subject:"RE\: FreeBSD's Visual Identity\: Outdated\?"




From a business perspective we look amateurish.
 

I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of professionalism, 
which is not true.


I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):


1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll hunt 
you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just the black 
wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, I hate it. 
Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased modern web 
font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) and forget the 
whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of your logo designs 
are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the page: FreeBSD MALL, 
UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for example)


2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
Style Sheets?)


3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up 
about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)


4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie 
the default.


I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be nice 
if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with the way it 
is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the installer to match 
the website?


Here are some example sites:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/screens/system.png
http://www.mozilla.org/
http://www.horde.org/logos/
http://www.xfce.org/
http://www.gnome.org/
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.php.net/
http://freebsd.kde.org/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.apache.org/
http://www.adobe.com/
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.sun.com/
http://www.suse.com/
http://www.novell.com/
http://www.ibm.com/
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/
http://www.mysql.com/
http://cocoon.apache.org/
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.penguincomputing.com/

FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Sam


If we want to be taken seriously in the commercial world then we
need to have the right image.


Look ma, a strawman!

The concern you're addressing is the sort of thing distros
solved in the Linux world.  Each typically has their own
image, installer, system config style, etc.  More importantly
for the commercial world, though, they offer support and
certification.

The image alone just isn't the problem.  Or a problem at all,
I'd argue.  Let's be honest -- if a ten-year-old made Beastie,
then a mentally challenged 3-year-old made Tux (and large
portions of the kernel, but I digress).

Point being Johann, if the community rejects your work
for the core project you can still make your own distro
and release it.  Give it a shot!

Cheers,

Sam
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Simon Burke

 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.

I would like to know how you assume that he is a representation of
evil, ok he looks like a little devil char but there is more than one
definition of a devil and besides he looks kind of cute.
So the logo/mascot has been around a while but that doesnt warrant
change. If it does then most companies in the world need to update
their logos too.

Also freebsd is an operating system, if the developers and such spent
all this time maintaining its image rather than its OS then freeBSD
would no longer be such a great operating system.

 
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.


 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

Granted the installer is not the best installer around, but the main
point is that it does the job and it is pretty easy to follow in my
opinion anyway. Also there are a couple of projects to my knowledge
that are aiming to improve it.


 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand

 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?
 
 Anyone that are interested, please reply ;-)


-- 
Theres no place like ::1

Thanks,
SimonB
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


John-Mark Gurney wrote:


Nikolas Britton wrote this message on Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 22:46 -0600:
 

2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
Style Sheets?)
   



you mean a sans-serif font? yes, most computer display fonts should
be sans-serif since the screen resolution does not always allow you to
do that...  (and Helvetica isn't that modern, about 50 years old now
it appears)...
 


Yes


As for CSS, it appears that we do use CSS on the site:
link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href=./index.css /

And part of CSS is letting people choose what font they want to display
the site in...  It appears at least Mozilla chooses Times by default...
So I'd more complain to the browers that display with the default font..

 


learn something new everyday, thanks for the tip.

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RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nikolas Britton
 Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 10:09 PM
 To: Chris

  Maybe you can start, The Queer-Eye for the BSD-Guy.

 If thats what it takes to get FreeBSD out of obscurity and into the 
 enterprise then yes I will, just look at what apple did with BSD and 
 mozilla did with firefox, I don't want to see FreeBSD (or the other 
 BSDs) die into obscurity as I really like them.

I think there's more FreeBSD installations than Apple installations,
way, way more.  Obscurity is in the eye of the beholder.  And talk is
cheap.  The FreeBSD documentation team has already asked the FreeBSD
community to do a site redesign, see here:

http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/current.html#website-css

Nobody has stepped up to do it.  Since your so hot to redesign the
site why don't you e-mail them and get going on doing it instead of
talking about it?

Ted
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread John-Mark Gurney

Nikolas Britton wrote this message on Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 22:46 -0600:
 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
 modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
 Style Sheets?)

you mean a sans-serif font? yes, most computer display fonts should
be sans-serif since the screen resolution does not always allow you to
do that...  (and Helvetica isn't that modern, about 50 years old now
it appears)...

As for CSS, it appears that we do use CSS on the site:
 link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href=./index.css /

And part of CSS is letting people choose what font they want to display
the site in...  It appears at least Mozilla chooses Times by default...
So I'd more complain to the browers that display with the default font..

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney  Voice: +1 415 225 5579

 All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Nikolas Britton wrote:



From a business perspective we look amateurish.




I have held off thus far...



I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of professionalism, 
which is not true.


No you don't - would you prefer multi-colored windows? A penguin? What?
Are we looking into the geo-political correctness as in the like as the 
NetBSD project took?


I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):


Here we go - Let's just re engineer life as we know it. Lets also not 
offend gays, users of color, males, females, users of religion, users of 
no religion, users of Windows, users of Linux, users of DOS, users of 
NetWare, etc, etc, etc.


1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll hunt 
you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just the black 
wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, I hate it. 
Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased modern web 
font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) and forget the 
whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of your logo designs 
are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the page: FreeBSD MALL, 
UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for example)


You will do no such thing - see above, read the threads on the NetBSD 
site as to the redoing of the logo


2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
Style Sheets?)


CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up 
about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)


Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. Get real. Deal with the 
OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I really care if a design has 
passion blue opposed to blue?


Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels? If you want to re 
design something (Actually - is sounds like you have been watching way 
too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.


4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie 
the default.


Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...

I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be nice 
if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with the way it 
is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the installer to match 
the website?


Snip - not worth repeating.


FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.


Maybe you can start, The Queer-Eye for the BSD-Guy.

--
Best regards,
Chris

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Brian Astill

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:46 pm, Nikolas Britton wrote:
 FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.
 ___

It also needs people who realise that multiple cross-posting is 
deprecated.
Could this conversation please be moved to -advocacy and ONLY to 
-advocacy?
Thanks.

-- 
Regards,
Brian
sos-sa.org.au
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Dag-Erling Smørgrav

Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Nikolas Britton wrote:
   2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
   with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
   Cascading Style Sheets?)
  CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
 Actually, no.  Nikolas is right here.  The sans serif fonts look much
 better and are more readable on the monitor.  Times looks better on
 paper.

Times New Roman was designed for a single purpose: to remain readable
even when smudged or printed on low-quality paper.  It does not really
look good on any medium, but it's less bad than most other fonts on
newsprint.

Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.

Responding to Nikolas: Arial and Verdana are Windows fonts which is
not necessarily installed on www.freebsd.org's readers' machines
(though it is available in ports).  Conversely, Helvetica is generally
not available in Windows.  CSS defines 'sans-serif' as a generic alias
for whichever sans-serif font looks best on each particular platform
(it maps to Arial in Windows, and Helvetica or similar in X);
likewise, it defines 'serif' as a generic alias for serif fonts (it
maps to Times New Roman in Windows, and a variety of Roman fonts in X
depending on the browser and on what fonts are available).

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Giorgos Keramidas

On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Nikolas Britton wrote:
 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
 with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
 Cascading Style Sheets?)

 CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

Actually, no.  Nikolas is right here.  The sans serif fonts look much
better and are more readable on the monitor.  Times looks better on
paper.

 3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art
 school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up
 about basic color theory here:
 http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever
 here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

 Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. Get real. Deal with the
 OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I really care if a design
 has passion blue opposed to blue?

The fact that we don't know a lot about art and design is not a good
excuse for reacting badly to anyone that says so.

Nikolas, there is an effort to redesign the web site, using CSS as much
as possible for style  layout, making sure that the entire site has a
consistent look and feel.  Your comments show that you know a bit about
design.  If you believe you can help with such an effort, please contact
us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and assist the team who works on the web
site.

 Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels? If you want to re
 design something (Actually - is sounds like you have been watching way
 too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.

 4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is
 unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie
 the default.

 Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...

``Who cares?'' is exactly the sort of bad PR that Nikolas is right
about.  Please avoid inflammatory material, if possible :-/

Nikolas, there is a good reason why the ASCII art logo is not using
colors by default.  Many people use FreeBSD with a serial console, and
sending colors over a serial port connection is a bit silly: annoying an
a waste of precious serial connection bandwidth.  This is why the loader
logo doesn't use fancy colors by default.

- Giorgos

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Stefan Bethke


It was fun while it lasted. Please stop.

If you have to, move this to chat.

--
Stefan Bethke [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Fon +49 170 346 0140

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Karol Kwiatkowski

Ramiro Aceves wrote:
 jsha wrote:
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.
 
 I really like the devil, it is nice and pleasant for me.

A bit OT, but to make things clear I'd like to point out it's not the
devil. It's a daemon.
BSD Daemon.

 Many people equate the word ``daemon'' with the word ``demon,''
implying some kind of Satanic connection between UNIX and the
underworld. This is an egregious misunderstanding. ``Daemon'' is
actually a much older form of ``demon''; daemons have no particular
bias towards good or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's
character or personality. The ancient Greeks' concept of a ``personal
daemon'' was similar to the modern concept of a ``guardian angel'' ---
``eudaemonia'' is the state of being helped or protected by a kindly
spirit. As a rule, UNIX systems seem to be infested with both daemons
and demons.

quote from:
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/daemon.html

Regards,

Karol

-- 
Karol Kwiatkowski  freebsd at orchid dot homeunix dot org
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Ryan Sommers

Going to reply to the whole thread so far.

jsha said:
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years

Although I don't like the tone of the other replies, I agree with their
sentiment, beasty is as much a part of FreeBSD as the family dog is a part
of the family.


 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

I don't think the website is all that ugly, personally, however, a new
design isn't out of the question. So long as content and navigation is
somewhat preserved. I've found certain things difficult to find again when
I remember that I saw them somewhere, and I've been using FreeBSD for 7
years now.


 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

This is on many people's minds, including my own. Now that the holidays
are upon us I'm going to try and spend a little of my free time working on
putting my ideas into code. Or, I might look again at FreeBSDIE and
bsdinstaller and seeing what it would take to bring them into the tree.


 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behing a business card.


 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?


If you feel it needs to be done, and you would like to work on it, more
power to you! Come up with a concept design and submit it for review. I
think there are definite improvments to be made in the eyes of the
new-comer. I believe there is a www@ team is there not? Might try posting
to that list and see what you come up with. FreeBSD survives off people
spending time where they see fit. If web-dev and graphic arts is your
thing and you want to contribute, I for one will give you the time to
submit my opinion of your work.

Daniel Blendea said:
 1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
 the logo would change;
 Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..

 2. again, bu**s**it, the colors are not ugly at ALL, - and i'm not a
 fan of site's color theme coz i prefer blue-ish colors - again, think
 about identity...whenever one FreeBSD'er sees the logo/colors - on
 software packages, media and the like - he will know that product is
 related to FreeBSD

 3. please install FreeBSD couple of times, and afterwards you'll get
 to install it eyes- closed..

This is hardly the way to represent and argument. There is no need to be
profane at someone for expressing their ideas to aid the project. It
should be encouraged.

Others, please don't feed the troll.


Simon Burke said:
 Also freebsd is an operating system, if the developers and such spent
 all this time maintaining its image rather than its OS then freeBSD
 would no longer be such a great operating system.

The code developers don't have to spend time on web-dev and graphics. But
if there is a willing body that might not be able to work on the code but
has talent in the user-interface, web-development, and graphic arts field,
why not let them give their time to the project in a manner that fits
their skills? Please don't bash or make light of those that contribute
things other than code. Rock on doc@ team. Code or not you've done a great
job.

It takes many skillsets to develop and maintain a tool such as FreeBSD
code is just one of them.


--
Ryan Sommers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Ceri Davies

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 09:40:00PM -0800, John-Mark Gurney wrote:
 Nikolas Britton wrote this message on Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 22:46 -0600:

[ Choosing a random(ish) post to reply to - I am on holiday right now
  and I will not pretend to have read the whole thread ]

  2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
  modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
  Style Sheets?)
 
 you mean a sans-serif font? yes, most computer display fonts should
 be sans-serif since the screen resolution does not always allow you to
 do that...  (and Helvetica isn't that modern, about 50 years old now
 it appears)...
 
 As for CSS, it appears that we do use CSS on the site:
  link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href=./index.css /

I just committed that before I left for holidays; it is only a first
step towards CSS'ing the site, and once the conversion to CSS is
complete then it should be simple to have an a best stylesheet
competition or similar (something along those lines was discussed on
doc@ a couple of weeks ago).  Matt Seaman posted a link to a crappy
here is what CSS can do mockup that I posted to doc@ just before the
commit mentioned above - it's at
http://shrike.submonkey.net/~ceri/data2/index.html (be sure to let all
the images load - this is on a slow link - and be aware that it doesn't
work properly in IE for reasons that DES mentioned elsewhere).

