Recent overhauls of the Free Software Foundation and GNU Project websites have made navigating those sites easier - to do, as well as on the eyes.

If you haven't been to the Free Software Foundation and GNU Project websites lately, then you probably don't realize they have been redesigned. The Free Software Foundation's website has been driven by Plone for some time. The GNU Project's site is a little newer, and Blue GNU has not yet found out what is driving that site. Meanwhile, the most recent update is the Free Software Directory. These sites, that once looked like they had not been updated since 1997, now look like modern, navigable sites.

Of the three sites, The GNU Project site resembles its former self moreso than the rest. The information is laid out in similar fashion to the old site, but is offset by color throughout the site. The Free Software Foundation site is white with soft gray to break up the white space. But the Free Software Directory represents a pretty radical overhaul, taking on the look of a blog to present the list of available software. And the new SFD entries are presented in a clean manner. Blue GNU was not able to verify whether the information on each of the projects has been updated as appropriate, so it is probable that some of the information regarding each project remains outdated.

The Free Software Directory home page now shows the ten most-popular projects, as well as the most recently updated projects. Hovering your mouse over an entry link offers a tool tip describing the project. visiting one of the GNU projects takes you to a page with a brief description of the project, as well as tabs with information about the project's leadership, versions, the user community, and development. And there is still the categorized listing of projects. Ironically, though, the one category not immediately visible is the listing of official GNU packages. It's ironic because you can easily get to it from the GNU.org site.

All of the sites offer solid information about their purpose, links to important information and resources, and attempt to draw people into the GNU community. They did these things before, but now have some sense of color and/or layout to make venturing further more inviting, as well as more apparent. Aside from being modern, the sites are surely easier to maintain. Free Software activists can rest assured that the next time they send a friend or loved one to visit the FSF/GNU Project websites, they won't get bombarded with questions like, "when was that website designed, the 60's?".