Projects vs products?

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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On May 2, 2006, at 12:39 PM, lloyd at foolswisdom.com wrote:
>
> Projects vs products seem to be a re-occurring open source identity
> crisis that also finds itself in launchpad.
>
> Products are defined at https://launchpad.net/products
>
> Projects seems to be used in the main page introduction text and in 
> the FAQ. Right below that is 'Search for products' and 'Featured 
> products'.

Yes, the introductory text is misleading.

> Aside, I am not sure why title capitalization is not used on this page
> except for the main title, and the 'Other services' ?

The "Welcome to The Launchpad" capitalization is a recently-introduced 
inconsistency that I haven't had time to fix yet.

> My personal favorite confusion is achieved while viewing
> https://launchpad.net/projects

Projects are actually defined on that page, though maybe you didn't 
notice the definition because it's in a box down the side. That the 
form on the Projects page says "Search products" instead of "Search 
projects" is a recently-introduced bug.

> Though I typed in the link directly, so I am not sure what pages lead 
> there.

The Projects page is linked to from the "Launchpad" menu in the top 
left corner of each page, as well as from the "Projects" link next to 
it on the page for any particular project. It's quite understandable 
that you didn't notice either of those; most Web users don't. :-)

> Matthew East was kind enough to respond when I posted this to the
> wrong mailing list [1], and suggest "These are two different concepts
> in Launchpad. It's intended. The distinction is pretty tricky to 
> master."
>
> What Matthew describes I found out while consideration this issue.
> When creating a project, the page says "a 'Project' is a group that
> produces several related products." I don't think the usage on the
> front page, product search page, and FAQ match that definition, and I
> hope they were not intentional.
>
> I did not find a bug, should I file one? Any thought?
> ...

Please do. We're not allowed to change the terminology, but any case 
where we're using the wrong term should be fixed.

Thanks
- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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