Once the conversion to CSS is complete then I have ideas for a way to
offer users a personalised stylesheet (subject to implementation [I do
not have a computer with me] and benchmarking [it is likely to be a
little slow, though this remains to be seen]), and then you will all
whine like bitchen about being asked to accept a cookie.

Simon@ also has a parallel project running to redesign the site on a
more fundamental which is showing promise; my main focus at present is
to migrate all style related bits into stylesheets, at which point it
will be easy to mess around with colour/font/layout.  At present, it is
not.

So yes, to whoever asked the question, we have heard of CSS and we have
not only been using it (minimally) for over three years, but there is
real activity in improving what we do have already.

 And part of CSS is letting people choose what font they want to display
 the site in...  It appears at least Mozilla chooses Times by default...
 So I'd more complain to the browers that display with the default font..

Stimmt.

Ceri
-- 
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former.-- Einstein (attrib.)


pgpgq55Jgs0Bn.pgp
Description: PGP signature

RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Frank Pawlak

This beyond a doubt is one of the best explanations that I have seen, 
heard, expressed, etc., of how the fsck'ed up world of business does IT 
stuff, and I have done IT consulting on various levels for over 18 
years.  Very well said Ted.  It points out quite well why BSD in general 
has a bad time in the marketplace.


Regards,
Frank

At 11:36 PM 12/27/2004, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:




 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
 Vetterberg
 Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
 To: Simon Burke
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
 freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


 Simon Burke wrote:
 [snip]
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But
 a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.
 
 
  Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
  do. Also i actually like how it looks.
  A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
  dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
  navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
  really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
  would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
  have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.

 This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the
 problem.

Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD integration
in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand the problem.

 Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
 flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
 have today.

That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.

 But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
 improve the website. Why?
 Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
 and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
 why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
 stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
 a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
 towards the nearest linux advocate instead.

Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'

FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.  Linux
meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C and usually
meets B and doesen't usually meet A.

The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO and
I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source provider,
then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm locked into
you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that your going to become
very expensive to me - why, because there's no competition to you out there.
I'm not going to do that unless I trust you implicitly.  And there's very
few business people I am ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless
your a son or daughter, and even then I may not.

You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to integrate
technology into their systems, they don't even understand their
current system.

CEO's choose Windows because they think that there's enough Windows
guys out there that if they don't like the one they have they can
boot him out and get another.  They only will give up choosing Windows
if they either absolutely cannot afford it, or if Windows simply won't
do what they need done.

If they cannot afford it, what they will then do is keep dragging
Windows consultant after Windows consultant in to present to them,
until they stumble over an ignoramus (which is not hard) who over
commits himself and promises the world.  They will then burn up
this guy, threatening lawsuits and everything else until they have
extracted the last drop of free work they can, then they will
jettison him.  If they simply cannot find any ignoramuses then
I've seen them try deputizing some sales guy or secretary to manage
their Windows deployment, and finally a year afterwards when they
have a house full of Windows XP Home edition and no server, and
a giant workgroup that's falling apart, and they have lost some
critical files because they wern't backing up Sally Sue's workstation
and her disk crashed, then they will panic and overspend

RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
 Vetterberg
 Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
 To: Simon Burke
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
 freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

 Simon Burke wrote:
 [snip]
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But
 a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

  Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
  do. Also i actually like how it looks.
  A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
  dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
  navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
  really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
  would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
  have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.

 This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the
 problem.

Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD integration
in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand the problem.

 Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
 flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
 have today.

That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.

 But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
 improve the website. Why?
 Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
 and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
 why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
 stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
 a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
 towards the nearest linux advocate instead.

Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'

FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.  Linux
meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C and usually
meets B and doesen't usually meet A.

The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO and
I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source provider,
then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm locked into
you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that your going to become
very expensive to me - why, because there's no competition to you out there.
I'm not going to do that unless I trust you implicitly.  And there's very
few business people I am ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless
your a son or daughter, and even then I may not.

You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to integrate
technology into their systems, they don't even understand their
current system.

CEO's choose Windows because they think that there's enough Windows
guys out there that if they don't like the one they have they can
boot him out and get another.  They only will give up choosing Windows
if they either absolutely cannot afford it, or if Windows simply won't
do what they need done.

If they cannot afford it, what they will then do is keep dragging
Windows consultant after Windows consultant in to present to them,
until they stumble over an ignoramus (which is not hard) who over
commits himself and promises the world.  They will then burn up
this guy, threatening lawsuits and everything else until they have
extracted the last drop of free work they can, then they will
jettison him.  If they simply cannot find any ignoramuses then
I've seen them try deputizing some sales guy or secretary to manage
their Windows deployment, and finally a year afterwards when they
have a house full of Windows XP Home edition and no server, and
a giant workgroup that's falling apart, and they have lost some
critical files because they wern't backing up Sally Sue's workstation
and her disk crashed, then they will panic and overspend on a
Windows installation.

The CEO's that choose FreeBSD or Linux are the ones where even the
Windows consultants they drag in all tell them I can't do that
either because Windows cannot do it, or because the price they
want it done at is so unbelievably cheap that even the ignoramus
Windows consultants can see that it's impossible.

My take on it is that about 90% of the FreeBSD

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:


nbritton wrote: gain this is are target market; consultants, integrators, vars, 
etc.  I
bet 80% of them don't even know FreeBSD exists and of the 20% that do
only 20% would consider using and recommending it based on technical
merit alone.

   



A var that has a thriving Linux consultancy and no FreeBSD experience
isn't going to buy into FreeBSD. The only time your going to get a
consultant with no FreeBSD experience into looking at FreeBSD is if they
can't make a go of it with their existing product line, or if they have
never done consulting before and
are just starting out.


 



This is one of main point I'm trying to make in all of these talks. How 
are they ever going to know it's out there and when they do make first 
contact don't you think we should greet them in a professional manner?



Sorry if I mangled the message a bit when I cut out all the fluff.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
Vetterberg
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
To: Simon Burke
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


   

 


Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
have today.
   



That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.
 


It does, and that is why I use it. Amiga was like that too.

 


But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
   



Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  

Why are you even talking to CEOs? This is a job for CTOs and/or CIOs, 
and if a company didn't have one you wound then be talking to a CFO or COO.



What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'
 

d) support. e) what everyone else uses. Most companys only care about d 
and e as windows is nether a, b, or c... umm how'd it go... No one ever 
got fired for buying IBM




I've frankly never seen a Linux-vs-FreeBSD deal where Linux won
if the consultant wanted to use FreeBSD, 


You assuming the consultant even knows about FreeBSD, most do not.


and the customer was willing
to deviate from Microsoft.

Know your market, we are not trying to get them to switch to FreeBSD 
from Windows, we are the alternative to the alternative for a company 
that has already decide to go with the alternative instead of windows.



 VERY few customers are willing to deviate
from Microsoft, at least not in the Western states.  

On the desktop yes, but where not talking about desktops here, where 
talking about servers and Linux has its claws all over the server market.


 


We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!

   



I would suggest that if you really are this lit up about this issue
that you direct your customers to you OWN website which is quite obviously
superior to the FreeBSD one.
 


Now thats just asinine.



Roger, you really need to be dumbing down your presentations, these
CEO's your presenting to really don't understand all those big
words.  Instead of using FreeBSD use UNIX  It's shorter and
even the most sheltered of them understand that yooouu-nikx is
something that runs computers like winders is.  

I'm sorry to say but anyone outside of IT/IS/MIS has no clue what UNIX 
is. at best they mistake it for Linux.



And rather
than telling them how many mega-bytes and giga-bits the nice
new server is going to run at, just tell them it's going to be
big, and fast and powerful like Arnold Schwartznegger.  

I agree with you about the megabit and bytes but you have gone to far to 
the other extreme, they are not stupid, the CEO's job is to keep the 
company afloat not know what a megabyte is, this is why we have CTOs and 
CIOs.




In fact you might just consider hiring a professional salesperson
that doesen't really know too much about what your selling.


this is a good idea, I'd have to agree with him.


You shouldn't even
be talking about operating systems until you have sold them on
yourself and your company, 

Again this is are target market; consultants, integrators, vars, etc.  I 
bet 80% of them don't even know FreeBSD exists and of the 20% that do 
only 20% would consider using and recommending it based on technical 
merit alone.


I want a part of the linux pie!

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Colin J. Raven


On Dec 25, Nikolas Britton responded thusly:


Colin J. Raven wrote:


On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:


Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.



One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.



One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of the 
engine.



One should not buy a car without at least looking under the hood, kicking the 
tires, and taking it for a test drive.




One should not need to strike tires with one's footwear in order to 
determine the suitability of the vehicle.



Regards,
-Colin
--
Colin J. Raven
3:19PM  up  4:20, 2 users, load averages: 1.76, 1.63, 1.59
Today's Random Silliness:
There's a disturbance in the force, OK...who didn't flush the toilet?
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Alexander Leidinger

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:27:31 +0100
jsha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I am writing this e-mail hoping that someone will share my thoughts
 on how the world's best operating system should represent its attributes
 and users to the rest of the world.

You know that you write this a t a time where a lot of people are
visiting their family and don't have email access or don't read the
mailinglists? At least this is the case for a lot of FreeBSD committers.

 Being an architect as well as graphic designer, I feel it is about time
 for a complete revamp of the visual aesthetics of the FreeBSD project.

Even if a lot of committers won't/can't answer now: there are people
which agree with you (maybe not all, but you know what we say about
bikesheds, don't you?).

 The current logo and everything pertaining to it has long since lost its
 modern touch. I believe that if this image is strenghtened, so is the
 way outsiders view the FreeBSD project and the way they would judge it
 compared to other open source operating systems.
 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks

We had an discussion a while ago about this. The way I understand the
conclusion is: we have a mascot, but no logo (we may use our mascot like
other people use a logo ATM). And we want to keep the mascot. We may be
interested in a logo, but a logo is a bikeshed topic. Since we're more
developers than designers, nobody stepped up to proceed on this topic
(at least I don't know about it if someone proceeded further).

If you want to put your energy into creating a logo, there will be
people which listen to you.

like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.

This is a little bit harsh. I suggest to stay with facts and
suggestions. Keep such rants for your personal pleasure, we don't need
them.

 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

The doc team is progressing in this direction... at least if I read the
content between the lines of commit logs right. I think they try to
separate the content from the design at the moment (the prerequisite to
use the full power of CSS). I suggest to get in contact with them to not
reinvent the wheel.

 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

Yes. AFAIK the Freesbie project is integrating the bsdinstaller (the
installer DragonFly uses) ATM. We will see how this works out and
depending on this there may be interest to integrate the installer into
FreeBSD.

 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

Even if there are some people which don't think this is needed, I like
this idea. In may day to day job I'm working as a consultant, so I know
where/how/why this may be beneficial (or not).

 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?

We can't guarantee that any of your work will be adopted, but I don't
think your work will be ignored (be prepared to get a lot of critique...
positive and negative one).

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
  The best things in life are free, but the
expensive ones are still worth a look.

http://www.Leidinger.net   Alexander @ Leidinger.net
  GPG fingerprint = C518 BC70 E67F 143F BE91  3365 79E2 9C60 B006 3FE7
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Frank Pawlak wrote:

This is one of several issues that have been brought up on an almost 
periodic basis for the past several years.  There have been several 
attempts by various folks, including a rather ambitious one by this 
author, and all have died because of severe lack of interest.  It has 
been a few years since I have posted to this news group but my advise 
to you is to give it up.  You will only meet with much frustration, 
apathy, and something along the lines of  if you don't like it fix it 
yourself.


I say we keep on rehashing this everyday until someone does it just to 
shut us up. ;-) Has there ever been an attempt at forming a group so us 
like minded people can fix it ourselfs?




I consider this very unfortunate, because has some commercial 
properties that could well be more attractive than other OS'S.  The 
development team just is not interested in this issue.  I have fought 
many a battle in years past over marketing issues with members of the 
core team and others.  OK, everyone lets see you flame throwers.  
Wes Petters, Jordan Hubbard, are you out there;-)


Frank

At 06:57 PM 12/27/2004, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:


Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]

2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the 
FreeBSD

  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a 
redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without 
being

  ugly.



Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.



This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the 
problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the 
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to 
have today. But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to 
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or 
similar and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation 
knows why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid 
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as 
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming 
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be 
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about 
it!


[snip]


4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.



I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand



Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.

--
R
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Dag-Erling Smørgrav

Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
  Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
  apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
  discussion.
 Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
 then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
 bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.

 One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
 drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Frank Pawlak

This is one of several issues that have been brought up on an almost 
periodic basis for the past several years.  There have been several 
attempts by various folks, including a rather ambitious one by this author, 
and all have died because of severe lack of interest.  It has been a few 
years since I have posted to this news group but my advise to you is to 
give it up.  You will only meet with much frustration, apathy, and 
something along the lines of  if you don't like it fix it yourself.


