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getting fedora [Apr. 9th, 2009|08:52 pm]
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[Location |amsterdam, the netherlands]

We just spent this week's hour-long Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee meeting discussing the status of the Free Media program. I sat down to write my thoughts about how to fix Free Media, but it turned out to be thoughts on overhauling everything about how we distribute Fedora.

First, state our goal. Our goal is to GET FEDORA MEDIA INTO THE HANDS OF AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE.

POINT #1: get.fedoraproject.org should continue to be the home of all Fedora distribution efforts.

POINT #2: All of these pages should be triaged, and marked for archiving or deletion where appropriate.

POINT #3: When you arrive at get.fedoraproject.org, you should be presented with the following options.

1) I want to download Fedora right now. If you click, it takes you to a page which could look a lot like the current get.fedoraproject.org, with information about different spins, bittorrent, etc.

2) I want to buy one or more Fedora disks, and have them mailed to me. If you click, it takes you to the online vendors page, which neds to be cleaned up.

3) I am a Fedora Ambassador, and I want to request Fedora disks for an event. If you click this, it takes you to a page that has information for each region on how to get disks for events, since different regions have different processes. Ultimately, everyone should probably be using trac for this, and I'm as guilty as anyone else for not using trac in EMEA. EDIT: This should be separate, as it will only confuse users, as noted in the comments and also to me on IRC.

4) I am unable to download Fedora, I cannot purchase a disk, and I would like to be mailed one for free. If you click this, It takes you to the main Free Media page, which can then route you to the proper sub-page based on your region, and ultimately into trac, where you file a ticket.

POINT #4: Each of those sub-points in #3 is a relatively self-contained task that anyone in our community can take ownership of.

POINT #5: Keep it simple! We have way too many words on way too many web pages. When in doubt, delete. One of the things I liked about MoinMoin was that you could simply make a page go away forever. We have a lot of pages on our wiki that deserve that fate. And yes, I know you can move pages to Archive:FOO, but some pages don't even deserve that graceful retirement. If we really want to clean up the wiki, we need to be able to nuke entire chunks of it from orbit.

POINT #6: The main Free Media page is a good idea that is implemented poorly. It should have one paragraph of text that says what it is -- volunteers burning Fedora CDs and mailing them to people who need it. It should have another paragraph of text that basically repeats everything in POINT #3 for people who get to the page directly, and then it should say "if you still need Free Media, please open a ticket" and it dumps you into trac, where your location in the world is one of the fields that you fill out. And then it should have a third paragraph of text that encourages people to join the Free Media project as providers.

What am I missing or failing to consider?
LinkReply

Comments:
From: (Anonymous)
2009-04-10 01:53 am (UTC)

Something you maybe missed...

(Link)

I noticed yesterday when I went to get the beta Fedora 11 that it was actually hard to find a link to it on the home page!

Simple is good, but I think so is getting people to participate in the opensource development process and the only way to do that is to make that as easy an option as the release candidates.

Just a thought but maybe something like "If you'd like to participate in building the next version of Fedora go here..." seems like it makes the development process more open and less like needing to know a secret handshake.

jay@thecapacity.org
From: (Anonymous)
2009-04-10 10:40 am (UTC)

point 3.3 is not KISS (point 5)

(Link)

> What am I missing or failing to consider?

Point 3.3 sounds wrong to me, as point 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4 as well as the whole get.fedoraproject.org page afaics targets users, so point 3.3 (which targets only ambassadors) will just confuse people and violate point 5 (KISS)

IOW: make a different page for ambassador requests.
[User Picture]From: [info]spevack
2009-04-10 03:04 pm (UTC)

Re: point 3.3 is not KISS (point 5)

(Link)

You're right.
[User Picture]From: [info]mihmo
2009-06-10 05:45 pm (UTC)

(Link)

i think it's better to have the download links front and center and the other options sidebarred (which we dont do well right now)

eg point 3.1 is in your face when you go to get.fpo, 3.2 and 3.3 advertised and linked out to from there.

otherwise it's just a splash screen and slows people in every case down. putting 3.1 front and center gets the majority of people where they need to be without an additional click.