On 2003-02-10 at 1337.37 +0100, Rapha?l Quinet typed this: > > I see that the footer of the sample page that you provided includes a > reference to "The GIMP Team". I don't know how others feel about > that, but I do not like to give credits on every page of the site. > The GIMP itself does not include a "credits" entry at the bottom of > every menu and those who really want to know who contributed to the > GIMP have to locate the appropriate entry. Similary, I do not think > that it is necessary to include a copyright notice and a link to a > list of contributors on every page. > well, there is a little history to that inclusion. a commercial site stole the design. the designer had serious issues. i guess that the whole footer was developed that time, and was made like it is more for balance on the page. the reason cited for the theft was that they found the layout on a googlable web page (the old hurl site) and that it wasn't copyrighted. as a user, i would see the list of names of those involved with gimp, and all i wanted was to be included as well. i searched and searched for photos and more information, which in itself might be a good reason not to put lists of people on any of the sites ... as the person who wrote team.html, it is hard and unsavory to come up with titles and such. if this page disappears, i wouldn't mind. i would however like my mom to see my name there before it goes. (i am proud of what is there ...) > Besides the fact that I do not like to advertise the credits too much, > I think that such a list if often biased. It is hard to keep a "fair" > credits list up-to-date, whether it is for the site or for the program > as we have seen in the discussions a couple of weeks ago. In many > Free Software projects (programs, documentation, web sites, etc.) the > list of contributors is often "historical" and those who came later or > who prefer to keep a low profile and work in the background are often > under-represented. I don't know if having a biased list is better > than having no list at all. Maybe it is. But since I am aware of > this unavoidable bias, I prefer keep the list in a place that can be > found by those who are looking for it, but without advertising it on > every page. > i like on the current site how someone was included because he bought a beer for someone (the author of this letter excluded) a beer. i have carefully protected this site from that sort of thing. so, a little credit there maybe .... > I have the same opinion for the main site, by the way. There is a > list of people on http://www.gimp.org/the_gimp_org_about.html - It is > incredibly inaccurate (more than half of the people mentioned there > have not contributed a single line of code in the last year) but it is > there for historical reasons. It is not advertised from the other > pages. I hope that the new design will not put too much emphasis on > the credits list or on a copyright notice. > only what is needed. lots of people need to be kept happy. others might need to be kept at arms length. the copyright seems to fix both potential problems nicely. other solutions will be gladly considered. carol
