firebird-website — Everything about Firebird's web site

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos,

You were quicker than me :) so I'll join with my take in your thread.

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> 
> Main page contents
> - Official Project news
> - Link to FirebirdNews
> - Link to Firebird FAQ
> - Next conferences/events
> - Donation link
> - Direct link to latest stable release

As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I
would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more
graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples.

The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads
(latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single
page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
minimal text.

Second target is "Get Involved" featured image link. Excellent example
how it should be done is on mozilla.org.

Third is direct navigation to key site areas (in header):
a) Learn about Firebird
b) Get Support (community support list & forums, tracker, FAQ, companies
that provide support)
c) Join the community (community sites, events, etc.)
d) Our Projects
e) Get Involved (code, documentation, foundation etc.). This one should
be in header on other pages than main one, as on main one it's
highlighted in main area.

If you noticed that there is no Download and Documentation area links,
they're omitted on purpose. See comments on "Download" and
"Documentation" sections.

Fourth is a box on side (see the Ticker box on mozilla.org) with latests
releases from all our product lines (recent from all maintained engine
lineages, drivers, tools etc.). Divided by sub-project, contains only
version numbers as links to download (or download pages if it's not a
single file release).

Fifth (under the main focus area) are news. Headlines with excerpts
(each article would have it's own page). Only few, it should take a lot
of real estate.

About the design... White background is prefered. It doesn't need to use
the current logo in header (or anywhere), could use background theme
graphics, but not very intrusive. I would prefer fresh, artistic look
over corporate one (but not *too much* cool). I think that mozilla.org
stroke a nice balance on this.

There shouldn't be any button links to other sites or projects, award
badges etc.

Footer. The Ring links should go away. It has to contain button link to
SourceForge, Ohloh badge is not necessary and should go. The copyright
notice should be in smaller font and doesn't need to occupy the whole
width (could be a column like on mozilla.org). The footer could contains
contact links, quick site navigation links to important areas etc., but
shouldn't be too thick.

About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at
our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it
because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago
because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth
anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need
simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric
bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head
feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces
like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean.

We could also run a community competition for new one, but taking our
previous attempts into account, I don't expect that something good would
come from it. Community is great to make rehashes of existing graphics
(buttons, banners,etc.), but not in design (we're all developers). So
I'm going to raise the logo renewal on forthcoming foundation committee
meeting (in December), so maybe we would get some monetary support to
get new one designed by professional. However, this is early shot, there
wasn't any discussion yet about it among project members, but I'm going
to kickstart one after the conference. As I know others, this idea has a
chance to pass through.

> 1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc)
> 1.1 Sponsors list
> 1.2 Members

The main "About" page should be oriented to newcomers and should
summarize the most important facts and points to further reading of
interest for these users (Firebird limits and feature matrix, use cases
/ examples of important deployments, summary of application development
options, available tools, compact explanation what makes Firebird
distinct from other RDBM products).

The main "About" page should also contain clearly visible link (or side
box?) that would point to page oriented to press, with one page summary
/ project presentation for press agencies.

It should contain link(s) to secondary "About" topics you mentioned:
supporting / sponsor companies & individuals, project members (with
personal pages). I'm not certain about history, because nobody cares
about it, so I tend to let it go for good.

> 2.Downloads
> 2.1 Firebird Binaries
> 2.1.1 FB 3.0.x
> 2.1.2 FB 2.5.x
> 2.1.3 FB 2.1.x
> 2.1.4 FB 2.0.x
> 2.1.5 FB 1.5.x
> 2.1.6 FB 1.0.x
> 2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc)
> 2.3 Source Code
> 2.4 Logos and images

Our download portfolio is quite complex, and there are two general
download usage patterns:

1. Get the update. We'll provide shortest, direct path to most recent
releases for each product on main page.

2. Get the download of your interest. People go to specific web area
they're interested in (product, community, etc.) and then decide they
want related files. And right there is a link to related download page.

Centralised Download area as key part of site user's experience (i.e.
main navigation circle) is not practical for us, because our download
matrix is quite complex, so it would be very complex net of pages that
would need several steps to navigate anyway (everything three or more
clicks away from main page). So going to product / other area and then
to its downloads is often shorter path.

However, we WILL HAVE such maze of twisted download pages, but as
separate sub-domain (download.firebirdsql.org), standing aside from
normal page flow.

It has to be a two-dimensional matrix sub-site. The main page should
contain links to most recent stable version of each category. An image
with overlay text (version number) would be best, with some distinctive
image for each product line. It would point directly to download file
for single file releases or to release page for complex releases.

There has to be a side box / menu for each product / category that would
link to product download page (that would contain most recent stable on
top, then development release, then older releases.

> 3.Documentation
> 3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs 
> 3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ
> 3.3 Firebird License
> 3.4 Actual Roadmap

The same as for Download area. Although we still don't have single
comprehensive "free book" for Firebird, we have a lot of documents on
many many topics. Putting it all under the user's nose (Documentation
link on main page) does more harm than good, so we'll create
doc.firebirdsql.org domain for this maze of twisted pages and link to
relevant sections from related pages of main site (support, developers,
community, CTO-related etc.). This doc sub-domain could be implemented
as separate wiki site.

> 4.Support
> 4.1 Discussion lists
> 4.1.1 International (english language)
> 4.1.2 Regional (by country/language)
> 4.2 Firebird related sites and portals
> 4.2.1 Global (english language)
> 4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language)
> 4.3 Link to Tracker

Again, this is too overwhelming list of resources, we have to narrow it
down. I'd like divide it into two areas: Support and Community. Support
is strictly focused on users / developers seeking help with their
problems. All important things should be on *single* page. There
could/would be other pages with more detailed information linked from
main one.

Community area should contain sections for discussion lists, related
sites and portals, events a other resources. More comments about
community area at the end of this post.

