6:51 p.m.
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
7:01 p.m.
New subject: re committee
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
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7:47 p.m.
New subject: re committee
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
7:34 a.m.
New subject: re committee
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
9:19 p.m.
New subject: re committee
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
2:56 p.m.
New subject: re committee
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
7:50 p.m.
New subject: re committee
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
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inkscape-board@lists.inkscape.org
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Aaron Spike -
Bryce Harrington -
Felipe Sanches -
Nathan Hurst -
Ted Gould