On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 03:11:49PM +0100, Dale Harvey wrote:
I think it is a question of the aims of inkscape, If you are more interested in building on the active developer community then the link should probably just be deleted, as the link to the main downloads page is quite prominent on the main navigation
Regarding aims, I think the number one way we can best help users is to build the active developer community, because users love seeing more releases, fewer bugs, and more of their high priority features implemented. Thus, the type of user we and the website should cater to are the type that will be getting involved in contributing to Inkscape through things like docs, web work, translations, coding, testing, etc.
That's not to say things _shouldn't_ be more end user friendly, just that where we have a choice that might make things more convenient for non-contributing users but would make things less convient for contributors, we should opt for the latter.
From this reasoning, the important thing to consider with "download now"
type links is that it not obscure the user's opportunities to contribute.
For example, a case in point would be the stripped vs. unstripped windows binaries. The former are definitely more convenient for users, but make it next to impossible for them to give useful debug info in their bug report contributions. But the unstripped version is *huge*, so unfortunately providing the convenience of the stripped version also cut down on the number of people who could provide testing info on Windows. Fortunately, there is also a symbols package that can be added to the stripped version to allow bug reports to be done; I don't know how many users try this, but it seems like a useful compromise.
Another example is how the source code is advertised. Some projects, like open office and mozilla, make the executables *much* more visible than the source to end users. Other projects provide the source and little else. At Inkscape we've strived to maintain a balance; we have put importance on providing a variety of packages and executables, but give the source code high visibility as well.
So, if "Download Now" links are used, consideration might be given to also having equally visible links for getting the source and/or getting involved.
Bryce