*Is* a redesign really called for?

I find the current http://www.NetBSD.org/ quite navigable.

The colors clash a little, but it's not bad.  I hope that legibility
is borne in mind by those advocating a color change: Orange on white
is hard on the eyes.

I'd also remind people that about a year ago (more?) it was observed
that other sites were emulating NetBSD's site.  Fashion is fickle,
but that's a pretty good indication that what is up there is already
very good, inasmuch as objective evaluations can be had.


Re. the proposed alternatives:

 * http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~zcrisler/netbsd/

   I don't see what is so great about this one.  Putting everything into
   a very long column makes it harder to take in the site at once.  (In
   fact, you have to scroll to get to some things.)  This is a huge
   step backwards from what NetBSD currently has.

 * http://www.NetBSD.org/~salo/n/

   This is pretty slick.  And the new logo is shrunk to a scale
   where it is tolerable.  (See previous notes about how the logo
   becomes more attractive as it scales down.)

   The one downside is that it "feels" like I'm looking at
   a GNU/LINUX page or slashdot or something.  I'm not sure
   why.  Maybe it's the general "glossy magazine" look.


I think that the latter is much better than the former.  But I am
not sure that I see the need to replace what's already in use.


Finally, re. standards: I think that web-browsers should try to
implement as many standards as possible.  The standards are there
so that a feature can be done in a way that works with everyone.

But a web-page is coming from the other side of the equation: It
should strive to interoperte with what's out there, rather than
try to set policy or coerce end-users in their web-browser choice.
Speaking as a NetBSD user on an obscure port (you may have heard
of the AMD64 CPU; (^&), I resent the assumption that we can all
use Firefox just as much as I resent the assumption that we can
all use Internet Explorer.  links-gui is the only functional
graphical web-browser I can remember seeing under NetBSD/amd64.
And systems without X servers will be forced to use links or lynx.
As the web-site should be a dissemination point for existing users
as well as a contact point for new users, I think that it would be
a very bad idea to declare links/lynx as unsupported.


Just my thoughts on some of the topics that have blown through
this thread.  (^&


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/