I consider this very unfortunate, because has some commercial properties 
that could well be more attractive than other OS'S.  The development team 
just is not interested in this issue.  I have fought many a battle in years 
past over marketing issues with members of the core team and others.  OK, 
everyone lets see you flame throwers.  Wes Petters, Jordan Hubbard, are 
you out there;-)


Frank

At 06:57 PM 12/27/2004, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:


Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]

2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
  ugly.


Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.


This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the flashy 
installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to have today. 
But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to improve the 
website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar and 
tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows why. They 
might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid stability, the 
lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as a server os, but 
one look at the website and they will run screaming towards the nearest 
linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be taken 
seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!


[snip]

4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.


I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand


Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.

--
R
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Nikolas Britton wrote:


2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
Cascading Style Sheets?)


CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?



Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.



Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was then 
that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my bag, so 
I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.


One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to drive 
the car.



--
Best regards,
Chris

You can't expect to hit the jackpot
if you don't put a few nickles in the machine.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg


Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]

2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
  ugly.



Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.


This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the 
problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the 
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to 
have today. But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to 
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar 
and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows 
why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid 
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as 
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming 
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be 
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!


[snip]

4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.



I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand


Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.

--
R
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Chris wrote:


Nikolas Britton wrote:




From a business perspective we look amateurish.





I have held off thus far...



I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of 
professionalism, which is not true.



No you don't - would you prefer multi-colored windows? A penguin? What?


hmm?, fuck no I hate penguins (esp Linux ones), there's nothing wrong 
with chucky


Are we looking into the geo-political correctness as in the like as 
the NetBSD project took?


No, just a better image in the enterprises and data centers of the world.



I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):



Here we go - Let's just re engineer life as we know it. Lets also not 
offend gays, users of color, males, females, users of religion, users 
of no religion, users of Windows, users of Linux, users of DOS, users 
of NetWare, etc, etc, etc.


How did you extrapolate that from what I said? I guess I did step your 
toe's and ego, I was only trying to give constructive criticism.




1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll 
hunt you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just 
the black wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, 
I hate it. Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased 
modern web font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) 
and forget the whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of 
your logo designs are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the 
page: FreeBSD MALL, UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for 
example)



You will do no such thing - see above, read the threads on the NetBSD 
site as to the redoing of the logo


I DON'T want it redesigned (like NetBSD did) just re-done... same logo 
just better looking, image is everything you know.




2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site 
with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of 
Cascading Style Sheets?)



CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?


No, it's a web standard: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ also it would be a 
good idea to look into XHTML: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/




3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read 
up about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)



Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. 


Yes I can tell, I was trying to offer some helpfull tips

Get real. Deal with the OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I 
really care if a design has passion blue opposed to blue?


Yes



Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels?


I don't like pastels ether, to girly, I like bold and neutral colors.

If you want to re design something (Actually - is sounds like you have 
been watching way too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.


I watch the history channel most of the time or the courses offered by 
the local college on channel 20 , I really think TLC has gone down hill 
with all the trading spaces type shows, though page is cute. It's just 
that I've always had a good eye for this type of stuff.





4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII 
beastie the default.



Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...


That is true.



I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be 
nice if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with 
the way it is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the 
installer to match the website?



Snip - not worth repeating.


FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.



Maybe you can start, The Queer-Eye for the BSD-Guy.


If thats what it takes to get FreeBSD out of obscurity and into the 
enterprise then yes I will, just look at what apple did with BSD and 
mozilla did with firefox, I don't want to see FreeBSD (or the other 
BSDs) die into obscurity as I really like them.


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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Colin J. Raven wrote:


On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:


Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.



One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.



One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of 
the engine.



One should not buy a car without at least looking under the hood, 
kicking the tires, and taking it for a test drive.


Merry Christmas,
   Nikolas
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:


Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.


Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.



CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.



One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.



One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

DES


Technically - I didn't criticize. Allow me to post verbatim;

CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

Doesn't look like it to me - looks more like a query or two.
But that's just me tho - perhaps you read something else?

Perhaps too much eggnog? Perhaps not enough?

--
Best regards,
Chris


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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg


Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:



-Original Message- From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger

'Rocky' Vetterberg Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM To:
Simon Burke Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org;
freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual
Identity: Outdated?


Simon Burke wrote: [snip]


2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of
the FreeBSD website, it would be among the less beautiful.
Yes, it serves its purpose well by being simple and straight
to the point. But


a redesign


could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy --
without being ugly.



Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its
supposed to do. Also i actually like how it looks. A lot of
people have strong feelings about all these all singing all 
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and

easy to navigate around thats all thats really important. If
the aesthetics really matter more than function to such people
who use BSD then they would probably be not using BSD but
either windows or linux, where you have a nice pretty GUI to
look at all the nice pretty sites.


This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand
the problem.



Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD
integration in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand
the problem.



Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all
the flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros
seems to have today.



That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like
it because it works better than most commercial operating systems
let alone most operating systems.


The reason? Like there was only one reason to like an os?
I like FreeBSD due to its lack of bells and whistles, but I also like 
it due to its stability, performance, ease of use and license, among 
many other reasons. Maybe I should have made that more clear, I do not 
wish to come across as a guy that favours an os based on one reason alone.



But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to improve
the website. Why? Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom
full of CEO's or similar and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD
in a big organisation knows why. They might like all the facts
about the os, the rock-solid stability, the lightning-fast
performance and its solid reputation as a server os, but one look
at the website and they will run screaming towards the nearest
linux advocate instead.


Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle
about a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need
done be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't
lock me in to you'


I think we have a missunderstanding here. I already work for a big 
corporation. When I said that I was trying to sell FreeBSD, I meant 
that I was trying to get the company that I work for to chose FreeBSD 
over some other product. Im not a consultant of any kind, Im a 
fulltime employed technician trying to keep my employers network up 
and running.



FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.
Linux meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C
and usually meets B and doesen't usually meet A.

The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO
and I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source
provider, then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm
locked into you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that
your going to become very expensive to me - why, because there's no
competition to you out there. I'm not going to do that unless I
trust you implicitly.  And there's very few business people I am
ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless your a son or
daughter, and even then I may not.

You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk 
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't 
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to

integrate technology into their systems, they don't even understand
their current system.


As I explained earlier, Im not selling anything.
We are several technicians at my company, some of us prefer BSD while 
others prefer linux, windows, sun or whatever the flavour of the day 
is. Everytime we get a new bunch of servers or a new task needs to be 
done, there is a religious war before we decide what os to use.
Most of the time, the board wants a say in decisions like this, and 
BSD almost always loses this, due to a very unproffesional image. 
Since the company already has the expertise inhouse, the hardware has 
been ordered and everything is paid, they dont give a shit about 
price. When I tell them that BSD can do everything they want and do it 
good, they listen. When I tell them that its free, they listen but 
they dont really care. When the linux guys makes exactly the same 
claims and also is able to back

RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nikolas Britton
 Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 4:50 AM
 To: Ted Mittelstaedt
 Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org;
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Simon Burke
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

 Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 What they care about is: 'can what I need done
 be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
 in to you'

 d) support. e) what everyone else uses. Most companys only care about d
 and e as windows is nether a, b, or c... umm how'd it go... No one ever
 got fired for buying IBM

If you think about it, d and e are the same thing as a and c.

What does support constitute to the average CEO?  If you asked them they
would say that it's the ability to
pick up the phone and get the problem fixed, right?

Well guess what - you can do that with FreeBSD, there's paid incident
support
here:  http://www.bsdmall.com/fbsdpay4tech.html

about the same cost as the Microsoft offering, as a matter of fact.

If you tell them that, they will sit back, scratch their head, and
eventually
say something along the lines of 'well I can just call any joe blow in
the yellow pages for windows questions'

And they are right.  Because there's lots of so-called 'windows consultants'
out there who are to put it bluntly, so piss-poor that they will give you
gobs of free-but-worthless support over the phone in an attempt to get
an appointment with you for some billable time.  And if that doesen't work
well, my kid brother has a computer that he plays Doom on all the time so
he must be a computer sexpert, right?

The people selling commercial FreeBSD support want a lot of money - but in
exchange you get support that is actually worth what you pay for.

The people selling commercial Windows support are all over the map - some
do want a lot of money for good support, others will take a little bit of
money for crap support.

The CEOs that don't know any better figure that the cheap support is as
good as the expensive support - so they then classify the expensive
support (both windows and freebsd) in the 'nonexistent' category and
then tell you with a straight face that freebsd is not supported.

Now, if your talking hardware support - then please, yes there's lots of
cheapskates running offices who are buying winprinters so they can save
$50, we know that.  And paying double for the ink cartridges, yes I know
that one too.

And as for the every one else uses it - where do you see this most?  It's
in the companies that don't want to spend a cent on training people.  They
want to hire their secretaries out of the local 1 year business prep school
and put them to work writing letters with Microsoft Word, because that
is all the business prep school trains them to do.  What is missed of course
is that since those sorts of people are only good for plunking down in
front of a Windows XP system with Microsoft Word on it, after those people
get finished writing your Microsoft Word document, they spend the last
6 hours of the day downloading new screensavers, changing the fonts on
their computers, instant messaging their friends, etc.

If instead you plunked them down in front of a FreeBSD system running
XFree, after they got done with writing the memo you wanted them to write,
they would be unable to idle away time on the computer, and you might
actually get some useful work out of them.

If you don't believe this take a look at the Microsoft desktop
offerings.  Microsoft is belatedly waking up to this and ever since
NT, a skilled Windows admin can go in and lock down every scrap of
anything on all his Windows NT, 2K, or XP desktops so that the
secretaries can't do anything other than what their job is.  And more
and more companies are starting to do this, or at least try
doing it.

 Know your market, we are not trying to get them to switch to FreeBSD
 from Windows, we are the alternative to the alternative for a company
 that has already decide to go with the alternative instead of windows.

you might be.  But your fighting the hardest battle.  Unlike you I'm
out there showing them how many tens of thousands of dollars they are
going to save by not buying a new server that is running XP Pro Server,
and Microsoft Exchange, and all the other nasty proprietary business
software that Microsoft has designed to leech onto your company.

   VERY few customers are willing to deviate
 from Microsoft, at least not in the Western states.

 On the desktop yes, but where not talking about desktops here, where
 talking about servers and Linux has its claws all over the server market.

The Linux people are also talking about desktops.  In fact, they are
concentrating more on the desktops now than on the servers, that is why
the Linux distros all have GUI installers and the like.  When was the
last time you installed Linux?  Today's Linux is designed to be installed
by a non

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


Chris wrote:

Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:


Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:


Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.



Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.




CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.



One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.




One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

DES



Technically - I didn't criticize. Allow me to post verbatim;

CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

Doesn't look like it to me - looks more like a query or two.
But that's just me tho - perhaps you read something else?

Perhaps too much eggnog? Perhaps not enough?



Allow me to end this with this thought, if there is any doubt that what 
I asked was indeed a question (opposed to a statement of fact as DES 
seems to say (Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the 
facts))


Here is a quote from Dictionary.com on Question -
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=question
   1. An expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply.
   2. An interrogative sentence, phrase, or gesture.

In addition, that little thing at the then of the line (?) also defines 
it as the above mentioned.



--
Best regards,
Chris

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Colin J. Raven


On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:


Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.


One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.


One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of 
the engine.


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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2005-07-02 Thread Daniel Blendea

1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
the logo would change;
Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..

2. again, bu**s**it, the colors are not ugly at ALL, - and i'm not a
fan of site's color theme coz i prefer blue-ish colors - again, think
about identity...whenever one FreeBSD'er sees the logo/colors - on
software packages, media and the like - he will know that product is
related to FreeBSD

3. please install FreeBSD couple of times, and afterwards you'll get
to install it eyes- closed..

thank you for reading and please excuse my excited tone,
Daniel

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:27:31 +0100, jsha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 Hello.
 
 I am writing this e-mail hoping that someone will share my thoughts
 on how the world's best operating system should represent its attributes
 and users to the rest of the world.
 
 Being an architect as well as graphic designer, I feel it is about time
 for a complete revamp of the visual aesthetics of the FreeBSD project.
 The current logo and everything pertaining to it has long since lost its
 modern touch. I believe that if this image is strenghtened, so is the
 way outsiders view the FreeBSD project and the way they would judge it
 compared to other open source operating systems.
 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.
 
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.
 
 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.
 
 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.
 
 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?
 
 Anyone that are interested, please reply ;-)
 
 Sincerely,
 Johann Manaf Tepstad
 --
 j.
 
 

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RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-29 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nikolas Britton
 Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 4:50 AM
 To: Ted Mittelstaedt
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org;
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Simon Burke
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

 Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 What they care about is: 'can what I need done
 be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
 in to you'

 d) support. e) what everyone else uses. Most companys only care about d
 and e as windows is nether a, b, or c... umm how'd it go... No one ever
 got fired for buying IBM

If you think about it, d and e are the same thing as a and c.

