Excellent work Karderio! This is a good first draft, but it needs some edits. I'd like to make some corrections and clean it up a bit. Is this on the wiki somewhere? Additionally, I might be interested in writing at least one of the other sections myself. What do we have in mind for the Free Software and GNOME section?
-- Ryan On Tue, 2006-12-05 at 02:53 +0100, karderio wrote: > Hi :o) > > Oups > > s/sell/give > > Give give give ! Give GNOME for Christmas !! > > That's better. Now we may continue :o) > > I spent my evening churning out an 'introduction' section for the GUG. > Here is the first draft, it's far from perfect, and I'm too tired to fix > it now... I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a couple of days to help a > friend move, so I thought it may be a good idea to submit it now to get > any first impressions anyone would like to give. > > I'm wondering if I may have overdone it a bit. Personally I very much > dislike the in your face, "we are the best" advertisements that > corporations churn out and that I just can't seem to avoid (I don't own > a TV, nor do I buy magazines, but they still get me). However, after > finishing this, I feel like I could sell second hand grandmas, no matter > their mileage :o) > > However much like hot air it may seem, it would seem that brainless > propaganda-like pushing of products is what currently works best, so I > would tend to defend the WOW factor in this particular case. > > Here is what the planned TOC would look like : > > About GNOME > * 1. Introduction > * 2. What GNOME is > * 3. Free software and GNOME > * 4. The GNOME community > * 5. Overview of GNOME's architecture > * 6. Developping software for/with GNOME > > This is only the "introduction" section. Of course the other sections > are even more "draft" than this, so comments on what they should be are > welcome. > > I of course wrote this in docbook, but I'm pasting raw text for your > convenience. Looking at it in yelp, it seems a bit stodgy, so I'd say > that it at least needs airing out a bit. > > I don't really know what sort of feedback I'm looking for (and I'm too > tired to think about it :). A simple yea or nay would be cool I suppose. > I plan to get back on this on Thursday. > > Text follows. > > Love, Karderio. > > > v----------------v----------------v > > > Introduction > > > GNOME is a community effort to create a free software > desktop environment, and a state of the art development platform for > programmers. Our efforts actually go beond this, as we also provide much > of the superstructure needed for our work. We strive to create a high > quality desktop according to our principles of which freedom, usability, > stability and accessibility are but a few. > > > > GNOME is free software. This is one of the most > important aspects of our project, as it guarantees your basic freedoms, > freedoms whose importance is frequently underestimated. Virtually all > commercial software today is the unconditional propriety of the software > editor, no matter how much it "costs". Rather than selling the actual > software, the editor charges for a licence, this dictates what the end > user is allowed to do with the software. In stark contrast, free > software such as GNOME grants anybody who has a copy of the software the > freedom to use it as they wish. It also guarantees your right to run, > copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Free software > also provides access to software for the worlds poorer communities, who > cannot afford costly proprietary software. > > > > So what does GNOME look like ? You can imagine GNOME to > be composed of the things that you see on your screen when you start a > GNOME session. The panels, their menus and icons, your desktop, file > manager any many of your system utilities are all part of the GNOME > desktop. GNOME manages the windows on your screen, provides you with > virtual desktops, games, document and image viewers and much more. If > you are reading this, you have probably acquired GNOME as part of a > larger free software distribution, if you wish to get GNOME, you will > find information on obtaining it at the GNOME website. > > > > GNOME's elegant design makes it intuitive and easy to > use for everybody, without compromising for one second on power. GNOME > is suited to anyone, from the novice to the most demanding professional. > A great deal of effort goes into studying the ergonomy of our software, > to make things clear and easily understandable. Our documentation > strives to clearly explain each and every feature ; help on your current > task is always just a click away ! [[- Well this would be true is we had > anybody to write documentation for GNOME. Help ! We're sinking !! > (Please remember to remove this comment) -]] > > > > How do we manage such high quality ? Well, many of our > developers are very experienced professionals, some being sponsored by > major corporations to work on free software. It is with great pride that > we can state that some of our developers are considered the best in the > world by a whole industry. This talent is of course not lost on GNOME, > which boasts greatly above average stability, with tried and tested > mechanisms to monitor and fix any problems. > > > > We translate GNOME into many languages, thanks to it's > great support for internationalisation. This not only demolishes the > language barrier encountered with much of today's software, but helps > alleviate the problems that some populations still have accessing > software. One thing that is very important to us is to guarantee that > GNOME may be used by all. Thus we provide several mechanisms so that > people who have the misfortune of not being able to enjoy all the > abilities that most of us posses are not further penalised by > inaccessible software. > > > > GNOME is constantly evolving, we release a new version > every six months, incrementally adding new features while constantly > consolidating the base. Rather than proceeding with major fundamental > changes after long periods of time, we mimic nature's evolutionary > process, improving things little by little, and adapting to constantly > changing technology. > > > > Catering to software developers is also important to us. > We provide advanced tools, infrastructure, documentation and community > support to them that rivals with today's best platforms. We give them > all the advantages they have grown to expect from a modern platform, > plus innovative and novel features in a coherent and adaptable platform. > Free software gives developers the massive advantage of permitting them > to inspect and modify the platform itself, the possibility for them to > adapt the environment to their specific needs, to modify the system > itself when otherwise they would have to comply with someone else's > vision and to work with and contribute to the free software community > are just a few of the things this permits. This cooperation is > unparallelled, giving developers unprecedented access to a process that > is often regretfully opaque to them. > > > > _______________________________________________ > gnome-doc-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list _______________________________________________ gnome-doc-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list