> 5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site)

Foundation will get it's own sub-site at foundation.firebirdsql.org, and
we'll link to it and its parts from relevant places, but it will not be
 part of main site navigation like it's now.

> 6. Contact

Not as separate area / menu link. We have too many different kinds of
groups and contacts. I'll left contact to project Admins as part of
footer copyright notice and at "About" area fro press etc., but
generally contacts would be scattered around the site on places where
they're most relevant.

> 7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can
>    use even Google for this)

You completely forgot one from most important parts of our site -
Developer's area for project members. It would be divided by
sub-projects like its now, and part of main navigation (Our Projects).
The main page for each project would be a show-case for it, with summary
description, download link and other most relevant items for it. Each
would have a sub-menu (horizontal bar) for download, user related info,
developer related info etc. It may vary per project.

> My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
> can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
> too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
> 3 clicks (even less, if possible).

Agreed. But I'd like make it even simpler than you proposed :)

> Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job
> board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access
> statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped
> better than me.

Although I would like maintain relation between project's site and
community-related content, I'd like draw a line between it. Project site
should be focused on project matters, and let the community to do its
own things its own way. So I'd like propose to separate the community
bits to its own sub-site community.firebirdsql.org. It would be still
directly linked (part of main site navigation) to project's site, but
outside the project's control and maintenance. We'll provide a skeleton
site from community-related content we have now, with design and theme
that main site would use. We could also maintain this front page / core,
but otherwise we'll let community members to decide what should be there
or even maintain it. So if community would decide to cancel CONNECT!,
job board, whatever, or change or add anything on it, it's not our call.

> Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to
> the website project redesign. As we already have some amount
> collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for
> a task to be done.

That's certainly great news.

> Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3
> people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their
> opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions
> and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything
> they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside"
> opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they
> want to.

Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other
project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have
more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However,
this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check
first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll
do what we can.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Kurt F. <fed...@ya...>]

Hi, Carlos.

I offered to help with this in the past.  While I don't have time to design, I am fairly proficient at implementation and would be happy offer what time I can afford to help implement.

I understand the need to avoid having "too many cooks".

 
Kurt.
----------------------------------------
Never underestimate the Power of Denial.



----- Original Message ----
> From: Carlos H. Cantu <li...@wa...>
> To: Firebird Project Web Team <fir...@li...>
> Sent: Thu, November 19, 2009 11:19:31 AM
> Subject: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...
> 
> Afair, the latest discussion about new web design (when Mariu's friend sent
> some proposals) stopped because we didn't have a desired site
> structure to send to him. So, below is my draft, just to give a start,
> about how I think content can be structured. Probably it is not
> complete or perfect, but with a starting point, it is easier to move forward.
> 
> Main page contents
> - Official Project news
> - Link to FirebirdNews
> - Link to Firebird FAQ
> - Next conferences/events
> - Donation link
> - Direct link to latest stable release
> 
> 1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc)
> 1.1 Sponsors list
> 1.2 Members
> 
> 2.Downloads
> 2.1 Firebird Binaries
> 2.1.1 FB 3.0.x
> 2.1.2 FB 2.5.x
> 2.1.3 FB 2.1.x
> 2.1.4 FB 2.0.x
> 2.1.5 FB 1.5.x
> 2.1.6 FB 1.0.x
> 2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc)
> 2.3 Source Code
> 2.4 Logos and images
> 
> 3.Documentation
> 3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs 
> 3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ
> 3.3 Firebird License
> 3.4 Actual Roadmap
> 
> 4.Support
> 4.1 Discussion lists
> 4.1.1 International (english language)
> 4.1.2 Regional (by country/language)
> 4.2 Firebird related sites and portals
> 4.2.1 Global (english language)
> 4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language)
> 4.3 Link to Tracker
> 
> 5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site)
> 
> 6. Contact
> 
> 7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can
>    use even Google for this)
> 
> 
> My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
> can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
> too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
> 3 clicks (even less, if possible).
> 
> Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job
> board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access
> statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped
> better than me.
> 
> Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to
> the website project redesign. As we already have some amount
> collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for
> a task to be done.
> 
> Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3
> people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their
> opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions
> and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything
> they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside"
> opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they
> want to.
> 
> []s
> Carlos H. Cantu
> www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
> www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day 
> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on 
> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
> Crystal Reports now.  http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july
> _______________________________________________
> Firebird-website mailing list
> Fir...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website



      

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

Giovanni, Thank you for your support,
Helen barked at me some years ago at yahoo, just by asking, so I was  
neither surprised nor intimdated, ;-)

I agree with you completly regarding the visual differences, there is  
much that can be done.
The sitemaintainers admits that they're not proffessional designers  
and there's nothing wrong
with that. What matters is if we can work forward together or we're  
just hitting the fence.

I'm pondering if a new "site/promition-group" should be initiated here  
and now, with a resulting draft / white-paper
to the foundation for consideration, on the other hand, maby the  
foundation should first create a plan or at
least an open topic / request for how to increase market share and  
public acknowledge, it goes in line with
http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=ffoundation

"To encourage cooperation and affiliation with individuals,
other non-profit organisations and commercial companies involved in,
or planning to become involved in the development, support and promotion
of Firebird software projects and associated products and activities."

Regarding the flatfile/ database - debate, it's perhaps irrelevant at  
current stage, however, if a drupal-powered
homepage can create "increased market share and public acknowledge",  
this should be taken into account.

