RFC: Bazaar Web site Home Page Redesign

[Ben Finney]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

> Ben Finney writes:
>  > Adding such a thing prominently on the website would reinforce this
>  > "Bazaar! Launchpad! Canonical! All the same thing, innit!" that
>  > turns a lot of people away from Bazaar-the-VCS.
>  > 
>  > I think it's plenty that "Bazaar hosting" as a search term will
>  > return Launchpad as the first hit.
> 
> Tough question. I know a few people who swallow the git UI *only*
> because they're addicted to github, and quite a few github addicts who
> don't have any trouble with git per se but are really happy with
> github.

Those people, then, are likely not influenced by Git's website in their
choice of Git; by your description, they've already made up their mind
to use Github regardless of the features of Git as a tool. The Git
website doesn't need to mention Github on the front page at all for
these newcomers to be satisfied.

Likewise, people who will choose Bazaar on the basis of Launchpad will
easily see that Bazaar is the VCS to use; they don't need the Bazaar
website to talk about Launchpad on the front page at all.

> Easy Launchpad integration is a *feature* for Bazaar, at least to a
> certain class of users.

No doubt; but that class of users, I argue, are not looking at Bazaar's
website for that feature, they're looking at the Launchpad service with
Bazaar as only one part of that service.

On the other hand, jaded programmers looking for a vendor-agnostic
*tool* can easily, in my experience, be directly put off by a perception
that Bazaar is tied to any particular hosting service, and will look
elsewhere for a more “independent” tool.

The fact that Bazaar's command interface contains many features that are
exclusively about Launchpad is enough of a hurdle to overcome, but
fortunately those aren't in the user's face.

> (And even you would probably change your mind if Launchpad would
> accept OpenID as a relying party.<0.5 wink>)

Certainly, and in the meantime I happily use bitbucket.org :-)

-- 
 \      “If you wish to strive for peace of soul, then believe; if you |
  `\          wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.” —Friedrich |
_o__)                                                        Nietzsche |
Ben Finney