The Website

[Paul Robinson]

Charon wrote:

> 	Hopefully a pedantic description of 'corporate' or
'professional'
> 	won't be used as a means of negating any argument.

Don't count on it. :-)
 
> 	I assume we are trying to get more people to use FreeBSD for
home,
> 	business, and other markets.

Well, this is the problem FreeBSD generally has. A lot of people would
actually like to see more developers move to FreeBSD and contribute to
the project. It then follows that as the "product" improves, we are able
to see a rise in the number of users. Pedantic, yes, but I'm becoming
less convinced of the need for us to get FreeBSD onto the family PC. I
would like to see it on a lot more developer's desks though.
 
> 	Theres also the factor of belief reinforcement. For example, if
I
> 	am looking for alternatives to my current OS I will expect the
> 	competition's website to look and behave in similar ways. 

Won't you expect the competition's product to be a better alternative to
the one you currently use? Do you honestly believe that OS choice is
dependent on what the website looks like? If so, how did Mandrake ever
take off?

> 	What I am arguing for is a change to the site to make it more
like
> 	the competition. In this case RedHat, MicroSoft, IBM, and so on.
At
> 	the moment it looks like a three column url listing with no
> 	really strong visual cues to things important to capturing,
> 	converting, and supporting new users.

Well, you know what the answer is then, don't you? You can grab the
source, talk to the web team, produce a better version. Remember it has
to be readable in text browsers, conform to WAI and Internationalisation
standards and everyone has to agree by mutual consent it's a better
design than the existing one.
 
> 	ps: when I started hunting for a new OS around 1997/8 my
selection
> of
> 	FreeBSD was based on the website being prettier than Net or
> OpenBSD's
> 	offerings. 

You know how silly that makes you sound, right?

--
Paul Robinson