All the best,
/tjelvar


19 nov 2009 kl. 16.57 skrev Giovanni Premuda:

> Helen Borrie wrote:
>> Talk is cheap.
> ...
>> Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want  
>> them to be.
>>
> ...
>> "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with.
>>
> ...
>>
>> Work out something intelligent to define what you think  
>> "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and  
>> what you could do to improve the situation.
>>
> ...
>> OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that  
>> people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the  
>> right to "heard and invited".  Try to define just *who* has the  
>> duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours  
>> that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these  
>> obligations
>>
> ...
>> If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird  
>> workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that  
>> question.
> ...
>> Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists.
>>
>> If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of  
>> improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute  
>> them, then list them out.  That's a good starting place for  
>> *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and  
>> wants to participate in progressing it.
>>
> Are you sure this is thw way to  make newcomers feel welcome and to
> encourage new contributions?
>
> -- 
> Giovanni
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008  
> 30-Day
> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and  
> focus on
> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
> Crystal Reports now.  http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july
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Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

Pavel, thank you for explaining things.
I have no objections in what you're saying.
It's just that this discussion originally started as a reply to
AW Harrison, "absolutely no interest for the firebird", see post 10615  
at firebird-general.

As stated previously, all my respect to everyone involved in creating  
and maintaining
firebird, period. IF we all, customers, end users, and docteam can  
gain of a
new site I see good reason for such an initaitve.

Have a good day, :-)
//tjelvar
19 nov 2009 kl. 12.14 skrev Pavel Cisar:

> tjelvar eriksson napsal(a):
>> Hi all,
>>
>>> 1. Site search could be actually faster from flat files than from
>>> database if there isn't any full-text that could work with Firebird.
>>
>> a) I'm not a drupal evangelist, but it does have fulltext-search in
>> the framework,
>> others may have too - don't know about BW.
>>
>> b) Home of firebird - powered by flatfiles. True irony...
>
> Technology should serve US, not by other way around. For content and
> services that we want on the Project's website it's best to be  
> served as
> static pages, as there is almost NO dynamic content. For practical
> purposes, the pages are divided into snippets (header/footer, menu  
> bar,
> sidebar, main page content) that are stored separately and assembled  
> by
> page glue code. Except few information areas that are repeating  
> patterns
> (list of web resources, news, sub-projects and members information)
> nothing really calls for a database. Database would be an overkill for
> this, period. These few info bits that *could* be served from database
> are few, so having them in "data text files" is cheaper and quicker.
>
> We DO use Firebird as backend on our TRACKER. We even adapted JIRA to
> work with Firebird as it wasn't originally supported database. But  
> that
> was justified because tracker software needs a database backend if it
> should scale and work efficiently. Our website does not. I would agree
> to use a database if we would implement some forum facility on it or
> something that would have a lot of dynamic content with few data
> patterns, but it's NOT this case.
>
>> I do respect your opinion, and this is where the discussion should
>> start.
>> What to put in and what it should be.
>> My original post, which started of this discussion as i belive, was
>> based
>> on a reflection that A.W Harrison wrote that the interest for  
>> firebird
>> at
>> last conference where null.
>> Your reflections around "definitly not a community site" should be
>> given a second thought.
>
> As far as I remember, nobody ever expressed any problems with general
> concept, content and target audience for Firebird Project website. All
> objections were always targeted to site *structure* and *design*.
>
> For the record, the Firebird website served also as community portal
> (with CMS and db backend) many many years ago, when both project and
> community were young and relatively small. But these days are over.  
> Even
> if we would like to add blogs, extensive news, forum etc. to our site,
> we would be just late to the party as all this is already covered by
> many thriving sites. There is no point to compete with them, as *our*
> duty is to work on Firebird and related sub-projects, and to help  
> users
> to get and learn our products, not to operate the community portal.
>
>>> 3. As wiki goes, it doesn't necessarily needs a database as backend,
>>> and
>>> we could probably use already existing one or use one provided by
>>> SourceForge anyway, and soft-embed it into our site.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean with soft-embed but it sounds as dependent
>> patch, and with a mysql-prefix. Hands down here.
>
> It means that it would work on its separate site, but we'll link to it
> as an integral part of the site (the design could be even united).
>
>>> 4. Using a database would force us to work with site content over  
>>> the
>>> web (or other) interface, which is unnecessary and in fact
>>> counter-productive in our case.
>>
>> Pavel, please explain. I'm not sure which work you're refeering to,
>> (doucment translation)?
>
> No, to provide content, generally. That's what we do.
>
>> What's the benefits of the current setup? Those could/should be
>> respected.
>
> I explained it earlier, it's dead simple for those who work with the
> content although we all use various OSes and favour different tools,  
> and
> it's literally zero-maintenance for administrators and almost
> zero-configuration (you can get your own local copy up and running in
> few minutes). We like it that way.
>
>> Any web-interface could be coupled to dav or svn it that's the  
>> subject.
>
> Yes, it could, but why, when the current one is much simpler and works
> perfectly?
>
>>
>>> Database is a database, it doesn't matter which one. We use Firebird
>>> at
>>> our tracker, and as painless it is, it's still just a necessary evil
>>> (JIRA doesn't work without a database) that adds to administrator's
>>> responsibilities.
>>
>> I'm dizzy. Pavel, I may misundersand you, but you sound counter
>> database,
>> and counter web.
>
> Nope, I'm just practical. I do QA in Firebird, that's my primary
> objective. I and Helen work as webmasters because somebody has to.  
> We do
> it from the beginning, and over the last nine years nobody ever
> expressed any real interest to join us (but we heard plenty of advices
> how we should do it). I take care of PHP code and low level plumbing
> (except the Foundation sub-site which is fully under Helen's control),
> Helen looks after the general content and last years also after the
> visual design. Few others (including me) work with the content in  
> their
> areas of interest / parts of our site (sub-projects). We have other
> duties, but we also do some web publishing, and we want it dead simple
> for us. That's it. Maybe Helen could appreciate a full-blown CMS for  
> the
> occasional news and download pages that represents the main portion of
> what she does frequently, but I doubt that.
>
>> Thing are compex. Yes...
>> Efforts have been made. Yes.... ..but any progress?
>
> Things are not complex, they're dead simple. The problem is that we  
> have
> many talkers but few workers that are already overloaded. No wonder  
> that
> progress in certain not-so-vital areas is slow (or do you prefer fancy
> website instead new stable FB delivered on schedule?).
>
>> But if firebird is an true open source project, the community should
>> be heard
>> and invited.
>
> Community is always invited and heard, but universe likes to grant
> wishes to those that contribute for real to make them a reality.  
> Talk is
> cheap and candy grows on trees only in fairy-tales. Unfortunately,  
> many
> people (even grown-ups) tend to live in fairy-tales. Just walk through
> the archives, and you'll see. If Firebird Project would be fueled by
> good advices given from the distance, then we would have enough in  
> bank
> to pay our developers for rest of the century.
>
> best regards
> Pavel Cisar
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> 30-Day
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> focus on
> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
> Crystal Reports now.  http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july
> _______________________________________________
> Firebird-website mailing list
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website

[Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

Afair, the latest discussion about new web design (when Mariu's friend sent
some proposals) stopped because we didn't have a desired site
structure to send to him. So, below is my draft, just to give a start,
about how I think content can be structured. Probably it is not
complete or perfect, but with a starting point, it is easier to move forward.

Main page contents
- Official Project news
- Link to FirebirdNews
- Link to Firebird FAQ
- Next conferences/events
- Donation link
- Direct link to latest stable release

1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc)
1.1 Sponsors list
1.2 Members

2.Downloads
2.1 Firebird Binaries
2.1.1 FB 3.0.x
2.1.2 FB 2.5.x
2.1.3 FB 2.1.x
2.1.4 FB 2.0.x
2.1.5 FB 1.5.x
2.1.6 FB 1.0.x
2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc)
2.3 Source Code
2.4 Logos and images

3.Documentation
3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs 
3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ
3.3 Firebird License
3.4 Actual Roadmap

4.Support
4.1 Discussion lists
4.1.1 International (english language)
4.1.2 Regional (by country/language)
4.2 Firebird related sites and portals
4.2.1 Global (english language)
4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language)
4.3 Link to Tracker

5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site)

6. Contact

7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can
   use even Google for this)


My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
3 clicks (even less, if possible).

Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job
board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access
statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped
better than me.

Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to
the website project redesign. As we already have some amount
collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for
a task to be done.

Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3
people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their
opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions
and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything
they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside"
opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they
want to.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

PC> Certainly. Take a look (sidebar, Community section).

Great! Thanks!

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

[Firebird-website] [FB-Tracker] Created: (WEB-24) Remove Firebird.br (doesnt work anymore), and add FireBase

[Carlos H. C. (JIRA) <tr...@fi...>]

Remove Firebird.br (doesnt work anymore), and add FireBase
----------------------------------------------------------

                 Key: WEB-24
                 URL: http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/browse/WEB-24
             Project: Web site
          Issue Type: Bug
            Reporter: Carlos H. Cantu
            Assignee: Pavel Cisar


Please remove the Firebird.br item from the following link:
http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=doc&id=othersites

And ADD FireBase:
FireBase (in Brazilian Portuguese) - www.firebase.com.br

-- 
This message is automatically generated by JIRA.
-
If you think it was sent incorrectly contact one of the administrators: http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/secure/Administrators.jspa
-
For more information on JIRA, see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

        

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> 
> We already have a nice button image, and it would be nice
> to have it in fbsql mainpage:
> 
> http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=105
> 
> Can you do this?

Certainly. Take a look (sidebar, Community section).

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Giovanni Premuda napsal(a):
> 
> But in the last 10 years, any sugestion, offer, or actual contribution 
> has been grounded by attacks and resistance to change.

You greatly exaggerate. The Firebird website was completely redesigned
several times over last 10 years. All redesigns were made by Helen and
me, based on changing project's needs and feedback from anybody who
cared to express opinion. We heard countless *suggestions*, very few
offers and saw almost zero real contributions (most of those were just
images and other graphics). We've got no improved CSS, no content
(except content created as part of our sub-projects), nothing, zero, nada.

Yes, we're not professional web designers. We did our best, but we know
it's not enough. I can handle the background code just fine and Helen
can provide great content, but neither of us is HTML/CSS/Graphics
wizard. However, any time we asked for help with that, we've got just
talk (except Marius' contribution which is first *real* contribution to
make appealing website we've ever got), especially how we should do it
in this or that CMS. That's one hell of disappointment. Instead getting
help in what we need, we are constantly offered opinions and advices
about things that we don't need. I don't want to hear that I should
spend hours of my time to learn Drupal or whatever CMS so I could code
another non-appealing website. Give me appealing CSS that looks great in
all browsers that we could use instead such advices, and we could
implement it right away. Did we get any? Nope, just the same old "use
this, use that technology" b****. I understand that it's mostly because
we're all developers, so all help/advice is developer-related, but
anyway, we're getting tired of this over all years it's thrown at us.

> Want to talk about changing the layout?
> Talk is cheap, do not disturb the ones doing things.

We know what we want, we're just not skilled enough in design neither we
have enough time to learn it as we have other more important duties. If
you want to help us, help us with THAT. We don't need help with code,
administration and all developer/administrator-related stuff.

> You actually do something?
> You should have talked about it before.

If you put cart before the horse, then certainly. Ask what we want to
achieve and then you can create and offer us a design that could be
accepted. But don't throw at us any design you saw, liked and copied,
and that may work for someone else but not for us.

> Some years ago I even paid a graphic designer to produce some layouts, 
> but before she was finished someone else proposed some reasonably good 
> layouts and was attacked so badly that I decided to avoid the same fate.

Too bad you wasted your money, you should rather submit the design. Even
better would be if you would collect the reasons why the previous one
was "attacked so badly" so you would come with one that would be accepted.

