Re: Status reports.

[Stefan Rieken <StefanRieken@SoftHome.net>]

David Webster wrote:
> 
[snip]

I'd agree. To be honestly, I, as a newcomer, don't know anything about
the current state of Indy. I see only a RedHat mirror, in fact, and
don't see any differences to RedHat.

Please do like all the other open source projects: make a status
overview, and a planning! That way, you also get more developers: it's
more clear for them what needs to be done I for one would love to help
where I can but don't know where to start @ yours, and haven't got a
clue of what's living within the project. The people want to see ALL of
your visions!

Being a part of the SEUL project, you should also take over it's website
look-and-feel. Seriously: the difference between the two sites bothers
people. In other projects this could be ignored, but here... The website
looks rather skinny, too, for such a project. Believe me, I don't mean
you should use Flash or whatever, but if you have links on the left that
CHANGE all the time (quite disturbing), then make sublinks!

Having done a year of school about Design of Interaction really made me
alert of this (although the education was, in my eyes, on a very low
level).

I know it's not fun for the maintainers to hear such critics about their
work, their blood, sweat and tears. But it's not personal criticism; and
I am saying this only for the better. (This is a little bit of a
standard disclaimer for the criticus, isn't it? :-)

Maybe some of you say "I dare you to do better than this". I say: "I
dare you to involve me". I am not a Flash specialist, nor a real GIMP
wizard, but a good illustrator and usability criticus & designer with
too much spare time (although I cannot guarantee that any of this time
goes to the project until I know that I like to do it - another
disclaimer).

Again: I dare you to involve me. I don't know what's going on now, so I
can't say "I offer to do this". Make clear what's going on and what's
needed, and you WILL get spontaneous contributions from people who where
just passing by. (I'm scared of CVS, but also that seems to help - for
the distribution itself.)

One final comment on that: there's active and passive information
providing. On the current website you are passive: any developer passing
by needs to fill out a form (that's WORK - yech!) before it knows what's
going on. WE (= project independence) need to fill out a form, a
complete overview, for the developer instead! Then the developer can see
where he can help, and THEN you might decide together with him where he
fits best. Active information providing - information that doesn't wait
for a request when provided.

My two cents (as they speak), and hope to hear from y'all.

Greets,

Stefan