AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Claudio Filho <fi...@gmail.com>]

Hi

2012/1/8 Michael Stahl <ms...@openoffice.org>:
> in this case i guess it's at the discretion of the distributions which of
> the 2 successors of the deceased OpenOffice.org they transition to (and
> given the lack of a release from Apache OpenOffice it shouldn't surprise
> anybody that currently LibreOffice is the more popular transition target).

Your vision point is correct, Michael, and more. How in Debian, that
is the base of many distros, removed the OOo based in two points:
1) doubt about the future of OOo;
2) a minimal team to maintain the package;

was more easy to migrate to LibO. Today, only René, a Debian
Developer, maintains the package there. Some time ago, i started the
study about the packaging process, but today i stopped it.

I think that if we show a stable package and adjust the build process
to Debian, i believe that we can return to it, as more one
package/project, giving for all derivated distros the AOOo again.

Claudio

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Thorsten Behrens <th...@documentfoundation.org>]

Andre Fischer wrote:
> Yes, as well as a higher code quality.
> 
Metrics please, or didn't happen! ;)

Cheers from the off,

-- Thorsten

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Andre Fischer <af...@a-w-f.de>]

On 13.01.2012 15:37, Bjoern Michaelsen wrote:
> Hi Andre,
>
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 02:54:27PM +0100, Andre Fischer wrote:
>> I can accept "longwinding release cycles" but not "slow developement
>> velocity".  After all Sun/Oracle has been the biggest contributor
>> for OpenOffice.  LibreOffice is still integrating features made by
>> Sun/Oracle (it has just been a month or two since my new Impress
>> slide sorter turned up in LibreOffice.)
>
> Sorry, that wasnt meant to be derogative. I think we can agree upon Sun/Oracle
> being quite a bit more conservative wrt to how to implement changes, which
> resulted in a higher overhead to get features completed.

Yes, as well as a higher code quality.

> A more aggressive use
> of the developer resources available to Sun/Oracle would have allowed much
> faster progress.

I disagree.  The same number of people would not have written more code. 
  Of course, we could have released more often, but in the long run we 
would have produced the same amount of features and bug fixes.

>
>> You are right that our old release process was not the best.  Still,
>> I would choose friendlier words.
>
> I do not intend to offend the developers involved. But the fact that the *.deb
> files published the OOo website were rarely downloaded and didnt even install
> without some major tweaking on default installs show that *nix packaging was
> never a priority at OOo.

This may be one reason but it is certainly not the only one.  OpenOffice 
is (today in the form of LibreOffice) included in all major Linux 
distributions.  There is no need for the average user to download and 
install it again.

>
>> Well, no.  After all, OpenOffice.org is not dead.  It just got a new home.
>
> The project OpenOffice.org is dead, the trademark obviously survived as it is
> currently owned by a different project with a different name:
> Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)

Again, I disagree.  Oracle gave the source code to the Apache Foundation 
to continue work on OpenOffice.  Some time ago we at Apache voted on a 
name change and to drop the .org.  But Apache has taken over the 
original code, the infrastructure, and a part of the community.  So I 
personally think of OpenOffice under the ASF to be the continuation of 
OpenOffice under Oracle.

And there is a lot of work going on to produce the first release of 
Apache OpenOffice, which will likely attract more people to join the 
Apache community.

Regards,
Andre

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>]

Hmm...

--- Ven 13/1/12, Bjoern Michaelsen <bj...@canonical.com> ha scritto:

...
> 
> > Well, no.  After all, OpenOffice.org is not
> > dead.  It just got a new home.
> 
> The project OpenOffice.org is dead, the trademark obviously
> survived as it is currently owned by a different project
> with a different name:
> Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)
> 

This common misconception is the reason why I prepared an
educational banner:

http://people.apache.org/~pfg/ApacheOO.gif

cheers,

Pedro.

> Best,
> 
> Bjoern
> 

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Bjoern Michaelsen <bj...@canonical.com>]

Hi Andre,

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 02:54:27PM +0100, Andre Fischer wrote:
> I can accept "longwinding release cycles" but not "slow developement
> velocity".  After all Sun/Oracle has been the biggest contributor
> for OpenOffice.  LibreOffice is still integrating features made by
> Sun/Oracle (it has just been a month or two since my new Impress
> slide sorter turned up in LibreOffice.)

Sorry, that wasnt meant to be derogative. I think we can agree upon Sun/Oracle
being quite a bit more conservative wrt to how to implement changes, which
resulted in a higher overhead to get features completed. A more aggressive use
of the developer resources available to Sun/Oracle would have allowed much
faster progress.

