinguished, so the www
group is aware of what the rest of the www.gnu.org groups are being
asked to do - assuming of course, that they didn't issue the message
in the first place.

* It be clearer, if one piece of mail was sent to everyone in a
group, instead of a separate piece of mail to each member of the
group.  This let's a group decide who does the work, and prevents
several people from trying to do it at the same time.

* No answer:
    > 1) JPEG is a better format to use then PNG.  All browsers display
    > JPEG.  Many browsers do not display PNG.  In this case, it's more
    > important to communicate, then spread the word.

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html shows that browser support,
even among the top three browsers (MSIE, Navigator, Mozilla) is still
poor or only fair for PNG.

The FSF also wants www.gnu.org to be reachable to everyone, just not
technical types.  The reason is that the FSF wants everyone to support
free software and understand why it is so important.

Most people ONLY upgrade their browsers, when they buy a new computer,
or if they absolutely have to.  This means that the average age of the
installed browser database is several years old.  Which means that where
you convert to PNG as the default, most people will not see the
graphics, which makes the FSF and it's message looks sloppy.  And
presentation, quality presentation, is a key way to help convince
people to take you seriously.  

The way this GIF elimination is being done is hurting the FSF, not
helping it.

* No answer:
    > 3) Converting the files is NOT sufficient,  You also have to change
    > all references to it in the *.html files and elsewhere.  You make no
    > note of this need.  You also offer no tools to help make the job
    > easier.
I checked several of the pages where the GIF-> conversion was
done.  The HTML source code has not been changed.  The graphic is not
being displayed.  BUG.

* No answer.  Confusion remains:
    > 2B) There are others in the project team.  Did they get this e-mail?
    > It be less confusing, if you made who got the message clear!

* No answer:
    > 4) Did you test this out on just one project first?  Or did you do
    > them all?  Testing is as important for web site maintenance as it is
    > for software development and maintenance.

More sloppiness?

best -len
 
The two messages of interest for the webmasters:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 13:36:05 -0500 (EST)
From: address@hidden (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
To: address@hidden
In-reply-to: <address@hidden>
        (address@hidden)
Subject: Re: www: GIF files

Hi GNUers,

0) I helped write http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html.

1) JPEG is a better format to use then PNG.  All browsers display
JPEG.  Many browsers do not display PNG.  In this case, it's more
important to communicate, then spread the word.

2A) My project "http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/www/"; is the whole
site, and all the files you list are really controlled by others.

2B) There are others in the project team.  Did they get this e-mail?
It be less confusing, if you made who got the message clear!

3) Converting the files is NOT sufficient,  You also have to change
all references to it in the *.html files and elsewhere.  You make no
note of this need.  You also offer no tools to help make the job
easier.

4) Did you test this out on just one project first?  Or did you do
them all?  Testing is as important for web site maintenance as it is
for software development and maintanence.

best -len

Re:

From: address@hidden
Subject: www: GIF files
To: address@hidden
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 12:50:48 -0500

    Hi,

    Could you please remove the following GIF files from the project
www hosted on the GNU machines ? 

    For an explanation on why there are not GIF files on the GNU
machines read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html. This policy was
established years ago by the GNU project and is an integral part of
the requirements for every project registering on savannah.gnu.org
(see http://savannah.gnu.org/register/requirements.php).

    The home page of your project is 
      http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/www/

    You can convert GIF files to PNG using the gif2png program.
      http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/gif2png/gif2png-2.4.2.tar.gz

    Here is a sample script to convert the GIF files that are in
your web pages to PNG.

    export CVS_RSH=ssh
    cvs -d address@hidden:/webcvs co 
    cd 

    while read file 
    do
        gif2png -O $file.gif
        cvs delete -f $file.gif
        cvs add $file.png
    done <<'EOF'
software/cfengine/cfconsole/cfconsole
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/img1
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/img2
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/img3
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/img4
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/l2h22381/img1
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/l2h22543/img2
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/l2h22543/img3
software/cfengine/cfengine-NT/l2h22543/img4
software/gnumeric/gnumeric3
software/gnumeric/gnumeric4
software/gnumeric/gnumeric5
software/gnumeric/gnumeric6
software/gnumeric/gnumeric7
software/gnumeric/gnumeric8
software/lilypond/docxx/down
software/lilypond/docxx/icon1
software/lilypond/docxx/icon2
software/lilypond/docxx/logo
software/mswordview/mswordview
software/nosql/NoSQL
EOF
    cvs commit -m 'Convert GIF to PNG'

        Thanks for your help,

        The GNU volunteers, address@hidden
----------------------------------------------------------------------