What does support constitute to the average CEO?  If you asked them they
would say that it's the ability to
pick up the phone and get the problem fixed, right?

Well guess what - you can do that with FreeBSD, there's paid incident
support
here:  http://www.bsdmall.com/fbsdpay4tech.html

about the same cost as the Microsoft offering, as a matter of fact.

If you tell them that, they will sit back, scratch their head, and
eventually
say something along the lines of 'well I can just call any joe blow in
the yellow pages for windows questions'

And they are right.  Because there's lots of so-called 'windows consultants'
out there who are to put it bluntly, so piss-poor that they will give you
gobs of free-but-worthless support over the phone in an attempt to get
an appointment with you for some billable time.  And if that doesen't work
well, my kid brother has a computer that he plays Doom on all the time so
he must be a computer sexpert, right?

The people selling commercial FreeBSD support want a lot of money - but in
exchange you get support that is actually worth what you pay for.

The people selling commercial Windows support are all over the map - some
do want a lot of money for good support, others will take a little bit of
money for crap support.

The CEOs that don't know any better figure that the cheap support is as
good as the expensive support - so they then classify the expensive
support (both windows and freebsd) in the 'nonexistent' category and
then tell you with a straight face that freebsd is not supported.

Now, if your talking hardware support - then please, yes there's lots of
cheapskates running offices who are buying winprinters so they can save
$50, we know that.  And paying double for the ink cartridges, yes I know
that one too.

And as for the every one else uses it - where do you see this most?  It's
in the companies that don't want to spend a cent on training people.  They
want to hire their secretaries out of the local 1 year business prep school
and put them to work writing letters with Microsoft Word, because that
is all the business prep school trains them to do.  What is missed of course
is that since those sorts of people are only good for plunking down in
front of a Windows XP system with Microsoft Word on it, after those people
get finished writing your Microsoft Word document, they spend the last
6 hours of the day downloading new screensavers, changing the fonts on
their computers, instant messaging their friends, etc.

If instead you plunked them down in front of a FreeBSD system running
XFree, after they got done with writing the memo you wanted them to write,
they would be unable to idle away time on the computer, and you might
actually get some useful work out of them.

If you don't believe this take a look at the Microsoft desktop
offerings.  Microsoft is belatedly waking up to this and ever since
NT, a skilled Windows admin can go in and lock down every scrap of
anything on all his Windows NT, 2K, or XP desktops so that the
secretaries can't do anything other than what their job is.  And more
and more companies are starting to do this, or at least try
doing it.

 Know your market, we are not trying to get them to switch to FreeBSD
 from Windows, we are the alternative to the alternative for a company
 that has already decide to go with the alternative instead of windows.

you might be.  But your fighting the hardest battle.  Unlike you I'm
out there showing them how many tens of thousands of dollars they are
going to save by not buying a new server that is running XP Pro Server,
and Microsoft Exchange, and all the other nasty proprietary business
software that Microsoft has designed to leech onto your company.

   VERY few customers are willing to deviate
 from Microsoft, at least not in the Western states.

 On the desktop yes, but where not talking about desktops here, where
 talking about servers and Linux has its claws all over the server market.

The Linux people are also talking about desktops.  In fact, they are
concentrating more on the desktops now than on the servers, that is why
the Linux distros all have GUI installers and the like.  When was the
last time you installed Linux?  Today's Linux is designed to be installed
by a non-technical

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-29 Thread Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

-Original Message- From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger
'Rocky' Vetterberg Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM To:
Simon Burke Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org;
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual
Identity: Outdated?

Simon Burke wrote: [snip]
2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of
the FreeBSD website, it would be among the less beautiful.
Yes, it serves its purpose well by being simple and straight
to the point. But
a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy --
without being ugly.

Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its
supposed to do. Also i actually like how it looks. A lot of
people have strong feelings about all these all singing all 
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and
easy to navigate around thats all thats really important. If
the aesthetics really matter more than function to such people
who use BSD then they would probably be not using BSD but
either windows or linux, where you have a nice pretty GUI to
look at all the nice pretty sites.
This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand
the problem.

Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD
integration in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand
the problem.

Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all
the flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros
seems to have today.

That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like
it because it works better than most commercial operating systems
let alone most operating systems.
The reason? Like there was only one reason to like an os?
I like FreeBSD due to its lack of bells and whistles, but I also like 
it due to its stability, performance, ease of use and license, among 
many other reasons. Maybe I should have made that more clear, I do not 
wish to come across as a guy that favours an os based on one reason alone.

But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to improve
the website. Why? Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom
full of CEO's or similar and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD
in a big organisation knows why. They might like all the facts
about the os, the rock-solid stability, the lightning-fast
performance and its solid reputation as a server os, but one look
at the website and they will run screaming towards the nearest
linux advocate instead.
Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle
about a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need
done be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't
lock me in to you'
I think we have a missunderstanding here. I already work for a big 
corporation. When I said that I was trying to sell FreeBSD, I meant 
that I was trying to get the company that I work for to chose FreeBSD 
over some other product. Im not a consultant of any kind, Im a 
fulltime employed technician trying to keep my employers network up 
and running.

FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.
Linux meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C
and usually meets B and doesen't usually meet A.
The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO
and I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source
provider, then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm
locked into you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that
your going to become very expensive to me - why, because there's no
competition to you out there. I'm not going to do that unless I
trust you implicitly.  And there's very few business people I am
ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless your a son or
daughter, and even then I may not.
You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk 
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't 
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to
integrate technology into their systems, they don't even understand
their current system.
As I explained earlier, Im not selling anything.
We are several technicians at my company, some of us prefer BSD while 
others prefer linux, windows, sun or whatever the flavour of the day 
is. Everytime we get a new bunch of servers or a new task needs to be 
done, there is a religious war before we decide what os to use.
Most of the time, the board wants a say in decisions like this, and 
BSD almost always loses this, due to a very unproffesional image. 
Since the company already has the expertise inhouse, the hardware has 
been ordered and everything is paid, they dont give a shit about 
price. When I tell them that BSD can do everything they want and do it 
good, they listen. When I tell them that its free, they listen but 
they dont really care. When the linux guys makes exactly the same 
claims and also is able to back it up with proffesional looking 
websites

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-29 Thread Nikolas Britton

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
nbritton wrote: gain this is are target market; consultants, integrators, vars, 
etc.  I
bet 80% of them don't even know FreeBSD exists and of the 20% that do
only 20% would consider using and recommending it based on technical
merit alone.
   

A var that has a thriving Linux consultancy and no FreeBSD experience
isn't going to buy into FreeBSD. The only time your going to get a
consultant with no FreeBSD experience into looking at FreeBSD is if they
can't make a go of it with their existing product line, or if they have
never done consulting before and
are just starting out.
 

This is one of main point I'm trying to make in all of these talks. How 
are they ever going to know it's out there and when they do make first 
contact don't you think we should greet them in a professional manner?

Sorry if I mangled the message a bit when I cut out all the fluff.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-29 Thread Joshua Lokken

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:17:29 -0600, Nikolas Britton [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 This is one of main point I'm trying to make in all of these talks. How
 are they ever going to know it's out there and when they do make first
 contact don't you think we should greet them in a professional manner?
 
 Sorry if I mangled the message a bit when I cut out all the fluff.

I was under the impression that cross-posting to multiple lists was
discouraged.  Can we just pick one?  It's not uninteresting, just so
redundant...

-- 
Joshua Lokken
Open Source Advocate
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-29 Thread Stefan Bethke

It was fun while it lasted. Please stop.
If you have to, move this to chat.
--
Stefan Bethke [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Fon +49 170 346 0140
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-28 Thread Nikolas Britton

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
Vetterberg
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
To: Simon Burke
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
have today.

That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.

It does, and that is why I use it. Amiga was like that too.

But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.

Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  

Why are you even talking to CEOs? This is a job for CTOs and/or CIOs, 
and if a company didn't have one you wound then be talking to a CFO or COO.

What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'

d) support. e) what everyone else uses. Most companys only care about d 
and e as windows is nether a, b, or c... umm how'd it go... No one ever 
got fired for buying IBM

I've frankly never seen a Linux-vs-FreeBSD deal where Linux won
if the consultant wanted to use FreeBSD, 

You assuming the consultant even knows about FreeBSD, most do not.
and the customer was willing
to deviate from Microsoft.
Know your market, we are not trying to get them to switch to FreeBSD 
from Windows, we are the alternative to the alternative for a company 
that has already decide to go with the alternative instead of windows.

 VERY few customers are willing to deviate
from Microsoft, at least not in the Western states.  

On the desktop yes, but where not talking about desktops here, where 
talking about servers and Linux has its claws all over the server market.

We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!

I would suggest that if you really are this lit up about this issue
that you direct your customers to you OWN website which is quite obviously
superior to the FreeBSD one.

Now thats just asinine.
Roger, you really need to be dumbing down your presentations, these
CEO's your presenting to really don't understand all those big
words.  Instead of using FreeBSD use UNIX  It's shorter and
even the most sheltered of them understand that yooouu-nikx is
something that runs computers like winders is.  

I'm sorry to say but anyone outside of IT/IS/MIS has no clue what UNIX 
is. at best they mistake it for Linux.

And rather
than telling them how many mega-bytes and giga-bits the nice
new server is going to run at, just tell them it's going to be
big, and fast and powerful like Arnold Schwartznegger.  

I agree with you about the megabit and bytes but you have gone to far to 
the other extreme, they are not stupid, the CEO's job is to keep the 
company afloat not know what a megabyte is, this is why we have CTOs and 
CIOs.

In fact you might just consider hiring a professional salesperson
that doesen't really know too much about what your selling.
this is a good idea, I'd have to agree with him.
You shouldn't even
be talking about operating systems until you have sold them on
yourself and your company, 

Again this is are target market; consultants, integrators, vars, etc.  I 
bet 80% of them don't even know FreeBSD exists and of the 20% that do 
only 20% would consider using and recommending it based on technical 
merit alone.

I want a part of the linux pie!
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-27 Thread Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg

Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]
2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
  ugly.

Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.
This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the 
problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the 
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to 
have today. But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to 
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar 
and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows 
why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid 
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as 
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming 
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be 
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!

[snip]
4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.

I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand
Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.
--
R
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-27 Thread Frank Pawlak

This is one of several issues that have been brought up on an almost 
periodic basis for the past several years.  There have been several 
attempts by various folks, including a rather ambitious one by this author, 
and all have died because of severe lack of interest.  It has been a few 
years since I have posted to this news group but my advise to you is to 
give it up.  You will only meet with much frustration, apathy, and 
something along the lines of  if you don't like it fix it yourself.

I consider this very unfortunate, because has some commercial properties 
that could well be more attractive than other OS'S.  The development team 
just is not interested in this issue.  I have fought many a battle in years 
past over marketing issues with members of the core team and others.  OK, 
everyone lets see you flame throwers.  Wes Petters, Jordan Hubbard, are 
you out there;-)

Frank
At 06:57 PM 12/27/2004, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:
Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]
2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
  ugly.
Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.
This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the flashy 
installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to have today. 
But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to improve the 
website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar and 
tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows why. They 
might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid stability, the 
lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as a server os, but 
one look at the website and they will run screaming towards the nearest 
linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be taken 
seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!

[snip]
4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.
I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand
Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.
--
R
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-27 Thread Nikolas Britton

Frank Pawlak wrote:
This is one of several issues that have been brought up on an almost 
periodic basis for the past several years.  There have been several 
attempts by various folks, including a rather ambitious one by this 
author, and all have died because of severe lack of interest.  It has 
been a few years since I have posted to this news group but my advise 
to you is to give it up.  You will only meet with much frustration, 
apathy, and something along the lines of  if you don't like it fix it 
yourself.
I say we keep on rehashing this everyday until someone does it just to 
shut us up. ;-) Has there ever been an attempt at forming a group so us 
like minded people can fix it ourselfs?

I consider this very unfortunate, because has some commercial 
properties that could well be more attractive than other OS'S.  The 
development team just is not interested in this issue.  I have fought 
many a battle in years past over marketing issues with members of the 
core team and others.  OK, everyone lets see you flame throwers.  
Wes Petters, Jordan Hubbard, are you out there;-)

Frank
At 06:57 PM 12/27/2004, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:
Simon Burke wrote:
[snip]
2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the 
FreeBSD
  website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
  purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a 
redesign
  could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without 
being
  ugly.

Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.

This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the 
problem.
Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the 
flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to 
have today. But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to 
improve the website. Why?
Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or 
similar and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation 
knows why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid 
stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as 
a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming 
towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be 
taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about 
it!

[snip]
4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
  available to all that support this project.

