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Posted to dev@openoffice.apache.org by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org> on 2012/03/13 23:28:39 UTC
Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip>
>
> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
> benefit general members of the public.
>
>
I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you
mean than what you wrote.
Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is
impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against
every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is
available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in
competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that
users report, then we are competing against every other market player
who is also trying to satisfy those customers.
So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we
write software that no one wants or uses.
But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking
competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For
example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's
imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use
OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new
release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice".
In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing
campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be
inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO.
We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its
benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the
right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of
community development. It would be very odd if git developers came
over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion.
-Rob
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@opendirective.com>.
Sent from my mobile device, please forgive errors and brevity.
On Mar 14, 2012 7:50 AM, "Jürgen Schmidt" <jo...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
>
> I would very much prefer if we can simply concentrate on our project
where we
> have enough to do at the moment.
+1
Public squabbles help nobody
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Yue Helen <he...@gmail.com>.
2012/3/14 Jürgen Schmidt <jo...@googlemail.com>
> On 3/13/12 11:36 PM, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>
>> You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
>> but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
>> as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
>> project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
>>
>> for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
>> the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
>> satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
>>
>> Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
>> but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
>> as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
>> and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
>> towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
>>
>
> nobody complained about LibreOffice and we respect their work and what
> they have achieved from a marketing perspective. But I think we all don't
> like the wrong facts that others (whoever it is) are spreading around
> OpenOffice and Apache OpenOffice.
+1
> The opposite is true we would welcome any developers (including the
> LibreOffice developers) to join our project and work together. As you know
> because of the license the other way is not possible.
>
> +1
> I would very much prefer if we can simply concentrate on our project where
> we have enough to do at the moment. Everything else can we do later. And I
> would also appreciate if other people would accept the situation as it is,
> Apache OpenOffice is alive, will deliver and our users are waiting on our
> new release.
>
> +1
I'm new here...I'm not native English speaker...It took me much time to
read this thread...and learned...I guess it also took you much time to type
:-) ...so I believe the above opinion is correct and good for us...focus on
the project, whether FAQ or code. All contributors have my respect.
Helen
> Juergen
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>>> From: Rob Weir<ro...@apache.org>
>>> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
>>> Cc:
>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:28 PM
>>> Subject: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer<jo...@yahoo.com>
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you
>>> mean than what you wrote.
>>>
>>> Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is
>>> impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against
>>> every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is
>>> available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in
>>> competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that
>>> users report, then we are competing against every other market player
>>> who is also trying to satisfy those customers.
>>>
>>> So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we
>>> write software that no one wants or uses.
>>>
>>> But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking
>>> competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For
>>> example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's
>>> imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use
>>> OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new
>>> release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice".
>>> In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing
>>> campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be
>>> inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO.
>>>
>>> We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its
>>> benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the
>>> right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of
>>> community development. It would be very odd if git developers came
>>> over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion.
>>>
>>> -Rob
>>>
>>>
>
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Jürgen Schmidt <jo...@googlemail.com>.
On 3/13/12 11:36 PM, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
> but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
> as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
> project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
>
> for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
> the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
> satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
>
> Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
> but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
> as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
> and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
> towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
nobody complained about LibreOffice and we respect their work and what
they have achieved from a marketing perspective. But I think we all
don't like the wrong facts that others (whoever it is) are spreading
around OpenOffice and Apache OpenOffice. The opposite is true we would
welcome any developers (including the LibreOffice developers) to join
our project and work together. As you know because of the license the
other way is not possible.
I would very much prefer if we can simply concentrate on our project
where we have enough to do at the moment. Everything else can we do
later. And I would also appreciate if other people would accept the
situation as it is, Apache OpenOffice is alive, will deliver and our
users are waiting on our new release.
Juergen
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Rob Weir<ro...@apache.org>
>> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:28 PM
>> Subject: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer<jo...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you
>> mean than what you wrote.
>>
>> Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is
>> impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against
>> every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is
>> available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in
>> competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that
>> users report, then we are competing against every other market player
>> who is also trying to satisfy those customers.
>>
>> So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we
>> write software that no one wants or uses.
>>
>> But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking
>> competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For
>> example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's
>> imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use
>> OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new
>> release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice".
>> In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing
>> campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be
>> inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO.
>>
>> We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its
>> benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the
>> right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of
>> community development. It would be very odd if git developers came
>> over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
----- Original Message -----
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:17 PM
> Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
>> but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
>> as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
>> project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
>>
>
> I think you are reading too much into "public charity". 501(c)(3) is
> primarily a tax classification. it limits our activities somewhat,
> but it does not prevent us from having a point of view or from
> advocacy.
