Re: [Inkscape-board] re committee
Ok. So to summarize, the question is, "do we want to sell a short commercially produced tutorial from a link next to the download button on our main page?" I guess this could be broken into two questions 1) do we want to sell this tutorial and 2) do we want to publicize it in such a prominent location?
What are the likely issues going to be? - is it hard to make a decision without knowledge of the quality of the tutorial? - how will this affect our volunteer documentation efforts? Are they getting such prime real estate? - standard questions about need for and use of money. - what precedent is this setting, ie how will we respond (possibly unlikely) requests from other publishers or documentation sources?
Let's hear some opinions folks.
Aaron Spike
I believe that libre software demands libre documentation. While it is good to know that Inkscape has reached a quality level that makes it commercially interesting to produce commercial non-free documentation, I think that we should only promote in our webpage documentation that is free for everybody to use, distribute and improve, just like our software.
Felipe
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:51 PM, Aaron Spike <aaron@...7...> wrote:
Ok. So to summarize, the question is, "do we want to sell a short commercially produced tutorial from a link next to the download button on our main page?" I guess this could be broken into two questions 1) do we want to sell this tutorial and 2) do we want to publicize it in such a prominent location?
What are the likely issues going to be?
- is it hard to make a decision without knowledge of the quality of the
tutorial?
- how will this affect our volunteer documentation efforts? Are they
getting such prime real estate?
- standard questions about need for and use of money.
- what precedent is this setting, ie how will we respond (possibly
unlikely) requests from other publishers or documentation sources?
Let's hear some opinions folks.
Aaron Spike
EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Inkscape-board mailing list Inkscape-board@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-board
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:51:57PM -0500, Aaron Spike wrote:
- what precedent is this setting, ie how will we respond (possibly
unlikely) requests from other publishers or documentation sources?
Indeed, we've received numerous requests over the years by publishers wishing for high profile links at one place or another in the website to help them better market their products, sometimes offering some monetization to Inkscape in return.
Perhaps what we need is a more general purpose policy for handling these types of situations, that we can vote on once and apply to all future publisher requests. I think we might be able to come up with a more liberal policy than if we're making decisions on a case by case basis (which I think encourages the board to take a conservative "no advertising" stance). With a good policy I think we could be more fair to different publishers and also be better able to service needs of users looking for good documentation.
Does this sound like a good approach? Or should we just stick with the current system?
I don't have a specific idea in mind for proposing, although there's a few obvious policy options we can include for consideration:
I. No paid advertisements are permitted. The Inkscape project will consider inclusion of links or references to relevant products as the website maintainers see fit.
II. The board votes on each paid link proposal individually. (Basically, status quo for how we're doing things so far.)
III. Specific pages on the website are designated for commercial listings. Each page has a standardized format which all listings must follow for inclusion. These listings are ordered by amount paid, with highest paid at the top. No proposals for links or listings on any other location in the site including headers, footers, or menus will be entertained.
IV. Ala Carte. Every location on the website is given a price value for being listed for a specified period of time (e.g. 3 months). A schedule is drawn up and placement is sold on a first-come / first-serve basis.
V. Similar to IV but with a bidding system so prices are set by the highest bidder within a period of time.
Anyone got more ideas?
Bryce
First on the issue of non-responsiveness. I'm sorry that you feel that way Alexandre, I do appreciate the work you've done there. Honestly, I didn't respond because I thought your analysis of the situation was spot on and I didn't have anything to add :-)
On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 19:47 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Anyone got more ideas?
I think like usual Bryce, your email was very complete. I guess my general feeling is that we should have things on the website that are "Inkscape related" but give preference to those that share a common set of values with the core project. So, by preference here, I'm saying that we should have a list of the documentation available and the libre sources should be first, followed by gratis, followed by commercial. But, we shouldn't reject a useful source of information for our users just because it falls in the last category.
--Ted
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 09:34:27AM -0500, Ted Gould wrote:
First on the issue of non-responsiveness. I'm sorry that you feel that way Alexandre, I do appreciate the work you've done there. Honestly, I didn't respond because I thought your analysis of the situation was spot on and I didn't have anything to add :-)
Warnock's Dilemma.
On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 19:47 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Anyone got more ideas?
I think like usual Bryce, your email was very complete.
Warnock's Dilemma.
I guess my general feeling is that we should have things on the website that are "Inkscape related" but give preference to those that share a common set of values with the core project. So, by preference here, I'm saying that we should have a list of the documentation available and the libre sources should be first, followed by gratis, followed by commercial. But, we shouldn't reject a useful source of information for our users just because it falls in the last category.
I agree.
njh
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 04:19:31AM +0000, Nathan Hurst wrote:
On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 19:47 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Anyone got more ideas?
I think like usual Bryce, your email was very complete.
Warnock's Dilemma.
Honestly, I don't personally care whether this issue gets resolved or not, however it seems to be a source of stress for Alexandre and others, and seems like something we have the power to help get resolved permanently. It won't take much of our time to do it, and if we make a good decision it will help Inkscape a lot.
I need three things:
1. Alexandre, please indicate if you find the plan for the board to set a standard policy to be acceptable, or if you think a case-by-case approach as we've been doing it is preferable.
2. Board members - please take another look at my list of options. There have been a few ideas provided on this thread (like showing free options before commercial) which I'll add to the list. Any other ideas/thoughts?
3. Josh, please look at who has contributed to free tutorials / documentation recently. Can you get their email addresses so we can contact them directly for their feedback?
I figure we can do some sort of ranked-choice vote (via IRV or whatever) once we think we have an adequate range of choices.
Bryce
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:51:57PM -0500, Aaron Spike wrote:
- how will this affect our volunteer documentation efforts? Are they
getting such prime real estate?
I think this is an important question. Could someone solicit feedback on this point from the volunteer documenters? Their general opinion here will affect my voting.
Bryce
participants (5)
-
Aaron Spike -
Bryce Harrington -
Felipe Sanches -
Nathan Hurst -
Ted Gould