I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand

Clearly, you have not tried to sell FreeBSD to a big corporation.
--
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RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-27 Thread Ted Mittelstaedt

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
 Vetterberg
 Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
 To: Simon Burke
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
 freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

 Simon Burke wrote:
 [snip]
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But
 a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

  Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
  do. Also i actually like how it looks.
  A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
  dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
  navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
  really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
  would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
  have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.

 This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the
 problem.

Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD integration
in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand the problem.

 Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
 flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
 have today.

That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.

 But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
 improve the website. Why?
 Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
 and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
 why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
 stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
 a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
 towards the nearest linux advocate instead.

Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'

FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.  Linux
meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C and usually
meets B and doesen't usually meet A.

The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO and
I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source provider,
then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm locked into
you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that your going to become
very expensive to me - why, because there's no competition to you out there.
I'm not going to do that unless I trust you implicitly.  And there's very
few business people I am ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless
your a son or daughter, and even then I may not.

You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to integrate
technology into their systems, they don't even understand their
current system.

CEO's choose Windows because they think that there's enough Windows
guys out there that if they don't like the one they have they can
boot him out and get another.  They only will give up choosing Windows
if they either absolutely cannot afford it, or if Windows simply won't
do what they need done.

If they cannot afford it, what they will then do is keep dragging
Windows consultant after Windows consultant in to present to them,
until they stumble over an ignoramus (which is not hard) who over
commits himself and promises the world.  They will then burn up
this guy, threatening lawsuits and everything else until they have
extracted the last drop of free work they can, then they will
jettison him.  If they simply cannot find any ignoramuses then
I've seen them try deputizing some sales guy or secretary to manage
their Windows deployment, and finally a year afterwards when they
have a house full of Windows XP Home edition and no server, and
a giant workgroup that's falling apart, and they have lost some
critical files because they wern't backing up Sally Sue's workstation
and her disk crashed, then they will panic and overspend on a
Windows installation.

The CEO's that choose FreeBSD or Linux are the ones where even the
Windows consultants they drag in all tell them I can't do that
either because Windows cannot do it, or because the price they
want it done at is so unbelievably cheap that even the ignoramus
Windows consultants can see that it's impossible.

My take on it is that about 90% of the FreeBSD production

RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-27 Thread Frank Pawlak

This beyond a doubt is one of the best explanations that I have seen, 
heard, expressed, etc., of how the fsck'ed up world of business does IT 
stuff, and I have done IT consulting on various levels for over 18 
years.  Very well said Ted.  It points out quite well why BSD in general 
has a bad time in the marketplace.

Regards,
Frank
At 11:36 PM 12/27/2004, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
 Vetterberg
 Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
 To: Simon Burke
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
 freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


 Simon Burke wrote:
 [snip]
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But
 a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.
 
 
  Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
  do. Also i actually like how it looks.
  A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
  dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
  navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
  really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
  would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
  have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.

 This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the
 problem.
Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD integration
in 2000.  The problem is I think you don't understand the problem.
 Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
 flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
 have today.
That frankly isn't the reason you should like it.  You should like it
because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
alone most operating systems.
 But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
 improve the website. Why?
 Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
 and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
 why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
 stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
 a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
 towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a shit on a shingle about
a product website.  What they care about is: 'can what I need done
be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
in to you'
FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C.  Linux
meets A and B but BARELY meets C.  Windows definitely meets C and usually
meets B and doesen't usually meet A.
The problem of course is that A and C are related.  If I am a CEO and
I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source provider,
then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm locked into
you.  Once that happens my thought processes are that your going to become
very expensive to me - why, because there's no competition to you out there.
I'm not going to do that unless I trust you implicitly.  And there's very
few business people I am ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless
your a son or daughter, and even then I may not.
You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk
thinking.  The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger.  They don't
understand what your selling, they don't understand how to integrate
technology into their systems, they don't even understand their
current system.
CEO's choose Windows because they think that there's enough Windows
guys out there that if they don't like the one they have they can
boot him out and get another.  They only will give up choosing Windows
if they either absolutely cannot afford it, or if Windows simply won't
do what they need done.
If they cannot afford it, what they will then do is keep dragging
Windows consultant after Windows consultant in to present to them,
until they stumble over an ignoramus (which is not hard) who over
commits himself and promises the world.  They will then burn up
this guy, threatening lawsuits and everything else until they have
extracted the last drop of free work they can, then they will
jettison him.  If they simply cannot find any ignoramuses then
I've seen them try deputizing some sales guy or secretary to manage
their Windows deployment, and finally a year afterwards when they
have a house full of Windows XP Home edition and no server, and
a giant workgroup that's falling apart, and they have lost some
critical files because they wern't backing up Sally Sue's workstation
and her disk crashed, then they will panic and overspend on a
Windows installation

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-26 Thread Colin J. Raven

On Dec 25, Nikolas Britton responded thusly:
Colin J. Raven wrote:
On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of the 
engine.

One should not buy a car without at least looking under the hood, kicking the 
tires, and taking it for a test drive.

One should not need to strike tires with one's footwear in order to 
determine the suitability of the vehicle.

Regards,
-Colin
--
Colin J. Raven
3:19PM  up  4:20, 2 users, load averages: 1.76, 1.63, 1.59
Today's Random Silliness:
There's a disturbance in the force, OK...who didn't flush the toilet?
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-26 Thread Chris

Colin J. Raven wrote:
On Dec 25, Nikolas Britton responded thusly:
Colin J. Raven wrote:
On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs 
of the engine.

One should not buy a car without at least looking under the hood, 
kicking the tires, and taking it for a test drive.

One should not need to strike tires with one's footwear in order to 
determine the suitability of the vehicle.

Regards,
-Colin
Bah - I ride an HD anyways.
--
Best regards,
Chris
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-25 Thread Colin J. Raven

On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.
One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.
One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of 
the engine.

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-25 Thread Nikolas Britton

Colin J. Raven wrote:
On Dec 25, Dag-Erling Smørgrav launched this into the bitstream:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

One should not buy a car without at least knowing the general specs of 
the engine.

One should not buy a car without at least looking under the hood, 
kicking the tires, and taking it for a test drive.

Merry Christmas,
   Nikolas
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-25 Thread Jud

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 00:25:11 +, Ceri Davies [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Matt Seaman posted a link to a crappy
here is what CSS can do mockup that I posted to doc@ just before the
commit mentioned above - it's at
http://shrike.submonkey.net/~ceri/data2/index.html (be sure to let all
the images load - this is on a slow link - and be aware that it doesn't
work properly in IE for reasons that DES mentioned elsewhere).
Hey, that's rather cute (in Linux-Opera).  Looking forward to further  
developments.

Re fonts, the Bitstream Vera set is very nice.  It's available as a port -  
suppose there's no pressing reason to include it in the base (it's  
reasonably small)?

Jud
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Louis LeBlanc

On 12/24/04 12:09 AM, Nikolas Britton sat at the `puter and typed:
 Chris wrote:
 
  Nikolas Britton wrote:
 
 
  From a business perspective we look amateurish.

As opposed to, say, Microsoft?

Everyone pushing this new image crap keeps forgetting one thing.
This isn't a business.  This is VOLUNTEERS working on their *own* time
using their *own* resources to provide useful technology.  Not a
business.  Who cares if we *look* amateurish?  Anyone who can't see
through the haze of Microsoft FUD to realize it's a serious OS gets
what they deserve anyway.

  I have held off thus far...

I haven't :)

  I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
  outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of 
  professionalism, which is not true.
 
 
  No you don't - would you prefer multi-colored windows? A penguin? What?
 
 hmm?, fuck no I hate penguins (esp Linux ones), there's nothing wrong 
 with chucky

Except his name isn't Chucky.  He has no name, he's just Beastie.
Google it, it's come up before.

And I don't really think there's a struggle between *BSD and Linux.
They're both Open Source sets of projects with basically the same
goal, just with different paths.  And I think Beastie is still better
than a penguin or a blowfish.  I DO think RedHat spends a bit too much
money on marketing and image, and passing that expense on to the end
user in whatever way they can, and this is why they've been on the
receiving end of what I consider the lowest form of insult in the
market - the next Microsoft.

  Are we looking into the geo-political correctness as in the like as 
  the NetBSD project took?
 
 No, just a better image in the enterprises and data centers of the world.

Seems to me the datacenters around the world don't really care if
they're choosing FreeBSD over WinBlows, which many are.

  I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
  things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
  toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):
 
 
  Here we go - Let's just re engineer life as we know it. Lets also not 
  offend gays, users of color, males, females, users of religion, users 
  of no religion, users of Windows, users of Linux, users of DOS, users 
  of NetWare, etc, etc, etc.
 
 How did you extrapolate that from what I said? I guess I did step your 
 toe's and ego, I was only trying to give constructive criticism.

Yes, maybe you were, but it's become clear in the last 3 or 4 years of
following this list that constructive criticism is more welcome in
relation to improving technology, not marketing strategy.

  1. The FreeBSD logo is crap,

I disagree completely.

  not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll 
  hunt you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!),

I agree completely.

  Just 
  the black wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, 
  I hate it. Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased 
  modern web font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) 
  and forget the whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of 
  your logo designs are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the 
  page: FreeBSD MALL, UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for 
  example)
 
 
  You will do no such thing - see above, read the threads on the NetBSD 
  site as to the redoing of the logo
 
 I DON'T want it redesigned (like NetBSD did) just re-done... same logo 
 just better looking, image is everything you know.

Here's your chance to offer more than just criticism - put one you
like together and see if it's accepted by those in a position to make
the decision.

  2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site 
  with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of 
  Cascading Style Sheets?)

Still reads the same to me.

  CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
 
 No, it's a web standard: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ also it would be a 
 good idea to look into XHTML: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

Yes, but not a necessary technology to deliver the info.  Adding those
technologies to dress up the page will add to the overall size of the
pages.  Seems to me keeping it simple is still the best way to run a
volunteer/donation based organization.  I don't need the info on a
silver and gilt platter, I just need the darn info.

  3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
  school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read 
  up about basic color theory here: 
  http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
  here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

Again, Silver and gilt platters are only eye candy.  If I need that,
I'll install the xmms(?) module.

  Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. 
 
 Yes I can tell, I was trying to offer some helpfull tips

Uncalled for.  Helpful tips like these are not always welcome because
they do little but add work to the already

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Nikolas Britton

Michael C. Shultz wrote:
On Thursday 23 December 2004 10:44 pm, Nikolas Britton wrote:
 

Michael C. Shultz wrote:
   

I hate to see FreeBSD to something like my once favorite news site
(www.antiwar.com) did.  Early on they had a website that wasn't at
all artistic, but they always had links to great news stories and
updated those several time a day.
A while back they re-did the site into a politically correct artsie
fashion  as you are suggestion FreeBSD do. Ever since that so called
upgrade many of there links remain for days at a time and none are
updated more than once a day, my guess is the site with all of its
wonderful graphics is a real pain in the butt to update now.  I
seldom visit the site because it is no longer usefull.
So for me it seems it is not the artwork that brings me to a site,
rather it is the quality of content and FreeBSD's content quality is
good right now, I hope no one messes it up.
 

I agree with you there, content if the be-all end-all on the web. And
I'm not suggesting we turn the freebsd site into an arty website with
spiffy graphics and flash crap all over the place, in fact I want the
opposite. I advocate minimalism with a clean cohesive style that
doesn't get in the way of content yet conveys a professional image
of who we are to outsiders and prospective users.
   

As long as the artwork does not get in the way of content, and you don't 
mess with beastie I say have at it if it means so much to you. That 
is sort of what FreeBSD is all about, you got an idea you know will 
make it better and you perserver with it long enough eventually one of 
the *powers that be* might incorporate it. Takes patience but if you 
really love the OS and never give up maybe you'll be the web site 
designer someday.

-Mike
 

Who me?, no, I just use wiki's for my sites and edit the templates, I'm 
to lazy to do it any other way as It's a pain in the ass to keep an html 
site updated. all I have to do is login to my websites and start type'n, 
use it to store most of my public notes and stuff like that because it's 
easier then opening up a text editor. With wiki's you have built in 
revision control, rich text formating and easy to remember text 
formating rules, the ability to search in documents and for the 
documents you've missed placed, hyperlinking documents to documents, and 
can backup the database to your computer with the single click of the 
mouse button. If you've never tried one you should

I was just trying to help freebsd buy a new suit so he can hang with the 
big boys, I don't even know how or why this thread got started 
but... Anyone who messes with beastie is a dead man! if you don't like 
him you know where the door is at, don't let it hit you in the ass on 
the way out.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Michael C. Shultz

On Friday 24 December 2004 01:09 am, Nikolas Britton wrote:
[snipped]
 
 As long as the artwork does not get in the way of content, and you
  don't mess with beastie I say have at it if it means so much to
  you. That is sort of what FreeBSD is all about, you got an idea you
  know will make it better and you perserver with it long enough
  eventually one of the *powers that be* might incorporate it. Takes
  patience but if you really love the OS and never give up maybe
  you'll be the web site designer someday.
 