> DB driven sites make change to the structure of the site quite painless.
> And 99% of the professional sites around the world are db driven. It 
> can't be that bad.  BTW it's really not the message an open source DBMS 
> should give, unless we want people to believe that MySQL is stabler than 
> Firebird.

Yes, no, maybe. But underlying technology doesn't make an appealing
website, design does. So, could we let it go and concentrate on design?
Let the *real* requirements to dictate the technology once we'll get
there, please?

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

PC> Nope, we publish only news directly related to the Project
PC> (releases, events, etc.). We'll never be
PC> anything-remotely-related-to-firebird news service. At best, we
PC> could show some article headers from FirebirdNews using RSS
PC> syndication, but it seems pointless nowadays.

Agree. FirebirdNews is a site who mostly anyone can post, as far the
post is related to Firebird. News from the community to the community.
Of course the project site must have only official news from the
project itself, and maybe one or other news from other sources (when
its worth).

PC> Nice image link to the FirebirdNews on main page would be much
PC> better, thought.

We already have a nice button image, and it would be nice
to have it in fbsql mainpage:

http://www.firebirdnews.org/?page_id=105

Can you do this?

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> 
> Maybe one of the reasons for the "low volume of news/changes" is just
> the fact that any update must be done editing manually some page(s),
> and uploading it to the server, what I consider a boring task,
> specially for busy people.

Nope, we publish only news directly related to the Project (releases,
events, etc.). We'll never be anything-remotely-related-to-firebird news
service. At best, we could show some article headers from FirebirdNews
using RSS syndication, but it seems pointless nowadays. Nice image link
to the FirebirdNews on main page would be much better, thought.

> PC> What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by
> PC> FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more
> PC> news content).
> 
> "immediately taken" means that Marius and me needs to keep manually
> monitoring/checking FBSQL site everyday to know when something was
> changed, and replicate this to FBNews.
> 
> Just look our "competitors", all of them have RSS in their pages, no
> matter how many times it gets updated over the year.

Yes, I know. I want to use SourceForge RSS feeds to feed our own website
for few years, but initial feeds were not usable, then SF was in
constant redesign and changes, then we're at the verge of complete fb
site redesign, so implementing some minor enhancements to "old" site was
pointless. But don't worry, it's still a planed feature.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...>]

Helen Borrie wrote:
> Talk is cheap.
...
> Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want them to be.
>   
...
>  "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with.
>   
...
>
> Work out something intelligent to define what you think "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and what you could do to improve the situation.  
>   
...
> OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the right to "heard and invited".  Try to define just *who* has the duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these obligations
>   
...
> If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that question.
...
> Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists.
>
> If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute them, then list them out.  That's a good starting place for *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and wants to participate in progressing it. 
>   
Are you sure this is thw way to  make newcomers feel welcome and to 
encourage new contributions?

-- 
Giovanni 

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...>]

Milan Babuskov wrote:
> FWIW, I agree with Pavel. There are many ways that database can get
> broken and then the website is either down, or throws error messages 
> which leaves a very ugly and unprofessional impression to visitors.
>
>   

A whole lot of other things leave a very ugly and unprofessional 
impression to visitors.

Please have a look at:

http://www.sqlite.org/
http://www.postgresql.org/
http://couchdb.apache.org/
http://www.ingres.com/

and then at

http://www.firebirdsql.org/

and see how much it hurts. I don't even direct our clients the main site 
anymore, I just send them a direct link to the download.

But in the last 10 years, any sugestion, offer, or actual contribution 
has been grounded by attacks and resistance to change.

Want to talk about changing the layout?
Talk is cheap, do not disturb the ones doing things.

You actually do something?
You should have talked about it before.

Some years ago I even paid a graphic designer to produce some layouts, 
but before she was finished someone else proposed some reasonably good 
layouts and was attacked so badly that I decided to avoid the same fate.

DB driven sites make change to the structure of the site quite painless.
And 99% of the professional sites around the world are db driven. It 
can't be that bad.  BTW it's really not the message an open source DBMS 
should give, unless we want people to believe that MySQL is stabler than 
Firebird.

-- 
Giovanni

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

MB> FWIW, I agree with Pavel. There are many ways that database can get
MB> broken and then the website is either down, or throws error messages 
MB> which leaves a very ugly and unprofessional impression to visitors.

This can happen, not only with DB, but with everything else. Apache
can crash, PHP can crash, HD can crash, Internet can crash, etc.

I think the major point of this discussion (static x dynamic) should
be: make the life of the webmaster easier. My experience, as the
FireBase webmaster, is that dynamic pages made my life much easier. If
the FBSQL webmaster has enough free time to edit everything by hand
and is comfortable with this, no problem.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

PC> Well, there are about ~20 news entries per *year* on our site. Doesn't
PC> seems to me that it calls for a database. Articles are all static and
PC> change rarely, except  Documentation that is in fact a single page that
PC> points to thousands of *generated* pages. Can't see how database fits to
PC> it either. Download is just few fancy pages that point to SourceForge
PC> downloads. Anybody can go directly to SF download page for them.

Maybe one of the reasons for the "low volume of news/changes" is just
the fact that any update must be done editing manually some page(s),
and uploading it to the server, what I consider a boring task,
specially for busy people.

PC> What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by
PC> FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more
PC> news content).

"immediately taken" means that Marius and me needs to keep manually
monitoring/checking FBSQL site everyday to know when something was
changed, and replicate this to FBNews.

Just look our "competitors", all of them have RSS in their pages, no
matter how many times it gets updated over the year.