> You are right that our old release process was not the best.  Still,
> I would choose friendlier words.

I do not intend to offend the developers involved. But the fact that the *.deb
files published the OOo website were rarely downloaded and didnt even install
without some major tweaking on default installs show that *nix packaging was
never a priority at OOo.

> Well, no.  After all, OpenOffice.org is not dead.  It just got a new home.

The project OpenOffice.org is dead, the trademark obviously survived as it is
currently owned by a different project with a different name:
Apache OpenOffice (Incubating)

Best,

Bjoern

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Andre Fischer <af...@a-w-f.de>]

Hi,

On 13.01.2012 14:25, Bjoern Michaelsen wrote:
> Hi Claudio,
>
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 09:46:05AM -0200, Claudio Filho wrote:
>> Absolutely! I agree with you that René doing an excellent work and he
>> knows all inside the OOo/LibO packaging process!
>
> Great to see we agree there!
>
>> What i (try) say is that we have a small number of people envolved in
>> this process. As you said, are 3 people for a *big* project. Think
>> this 3 people looking *two* bigs projects. IMO, I can't see how.
>
> The "small number of people involved" are not really the problem. The core
> issue is how bad OpenOffice.org historically was prepared for releases on *nix
> platforms, requiring huge amounts of fragile workarounds. At LibreOffice a lot
> of this stuff has already been simplifed upstream, there has been good
> (invisible to the enduser) progress here.

That is good to hear, maybe we can learn from that improvement.

> The only reason packaging of
> OpenOffice.org was sustainable with the given resources for OpenOffice.org was
> because of the slow developement velocity and longwinding release cycles.

I can accept "longwinding release cycles" but not "slow developement 
velocity".  After all Sun/Oracle has been the biggest contributor for 
OpenOffice.  LibreOffice is still integrating features made by 
Sun/Oracle (it has just been a month or two since my new Impress slide 
sorter turned up in LibreOffice.)

>
> Given the progress at LibreOffice, I think the motivation to go back to the
> messy, wasteful and fragile release process of OpenOffice.org (which is where
> AOOoI is currently at) is very limited for all current participants (who are
> all involved in some way in upstream LibreOffice development btw).

You are right that our old release process was not the best.  Still, I 
would choose friendlier words.
At Apache OpenOffice we are working to improve on that.  Any help from 
LibreOffice is welcome.

>
>> if I maintain a package and its project forked in two, i should choice
>> one branch too. I think that is impossible maintain two enormous
>> packages like AOOo and LibO.
>
> Given that LibreOffice is actively maintained, that OpenOffice.org is dead and
> Apache OpenOffice (Incubating) has not even released yet, I think there is an
> obvious conclusion from your statements.

Well, no.  After all, OpenOffice.org is not dead.  It just got a new home.

Regards,
Andre

>
> Best,
>
> Bjoern

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Bjoern Michaelsen <bj...@canonical.com>]

Hi Claudio,

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 09:46:05AM -0200, Claudio Filho wrote:
> Absolutely! I agree with you that René doing an excellent work and he
> knows all inside the OOo/LibO packaging process!

Great to see we agree there!

> What i (try) say is that we have a small number of people envolved in
> this process. As you said, are 3 people for a *big* project. Think
> this 3 people looking *two* bigs projects. IMO, I can't see how.

The "small number of people involved" are not really the problem. The core
issue is how bad OpenOffice.org historically was prepared for releases on *nix
platforms, requiring huge amounts of fragile workarounds. At LibreOffice a lot
of this stuff has already been simplifed upstream, there has been good
(invisible to the enduser) progress here. The only reason packaging of
OpenOffice.org was sustainable with the given resources for OpenOffice.org was
because of the slow developement velocity and longwinding release cycles.

Given the progress at LibreOffice, I think the motivation to go back to the
messy, wasteful and fragile release process of OpenOffice.org (which is where
AOOoI is currently at) is very limited for all current participants (who are
all involved in some way in upstream LibreOffice development btw).

> if I maintain a package and its project forked in two, i should choice
> one branch too. I think that is impossible maintain two enormous
> packages like AOOo and LibO.

Given that LibreOffice is actively maintained, that OpenOffice.org is dead and
Apache OpenOffice (Incubating) has not even released yet, I think there is an
obvious conclusion from your statements.

Best,

Bjoern

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Claudio Filho <fi...@gmail.com>]

Hi Bjoern

2012/1/13 Bjoern Michaelsen <bj...@canonical.com>:
> Thats not true. I do work on that too as is Lionel Elie Mamane and sometimes
> Matthias Klose (for ARM). Rene is clearly the final judge on contributions and
> changes to LibreOffice packaging on Debian as he is doing an excellent job there.

