Hi Marvin, > On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 07:39:08AM -0700, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote: >> Hmm, we're debating the download link here, right? So, why not cruft the >> announcement to specify that the link will be available within X days? > > The download page issue will be moot shortly. Our multi-page site has been > sent live, and we now have a placeholder at > <http://incubator.apache.org/lucy/download.html>. I'm working on getting a > real download page set up.
Holy crap! This page is awesome! Our website is awesome. YOU are awesome! > > (Hmm. I wonder if that page ought to be named "download.cgi", like the > excellent HTTPD download page at <http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi>. It's > much more user-friendly than this Lucene page I used as a template: > <http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/releases.html>.) Meh, no biggie. Either way. > > As to why not promise a link to be named later, it's a matter of consumer > convenience. I don't want to make too big a deal about this specific case, > but the general principle is that if you don't make your product easy to > consume, you are guaranteed to lose some fraction of your potential customers. Hrm, I'm not sure I agree with the absolute tone. Nothing is guaranteed, especially in software. I don't want to get too philosophical here, but again I'll repeat, I don't think anything is that black and white in software. This is coming from someone who has taken my share (and taught my share) of software engineering classes. > It also just sounds rushed and amateurish to refer people to an "under > construction" web page. No one said that. I was simply suggesting that we put (what I've seen to be pretty std) text that says downloads will be available over the next XX hours (could be 48, 72, etc.). I'm not sure I appreciate the "amateurish" comment. > >> There's nothing limiting our contact with the rest of the foundation -- if >> we release every 72 hours which is theoretically possible (or 72+N hours), >> we could send a release announcement that frequently. > > Indeed. And since we intend to release version 0.1.1 within a relatively > short time to address portability problems, we will have repeated > contacts with the rest of the Apache community via ASF channels like > [email protected]. > > That won't be true for external channels like perlmonks.org though -- it's > only justifiable to publish major announcements there. The product launch of > Lucy qualifies, but the release of 0.1.1 won't. :) To each their own. My philosophy -- any press is good press. I'm not worried about flooding perlmonks.org, or any other email for that matter. >> > > We now have API documentation on the staging site. > > http://lucy.staging.apache.org/lucy/docs/perl/ > > It could really use some CSS and some syntax highlighting, but it gets the job > done for now. > > I think it's important to get the downloads page in place, so that we can send > out a release announcement with no apologies. The release tarball doesn't > have to be perfect (and it's not), and the website doesn't have to be perfect > (it's not either), but let's make sure that we fully exploit the opportunity > that a product launch affords us. Well with my mentor hat on, I have to say -- there is only so much PR and marketing a podling can do since it's not an official Apache TLP release. That is, sending emails to [email protected], the dev/user lists, etc. Cheers, Chris ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Mattmann, Ph.D. Senior Computer Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246 Email: [email protected] WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
