Claudio Valderrama C. wrote:

>
> The first inspiring documents should be the installers. They should give
> the user a clue that the FF exists.
>

Maybe, maybe not. The first thing to remember is that the installer is a
tool for installing/uninstalling the software.

Nagware is not appreciated by anyone, least of all those who have alrady
committed to the foundation in some way and I doubt that we can create an
installer clever enough to work out who has contributed and who hasn't.
That, imo, pretty much rules out adding an extra screen to the install
process.

So the issue becomes how can we integrate info about the FF into the
installer without intruding on the functionality? I'm going to to take a
look at the idea of adding billboards to the windows installer. However,
the install is so quick that this may not be very useful. OTOH,
billboards, if they could be made to work, would open up a revenue
opportunity. I can imagine that some 3pt suppliers might want to pay to
get an ad to appear during a million installs.

It might also be possible to add a link on the final page, when the prompt
to start the server is shown. But this may deflect from the purpose of the
page. After all, the install isn't finished until the dialogue is closed,
and taking the user off to a web-site might be confusing.

No-one should see advertising the FF in the installer as a panacea. I can
get through whole years impervious to the demands of others for my money.
I think a mention in the readme.txt would be more useful. I've also just
glanced at our docs - fb 1.5.3 rel notes and fb 1.5 qsg could both
improve on their promotion of the foundation.


Paul
--

Paul Reeves
http://www.ibphoenix.com
Supporting users of Firebird and InterBase


--
Paul Reeves
http://www.ibphoenix.com
Supporting users of Firebird and InterBase