>
> In any case, you don't see the Subversion project making official
> recommendations on its website on when git or Mercurial would be
> better for the user. That is not the purpose of an Apache project.
First we're talking about a wiki page not an official project webpage.
People tend to know the difference in provenance between those two.
Second, I work with subversion developers every day and tend to know
what they think about competing version control offerings, and it's far
more enlightened an attitude towards user choice than you seem to want
to credit them with.
> We're not clearing houses of information in a wide spectrum of
> software applications. We have projects that each develop, pubish and
> promote very specific applications for their communities. I think we
> get into all sorts of mischief if we say that the Subversion PMC is
> now responsible for offering neutral advice to all comers on the
> merits of all version control systems.
Well no but you don't need to pretend you are the be all and end
all for every OpenOffice user on the planet at this particular point
either.
>
>> for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
>> the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
>> satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
>>
>
> I disagree. We're not a clearinghouse for information on every open
> source editor in existence, their merits, tradeoff's and specialties.
That's a pity because that's the role i tend to place Apache projects in,
one which differentiates them from the rest of the open source world.
No that does not mean you need to be proficient in everything any more
than it means you should only be proficient in your own codebase.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
> but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
> as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
> project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
>
I think you are reading too much into "public charity". 501(c)(3) is
primarily a tax classification. it limits our activities somewhat,
but it does not prevent us from having a point of view or from
advocacy.
In any case, you don't see the Subversion project making official
recommendations on its website on when git or Mercurial would be
better for the user. That is not the purpose of an Apache project.
We're not clearing houses of information in a wide spectrum of
software applications. We have projects that each develop, pubish and
promote very specific applications for their communities. I think we
get into all sorts of mischief if we say that the Subversion PMC is
now responsible for offering neutral advice to all comers on the
merits of all version control systems.
> for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
> the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
> satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
>
I disagree. We're not a clearinghouse for information on every open
source editor in existence, their merits, tradeoff's and specialties.
> Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
> but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
> as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
> and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
> towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
>
Most PMC's are happy to list ports and downstream consumers of their
code. But I'm not seeing Subversion point users to where they can
download git and Mercurial. Am I missing it?
-Rob
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:28 PM
>> Subject: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you
>> mean than what you wrote.
>>
>> Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is
>> impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against
>> every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is
>> available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in
>> competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that
>> users report, then we are competing against every other market player
>> who is also trying to satisfy those customers.
>>
>> So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we
>> write software that no one wants or uses.
>>
>> But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking
>> competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For
>> example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's
>> imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use
>> OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new
>> release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice".
>> In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing
>> campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be
>> inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO.
>>
>> We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its
>> benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the
>> right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of
>> community development. It would be very odd if git developers came
>> over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by drew <dr...@baseanswers.com>.
On Tue, 2012-03-13 at 23:53 +0100, RGB ES wrote:
> El día 13 de marzo de 2012 23:36, Joe Schaefer
> <jo...@yahoo.com> escribió:
> > You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
> > but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
> > as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
> > project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
> >
> > for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
> > the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
> > satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
> >
> > Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
> > but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
> > as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
> > and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
> > towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
> >
> Indeed: there is a big difference between "competition" and "war". For
> example,
Actually there is nothing similar between competition and war, IMO.
Competition is first and foremost about respect, first for yourself and
then for your competitors.
War is about dominance and capitulation and the willingness of one
party, or all parties, to engage in the ultimate act of disrespect.
> KDE and gnome guys compete on the "desktop market", but they
> are able to organize the "desktop summits" together, sharing not only
> costs.
I believe that is a very good example of healthy competition - and would
hope that, for instance, next years CeBit show in Germany might be a
good place for the two projects to do something similar.
> AOO and LibO are NOT enemies.
Best wishes,
//drew
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by RGB ES <rg...@gmail.com>.
El día 13 de marzo de 2012 23:36, Joe Schaefer
<jo...@yahoo.com> escribió:
> You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
> but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
> as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
> project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
>
> for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
> the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
> satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
>
> Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
> but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
> as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
> and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
> towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
>
Indeed: there is a big difference between "competition" and "war". For
example, KDE and gnome guys compete on the "desktop market", but they
are able to organize the "desktop summits" together, sharing not only
costs. AOO and LibO are NOT enemies.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by eric b <er...@free.fr>.