 -Mike

 Who me?, no, I just use wiki's for my sites and edit the templates,
 I'm to lazy to do it any other way as It's a pain in the ass to keep
 an html site updated.

I made this point earlier, you just gave a pretty good reason to leave 
the site alone IMHO.

 all I have to do is login to my websites and 
 start type'n, use it to store most of my public notes and stuff like
 that because it's easier then opening up a text editor. With wiki's
 you have built in revision control, rich text formating and easy to
 remember text formating rules, the ability to search in documents and
 for the documents you've missed placed, hyperlinking documents to
 documents, and can backup the database to your computer with the
 single click of the mouse button. If you've never tried one you
 should

 I was just trying to help freebsd buy a new suit so he can hang with
 the big boys,

FreeBSD is the big boy.

-Mike

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Mark

 Who me?, no, I just use wiki's for my sites and edit the templates, I'm 
 to lazy to do it any other way as It's a pain in the ass to keep an html 
 site updated.

I've kept quiet up until now but I'm afraid I have to step in and
respectfully disagree here. If a site is hard to update, that indicates
poor design and lack of forethought rather than anything else.

XHTML, CSS and a little bit of PHP or Perl are all that is needed to
create a clean, beautiful and above all, maintainable site.

As a nice example, take a look at this site to see how minimal and 
readable XHTML can be if done properly (look at the source):

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Plain HTML is often mistakenly viewed as simpler and easier but that
couldn't be further from the truth. A combination of XHTML and CSS
allows you to seperate formatting from page arrangement and make
your life much easier. :)

Have a good christmas, list. :)
Mark

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Alexander Leidinger

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:27:31 +0100
jsha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I am writing this e-mail hoping that someone will share my thoughts
 on how the world's best operating system should represent its attributes
 and users to the rest of the world.

You know that you write this a t a time where a lot of people are
visiting their family and don't have email access or don't read the
mailinglists? At least this is the case for a lot of FreeBSD committers.

 Being an architect as well as graphic designer, I feel it is about time
 for a complete revamp of the visual aesthetics of the FreeBSD project.

Even if a lot of committers won't/can't answer now: there are people
which agree with you (maybe not all, but you know what we say about
bikesheds, don't you?).

 The current logo and everything pertaining to it has long since lost its
 modern touch. I believe that if this image is strenghtened, so is the
 way outsiders view the FreeBSD project and the way they would judge it
 compared to other open source operating systems.
 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks

We had an discussion a while ago about this. The way I understand the
conclusion is: we have a mascot, but no logo (we may use our mascot like
other people use a logo ATM). And we want to keep the mascot. We may be
interested in a logo, but a logo is a bikeshed topic. Since we're more
developers than designers, nobody stepped up to proceed on this topic
(at least I don't know about it if someone proceeded further).

If you want to put your energy into creating a logo, there will be
people which listen to you.

like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.

This is a little bit harsh. I suggest to stay with facts and
suggestions. Keep such rants for your personal pleasure, we don't need
them.

 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

The doc team is progressing in this direction... at least if I read the
content between the lines of commit logs right. I think they try to
separate the content from the design at the moment (the prerequisite to
use the full power of CSS). I suggest to get in contact with them to not
reinvent the wheel.

 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

Yes. AFAIK the Freesbie project is integrating the bsdinstaller (the
installer DragonFly uses) ATM. We will see how this works out and
depending on this there may be interest to integrate the installer into
FreeBSD.

 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

Even if there are some people which don't think this is needed, I like
this idea. In may day to day job I'm working as a consultant, so I know
where/how/why this may be beneficial (or not).

 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?

We can't guarantee that any of your work will be adopted, but I don't
think your work will be ignored (be prepared to get a lot of critique...
positive and negative one).

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
  The best things in life are free, but the
expensive ones are still worth a look.

http://www.Leidinger.net   Alexander @ Leidinger.net
  GPG fingerprint = C518 BC70 E67F 143F BE91  3365 79E2 9C60 B006 3FE7
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Giorgos Keramidas

On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Nikolas Britton wrote:
 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
 with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
 Cascading Style Sheets?)

 CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

Actually, no.  Nikolas is right here.  The sans serif fonts look much
better and are more readable on the monitor.  Times looks better on
paper.

 3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art
 school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up
 about basic color theory here:
 http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever
 here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

 Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. Get real. Deal with the
 OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I really care if a design
 has passion blue opposed to blue?

The fact that we don't know a lot about art and design is not a good
excuse for reacting badly to anyone that says so.

Nikolas, there is an effort to redesign the web site, using CSS as much
as possible for style  layout, making sure that the entire site has a
consistent look and feel.  Your comments show that you know a bit about
design.  If you believe you can help with such an effort, please contact
us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and assist the team who works on the web
site.

 Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels? If you want to re
 design something (Actually - is sounds like you have been watching way
 too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.

 4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is
 unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie
 the default.

 Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...

``Who cares?'' is exactly the sort of bad PR that Nikolas is right
about.  Please avoid inflammatory material, if possible :-/

Nikolas, there is a good reason why the ASCII art logo is not using
colors by default.  Many people use FreeBSD with a serial console, and
sending colors over a serial port connection is a bit silly: annoying an
a waste of precious serial connection bandwidth.  This is why the loader
logo doesn't use fancy colors by default.

- Giorgos

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Joshua Lokken

Great suggestions, everyone!  Now, can we PLEASE move this thread off
of -questions.  It doesn't belong here.  Thank you.

-- 
Joshua Lokken
Open Source Advocate
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Matthew Seaman

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
I think there's more FreeBSD installations than Apple installations,
way, way more.  Obscurity is in the eye of the beholder.  And talk is
cheap.  The FreeBSD documentation team has already asked the FreeBSD
community to do a site redesign, see here:
http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/current.html#website-css
Nobody has stepped up to do it.  Since your so hot to redesign the
site why don't you e-mail them and get going on doing it instead of
talking about it?
Errr...  Not so.  Admittedly, this was posted just a few days ago, but 
people are working on CSS-izing the FreeBSD.org web site:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2004-December/006616.html
Elsewhere on this thread there has been some talk about organizing a 
design competition to see who can come up with the best concept for the 
site.  Strikes me that a good way to do that would be along the lines of 
this competition to redesign the W3.org site:

http://w3mix.web-graphics.com/entries.php
ie. take the existing content and write a style sheet to present it in 
the best possible way.

Cheers,
Matthew
--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.   8 Dane Court Manor
  School Rd
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Tilmanstone
Tel: +44 1304 617253  Kent, CT14 0JL UK


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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Devon H. O'Dell

Matthew Seaman wrote:
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
I think there's more FreeBSD installations than Apple installations,
way, way more.  Obscurity is in the eye of the beholder.  And talk is
cheap.  The FreeBSD documentation team has already asked the FreeBSD
community to do a site redesign, see here:
http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/current.html#website-css
Nobody has stepped up to do it.  Since your so hot to redesign the
site why don't you e-mail them and get going on doing it instead of
talking about it?

Errr...  Not so.  Admittedly, this was posted just a few days ago, but 
people are working on CSS-izing the FreeBSD.org web site:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2004-December/006616.html
Elsewhere on this thread there has been some talk about organizing a 
design competition to see who can come up with the best concept for the 
site.  Strikes me that a good way to do that would be along the lines of 
this competition to redesign the W3.org site:

http://w3mix.web-graphics.com/entries.php
ie. take the existing content and write a style sheet to present it in 
the best possible way.

Cheers,
Matthew
I'm going to be drawing up the rules for the competition soon. I think 
the best way to do it would indeed be to just create an HTML 4.01 
Strict-compliant page and ask people to do CSS for it -- as might be 
done for csszengarden.com.

Kind regards,
Devon H. O'Dell
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Joe Altman

On Fri, Dec 24, 2004 at 04:27:51PM -0500, Brian Astill wrote:

 Could this conversation please be moved to -advocacy and ONLY to 
 -advocacy?

Seconded.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Dag-Erling Smørgrav

Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Nikolas Britton wrote:
   2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
   with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
   Cascading Style Sheets?)
  CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
 Actually, no.  Nikolas is right here.  The sans serif fonts look much
 better and are more readable on the monitor.  Times looks better on
 paper.

Times New Roman was designed for a single purpose: to remain readable
even when smudged or printed on low-quality paper.  It does not really
look good on any medium, but it's less bad than most other fonts on
newsprint.

Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.

Responding to Nikolas: Arial and Verdana are Windows fonts which is
not necessarily installed on www.freebsd.org's readers' machines
(though it is available in ports).  Conversely, Helvetica is generally
not available in Windows.  CSS defines 'sans-serif' as a generic alias
for whichever sans-serif font looks best on each particular platform
(it maps to Arial in Windows, and Helvetica or similar in X);
likewise, it defines 'serif' as a generic alias for serif fonts (it
maps to Times New Roman in Windows, and a variety of Roman fonts in X
depending on the browser and on what fonts are available).

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Chris

Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On 2004-12-23 23:02, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Nikolas Britton wrote:
2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
Cascading Style Sheets?)
CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?

Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.

Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was then 
that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my bag, so 
I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to drive 
the car.

--
Best regards,
Chris
You can't expect to hit the jackpot
if you don't put a few nickles in the machine.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Dag-Erling Smørgrav

Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
  Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
  apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
  discussion.
 Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
 then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
 bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.

 One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
 drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Ceri Davies

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 09:40:00PM -0800, John-Mark Gurney wrote:
 Nikolas Britton wrote this message on Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 22:46 -0600:

[ Choosing a random(ish) post to reply to - I am on holiday right now
  and I will not pretend to have read the whole thread ]

  2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
  modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
  Style Sheets?)
 
 you mean a sans-serif font? yes, most computer display fonts should
 be sans-serif since the screen resolution does not always allow you to
 do that...  (and Helvetica isn't that modern, about 50 years old now
 it appears)...
 
 As for CSS, it appears that we do use CSS on the site:
  link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href=./index.css /

I just committed that before I left for holidays; it is only a first
step towards CSS'ing the site, and once the conversion to CSS is
complete then it should be simple to have an a best stylesheet
competition or similar (something along those lines was discussed on
doc@ a couple of weeks ago).  Matt Seaman posted a link to a crappy
here is what CSS can do mockup that I posted to doc@ just before the
commit mentioned above - it's at
http://shrike.submonkey.net/~ceri/data2/index.html (be sure to let all
the images load - this is on a slow link - and be aware that it doesn't
work properly in IE for reasons that DES mentioned elsewhere).

Once the conversion to CSS is complete then I have ideas for a way to
offer users a personalised stylesheet (subject to implementation [I do
not have a computer with me] and benchmarking [it is likely to be a
little slow, though this remains to be seen]), and then you will all
whine like bitchen about being asked to accept a cookie.

Simon@ also has a parallel project running to redesign the site on a
more fundamental which is showing promise; my main focus at present is
to migrate all style related bits into stylesheets, at which point it
will be easy to mess around with colour/font/layout.  At present, it is
not.

So yes, to whoever asked the question, we have heard of CSS and we have
not only been using it (minimally) for over three years, but there is
real activity in improving what we do have already.

 And part of CSS is letting people choose what font they want to display
 the site in...  It appears at least Mozilla chooses Times by default...
 So I'd more complain to the browers that display with the default font..

Stimmt.

Ceri
-- 
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former.-- Einstein (attrib.)


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Description: PGP signature

Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Lane

On Friday 24 December 2004 17:08, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing. You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.

Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser. IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all. Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.

One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.

DES

Hey, beastie!

I've just come back to the list after some years away, and I must say I've
been well entertained by the Visual Identity thread these last few days!

Someone, I forget whom, kept mentioning the bikeshed, and that is what
caught my attention. So I went the the plain-old drab website at
www.freebsd.org and enterend the term in the search form, just to refresh my
memory. Then I followed all of the links until I came to the original
bikeshed post. I include a link here for reference, in case anyone else
wants a good laugh:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=506636+517178+/usr/local/www/db/text/1999/freebsd-hackers/19991003.freebsd-hackers

Hope the link doesn't get folded in the email process.

I think that one does not necessarily have to have experience building a
bikeshed to know what it is. But it's always good exercise building one!

Flame On!

lane
P.S. I also looked up Brett Glass on google. They say any publicity is good
publicity, but I'm not so sure in his case.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Chris

Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.
Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.

One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.
DES
Technically - I didn't criticize. Allow me to post verbatim;
CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
Doesn't look like it to me - looks more like a query or two.
But that's just me tho - perhaps you read something else?
Perhaps too much eggnog? Perhaps not enough?
--
Best regards,
Chris
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-24 Thread Chris

Chris wrote:
Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
Responding to Chris: CSS is neither outdated nor a Windows thing.  You
apparently need to get an extra clue or two before you rejoin this
discussion.

