Friday, April 21. 2006If you want to be popular, you have to give it up easy.
Something I noticed today, while downloading the graphics program known as the Gimp. The website (http://www.gimp.org) makes you dance with it for 2 nights, meet its parents, and walk its dog before you can even think about getting your hands on "the goods". Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com) on the other hand takes a more direct approach.
Here is how you download the Gimp for Windows...
Lets see how easy that whore Firefox is...
This 590x250 cropped image does what it takes the Gimp 3 different websites to do, it lets you actually get the product they're banging on about. Thats why I hate seeing people rattle on and on how once Firefox got big that it was proof of the superiority of Open Source Software. It's not, its proof that you need decent marketing, a decent website, and a decent product to get anywhere. Comments
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"It's not, its proof that you need decent marketing, a decent website, and a decent product to get anywhere."
I'm going to quote this here on account of how I agree with it.
I try an click on da 'Download Firefox' option wit in da image, nuttin' happens. Please correct yo' dead link. Thank ya! and git Sheniquah's ass back ova' heeah.
An excellent point Des. You'd swear simple OS sensing code was new and cutting edge stuff the way many sourceforge project homes pages are laid out. They seem to think that giving you a link, on the first page, with the latest stable binary for the OS you are using is just too cutting edge for them!
The other thing I notice is how often I hear FireFox championed as a positive example for others to learn from. It would seem that the FireFox crew have a grip on commonsense that many other projects should be emulating.
In an attempt to show that I'm not all whinge, I have posted a bug report to the Gimp.org maintainers, in the hope that they will make an adjustment to the site.
My suggestion is this.... http://www.minds.may.ie/~dez/images/blog/gimp.png
The problem is with the very beginning of your post title: "If you want to be popular, ..."
Did it ever occur to you that, unlike Firefox, other applications (GIMP is one example) do not thrive to get as many users as possible?
But why would you put your energy into developing a good product like the GIMP and then not make the effort to make it easy to use? That's pure insanity!
"Did it ever occur to you that, unlike Firefox, other applications (GIMP is one example) do not thrive to get as many users as possible?"
There is a massive difference between "trying to get as many users as possible" and "being popular"? Are you actually implying that the Gimp is deliberately difficult to download? As if someone in the group thought "Guys, I know a way to stunt our growth..." and everyone jumped on board? I seriously hope not.
The response you got to your gimp question was pretty amusing.
I don't think they even looked at the excellent graphic you provided as an example. |
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This website is the online diary of me, Des Traynor, a User Experience Researcher in Dublin, Ireland. I work with Contrast. I usually write on 5 topics: I update about 3-4 times per month. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss this good stuff. If this is your first time here, check out the archives.My official homepage provides more information about who I am, and what I research. You can contact me at destraynor [at] gmail [dot] com Quicksearch |
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