BTW, I'm not trying to impose anything. I just commented my
own experience.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Milan B. <mi...@pa...>]

Pavel Cisar wrote:
> Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
>> So, FirebirdSQL has news? Yes. Does it has articles (docs)? Yes, Does
>> it has Download area? Yes. So, imho, this is enough to justify using a
>> DB backend and dynamic pages.
> 
> Well, there are about ~20 news entries per *year* on our site. Doesn't
> seems to me that it calls for a database. Articles are all static and
> change rarely, except  Documentation that is in fact a single page that
> points to thousands of *generated* pages. Can't see how database fits to
> it either. Download is just few fancy pages that point to SourceForge
> downloads. Anybody can go directly to SF download page for them.
> 
>> Also, DB backend makes it much easier to implement RSS feeds. Nowadays,
>> this is one of the best ways to keep people updated, and a must for
>> any decent site.
> 
> What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by
> FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more
> news content). For downloads? Go to SourceForge and subscribe to File
> releases RSS feed, it already exists. The same apply to news posted to SF.
> 
> In fact, we should use the SF RSS feeds for news and releases to feed
> our own news and download pages, so we would entry the data only once.

FWIW, I agree with Pavel. There are many ways that database can get 
broken and then the website is either down, or throws error messages 
which leaves a very ugly and unprofessional impression to visitors.


-- 
Milan Babuskov

==================================
The easiest way to import XML, CSV
and textual files into Firebird:
http://www.guacosoft.com/xmlwizard
==================================

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Philippe M. <mak...@fi...>]

Let move step by step
we have few resources

first I would thanks Marius
as said Pavel
> your help is greatly appreciated


1/ Can we first have proposal for a new web design (look) but still with the actual tecno
used.

It would be a good think to celebrate the new 2010 coming year.
Marius, Pavel, Helen , your feeling about that ?

Could Marius setup some proposal so we can vote for ?


2/ Thinking about improvement that could be done
- may be we could think about setting a doc part the way PG have
ie a doc with or without comments
- about forum :
I don't like web forum, but I can understand than some people prefer forum to mailing
lists, so what about a forum linked to a mailing lists, like the newsgroup is linked to
mailing lists
This would have the main advantage that you don't have to follow various places.

In fact IMHO, this are the only two new feature that would be needed in the Firebird web
site, as said , there is no problem to link to other web site.
And even for these new features for example if someone wanted to setup a forum linked to
mailling list : do it and then we will link to it
Same for the doc, if someone wanted to put the doc into a wiki so people can leave
comments : do it, we will setup the links
But please, we have a lot of work for few people involved, so KIS

about database backend or not, I also prefer plain text than database back end
but it should not be a religious point of vue.
Let first decide what we wanted for the web site, and after that choose the right solution.

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> 
> So, FirebirdSQL has news? Yes. Does it has articles (docs)? Yes, Does
> it has Download area? Yes. So, imho, this is enough to justify using a
> DB backend and dynamic pages.

Well, there are about ~20 news entries per *year* on our site. Doesn't
seems to me that it calls for a database. Articles are all static and
change rarely, except  Documentation that is in fact a single page that
points to thousands of *generated* pages. Can't see how database fits to
it either. Download is just few fancy pages that point to SourceForge
downloads. Anybody can go directly to SF download page for them.

> Also, DB backend makes it much easier to implement RSS feeds. Nowadays,
> this is one of the best ways to keep people updated, and a must for
> any decent site.

What RSS feeds? For news? There are few and all are immediately taken by
FirebirdNews and other sites (that have RSS feeds and much much more
news content). For downloads? Go to SourceForge and subscribe to File
releases RSS feed, it already exists. The same apply to news posted to SF.

In fact, we should use the SF RSS feeds for news and releases to feed
our own news and download pages, so we would entry the data only once.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Daniel A. <d.a...@gm...>]

Hello,

I'm watching this list because I reported a website-defect quite some
time ago and stayed on the list because it is very low-volume and find
this discussion both interesting and important.

2009/11/19 Carlos H. Cantu <li...@wa...>:
[snip]
> So, FirebirdSQL has news? Yes. Does it has articles (docs)? Yes, Does
> it has Download area? Yes. So, imho, this is enough to justify using a
> DB backend and dynamic pages.
>
> Also, DB backend makes it much easier to implement RSS feeds. Nowadays,
> this is one of the best ways to keep people updated, and a must for
> any decent site.

I strongly second both points from Carlos.

And I will further share my opinions and thoughts on this discussion
when I find time to do so, maybe at the weekend.

In short:
- The Firebird-site should definitely switch to a CMS that supports
Firebird as a backend, for (at least to me) obvious reasons.
- There should be an "official" forum, because many people don't know
how to use or don't want to use mailing-lists.
- Firebird needs a more appealing website to attract potential users.
Users judge the quality of a product by the website to quite a large
degree.

Regards,

Daniel Albuschat

-- 
eat(this); // delicious suicide

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

PC> Except few information areas that are repeating patterns (list of
PC> web resources, news, sub-projects and members information) nothing
PC> really calls for a database. Database would be an overkill for
PC> this, period. These few info bits that *could* be served from
PC> database are few, so having them in "data text files" is cheaper
PC> and quicker.

I'll report my experience, with both cases. My FireBase portal started
as static pages. The change for dynamic pages with content retrieved
from a DB was a huge facilitator for me. Updating the site (aka.
inserting news, articles, links or anything else) became a matter of
starting a small Delphi app and inserting the content into the
appropriate place (DB table), just that!

Right now, FireBase uses PHP with direct access to FB database and it
was really easy to be implemented (I never had programmed in PHP
before that). Most difficult task (for me) was/is the webdesign.

So, FirebirdSQL has news? Yes. Does it has articles (docs)? Yes, Does
it has Download area? Yes. So, imho, this is enough to justify using a
DB backend and dynamic pages.

Also, DB backend makes it much easier to implement RSS feeds. Nowadays,
this is one of the best ways to keep people updated, and a must for
any decent site.

