FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

[Bosko Milekic]

[trimmed everything BUT freebsd-www, it's absolutely RIDICULOUS that
this appeared on freebsd-arch.  Read the charters.] 

  You guys should stop discussing this, as both arguments are completely
  irrelevant.

  Whether or not you think the website look and feel is adequate is
  subjective and you're never going to agree on its adequacy.

  If you _don't_ think the website is nice looking, what you need to do
  is grab the website source and build a new one.  But what you also
  need to understand is that this is not as easy as just building a
  website with nice stylesheets and making it look all pretty.  It's
  also about functionality.  The current website has a structure which
  is more or less functional for the vast majority of developers (there
  is a lot of stuff that is rebuilt periodically to capture new
  modifications).  Remember that a large part of the content lives IN
  CVS TOO and has to be clean and manageable from the developer's
  perspective.

  So, by all means, if you can keep the functionality and structure
  we're all used to (within reason), then go ahead and build something
  that looks better _and_ still works, and maybe it'll end up being
  adopted.  If you just come up with a new look and design, that's
  hardly good enough to justify mucking all the content-management we
  have going on right now.

  As for FreeBSD, it's not really a "product," per-se, that needs to be
  sold in the same manner as you would sell, say, a webserver appliance.
  FreeBSD is a platform that many people build and expand for their
  purposes for various technical, economical, and/or legal reasons.
  Therefore, the website is hardly its main selling point, which
  explains why no one else has yet invested the effort in redoing its
  look (it's not worth the trouble).  Dealing with not breaking the
  functionality and structure is too much of a burden for the vast
  majority of developers.

  -Bosko

On Wed, Dec 29, 2004 at 03:17:29PM -0600, Nikolas Britton wrote:
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> 
> >>nbritton wrote: gain this is are target market; consultants, integrators, 
> >>vars, etc.  I
> >>bet 80% of them don't even know FreeBSD exists and of the 20% that do
> >>only 20% would consider using and recommending it based on technical
> >>merit alone.
> >>
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >A var that has a thriving Linux consultancy and no FreeBSD experience
> >isn't going to buy into FreeBSD. The only time your going to get a
> >consultant with no FreeBSD experience into looking at FreeBSD is if they
> >can't make a go of it with their existing product line, or if they have
> >never done consulting before and
> >are just starting out.
> >
> >
> > 
> >
> 
> This is one of main point I'm trying to make in all of these talks. How 
> are they ever going to know it's out there and when they do make first 
> contact don't you think we should greet them in a professional manner?
> 
> 
> Sorry if I mangled the message a bit when I cut out all the fluff.
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-- 
Bosko Milekic
bmilekic at technokratis.com
bmilekic at FreeBSD.org