Hi all,

The recent discussion about Firebird web site raised some valid
points. I'd like to focus on them and discuss them further.

Some basic facts recollection.

Firebird site was not in the centre of interest for long time. You
may remember the old, static "Rabbits hole" pages. But that
changed as our needs for more efficient infrastructure were raised.
A good source of information for developers and users interested in
development progress is important part of that. Because I was "in
charge" for web pages (as others have better things to do, like
patching "politically correct" hole :), I wanted to create a solution
that allow others to

a) join the web team
b) manage content without need to join web team

It's clear that some kind of dynamic web site would work best for
that. So I evaluated a lot of various content management systems
based on PHP and MySQL (as we have both on SF) and finally
select phpNuke as starting point for further refinement. You know
that this new system is active only few weeks and is far from
completion. The whole tweaked source is in our CVS as anyone is
welcome to join our web team (now just me) to improve it.

The main problem of our site is now the content. A lot of
documents should appear there in future, mostly in relation to more
formal project structure we're forging to operate more efficiently.

And now about the improvements:

1) I agree with Markus that web presence is important, although I'm
not share his view that the state of the web will make or ruin
Firebird 1.0 success. The Firebird web is focused to development
of any kind around Firebird. It should provide information for anyone
who is interested in it despite how deep (s)he is involved. That
mean that many IBDI member doesn't have time to keep pace with
Firebird in mailing lists, so they should find all necessary news and
information's on the web. We'd like provide fresh content
continuously. Firebird web is also important medium for
communication from developers to users or other developers. For
example, the TODO list, list of open bugs, requests for help, points
of contact etc. are best suited for web where they can persist for
longer period of time than in mailing lists or newsgroups.

I would like to know what information you want to have on Firebird
web site. Please, express YOUR needs, not what you think that
others would need.

2.) We're aware that Firebird site will get a lot of traffic from new
users or from people outside the current IBDI community in future,
especially when FB 1.0 would be out. We'd like to improve the
information resources for such kind of visitors. We can build a
separate site dedicated to that purpose or we can integrate it
directly into FB's web infrastructure. But content is the key, not
layout, engine, color and other such things. With tools we have, is
easy to change layout twice per week until we would be satisfied.
Yep, start with something and refine it to perfection is the way how
open source works.

So I'd like to know your opinion about what content we should
make for curious visitors. It would be great if you'll suggest the
complete outline for that and even great if you'll help us to make
that content (for example, you can share with us your experience
with IB/FB and that way help us to make a list of success stories).
It's your chance to help us promote FB.

3.) The current Firebird site is work in progress and your feedback
about its layout and structure is welcome. But don't forget the
purpose that our site has, so don't suggest anything that in final
would turn it into something that would not serve our/your needs,
please.

In short, we'd like to build easy to navigate, readable, interesting
(and if possible toothsome) site for us and you. I'd love to hear from
you about anything that will help us to fulfill that goal, or even
better, you can join our web or doc team.

Best regards
Pavel Cisar

Firebird - The most addictive database
http://firebird.sourceforge.net