Not really - Some years back MS made a big issue about CSS. It was
then that I lost interest in web devel. Besides - web devel isn't my
bag, so I really don't think that I need to have or get a clue.

CSS is a W3 standard, but was originally designed by the CTO of Opera
Software, a company which is one of Microsoft's more vocal detractors
and which recently received a large settlement in a lawsuit regarding
Microsoft's (alleged) intentional efforts to make their website render
poorly in Opera's browser.  IE handles CSS1 badly, and CSS2 almost not
at all.  Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the facts.

One does not need to know how to rebuild an engine to know how to
drive the car.

One should not criticize the design of an engine while vehemently
claiming to have no interest in how enginges are built.
DES

Technically - I didn't criticize. Allow me to post verbatim;
CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
Doesn't look like it to me - looks more like a query or two.
But that's just me tho - perhaps you read something else?
Perhaps too much eggnog? Perhaps not enough?
Allow me to end this with this thought, if there is any doubt that what 
I asked was indeed a question (opposed to a statement of fact as DES 
seems to say (Calling it a Windows thing severely misrepresents the 
facts))

Here is a quote from Dictionary.com on Question -
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=question
   1. An expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply.
   2. An interrogative sentence, phrase, or gesture.
In addition, that little thing at the then of the line (?) also defines 
it as the above mentioned.

--
Best regards,
Chris
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Daniel Blendea

1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
the logo would change;
Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..

2. again, bu**s**it, the colors are not ugly at ALL, - and i'm not a
fan of site's color theme coz i prefer blue-ish colors - again, think
about identity...whenever one FreeBSD'er sees the logo/colors - on
software packages, media and the like - he will know that product is
related to FreeBSD

3. please install FreeBSD couple of times, and afterwards you'll get
to install it eyes- closed..

thank you for reading and please excuse my excited tone,
Daniel

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:27:31 +0100, jsha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 Hello.
 
 I am writing this e-mail hoping that someone will share my thoughts
 on how the world's best operating system should represent its attributes
 and users to the rest of the world.
 
 Being an architect as well as graphic designer, I feel it is about time
 for a complete revamp of the visual aesthetics of the FreeBSD project.
 The current logo and everything pertaining to it has long since lost its
 modern touch. I believe that if this image is strenghtened, so is the
 way outsiders view the FreeBSD project and the way they would judge it
 compared to other open source operating systems.
 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.
 
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.
 
 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.
 
 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.
 
 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?
 
 Anyone that are interested, please reply ;-)
 
 Sincerely,
 Johann Manaf Tepstad
 --
 j.
 
 

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Simon Burke

 
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.

I would like to know how you assume that he is a representation of
evil, ok he looks like a little devil char but there is more than one
definition of a devil and besides he looks kind of cute.
So the logo/mascot has been around a while but that doesnt warrant
change. If it does then most companies in the world need to update
their logos too.

Also freebsd is an operating system, if the developers and such spent
all this time maintaining its image rather than its OS then freeBSD
would no longer be such a great operating system.

 
 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
do. Also i actually like how it looks.
A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.


 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

Granted the installer is not the best installer around, but the main
point is that it does the job and it is pretty easy to follow in my
opinion anyway. Also there are a couple of projects to my knowledge
that are aiming to improve it.


 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

I have to ask why? why would people need such things? that i just dont
understand

 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?
 
 Anyone that are interested, please reply ;-)


-- 
Theres no place like ::1

Thanks,
SimonB
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Ryan Sommers

Going to reply to the whole thread so far.

jsha said:
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years

Although I don't like the tone of the other replies, I agree with their
sentiment, beasty is as much a part of FreeBSD as the family dog is a part
of the family.


 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

I don't think the website is all that ugly, personally, however, a new
design isn't out of the question. So long as content and navigation is
somewhat preserved. I've found certain things difficult to find again when
I remember that I saw them somewhere, and I've been using FreeBSD for 7
years now.


 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

This is on many people's minds, including my own. Now that the holidays
are upon us I'm going to try and spend a little of my free time working on
putting my ideas into code. Or, I might look again at FreeBSDIE and
bsdinstaller and seeing what it would take to bring them into the tree.


 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behing a business card.


 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?


If you feel it needs to be done, and you would like to work on it, more
power to you! Come up with a concept design and submit it for review. I
think there are definite improvments to be made in the eyes of the
new-comer. I believe there is a www@ team is there not? Might try posting
to that list and see what you come up with. FreeBSD survives off people
spending time where they see fit. If web-dev and graphic arts is your
thing and you want to contribute, I for one will give you the time to
submit my opinion of your work.

Daniel Blendea said:
 1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
 the logo would change;
 Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..

 2. again, bu**s**it, the colors are not ugly at ALL, - and i'm not a
 fan of site's color theme coz i prefer blue-ish colors - again, think
 about identity...whenever one FreeBSD'er sees the logo/colors - on
 software packages, media and the like - he will know that product is
 related to FreeBSD

 3. please install FreeBSD couple of times, and afterwards you'll get
 to install it eyes- closed..

This is hardly the way to represent and argument. There is no need to be
profane at someone for expressing their ideas to aid the project. It
should be encouraged.

Others, please don't feed the troll.


Simon Burke said:
 Also freebsd is an operating system, if the developers and such spent
 all this time maintaining its image rather than its OS then freeBSD
 would no longer be such a great operating system.

The code developers don't have to spend time on web-dev and graphics. But
if there is a willing body that might not be able to work on the code but
has talent in the user-interface, web-development, and graphic arts field,
why not let them give their time to the project in a manner that fits
their skills? Please don't bash or make light of those that contribute
things other than code. Rock on doc@ team. Code or not you've done a great
job.

It takes many skillsets to develop and maintain a tool such as FreeBSD
code is just one of them.


--
Ryan Sommers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Peter N. M. Hansteen

jsha [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.

If you are unhappy with the logo or any other part of the material
provided by the FreeBSD project, you are free to start making something
you consider to be better. If you make something which is indeed
superior in the views of the commiters and you make it available under
an acceptable license, you might see it accepted into the project
proper. However, before you start down that track, you should read up a
bit on the project's and the mascot's history. 

 2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But a redesign
could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
ugly.

If you are unhappy with the web site or any other part of the material
provided by the FreeBSD project, you are free to start making something
you consider to be better. If you make something which is indeed
superior in the views of the commiters and you make it available under
an acceptable license, you might see it accepted into the project
proper.

 3. The installation, even though it's text-only, could also be improved
by simple restructuring to act more cognitive and human-centered than
previously. Everything pertaining to the eye is important to improve.

If you are unhappy with the installer or any other part of the material
provided by the FreeBSD project, you are free to start making something
you consider to be better. If you make something which is indeed
superior in the views of the commiters and you make it available under
an acceptable license, you might see it accepted into the project
proper.

 4. There should be some kind of FreeBSD business card and letterhead
available to all that support this project.
 
 How do I know though, that if I manage to pull together a team to work
 on this refined vision, that we won't be totally ignored even though we
 produce the most magnificent result?

Stickers and other material is available from various sources which may
or may not to some degree or other be related to the project. I think
similar suggestions in the past have met with responses indicating that
business cards and letterhead would be somewhat low priority items to
most developers. Then again, if you make something which is indeed
superior in the views of the commiters and you make it available under
an acceptable license, you might see it accepted into the project
proper. One thing you almost will certainly not get is any kind of
blanket pre-approval, regardless of assurances that whatever you end up
producing will be great.

That's the way open source works - if you make something good and make
it available to others, fine, it will be put to the test. Then you have
a starting point, something tangible to argue for. Until you get to that
point, where you can say I made this, and I'd like to contribute it to
the project, not a lot is going to happen.

-- 
Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team
http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ http://www.datadok.no/ http://www.nuug.no/
First, we kill all the spammers The Usenet Bard, Twice-forwarded tales

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Paul Richards

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 01:54:31PM +0200, Daniel Blendea wrote:
 1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
 the logo would change;
 Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..

Ignoring the whole beastie thing, because we've just done that whole
issue, I think someone with skills other than coding taking an
interest in our public image would be a good thing.

From a business perspective we look amateurish.

Lots of people here don't seem to care about the outside world which
reinforces the opinion that we've become a hobby OS project now.
If we want to be taken seriously in the commercial world then we
need to have the right image.


Paul.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Daniel Blendea

:) why not send a mail like the one that started the thread to RedHat
and suggest to change their 'old' red hat logo, or to linux community
to drop the penguin...;)



On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:34:40 +, Paul Richards
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 01:54:31PM +0200, Daniel Blendea wrote:
  1. bu**s**it, Beastie is **COOL** and would be a loss of identity if
  the logo would change;
  Dear Sir, please read the page where what greek daemons are explained..
 
 Ignoring the whole beastie thing, because we've just done that whole
 issue, I think someone with skills other than coding taking an
 interest in our public image would be a good thing.
 
 From a business perspective we look amateurish.
 
 Lots of people here don't seem to care about the outside world which
 reinforces the opinion that we've become a hobby OS project now.
 If we want to be taken seriously in the commercial world then we
 need to have the right image.
 
 
 Paul.

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Devon H. O'Dell

Hello, all
I've scrounged up the archives of the thread the last time it was 
brought up, in March of 2004, when I called to initiate development for 
such a project. It would have been done in-hand with [EMAIL PROTECTED] The response 
was surprisingly low and the people who offered to contribute didn't 
really have enough time to do anything.

http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/htdig/freebsd-advocacy/2004-March/thread.html#1163
The whole thing, including what FreeBSD wants (as a group of people, as 
the foundation, and as the core developers), is listed in this thread.

Everybody: PLEASE READ THIS before you continue speculating on what may 
or may not be good. Do you have time? Great, my offer is still open to 
help coordinate, although I have less time for such things these days, 
so if you're interested, you need to be self-motivated. And you need to 
have time.

Kind regards,
Devon H. O'Dell
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Mark

I'd be willing to contribute. I've had quite a bit of
free time lately.

Mark
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Scott Long

Sam wrote:
If we want to be taken seriously in the commercial world then we
need to have the right image.

Look ma, a strawman!
The concern you're addressing is the sort of thing distros
solved in the Linux world.  Each typically has their own
image, installer, system config style, etc.  More importantly
for the commercial world, though, they offer support and
certification.
The image alone just isn't the problem.  Or a problem at all,
I'd argue.  Let's be honest -- if a ten-year-old made Beastie,
then a mentally challenged 3-year-old made Tux (and large
portions of the kernel, but I digress).
Point being Johann, if the community rejects your work
for the core project you can still make your own distro
and release it.  Give it a shot!
Cheers,
Sam
The distro - vs - core release relationship is one of BSD's greatest
strengths and weaknesses.  It's a strength because there is no 'distro
hell' like there is in linux.  When you download FreeBSD, you get the
same FreeBSD as everyone else; there is no confusion over how the
config files are layed out, no differences in the base utilities, 
everything compiles the same way, etc.  That is a huge benefit.  But at
the same time, it makes it really hard for people to branch out and
experiment in the same way that a linux distro can.  FreeSBIE is a good
example of this happening and working, but it definitely has hurdles.
Variety and competition makes the whole stronger, and at times FreeBSD
seems a bit in-bred.  To address this, I'm playing with ideas for
changing the nature of a FreeBSD 'release' a bit to make it easier for
outfits like FreeSBIE to build on top of it.  Hopefully I'll have
something to show for this in 6.0.

Scott
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Karol Kwiatkowski

Ramiro Aceves wrote:
 jsha wrote:
 1. Not only is the logo misleading (associating evil) but it also looks
like something 10-year-olds could produce in Paint Shop Pro ten years
ago. OpenBSD has an artistic touch to theirs, however I was very
disappointed when I heard that the new NetBSD logo was in effect.
 
 I really like the devil, it is nice and pleasant for me.

A bit OT, but to make things clear I'd like to point out it's not the
devil. It's a daemon.
BSD Daemon.

 Many people equate the word ``daemon'' with the word ``demon,''
implying some kind of Satanic connection between UNIX and the
underworld. This is an egregious misunderstanding. ``Daemon'' is
actually a much older form of ``demon''; daemons have no particular
bias towards good or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's
character or personality. The ancient Greeks' concept of a ``personal
daemon'' was similar to the modern concept of a ``guardian angel'' ---
``eudaemonia'' is the state of being helped or protected by a kindly
spirit. As a rule, UNIX systems seem to be infested with both daemons
and demons.

quote from:
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/daemon.html

Regards,

Karol

-- 
Karol Kwiatkowski  freebsd at orchid dot homeunix dot org
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Stefan Farrenkopf

--On Donnerstag, 23. Dezember 2004 18:04 Uhr +0100 Karol Kwiatkowski 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

A bit OT, but to make things clear I'd like to point out it's not the
devil. It's a daemon.
BSD Daemon.
Sure, you are right it's a daemon; I used devil because of it's relation 
to (d)evil.

regards,
Stefan

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Joshua Tinnin

On Thursday 23 December 2004 11:37 am, Stefan Farrenkopf 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 --On Donnerstag, 23. Dezember 2004 18:04 Uhr +0100 Karol Kwiatkowski
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  A bit OT, but to make things clear I'd like to point out it's not
  the devil. It's a daemon.
  BSD Daemon.

