Hi Bertrand,
So IIUC you think that
a) The layout of http://incubator.apache.org/flex/ should be improved?
I don't know how the process works exactly, but how long would the
project be at the incubator page? If it's any significant amount of
time, then yes it should be improved.
b) To be appealing, a website needs to use Flash?
If the website is promoting Flex, then yes, it has to use Flash in order
to showcase what Flex can do. A non-techie person won't understand what
it is unless they can see it in action.
a) is easy, the website is found under
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/site/trunk/ and people
are welcome to submit patches.
Of course it's easy for you and me, and many of the people on this list,
but we have to consider that it's more than developers using Flex.
As for b), the Apache CMS used to build that website can obviously
serve swf files, is there more to it?
I sure hope there's more to it. What I'm trying to say is that the main
marketing force behind Flex is now in our hands. Adobe did a tremendous
amount of work to get it to where it is today, and if we take over and
don't do anything to maintain it's appeal, then it's dead in the water.
As others have said, we can get a wiki by just asking for it, running
on either MoinMoin of Confluence. Something that's worked well in
other projects is to use the wiki as a scratchpad where people can
easily contribute all types of content, and have committers cureate
and move the best of that to the main project's website.
I think that's a great idea. Obviously what I'm suggesting isn't an
overnight transformation, but a wiki will be a good place to start. I'm
sure I'm not the only one who is passionate about Flex, but it's
certainly more than the handful of people on this list.
Perhaps I'm looking at this the wrong way, but what I see is Adobe is
dropping Flex into the hands of the Flex community. Hundreds of
thousands of developers and designers use Flex and are now looking to
the "community" for a new direction. Many people are confused and lost
as to what to do. Who is providing that direction for them?
Not only do we take on the technical aspects of Flex (source control,
bug tracking, new builds, etc.), but we have a responsibility (in my
mind) to maintain the marketing and "customer facing" aspect of Flex. If
I were explaining to my boss the benefits of continuing use of Flex in
our development, and I sent them to the website, would they understand
what Flex is? If I send them to Adobe's website, what will they see
regarding Flex? What is Adobe planning with the hundreds of web pages
that discuss Flex?
Sorry, lots of questions, but this is important to discuss. And as I
review emails in this list while I type this response, I can see that
people are already feeling overwhelmed with the number of unanswered
questions.
Brent
