--- Paul Vinkenoog <paul@...> wrote:

> I'm impressed - the site looks VERY good and is rich in content.

Thanks.

> why didn't you try to realize this on the main Firebird
> website?

We feel that diversity is good. Look at MySQL for example. There are
dozens of websites that are there to help users. You have main MySQL
website, but many people just like to type the query in the Google
first. FirebirdFAQ is built in such SEO optimized way (we get around
80-90 visitors coming from Google search every day - we also plan to
publish the monthly reports on top searches, but that's another
story). One of the things that makes future potential users feel that
MySQL is popular is that there are all those websites out there. They
provide 'greatness'. Firebird sometimes seems too centralized, and
therefore people assume it is 'small'. Ever wonder why some
journalists judge that Firebird doesn't have a large community?

The other reason is that maintaining FAQ is a cumbersome job, mostly
not fun at all, so it's hard to find someone to do it for free. The
plan for FirebirdFAQ is to have ads on the website which would give us
some financial backup to keep the website running (it is already
working fine, please don't start clicking like crazy now <g>). I guess
this would be hard to do if it is part of FirebirdSQL.org, unless the
project is interested in donating some funds.

Third reason is that none of us is a Firebird developer (Milan
develops FlameRobin but that has none of FB code in it), so we don't
understand the intricacies of the engine. It is quite easy for us to
be wrong on some points, or miss the target completely. Once user
comes with some false claims to the firebird mailing lists, the
developers (or resident experts like Ann and Helen) can set them
straight and can always say that: "Firebird FAQ is a 3rd party website".

> Speaking strictly on personal title and not on behalf of the
> project: How would you feel about merging the contents of the two
> FAQ collections (either on firebirdsql.org or on your current
> location) and making the result the official Firebird FAQ?

Martijn's proposal looks fine, but isn't good for us financially. We
are all enthusiastic currently, but I'm affraid we would run out of
steam in the long run.

Technically it would be quite easy, as the entire FAQ database is kept
in a single Firebird database, so one can extract the info and build
any kind of website design around it.

> Meanwhile I've given you a link
> http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=doc&id=othersites

Thanks,

Dave.