Re: [gNewSense-users] Sugestion on Website

[Sam Geeraerts]

Koh Choon Lin wrote:
> Hi!
>
> > I was checking at the forum, and i find that we have a rise of incoming
> > users (:)), most of them kind of new to the 100% free software concept.
>
> While the purpose of gNewSense is to provide a completely free operating 
> system, it is not the goal to explain in details the philosophy of free 
> software. As such, I recommend linking GNU and FSF articles to provide a brief 
> explanation of what free software is about. RMS's writings are more than 
> sufficient and easy enough to read for even beginners to the free world.

I agree that explaining the whole philosophy is not the primary goal of 
gNewSense. But we do need to explain enough so that users know what this 
project is about. You can't just say "gNewSense is 100% Free Software. 
Now go read some essays about that over there [link to FSF/GNU]". People 
will get bored or tired (or even scared) before even attempting to read 
any further.

If we want to explain our goal to geeks then pages like 
http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Mission and 
http://wiki.gnewsense.org/Main/WhyFreeSoftware do a nice job, although 
it wouldn't hurt to put them more in the spotlight.

If we want to reach a broad audience and do some marketing, then a good 
look at Ubuntu is in order. It would be nice if we could come up with a 
short catchphrase that just about captures the essence of the project 
(like "Linux for Human Beings"). That should be on the front page, with 
some fancy design (didn't we already have a new design by the way?) and 
the logo. Slap some buttons on there to link to:

- Mission / Find out more: no more than 2 paragraphs explaining Free 
Software and it's importants in crystal clear Teletubbie terms (e.g. not 
even mentioning source code)
- Screenshots (not very useful of course, but everybody loves screenshots)
- FAQ
- Translations (ideally detect preferred language)
- Download
- News
- Community (or two links: "Get support" and "Get involved")

The people from the FSF, GNU and especially those from GNU/Linux Matters 
do a great job explaining about Free software. But new users are easily 
confused. For example, if gNewSense would point to softwareliberty.com, 
which points to getgnulinux.org, which points to Ubuntu, then does that 
mean that it's better to use Ubuntu than gNewSense? Even bringing up 
another website for an explanation about the project might be scary for 
some people. That's why I think it's better to have the basic 
information on our own website.

I realize that this is a lot of hard work, especially from people with 
creative skills. But I think it would do a lot to attract more users 
(and contributors).