I think the simplest and perhaps most important change to get better PR for both Lazarus and FPC is the web page. It needs to be more "wow" style. News have to be a bit propagandistic. A FAQ is IMHO required with first questions like:

1. Is Free Pascal/Lazarus really free?
2. Can I use Free Pascal/Lazarus for commercial development?
3. Are there any real world applications made with Free Pascal/Lazarus?
4. Why should I use Free Pascal/Lazarus?
5. Isn't Free Software equal to crappy software?
etc.

In other words, FAQ for managers. I'm not saying you should scrap the old one. Just put the technical questions a bit lower.

I can write a few FAQ entries in plain text but I can't make a dynamic webpage(perhaps CGI? :) )

Ales

Beware me ! Managers ! The lowest species on earth !

Yeah - and then the "dynamic" website for managers, I guess that's any website that can that only be viewed with MS IE 5.5 ...... ?

Well - here is the special link for any manager
<http://www.dilbert.com>.

Regards,

Adriaan van Os

P.S.
Here is a text, specially for managers, applicable for any tech project:

Blah blah ... de facto standard ... Blah blah ... highly committed ... Blah bah ... industrial strength ... Blah blah ... world class support ... Blah blah ... handholding ... Blah blah ... support contract .... Blah blah ... even more handholding ... Blah blah .... cutting edge technology .... Blah blah .... etcetera.

This is incorrect. You miss the absolutely most important part. A NDA/license/disclaimer that claims that you have no right to absolutely anything, including support, fixes, up/downgrade rights etc, compensation for lost time when they come to check your license compliance etc.

Ales Katona wrote

5. Isn't Free Software equal to crappy software?

You're right. About Proprietary Software, there is no need to ask the question, the answer is obvious.

mm

The "freeness" of FreePascal is already advertised in a lot of places, including the very name "FreePascal". Current FAQ mentions (more than once) that the compiler is GPLed. I don't think there's any need to advertise this more.

2. Can I use Free Pascal/Lazarus for commercial development?

This is the 4th question of current FAQ. And I assume that you actually wanted to say "closed source", this is not the same thing as "commercial".

3. Are there any real world applications made with Free Pascal/Lazarus?

I guess that even a "manager" is able to type "fpc" or "lazarus" into google.

4. Why should I use Free Pascal/Lazarus?

There's a special page "Advantages" on www.freepascal.org devoted to this question.

5. Isn't Free Software equal to crappy software?

Of course it's total crap. But we're just a bunch of poor windoze lusers and we can't do anything better. So we devote our full time to maintain this miserable piece of software, this ugly webpage and this lousy FAQ.

I'm sorry, I could not resist to say this. :)

Seriously: I think that it's obvious (even to the "managers") that if you maintain a FAQ for some software, then you don't think it's crappy.

Perhaps

If you look at forums and mailing lists, NO people DON'T get it. You need to explicitly tell them YES YOU CAN STATIC LINK WITH OUR ENHANCED LGPL. Honestly the thing in the FAQ is good for lawyers only.

And he'll find a bunch of fanboy websites.

> 4. Why should I use Free Pascal/Lazarus?

Which is horribly outdated and utterly useless. Also it only specializes on comparing FP dialect of Pascal with other languages. One half of currently listed advantages is basicly a pissing contest against C/C++ and the other is saying "we got OOP/other features too you know".

I'll add a FAQ to my page and see.

The FAQ on FPC currently is relativly good for technical questions. But some basic questions asked over and over on forums and lists simply aren't there or are answered inapropriatly(for the masses..) Also note I speak for BOTH projects. IMHO they should merge a bit more as Lazarus requires a certain RTL of compiler to be able to produce things.

Ales Katona wrote

Michalis Kamburelis wrote: > Ales Katona wrote: >

[...]

Reading FPC and Lazarus mailing lists, and I don't see such problems. And I understood the FAQ, even though IANAL. There's a text

"It is therefore possible to create closed source or proprietary software using Free Pascal."

I think that this is even more explicit (and understandable to non-programmers) than your proposed "Yes you can static link with our enhanced LGPL".

So what answer would you propose for the FAQ question "Are there any real world applications made with Free Pascal/Lazarus" ? A huge list of every program that was ever compiled with FPC ? A short list of "chosen projects" ? Who will decide and maintain the list of "most bright projects developed using FPC+Lazarus" ?

[...]

Then propose a better text / feature list for "Advantages" page...

Michalis

Have you seen the gallery page ?

http://www.freepascal.org/gallery.html

Michael.

