Web Site Usability

[Bill Moran]

Mr.Arlen Britton wrote:
> Your site needs some work to make it usable for the average person, 
> instead of the system administrators of these systems. For example, if 
> one were looking for security patches or vulnerabilities for Mac OS X, 
> there seems no way to search for them;

FreeBSD does not provide patches for OS X.  Apple provides patches for
OS X.  Use the utility built into OS X to get patches.

> I tried and got no results that 
> identified anything this way. Surely you can do a better job of 
> organizing and documenting these things so that users can quickly find 
> only what they are looking for, rather than wade through a long list of 
> cryptic descriptions that don't tell them what they need to know.

I see a trend starting to develop here.  Perhaps there should be a very
visible section on the home page that points to a page describing the
differences/relationship between FreeBSD and OS X.

This isn't the first time I've seen a user confused in this manner.

Arlen, I assume where you're getting confused is the the brief explanation
that many give that "OS X is based on FreeBSD".  Please understand that a)
FreeBSD and OS X are two seperate softwares, b) OS X was originally based
on FreeBSD 3, but has now spawned a project of its own called Darwin, which
is seperate, but a cousin of FreeBSD and c) Apple has its own channels for
everything you are asking, if you have a valid OS X license, there is no
need to consult either the FreeBSD project, or even the Darwin project for
assistance.

If you are actually asking about FreeBSD, then I am misunderstanding your
question, please restate it and ask again, and I apologize for the
confusion.

> At the same time, if you have a patch for the specific vulnerabilities 
> in question, I don't think it would be too difficult for you to identify 
> whether or not the flaw exists in previous versions of an OS (and which 
> ones), and whether or not the patch would fix it in those versions. I 
> think working closely with the OS vendors would enable them to provide 
> this information to you.

I think you're still confused.  Which OS vendors are you speaking of?

> Finally, you need to find a common method of identifying patches that 
> are specific to each OS version, rather than the cryptic names you now 
> give them; it certainly doesn't tell me anything at all, so I'm sure a 
> much less sophisticated end user would be even more confused.

I can't argue there.  Some sort of system to index them or allow a search
based on metadata would be nice, although somewhat complicated to get
going.

> When can these changes be made?

The FreeBSD web site, like FreeBSD itself, is maintained by volunteers.

If you have specific changes you'd like to see made, the normal way of
getting that done is to submit the changes to this list, where they will
receive peer review.  If what you submit is generally agreed to be an
improvement over what exists, a comitter will make the change very
quickly.

If you'd like someone else to jump on the changes for you, there are
several options available to you.  One would be to sponsor a developer
to do them, by paying his fee while he does so.  Another would be to
generate enough overall interest and momentum in such a project, that
people get wrapped up in the excitement and start helping out of their
own free will.

The first method can easily be done by contacting the FreeBSD Foundataion.
The second method requires social knowledge that I don't posess, and
therefore can not convey.

Overall, volunteers' time is VERY valuable.  They work very hard to make
the web site the best possible, but their resources are not unlimited.
If you do have a specific improvement to the site, the site maintainers
would (honestly) be overjoyed for specific assistance in improving it.
That's what open-source is all about.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com