Re: Sourceforge page purpose

[Jeff Bailey]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 03:15:54PM +0000, Frederico S. Muqoz wrote:

> The hurd.sf.net page should be independent of the gnu.org one, in the
> sense that it should be continued ad also provided information to
> users/developers; having said that, there's no need to say that any
> content that get's into sourceforge's page can be used in gnu.org page.
> The trick here is: the gnu.org page is an official page for the
> GNU/Hurd, and as such IMHO it should focus on more mature things (not as
> mature as 4 years, but things that aren't totally experimental and that
> could even lead to nowhere), while at the same time following every
> gnu.org policy in the book and, in fact, being the central and principal
> page for users, developers and ppl that want to know about the Hurd; the
> sf.net page could, since it's unofficial, include things that are much,
> much more immature, and also contain links to things that fall short of
> gnu policy (e.g. VMWare install instructions, for example).

I concur that we cannot include things like VMWare instructions on 
gnu.org's site. =)

In any place where gnu.org's style guides get in our way, I intend to 
seek permission to bypass them.  I believe that we will get permission 
to do this.  (Most notably, the thing is going to be filled with style 
sheets, etc.)

My vision for the hurd.gnu.org page is that it should reflect the state 
of the operating system, and be useful for developpers, new people, and 
people who just want to casually use it.  It should be distribution 
independant (and include instructions on how to make your own 
distribution from scratch).  Sadly, if we restrict ourselves to "mature" 
items, we'll have a blank under construction sign there for probably 
another 2 years.

It's good to clarify this.  I certainly hope that some day we'll converge 
and have everything together on the master site, but I'm patient. =)

> There is a need for a page that could be fed with all sorts of contents
> without much care, and I think that that is sf.net page purpose (don't
> mistake this with a bad-maintained page).

This is very much how the hurd.gnu.org site is going to be.  I want it to 
track current events, talk about the current state of the tree.  Talk 
about the neatest things *as they are happening*.  I want to have 
interviews, audio recordings, and eventually have a central place for all 
of the splinter groups that will eventually form, and all of the users 
groups to come together and show their stuff.

The GNU site has tended to restrict itself to stuffy, sparse content.  I 
beleive this needs to change.  Our site will be the first one.  I'm 
working out how to drive the thing from a database so that we can fine 
tune who has access to change what and minimize the risk of losing a 
professional level of polish.

> As I said previously I'm also available to any work on the hurd.gnu.org
> page (in fact to any gnu.org work that is needed), and I could even
> migrate any contents that get's into sf.net page; bear in mind that that
> page will be linked to the gnu.org one in a lot of points, the good
> thing about having that extra page is that sf. also makes available
> several extra facilities).

I appreciate that.  My vision requires a fair amount of work, but much of 
it is simple enough given enough bodies to help with different sections 
of the site.  I want us to be able to carry on, even when people go on 
hollidays, quit, or dissapear for any other reason.

Does this make sense?  It might be worth noting that I've spent the past 
2 years building portals for the second largest media company in Canada.  
I'm looking to apply alot of what I've learned to this site.

-- 
If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're free, you
don't have to proselytize, you just have to wait.
 - Eben Moglen