discussion? where? well, not here...

[Andreas Pour]

Mat Colton wrote:
> 
> Navindra Umanee wrote:
> > Mat Colton <mat.colton at web-xs.de> wrote:
> > > It's fine if they're commercial. But since it doesn't belong to KDE
> > > we have no influence on the site. So maybe tomorrow they'll ask for
> > > a subscription for everything. What do we know? So IMHO I wouldn't
> > > put that on the front page.  Staying IMHO we should set up a
> > > apps.kde.org. :)
> >
> > What the hell?  We've been using the site for years on the main page
> > now.
> 
> So, because of that it will stay that way forever? Because of that it's good?

Not b/c of that, but yes, in KDE tradition has a very important role.  E.g. if
you want to remove an application from CVS it requires more than one person
saying "I don't like that program".

> I can show you millions of things that we humans have been doing for ages and
> still aren't good... I'm sure you can as well.
> Now before you turn the words in my mouth again: I am NOT saying Appsy isn't
> any good.
> 
> > It's one of the most appreciated features of www.kde.org,
> 
> I don't know anybody who goes to kde.org to get the current Appsy items. You
> do that once, then you bookmark Appsy I would think, maybe I'm wrong. But
> anyway, I find that very interesting information, how do you know that it's
> one of the most appreciated features of www.kde.org? Do you have overall
> link-off statistics? 

I can tell you that over 3,000 visitor come per day from www.kde.org, based on
the browser "referer" header anyway.  You can compare some of the other links on
front page to see if they get more hits, but I highly doubt many of them do.

Probably Navindra can give us similar stats from the dot - I remember when I was
hosting it most traffic came from www.kde.org.

> That would be an interesting thing to know. I can imagine
> that it is very interesting for a first time visitor of kde.org.

Well I actually think its a service people like to see there, even though
obviously you are not one of them :-).
 
> > and it
> > is worthy tribute to all of our application developers.  The dot
> > simply cannot fulfill the role of announcing all these applications.
> 
> I didn't claim that anywhere.
> 
> > In any case, I remember Andreas saying he would transfer the full
> > database to KDE if ever a situation arises where he can't maintain
> > usual service or KDE.com goes under.  All this stuff was already
> > discussed for the current www.kde.org.  What has changed now?
> 
> Well, take a look at Appsy going commercial. Fine with me, and I really mean
> that, but it doesn't cope with *my* idea of free software.

We can get into long debates about this, but appsy complies with any well-known
views on free software I have heard of.  Except since it does not get subsidies
and handouts the idea is to make it self-sufficient by permitting people to
volunarily contribute to the site by offering optional add-on services.

If the site ever runs afoul of accepted free software principles then I can see
your argument.

> Now, before I'm misunderstood again, of course Appsy should go on kde.org, but
> not on the front page IMHO. We won't offer the current KDE packages from the
> front page either.

Sure we do.  That's the main part of the front page ("KDE 3.0.4 Released",
etc.).

Wise web design also says to make the front page non-static.  This is a general
principle in website design.  Both the dotsy and appsy feeds have provided the
dynamic content to the www.kde.org page.
 
> > In one sentence you say the current www.kde.org is good enough, and in
> > the next you say the content isn't good enough for the new design.
> 
> What I wrote was that the old content has flaws IMHO, BUT..staying with the
> current design is better then moving on to a design which, *as a whole*,
> isn't better then the old design.

Well I would very much oppose any design which removed the most popular features
from the current design.  Since I have an ostensible conflict of interest here,
if you continue to be serious about opposing this for no good reason (some
idiosyncratic and ill-defined concept of free software doesn't cut it) I suggest
we take it to kde-eve-membership for resolution (but for my conflict of interest
I would simply add the feed in myself b/c it seems like a no-brainer to me).

Ciao,

Dre