New Image (Icon and website)

[Dennis M S]

Hi All,

I would really like to thank Micheal for the great work put into cloudi. I discovered CloudI a few months back and wanted to integrate it into my graduate project but the proposal was rejected by my company manager/supervisor, because to him "the website made the project look like it was someone's toy project, unfit for mission critical production grade software". These judgements were made only based on looking at the site, considering the fellow knows next to nothing about erlang. 

This may seem trivial but it keeps me wondering if this hasn't hindered uptake of this awesome project in similar ways globally.

So because of this I propose we all chip in and help create a new image

For the website (Free)

http://pages.github.com/

to produce appealing project pages like these

http://jinja.pocoo.org/

http://flask.pocoo.org/

For the Icon

http://brandcrowd.com/logo-design/details/32702

http://brandcrowd.com/logo-design/details/42978

(logo can be customised just ask let the designer know)

Just my thoughts

Regards,

--

Dennis M S

           

Email: Neo4...@gmail.com,       

Skype,Twitter etc: neo4reo

CL-USER> (setf *me* (make-instance 'smart-person))

TRUE

CL-USER>

[Michael Truog]

Hi Dennis,


Thank you for the feedback.

I think it is very good you are able to approach CloudI as a solution, despite the problem with your manager/supervisor.  I understand that it might seem like the format of the web page would change the situation, but I really don't think it will.

I really enjoy the stability of http://openbsd.org/ (for more than 10 years now) but their web site looks older than the others you have mentioned since it lacks the typical marketing look.  What a manager/supervisor would care about more is just seeing other corporate usage, so that it looks like limited business risk.  With the BSD license, no users necessarily need to report how or why they use CloudI, which is part of the benefit to having the BSD license.  The license would of course not stop any type of repository fork or a separate project based on CloudI.

Changing the web page to try and appeal to people without technological knowledge does not seem necessary, to me.  Usage of CloudI will require some technical knowledge, so it seems better to avoid the helpless and the clueless which might otherwise detract from the direction of the project.  You might see this as a negative view, but based on experience in open source, it helps the projects retain quality.

That being said, I am open to suggestions on how to improve the web site.  The images are already being used elsewhere, so those are part of a logo that will remain, just like the URL (http://cloudi.org).  The github page can always forward to the cloudi.org site.  The web site could be done on a single page, to increase the trendiness factor, but I think having a clinical/sterile look like the pages you previously listed might make the project look a bit dead and lacking in innovation.  That is definitely not the message I would want to present.  However, that is probably what your manager/supervisor is looking for.

Thanks,
Michael