Website update

[John Poelstra]

Máirín Duffy said the following on 05/15/2007 01:10 PM Pacific Time:
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>> "The Fedora Project is a collection of projects sponsored by Red Hat, 
>> and developed as a partnership between the open source community and 
>> Red Hat engineers. The goal of Fedora? The rapid progress of free and 
>> open source software and content. Public forums. Open processes. Rapid 
>> innovation. Meritocracy and transparency. All in pursuit of the best 
>> operating system and platform that free software (link to 
>> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) can provide."
>>
>> "Fedora is Linux based operating system and platform that showcases 
>> the the best combination of robust and latest free and open source 
>> software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and 
>> distribute. It is built by people across the globe who work together 
>> as a community: the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project is open and 
>> anyone is welcome to join.
>>
>> "The Fedora Project leads the advancement of free and open source 
>> software. By using Fedora, the best of software created by the Linux 
>> and Free software community is in your hands."
> 
> The first paragraph is too long and too fluffy.
> 
> The top two things people are going to want to do from this page are 
> (well by my guess, which may be wrong, but):
> 
> 1) Download Fedora.
> 2) Figure out what Fedora is, because they have no clue.
> 
> #1 people won't even read the text.
> 
> The #2 people are newbies and need things explained simply and 
> concisely. We don't want to scare off the #2 people because they are 
> potential users and contributors. For them, I think it's best to leave 
> the extended 'what is the Fedora community' discussion for behind the 
> 'Learn More' link. We hint enough about it in the two paragraphs that 
> are on the site right now. Hopefully that bit is enticing enough that 
> they'll want to learn more.
> 
> I explain what Linux and Fedora are to my seatmates on planes all the 
> time, and I think if I started spewing off that first suggested 
> paragraph their eyes would glaze over and they'd put their headsets on, 
> not really understanding *what* I was talking about. Instead I start 
> with paragraphs #2 and #3 (an operating system is something solid, 
> something they use everyday. I have to make many comparisons to Windows 
> and Mac OS X before they 'get' it. An open community is not something 
> unfortunately that everybody is a member of and understands so it's 
> difficult to draw understandable parallels.), get them interested enough 
> to download, and if it doesn't seem like I'll make much progress 
> explaining the other stuff I let it be.
> 
I completely agree.  Less text is better.  Post all of the detailed "what we are, how it all works, etc." in a sub-link.  At the front page let people choose what they want to find out more about.

John

John