Michalis Kamburelis wrote

> 3. Are there any real world applications made with Free Pascal/Lazarus? I guess that even a "manager" is able to type "fpc" or "lazarus" into google.

Just typed both on google and found many links about the compiler and the IDE, but not about programs based on them. This is pretty obvious. When you create a program you don't advertise: CREATED WITH LAZARUS!!!!!!! At best a small link.

The user doesn't care, doesn't know what Lazarus (or any other programming tool) is and doesn't want to know. He just wants a good software.

I propose adding this question to the FAQ and have a link to a list of commercial programs created with FPC/Lazarus on the wiki, because the wiki is much easier to update.

You forgot 'scalable enterprise solutions' :)

True.. we can create directories more like Torry.net instead of things like PasWiki which sometimes are biased and fanboy-ish ;-) I guess I think its a good idea to outsource the web development to people like me, you, and freepascal users - so Michael, Daniel, Jonas, Florian, Peter, and all those others can work on the compiler and documentation instead of website designs.

"Contributed Programs" section. Let the users manage the directory (outsourcing the work, just like how "contributed units" section is outsourced and requires little/no maintenance from FPC team).

Reading FPC and Lazarus mailing lists, and I don't see such problems. And I understood the FAQ, even though IANAL. There's a text

Read again. Lazarus list had a very long discussion about LCL and LGPLv2

Perhaps, but people evidently don't get it.

This selection is done already. See news on main fpc page.

Then propose a better text / feature list for "Advantages" page...

I will try my best.

Ales

Hm, after giving it some thought, and after seeing [http://www.freepascal.org/gallery.html] link, I have to agree: such selection looks nice.

Michalis

Hi!

Indeed, nice page and truly impressive for people searching for a proof that FPC is ready for real-world applications. I didn't even know of this Gallery page and I couldn't find any link to it from the www.freepascal.org page. Probably looking around very carefully and reading lots of pages would unveil a link, but this is not what PR means.

So I fully agree to Ales that the FPC homepage needs a "wow" style. Despite I do like clear, simple homepages I don't think that this gives us good PR. Without offending Michael and others for their effort creating and maintaining the website, I think these pages induce the impression that FPC is a tiny project, has unreliable release cycles and progress, it is "just" from hobbyists for their own pleasure and FPC is only used by some frugal enthusiasts.

Propagating this impression is _not_ what good PR is about. :-)

On the other hand, Lazarus' home page looks loaded and complex.

In the ongoing discussion I read some funny statements (ranting about managers, ...) and some kind of ignorant statements (this and that is already ..., just look there and there, just read the mailing list, just type "..." into Google, ...). I'm sure most of the necessary information is already available, probably some more "easy to read" things (like Ales' FAQ proposal) should be added. But: This information is hidden like in a maze! FPC should _not_ require potential interrests to invest lots of energy and time to get valuable information. FPC should provide this easily and directly accessable. It is not the interrested's job to search for information but it is our's to present it!

The main disadvantage of the current website are the bad navigation scheme and the simplistic layout. I'd therefore propose to take the following steps:
1. Collect what information should be on the main page: focus on managers and busy visitors, but do not forget on technicians, enthusiasts, purists. Do not classify this list, don't concentrate on structure, hierarchy, ..., just collect.
2. sort this list, give it a structure
3. work out a navigation scheme of the new website (from the structured list)
4. work out a design and look-and-feel for the new website which is clear, stylish, "wow", but not loaded.
5. bring structure, content and design togehter
6. enjoy and watch interrests

Ok, this is a very simple path, I'm not sure it if works and if enough man power can be raised. OTOH I'm sure most ideas for the hard part (1) have already been said and/or can be found on the current web site.

Any suggestions, comments, ideas?

Bye
Hansi

Op Sat, 3 Dec 2005, schreef Johann Glaser:

That is because if you make such a gallery, it should be really good, I consider it currently still too small. We need to add more projects so we can put it on-line.

Daniël

I wouldn't say it needs to be complicated or "flash-full". I personaly hate the full-of-flash crappy slow
sites no matter how cool they look. But the current page simply looks like some 15 year old's homepage made
as school project. Nothing personal here, I mean the whole thing is HUGE and there's really nice technical
functionality but the look is simply "ugh". It needs a bit more "edgy and colorful" look.

I think word can make it better: CSS

Agreed to an extent. Some things are good as they are only change required is the style.
Some are truly "hidden" behind not-so-logical paths(links).

This is all a huge IMHO ofcourse, by no means do I wish to undermine the works of all people
who already did what is done for FREE.

Ales