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As a BSD user, I think it would be great if you spoke a bit on your site about your bona fides in that community. And that you maintain a FreeBSD (only?) port.

by dtby 17y ago

cperciva 17y ago
As a BSD user, I think it would be great if you spoke a bit on your site about your bona fides in that community. On the About page I talk about being a FreeBSD committer, security team member, and Security Officer, and about some of the code I've written in FreeBSD -- is this insufficient? And that you maintain a FreeBSD (only?) port. There's also a slackbuild (Slackware), an AUR (Arch Linux), and the tarsnap source code contains debian packaging bits -- so FreeBSD isn't unique in having packaging metadata available for tarsnap. I plan on providing pre-built packages in the future too -- those will go onto the download page once they exist.
- dtby 17y ago
  is this insufficient? Nope. It sounds like exactly that for which I was looking. I couldn't (or rather, didn't) find it because I thought the indented bits under the Tarsnap label were telling me which things were included on the page I was on. I know, for example, that I saw News there.. and also News included just above the fold of the page I was on. In fact, I suppose realized later that they were sub-menu items. When I went to the Design page and clicked on the Security link, I recognized that the menu on the left changed. I'm pretty sure it would not have occurred to me to click on them directly, however. I spent maybe 90 seconds trying to find info about your work and the company, unsuccessfully. I don't know if this is, in any way, useful feedback. I mostly seem to be pointing out my inadequacies as a user, not providing any solutions to my so-called problems. FreeBSD isn't unique in having packaging metadata I looked on the Download page and expected to be told (especially around the time you mention that BSD systems usually have the OpenSSL header files already installed) that I could also find it in sysutils/tarsnap. I hope my comment proves more helpful than it appears from my end.
  - cperciva 17y ago
    realized later that they were sub-menu items Aha, that explains it. I did the menus this way because I (a) wanted to avoid javascript, and (b) thought it looked good -- but if it's confusing people I'd better see if I can find a different way of presenting the menu structure. I looked on the Download page and expected to be told that I could also find it in sysutils/tarsnap. Good point. Yeah, I should look at revising this page to point people at OS-specific instructions first, with the full install-from-autoconfed-source instructions only as a fallback for systems where I don't have special instructions. Thanks for the feedback!
    - jfarmer 17y ago
      You are extremely intelligent and an excellent engineer. But a designer or marketer you are not: focus on what you're good at, and convince people who are good at the other things to work with you (or teach you how to do it well).
- tptacek 17y ago
  Or the FreeBSD thing backfires on you, and makes tarsnap seem like an OSS OS satellite project, like OpenSSH and rsync. So maybe don't go that direction.

As a BSD user, I think it would be great if you spoke a bit on your site about your bona fides in that community. And that you maintain a FreeBSD (only?) port.

by dtby 17y ago

As a BSD user, I think it would be great if you spoke a bit on your site about your bona fides in that community. And that you maintain a FreeBSD (only?) port.

cperciva 17y ago

As a BSD user, I think it would be great if you spoke a bit on your site about your bona fides in that community. On the About page I talk about being a FreeBSD committer, security team member, and Security Officer, and about some of the code I've written in FreeBSD -- is this insufficient? And that you maintain a FreeBSD (only?) port. There's also a slackbuild (Slackware), an AUR (Arch Linux), and the tarsnap source code contains debian packaging bits -- so FreeBSD isn't unique in having packaging metadata available for tarsnap. I plan on providing pre-built packages in the future too -- those will go onto the download page once they exist.

dtby 17y ago
is this insufficient? Nope. It sounds like exactly that for which I was looking. I couldn't (or rather, didn't) find it because I thought the indented bits under the Tarsnap label were telling me which things were included on the page I was on. I know, for example, that I saw News there.. and also News included just above the fold of the page I was on. In fact, I suppose realized later that they were sub-menu items. When I went to the Design page and clicked on the Security link, I recognized that the menu on the left changed. I'm pretty sure it would not have occurred to me to click on them directly, however. I spent maybe 90 seconds trying to find info about your work and the company, unsuccessfully. I don't know if this is, in any way, useful feedback. I mostly seem to be pointing out my inadequacies as a user, not providing any solutions to my so-called problems. FreeBSD isn't unique in having packaging metadata I looked on the Download page and expected to be told (especially around the time you mention that BSD systems usually have the OpenSSL header files already installed) that I could also find it in sysutils/tarsnap. I hope my comment proves more helpful than it appears from my end.
- cperciva 17y ago
  realized later that they were sub-menu items Aha, that explains it. I did the menus this way because I (a) wanted to avoid javascript, and (b) thought it looked good -- but if it's confusing people I'd better see if I can find a different way of presenting the menu structure. I looked on the Download page and expected to be told that I could also find it in sysutils/tarsnap. Good point. Yeah, I should look at revising this page to point people at OS-specific instructions first, with the full install-from-autoconfed-source instructions only as a fallback for systems where I don't have special instructions. Thanks for the feedback!
  - jfarmer 17y ago
    You are extremely intelligent and an excellent engineer. But a designer or marketer you are not: focus on what you're good at, and convince people who are good at the other things to work with you (or teach you how to do it well).
tptacek 17y ago
Or the FreeBSD thing backfires on you, and makes tarsnap seem like an OSS OS satellite project, like OpenSSH and rsync. So maybe don't go that direction.