Absolutely! I agree with you that René doing an excellent work and he
knows all inside the OOo/LibO packaging process!

What i (try) say is that we have a small number of people envolved in
this process. As you said, are 3 people for a *big* project. Think
this 3 people looking *two* bigs projects. IMO, I can't see how.

IMHO, we need more people that know the debian package process to
maintain AOOo inside Debian.

if I maintain a package and its project forked in two, i should choice
one branch too. I think that is impossible maintain two enormous
packages like AOOo and LibO.

And, when Debian drop a package, generally all derivated distros drop
too. See the case of Java. Debian dropped java and Ubuntu some days
ago. Now, Oracle's Java for ubuntu users only through a ppa
repository.

And please, my focus is on the lack of people, and not who does the work.

Claudio

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Jürgen Schmidt <jo...@googlemail.com>]

On 1/13/12 1:03 PM, eric b wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Le 13 janv. 12 à 10:02, Bjoern Michaelsen a écrit :
>
>> Hi Claudio,
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 06:46:26PM -0200, Claudio Filho wrote:
>>> was more easy to migrate to LibO. Today, only René, a Debian
>>> Developer, maintains the package there.
>>
>> Thats not true. I do work on that too as is Lionel Elie Mamane and
>> sometimes Matthias Klose (for ARM). Rene is clearly the final judge on
>> contributions and changes to LibreOffice packaging on Debian
>
>
> That's true, Rene is free to create a NEW application, using
> OpenOffice.org resources.
>
>
> But so far, rename everything LibreOffice in the files concerning
> OpenOffice.org is not fair. As I wrote, "apt-get install openoffice.org"
> should lead to "no longer maintained", or something like that, but NOT
> lead to "replaced by LibreOffice or whatever".
>
> IMHO, the right decision could have been :
>
> - clone openoffice.org source files (all the Debian bazaar , like
> Control and so on files)
> - create / declare libreoffice as a NEW application in Debian repos
> - put openoffice.org in "unmaintained" or whatever similar status.
>
> That's just a personal opinion, but I hope I was clear. If not please
> ask me and I'll reformulate.

please let us stop this discussion for now, we will address this when we 
have a release in the appropriate way.

The thread started to become off-topic

Juergen

>
>
>> as he is doing an excellent job there.
>
>
> Nobody told he didn't and nobody will contest. Since years Rene does a
> great work for OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Eric
>
>>
>

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[eric b <er...@free.fr>]

Hi,

Le 13 janv. 12 à 10:02, Bjoern Michaelsen a écrit :

> Hi Claudio,
>
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 06:46:26PM -0200, Claudio Filho wrote:
>> was more easy to migrate to LibO. Today, only René, a Debian
>> Developer, maintains the package there.
>
> Thats not true. I do work on that too as is Lionel Elie Mamane and  
> sometimes Matthias Klose (for ARM). Rene is clearly the final judge  
> on contributions and changes to LibreOffice packaging on Debian


That's true, Rene is free to create a NEW application, using  
OpenOffice.org resources.


But so far, rename everything LibreOffice in the files concerning  
OpenOffice.org is not fair. As I wrote, "apt-get install  
openoffice.org" should lead to "no longer maintained", or something  
like that, but NOT lead to "replaced by LibreOffice or whatever".

IMHO, the right decision could have been :

- clone openoffice.org source files (all the Debian bazaar , like  
Control and so on files)
- create / declare libreoffice as a NEW application in Debian repos
- put openoffice.org in "unmaintained" or whatever similar status.

That's just a personal opinion, but I hope I was clear. If not  
please  ask me and I'll reformulate.


> as he is doing an excellent job there.


Nobody told he didn't and nobody will contest. Since years Rene does  
a great work for OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice.



Regards,
Eric

>

-- 
qɔᴉɹə
Projet OOo4Kids : http://wiki.ooo4kids.org/index.php/Main_Page
L'association EducOOo : http://www.educoo.org
Blog : http://eric.bachard.org/news

Re: AOOo in Debian/Ubuntu (Was: Re: /usr/bin/openoffice.org)

[Bjoern Michaelsen <bj...@canonical.com>]

Hi Claudio,

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 06:46:26PM -0200, Claudio Filho wrote:
> was more easy to migrate to LibO. Today, only René, a Debian
> Developer, maintains the package there. 

Thats not true. I do work on that too as is Lionel Elie Mamane and sometimes
Matthias Klose (for ARM). Rene is clearly the final judge on contributions and
changes to LibreOffice packaging on Debian as he is doing an excellent job there.

Best,

Bjoern