3 ms·

It couldn't be any worse than inkscape's official website[1], targeting designers no less! I wonder how many thousands have chosen not to install Inkscape as a

• pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >targeting designers no less! // They're not targeting anyone, they're presenting their software and letting you use it under a free-libre & free-gratis license. In many ways it doesn't matter if you chose it or not. It's not being created in order to develop a need in you it's created to meet a need the creators have. Inkscape is functional. Of course there's no problem with the website being worked on and perhaps made to answer questions one has more easily. But I wouldn't really want to divert resources towards marketing it and away from making it more usable and functional. Maybe I've misunderstood the economics of FOSS but that's how I see it.
  • jvm 13y ago
    > In many ways it doesn't matter if you chose it or not. Just to be clear, it doesn't matter to the project creators/authors. We don't know that for a fact, but their behavior seems to imply that. I'll admit, I find that a bit surprising, since I've never worked hard on a public-facing project without hoping people would use it and find it useful. However from a global welfare perspective it clearly matters a great deal. The over-simplified but not-too-far-off math on the social benefit of a project is that global_welfare_added == (value_added_per_user) * n_users, so a positive multiplier on n_users is a positive multiplier on value so long as the value added is positive. In this case, making the website look like an actual website isn't about "creaing a need", it's about informing people who have that need (designers who need to edit vector graphics) that the product might fill that need. Currently the site doesn't communicate that at all. Furthermore, that their demonstrated indifference to communicating the nature of their product to potential users makes me loathe to donate dev time or money to fund development of a product that will be little used by those who might value it. > But I wouldn't really want to divert resources towards marketing it and away from making it more usable and functional. The tiny user base undoubtedly restricts the project's access to resources in terms of donations of both time and money. Again, it's easy to imagine why the authors would be indifferent to this, and my only point is that's a shame for anybody who values a more widely-used project.
    • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      >I've never worked hard on a public-facing project without hoping people would use it and find it useful // This is not incompatible with what I said. You can desire people to find and use a package without desiring to promote it in a standard marketing way. Perhaps the Inkscape team are happy with the ecosystem they have of supporters and users - that create such things as http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/ http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/, http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/ http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/, http://screencasters.heathenx.org/ http://screencasters.heathenx.org/ all easily found and all providing advocacy for the project. Along with their part in LGM. >global_welfare_added == (value_added_per_user) n_users* // Like you said that's simplistic. If you encourage users that wouldn't benefit, despite Inkscape being a great benefit for many, then you have a negative addition to your "global welfare". Sounds like you're ready to take the plunge though ... http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Editing_Inkscape%27s_website http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Editing_Inkscape%27s.... Perhaps you'd take inspiration from sk1 (also part of LGM) - http://sk1project.org/ http://sk1project.org/.
• pekk 13y ago
  Looks like a bog standard CMS deployment.