[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox at Software Freedom Day

[Yves L]

Le 05/09/2011 14:43, John Walsh a écrit :

<...>
>>> I would strongly recomment set up a website which is appropriate to
>>> the 21th century
> IMHO, I think the Foundation website looks quite modern.

<...>

>>
> However, Jonas's response reminded me how confusing the freedombox message
> was to me the first time I heard about FreedomBox.

<...>

>
> Off the top of my head, we need to do a better job at selling our message
> and I have the following suggestions;
>
> The FreedomBox is our product and it deserves a domain of it's own rather
> than be a wiki page of Debian. I am only saying hide that we are using
> Debian infrastructure. Is that possible?
>
> On the FreedomBox domain we could have an About Us page, which would tell
> the FreedomBox story. In a nutshell, it would say Eben started the project
> with the aim... Additionally, the About page would explain we are a Debian
> Blend which is a part of Debian. Finally, the About page would document the
> Foundation as the custodian of the FreedomBox, linking to Foundations
> website. I'm in two minds if the About page should mention the role of the
> TAC or should that remain on the Foundation website?
>
>
> Currently, everything is (accidently) in the name of the foundation rather
> than the freedombox, which gives the impression that foundation drives the
> project.
>
> I think you get the idea that we need to better sell the box and we probably
> can't do that until we protect the product name. At the same time, I think
> we need to de-emphasize the Foundation so that it feels more like our
> project.
>
> One of the great things about this proposal is that the majority of the work
> (web page text) can be done by non-developers \0/ although we would still
> need the help of web developers to structure the website. Maybe we could
> tart up wiki pages, but that would make the site insecure?
>
<...>
> Kind Regards
>
> -- fiftyfour
>
Hi

I'm Yves and have been lurking on this list for some months awaiting a 
time when I could make myself useful, not being a developer nor packager.

I cannot agree more with fiftyfour on the "marketing" aspect that is 
missing for the freedombox project to stir up interest and attract more 
developers. It reminds of what the getfirefox.com page did some time ago 
to do exactly that, while being run by a volunteer (the address  now 
points to official Mozilla)

While the freedombox foundation website does an adequate job for the 
like minded individuals coming from the open source/privacy world it is 
a bit dry at advocating "the dream" to the average Joe and lacks 
pedagogy: why is it important, why should I care, why is it difficult 
and so on.

I  am very much willing to buy a domain name (for instance : 
freedomboxworld.com) and set up an initial website to help get this 
attention. Here are the sources I think we can build upon to flesh up 
the site.

- Explaining the reason of the freedombox
- Explaining the technology and hurdles discussed on this mailing list 
in layman's terms (the "Hi five" challenge to use mobile phone to  share 
GPG keys to a trusted friend, the reason current DNS is a problem, how 
to maintain contact with the "oldworld" internet, why email is 
problematic...)
- Rebound on news items underlining the need for a freedombox
- Syndicate news of other or similar project
- live tweeter, facebook, identica feeds citing the project
All while pointing to existing resources when already there (the 
speeches by eblen, the wiki, mailing list and so forth.)

It would help to have someone with strong graphics skills (that I lack) 
to beef up the look and feel (again Mozilla does a superb job at it but 
with a different budget)

This would make a nice starting point for a "Communication and outreach" 
working group, what do you think ?

Regards

Yves