Just my 2c.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

tjelvar eriksson napsal(a):
> Hi all,
> 
>> 1. Site search could be actually faster from flat files than from
>> database if there isn't any full-text that could work with Firebird.
> 
> a) I'm not a drupal evangelist, but it does have fulltext-search in  
> the framework,
> others may have too - don't know about BW.
> 
> b) Home of firebird - powered by flatfiles. True irony...

Technology should serve US, not by other way around. For content and
services that we want on the Project's website it's best to be served as
static pages, as there is almost NO dynamic content. For practical
purposes, the pages are divided into snippets (header/footer, menu bar,
sidebar, main page content) that are stored separately and assembled by
page glue code. Except few information areas that are repeating patterns
(list of web resources, news, sub-projects and members information)
nothing really calls for a database. Database would be an overkill for
this, period. These few info bits that *could* be served from database
are few, so having them in "data text files" is cheaper and quicker.

We DO use Firebird as backend on our TRACKER. We even adapted JIRA to
work with Firebird as it wasn't originally supported database. But that
was justified because tracker software needs a database backend if it
should scale and work efficiently. Our website does not. I would agree
to use a database if we would implement some forum facility on it or
something that would have a lot of dynamic content with few data
patterns, but it's NOT this case.

> I do respect your opinion, and this is where the discussion should  
> start.
> What to put in and what it should be.
> My original post, which started of this discussion as i belive, was  
> based
> on a reflection that A.W Harrison wrote that the interest for firebird  
> at
> last conference where null.
> Your reflections around "definitly not a community site" should be  
> given a second thought.

As far as I remember, nobody ever expressed any problems with general
concept, content and target audience for Firebird Project website. All
objections were always targeted to site *structure* and *design*.

For the record, the Firebird website served also as community portal
(with CMS and db backend) many many years ago, when both project and
community were young and relatively small. But these days are over. Even
if we would like to add blogs, extensive news, forum etc. to our site,
we would be just late to the party as all this is already covered by
many thriving sites. There is no point to compete with them, as *our*
duty is to work on Firebird and related sub-projects, and to help users
to get and learn our products, not to operate the community portal.

>> 3. As wiki goes, it doesn't necessarily needs a database as backend,  
>> and
>> we could probably use already existing one or use one provided by
>> SourceForge anyway, and soft-embed it into our site.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean with soft-embed but it sounds as dependent
> patch, and with a mysql-prefix. Hands down here.

It means that it would work on its separate site, but we'll link to it
as an integral part of the site (the design could be even united).

>> 4. Using a database would force us to work with site content over the
>> web (or other) interface, which is unnecessary and in fact
>> counter-productive in our case.
> 
> Pavel, please explain. I'm not sure which work you're refeering to,
> (doucment translation)?

No, to provide content, generally. That's what we do.

> What's the benefits of the current setup? Those could/should be  
> respected.

I explained it earlier, it's dead simple for those who work with the
content although we all use various OSes and favour different tools, and
it's literally zero-maintenance for administrators and almost
zero-configuration (you can get your own local copy up and running in
few minutes). We like it that way.

> Any web-interface could be coupled to dav or svn it that's the subject.

Yes, it could, but why, when the current one is much simpler and works
perfectly?

> 
>> Database is a database, it doesn't matter which one. We use Firebird  
>> at
>> our tracker, and as painless it is, it's still just a necessary evil
>> (JIRA doesn't work without a database) that adds to administrator's
>> responsibilities.
> 
> I'm dizzy. Pavel, I may misundersand you, but you sound counter  
> database,
> and counter web. 

Nope, I'm just practical. I do QA in Firebird, that's my primary
objective. I and Helen work as webmasters because somebody has to. We do
it from the beginning, and over the last nine years nobody ever
expressed any real interest to join us (but we heard plenty of advices
how we should do it). I take care of PHP code and low level plumbing
(except the Foundation sub-site which is fully under Helen's control),
Helen looks after the general content and last years also after the
visual design. Few others (including me) work with the content in their
areas of interest / parts of our site (sub-projects). We have other
duties, but we also do some web publishing, and we want it dead simple
for us. That's it. Maybe Helen could appreciate a full-blown CMS for the
occasional news and download pages that represents the main portion of
what she does frequently, but I doubt that.

> Thing are compex. Yes...
> Efforts have been made. Yes.... ..but any progress?

Things are not complex, they're dead simple. The problem is that we have
many talkers but few workers that are already overloaded. No wonder that
progress in certain not-so-vital areas is slow (or do you prefer fancy
website instead new stable FB delivered on schedule?).

> But if firebird is an true open source project, the community should  
> be heard
> and invited.

Community is always invited and heard, but universe likes to grant
wishes to those that contribute for real to make them a reality. Talk is
cheap and candy grows on trees only in fairy-tales. Unfortunately, many
people (even grown-ups) tend to live in fairy-tales. Just walk through
the archives, and you'll see. If Firebird Project would be fueled by
good advices given from the distance, then we would have enough in bank
to pay our developers for rest of the century.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Tjelvar E. <tj...@fa...>]

Helen, I belive you missunderstand me.

I'm not trolling the maillist - I have come up with ideas on how to get
reinitiate a new site,
as I was informed that current work had stalled.

I have never tried to insult anyone for any work, neither web nor
doc-team, on the contrary,
I've stated that no team shuld be forced to abandon working way of doing
things.

I'm don't think i'm putting the wagon before the horse, (the expression
is new to me),
if you read my posts you may find that I'm trying to gather interest and
engagement
in a new site. I've pondered the list for any interest in a roadmap,
requested drafts 
and whitepapers. I'm trying to find a new way of getting the wagon on
the road,
since the current situation seems to be half-abandoned attepmts that
obviously hasn't
reached the audience outside the allready initiated firebird-community.