 Sure, you are right it's a daemon; I used devil because of it's
 relation to (d)evil.

How about change it to an eye on a pyramid?

Frankly, this is a bit silly, and it's been beaten to death, but every 
time it comes up it still strikes me as silly. The world does not 
revolve around everyone's peculiar, individual sensibilites. You can't 
please everyone - particularly not deeply religious people, and each 
group is offended by different things - so it's not even worth playing 
that game. If you think Procter  Gamble are satanic for using a 
particular symbol as their logo: 
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/procter.asp , fine, but don't 
expect them to bend over backwards and change their logo because you 
think so. If you are so sensitive as to be swayed by a logo that isn't 
even meant to be offensive in the first place, and over technical 
considerations, then chances are FreeBSD isn't for you, but thats just 
MO.

- jt
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Louis LeBlanc

On 12/23/04 12:41 PM, Joshua Tinnin sat at the `puter and typed:
 On Thursday 23 December 2004 11:37 am, Stefan Farrenkopf 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  --On Donnerstag, 23. Dezember 2004 18:04 Uhr +0100 Karol Kwiatkowski
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   A bit OT, but to make things clear I'd like to point out it's not
   the devil. It's a daemon.
   BSD Daemon.
 
  Sure, you are right it's a daemon; I used devil because of it's
  relation to (d)evil.
 
 How about change it to an eye on a pyramid?

Yeah!  Let's do THAT! LOL :)

 Frankly, this is a bit silly, and it's been beaten to death, but every 
 time it comes up it still strikes me as silly. The world does not 
 revolve around everyone's peculiar, individual sensibilites.

Thank you!  I couldn't have said it better myself.  Certainly not so
tactfully.

 You can't 
 please everyone - particularly not deeply religious people, and each 
 group is offended by different things - so it's not even worth playing 
 that game.

Thank you again!

 If you think Procter  Gamble are satanic for using a 
 particular symbol as their logo: 
 http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/procter.asp , fine, but don't 
 expect them to bend over backwards and change their logo because you 
 think so. If you are so sensitive as to be swayed by a logo that isn't 
 even meant to be offensive in the first place, and over technical 
 considerations, then chances are FreeBSD isn't for you, but thats just 
 MO.

Hear, Hear!

SNIP LONG OT RANT

Call me a skeptic, call me insensitive to religious superstition, but
I am not ignorant to the relevance of the logo, and I think the
loader, the website, and everything else about FreeBSD is on the right
track.

Jeez.

Ok, rest assured the snip above was long and way OT, but I need to
vent when I think Beastie is getting dissed.

Lou
-- 
Louis LeBlanc   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
http://www.keyslapper.org ԿԬ

Egotism, n:
  Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?


From a business perspective we look amateurish.
 

I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of professionalism, 
which is not true.

I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):

1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll hunt 
you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just the black 
wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, I hate it. 
Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased modern web 
font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) and forget the 
whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of your logo designs 
are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the page: FreeBSD MALL, 
UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for example)

2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
Style Sheets?)

3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up 
about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie 
the default.

I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be nice 
if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with the way it 
is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the installer to match 
the website?

Here are some example sites:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/screens/system.png
http://www.mozilla.org/
http://www.horde.org/logos/
http://www.xfce.org/
http://www.gnome.org/
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.php.net/
http://freebsd.kde.org/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.apache.org/
http://www.adobe.com/
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.sun.com/
http://www.suse.com/
http://www.novell.com/
http://www.ibm.com/
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/
http://www.mysql.com/
http://cocoon.apache.org/
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.penguincomputing.com/
FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Chris

Nikolas Britton wrote:

From a business perspective we look amateurish.

I have held off thus far...

I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of professionalism, 
which is not true.
No you don't - would you prefer multi-colored windows? A penguin? What?
Are we looking into the geo-political correctness as in the like as the 
NetBSD project took?

I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):
Here we go - Let's just re engineer life as we know it. Lets also not 
offend gays, users of color, males, females, users of religion, users of 
no religion, users of Windows, users of Linux, users of DOS, users of 
NetWare, etc, etc, etc.

1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll hunt 
you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just the black 
wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, I hate it. 
Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased modern web 
font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) and forget the 
whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of your logo designs 
are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the page: FreeBSD MALL, 
UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for example)
You will do no such thing - see above, read the threads on the NetBSD 
site as to the redoing of the logo

2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
Style Sheets?)
CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read up 
about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)
Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. Get real. Deal with the 
OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I really care if a design has 
passion blue opposed to blue?

Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels? If you want to re 
design something (Actually - is sounds like you have been watching way 
too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.

4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII beastie 
the default.
Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...
I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be nice 
if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with the way it 
is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the installer to match 
the website?
Snip - not worth repeating.
FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.
Maybe you can start, The Queer-Eye for the BSD-Guy.
--
Best regards,
Chris
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Michael C. Shultz

On Thursday 23 December 2004 08:46 pm, Nikolas Britton wrote:
 From a business perspective we look amateurish.

 I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an
 outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of
 professionalism, which is not true.

 I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the
 things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on
 toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):

 1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll
 hunt you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just
 the black wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really,
 I hate it. Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased
 modern web font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.)
 and forget the whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of
 your logo designs are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the
 page: FreeBSD MALL, UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for
 example)

 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site
 with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of
 Cascading Style Sheets?)

 3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art
 school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read
 up about basic color theory here:
 http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever
 here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

 4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is
 unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII
 beastie the default.

 I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be
 nice if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with
 the way it is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the
 installer to match the website?

 Here are some example sites:
 http://m0n0.ch/wall/screens/system.png
 http://www.mozilla.org/
 http://www.horde.org/logos/
 http://www.xfce.org/
 http://www.gnome.org/
 http://www.gimp.org/
 http://www.php.net/
 http://freebsd.kde.org/
 http://www.google.com/
 http://www.apache.org/
 http://www.adobe.com/
 http://www.openoffice.org/
 http://www.sun.com/
 http://www.suse.com/
 http://www.novell.com/
 http://www.ibm.com/
 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/
 http://www.mysql.com/
 http://cocoon.apache.org/
 http://www.w3.org/
 http://www.penguincomputing.com/

 FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.

I hate to see FreeBSD to something like my once favorite news site
(www.antiwar.com) did.  Early on they had a website that wasn't at all 
artistic, but they always had links to great news stories and updated 
those several time a day.

A while back they re-did the site into a politically correct artsie 
fashion  as you are suggestion FreeBSD do. Ever since that so called 
upgrade many of there links remain for days at a time and none are 
updated more than once a day, my guess is the site with all of its 
wonderful graphics is a real pain in the butt to update now.  I seldom
visit the site because it is no longer usefull.

So for me it seems it is not the artwork that brings me to a site, 
rather it is the quality of content and FreeBSD's content quality is 
good right now, I hope no one messes it up.

-Mike


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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread John-Mark Gurney

Nikolas Britton wrote this message on Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 22:46 -0600:
 2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site with a 
 modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of Cascading 
 Style Sheets?)

you mean a sans-serif font? yes, most computer display fonts should
be sans-serif since the screen resolution does not always allow you to
do that...  (and Helvetica isn't that modern, about 50 years old now
it appears)...

As for CSS, it appears that we do use CSS on the site:
 link rel=stylesheet type=text/css href=./index.css /

And part of CSS is letting people choose what font they want to display
the site in...  It appears at least Mozilla chooses Times by default...
So I'd more complain to the browers that display with the default font..

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney  Voice: +1 415 225 5579

 All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

2004-12-23 Thread Brian Astill

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:46 pm, Nikolas Britton wrote:
 FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.
 ___

It also needs people who realise that multiple cross-posting is 
deprecated.
Could this conversation please be moved to -advocacy and ONLY to 
-advocacy?
Thanks.

-- 
Regards,
Brian
sos-sa.org.au
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

Chris wrote:
Nikolas Britton wrote:

From a business perspective we look amateurish.

I have held off thus far...

I REALLY REALLY agree with this point, from the prospective of an 
outsider the website and Image conveys a real lack of 
professionalism, which is not true.

No you don't - would you prefer multi-colored windows? A penguin? What?
hmm?, fuck no I hate penguins (esp Linux ones), there's nothing wrong 
with chucky

Are we looking into the geo-political correctness as in the like as 
the NetBSD project took?
No, just a better image in the enterprises and data centers of the world.

I'm looking at the start page for FreeBSD right now and here are the 
things I do not like about it (please don't be offended if I step on 
toe's and ego's, I am only trying to better FreeBSD):

Here we go - Let's just re engineer life as we know it. Lets also not 
offend gays, users of color, males, females, users of religion, users 
of no religion, users of Windows, users of Linux, users of DOS, users 
of NetWare, etc, etc, etc.
How did you extrapolate that from what I said? I guess I did step your 
toe's and ego, I was only trying to give constructive criticism.


1. The FreeBSD logo is crap, not beastie (he's a keeper!!!, I'll 
hunt you down and do bad things to you if you take him away!), Just 
the black wannabe (and badly done) 3D effect FreeBSD part, really, 
I hate it. Redo the whole logo in photoshop with a bold, antialiased 
modern web font: (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Century Gothic, etc.) 
and forget the whole 3D effect as that is so 90s. Generally all of 
your logo designs are unprofessional (the logos at the bottom of the 
page: FreeBSD MALL, UseNix, Daemon News, and Powered by FreeBSD for 
example)

You will do no such thing - see above, read the threads on the NetBSD 
site as to the redoing of the logo
I DON'T want it redesigned (like NetBSD did) just re-done... same logo 
just better looking, image is everything you know.


2. I cringe when I see Times New Roman, again redo the whole site 
with a modern web font: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Etc. (ever here of 
Cascading Style Sheets?)

CSS? Isnt that a bit outdated? Isnt that more a Windows thing?
No, it's a web standard: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ also it would be a 
good idea to look into XHTML: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/


3. The color scheme is not complementary anyone who has been to art 
school or taken design classes will know what I talking about, read 
up about basic color theory here: 
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html (again, ever 
here of Cascading Style Sheets??)

Guess what mate - most of us are NOT into art. 
Yes I can tell, I was trying to offer some helpfull tips
Get real. Deal with the OS, not the look and feel of the site. Do I 
really care if a design has passion blue opposed to blue?
Yes
Do you really thing techies are THAT into pastels?
I don't like pastels ether, to girly, I like bold and neutral colors.
If you want to re design something (Actually - is sounds like you have 
been watching way too much TLC) then get a gig on Monster House.
I watch the history channel most of the time or the courses offered by 
the local college on channel 20 , I really think TLC has gone down hill 
with all the trading spaces type shows, though page is cute. It's just 
that I've always had a good eye for this type of stuff.


4. I like the Beastie logo on the boot loader screen but ASCII art is 
unprofessional... It would be better if you made the color ASCII 
beastie the default.

Who cares?!?! It's resource friendly tho...
That is true.

I have no real issues with the layout of the site and it would be 
nice if the installer was more user friendly but I am content with 
the way it is, maybe you should change the color scheme of the 
installer to match the website?

Snip - not worth repeating.
FreeBSD is badly in need of a PR/Design/Marketing department.

Maybe you can start, The Queer-Eye for the BSD-Guy.
If thats what it takes to get FreeBSD out of obscurity and into the 
enterprise then yes I will, just look at what apple did with BSD and 
mozilla did with firefox, I don't want to see FreeBSD (or the other 
BSDs) die into obscurity as I really like them.

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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

Michael C. Shultz wrote:
I hate to see FreeBSD to something like my once favorite news site
(www.antiwar.com) did.  Early on they had a website that wasn't at all 
artistic, but they always had links to great news stories and updated 
those several time a day.

A while back they re-did the site into a politically correct artsie 
fashion  as you are suggestion FreeBSD do. Ever since that so called 
upgrade many of there links remain for days at a time and none are 
updated more than once a day, my guess is the site with all of its 
wonderful graphics is a real pain in the butt to update now.  I seldom
visit the site because it is no longer usefull.

So for me it seems it is not the artwork that brings me to a site, 
rather it is the quality of content and FreeBSD's content quality is 
good right now, I hope no one messes it up.
 

I agree with you there, content if the be-all end-all on the web. And 
I'm not suggesting we turn the freebsd site into an arty website with 
spiffy graphics and flash crap all over the place, in fact I want the 
opposite. I advocate minimalism with a clean cohesive style that doesn't 
get in the way of content yet conveys a professional image of who we 
are to outsiders and prospective users.
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Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?