As I've stated I have years of experience with building web-applications
with firebird
as a fully functional database. Back in 2001 I migrated a fairly big
24/7 community from
mssql/asp to firebird/php, the performance gains where huge.

You may find me offensive, but I belive you should consider it as
commitment.

And I belive that "What we have works" is demotivating as well.
Collecting ideas,
requrirements, sketches before coding, making sure everyone's happy at
the end,
is still the best way to go forward. If BW fits the bill, perfect.

This initial process could hopefully create engagement and create a
working team.
Since I'm abit new on the block I wouldn't suggest myself as the project
team administrator,
but if that's the actual need, I'd gladly aspire for the post.


All the best, and respectfully,
/tjelvare 
--
  Ny e-postadress: 
  Tjelvar Eriksson
  tj...@fa...

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Lester Caine napsal(a):
> Pavel Cisar wrote:
>> The
>> problem is JIRA VM. Again, the VM works ok, but due to all these fancy
>> technologies used, it's very hard to maintain it (especially when one is
>> no Java/Tomcat wizard). My point is that we want to keep the website
>> simple and a breeze to work with, as there is no real reason to go
>> JIRA-route with it.
> 
> That was my own original objection to the new tracker ... ;)

Well, the problem is mostly at our side than on JIRA itself. JIRA is
great product, and we chose it because we need all this power and so far
it handles our needs very well. But over time it happened that the JIRA
maintenance ended up on me, and I know nothing about Java/Tomcat and I
wasn't even one who installed it, so go figure. I could learn all that
stuff at least to the degree necessary to handle JIRA installation at
basic level (i.e. patchwork monkey following the Howto's), but it's huge
area and this is not the only thing on my shoulders... So if there would
be someone with these skills willing to help with it, it could be a
quite different and much more pleasant story.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Lester C. <le...@ls...>]

Helen Borrie wrote:
> At 07:49 AM 19/11/2009, tjelvar eriksson wrote:
> 
>> Finally I belive we're not getting anywhere - I'm not happy anyway.
> Talk is cheap.  These discussions never go anywhere because people like you always insist on putting the cart before the horse.  What we need - and always have needed - is a team of people who are willing to take responsibility, coordinate their efforts and do the actual work.  How it is done emerges from the skills and time available in that team.  That means figuring out *first* what we want to have on the website, *next* how to get it (today, tomorrow, next month, next year) and *finally*, how to deliver and maintain it.

I'll snip the rest but I agree with all of Helen's comments.

While I may seem to be pushing the 'wiki', I practical terms - personally - I 
see no problem with the existing web site. I had hopped by now a few more people 
would be supporting the wiki, with a view to expanding it's influence, and also 
integrating more directly into the documentation project - yes and the tracker - 
but that has not happened.

If all that people want is a new theme for the existing site, then so be it. 
It's not something that interests me and I'll carry on working with my own 
developments in using Firebird to build dynamic web services.

Currently there IS a good web presence for Firebird, across a number of sites, 
but I am sure that a single focus is required, which can then direct people to 
sites which support them in their own languages ....

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

At 07:49 AM 19/11/2009, tjelvar eriksson wrote:

>Finally I belive we're not getting anywhere - I'm not happy anyway.

Talk is cheap.  These discussions never go anywhere because people like you always insist on putting the cart before the horse.  What we need - and always have needed - is a team of people who are willing to take responsibility, coordinate their efforts and do the actual work.  How it is done emerges from the skills and time available in that team.  That means figuring out *first* what we want to have on the website, *next* how to get it (today, tomorrow, next month, next year) and *finally*, how to deliver and maintain it.

>Thing are compex. Yes...

Not as complex as you (and other talkers-not-doers) seem to want them to be.

>Efforts have been made. Yes.... ..but any progress?

Progress happens when efforts are targeted and people are motivated.  Cosmetic attempts are fun for the cosmetician but they don't address the objective in any practical way.  "Analysis first" is a principle most of us should be familiar with.

>Do we wan't firebird to be fairly unknown? Maby. It's convinient in a  
>way.

Work out something intelligent to define what you think "known" (and "unknown") mean, what is good or bad about both and what you could do to improve the situation.  

>But if firebird is an true open source project, 

A true open source project is one where the source code for a software product is available to anyone.  So Firebird is a true open source project - no "if" about it.

>the community should be heard and invited.

OK - start by defining this "community" - especially the ways that people (including yourself) make it "a community" and earn the right to "heard and invited".  Try to define just *who* has the duty and obligation that you imply in these assertions of yours that always invoke "should" and *why* such people have these obligations

>PAUL, Are you still the official Coordinator of firebird documentation  
>project, share your thoughts!

If you were in any way involved in the community of Firebird workers (which we know you are not) you would not need to ask that question.

But, since you asked the question, Yes, he is, and he won't tell you that it's only a name for what he does for you, on his own time for no reward and rarely any thanks.  Paul develops and maintains the toolset that generates our online and downloadable documentation.  He documents everything he does so that it is ready and available for anyone else who comes along with a genuine desire to be a documentation worker.  He keeps that documentation online and up-to-date as well.  If that were not enough, he is, in reality, the default editor and rewriter of all the project material, although there's no contract that says he must be.  Except for one writer who is developing fresh documentation for the command-line tools, it is Paul, alone, who has written virtually all of the documentation other than the release notes. 

>respectfully,

Oh, really?  Wickering and wibbling about what other people haven't done or should be doing is the antithesis of respect for those who actually DO something.  It is demotivating.  Demotivation inhibits progress in ALL areas of a voluntary community and will kill it, eventually.  Think about that sometimes, when you troll in our lists.

If you have talents that could be contributed to the cause of improving Firebird's web presence AND you are willing to contribute them, then list them out.  That's a good starting place for *everyone* here who desires the improvement of our web presence and wants to participate in progressing it. 

Helen