Hi,
Le 14 mars 12 à 00:45, Joe Schaefer a écrit :
>>
>> No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
>> LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
>> suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
>> putting a huge effort for this release.
>
> Yeah well I'm suggesting this isn't the most convivial attitude for
> you
> to adopt as a participant in a public charity. Yes you all should
> be proud
> of your accomplishments to date, I'm very happy with the progress
> so far.
> But Simon's suggestion about using LO isn't offensive to me
It is offensive to me too.
> as an Apache mentor of this project at all, and it shouldn't be to
> you.
> No matter what sort of crappy attitude you get back from LO
> proponents, you should try
> to be the adults in the conversation more often than not.
Back to my proposal : it is very simple and not that aggressive :
let's consider LibreOffice marketing has nothing to do on our wiki,
so remove it and continue to work.
[Sorry, it will be my last answer to this thread]
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: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>> From: Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>
>> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:14 PM
>> Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>>
>> On 03/13/12 18:45, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>>> No, It's really very simple: we have developer snapshots and we
>>>> want people to test them. At this precise time we need testers and
>>>> people reporting bugs in the release. Bug reports from someone
>>>> running LibreOffice are not useful to us.
>>> The question isn't what's useful to *you*, it's what's
>> useful to *them*.
>>> Yes it'd be great if every user volunteered to be a sacrificial guinea
>>> pig for us, but users have their own problems to think about too.
>>
>> Well ... I don't think that LibreOffice would be the best option. To
>> be honest I would point people to Microsoft Office. It has
>> less bugs, it has full support and every time you buy it you
>> help the economy and the many professional developers
>> behind it that feed their families.
>>
>> If people can't afford that and/or you mean strictly an OpenOffice
>> replacement... end users would by happy with Lotus Symphony
>> which is free. (no FreeBSD port yet though).
>>
>> Both options would mean someone else would be helping them, not
>> me, and I can't really take the responsibility if their experience in
>> another camp becomes sour so I recommend what I know and
>> control. It's not like I am going to take Google out of their choices.
>
> Good luck with that in a codebase of this size. Pretending that you
> have some control over what goes on in this project is naive, you control
> what you do with your own time and your own brain and not much else.
> The only measure of control afforded to you beyond that is veto power.
>
>>
>>>> No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
>>>> LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
>>>> suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
>>>> putting a huge effort for this release.
>>> Yeah well I'm suggesting this isn't the most convivial attitude for
>> you
>>> to adopt as a participant in a public charity. Yes you all should be proud
>>> of your accomplishments to date, I'm very happy with the progress so
>> far.
>>> But Simon's suggestion about using LO isn't offensive to me as an
>> Apache
>>> mentor of this project at all, and it shouldn't be to you. No matter
>> what
>>> sort of crappy attitude you get back from LO proponents, you should try
>>> to be the adults in the conversation more often than not.
>>>
>> I don't think anyone is being a child here but at this point we all have
>> one objective: release. Anything else seems out-of-place and is not
>> really what we do for helping people.
>
> Still arguing from the what's best for the developers instead of what's
> best for the general public at this particular point in time. No I'm
> not saying that LO advocacy is essential in the interim, but denying
> their existence doesn't do this project credit either.
>
> Lemme set the record straight about what I've seen subversion do:
> last year they mentored a GSoC student who wanted to develop a better
> subversion -> git migration tool than what git-svn does natively.
> Instead of laughing at the student, they worked with him on the proposal
> and Google accepted it. At that point they made him a "partial committer"
> and oversaw his work in their subversion repo. They brought him along
> to the point where the code was good enough to go into a release, and
> if you look for svnrdump you will see it's already in the 1.7 line.
>
> Contrast that with the attitude the AOO developer team would show to
> a person wanting to contribute an AOO -> LO migration tool to the ASF.
> Like night and day.
>
It is hard to imagine such a tool, since we both support the same
document format. But to that point, I work happily alongside LO
developers (and KOffice and AbiWord and Gnumeric and Kalligra and
others) in developing the ODF standard, and working with them to
improve interoperability at plugfests. In fact, we have one scheduled
next month in Brussels, April 18th and 19th. Is it an official Apache
event or an official Apache action? No, but it is an effort by a
group of individuals, including myself, who are interested in seeing
interop improve.
BTW, the event is hosted this time by Microsoft, and that is a great thing.
-Rob
>>> Well my point was about looking out for the entire user community,
>>> and breaking interoperability for extension authors is not a small
>>> matter no matter who does it. IOW that is a problem you should
>>> work to resolve with the LO team, not to point fingers at each other
>>> about.
>>
>> I *am* looking at the entire community but this particular line of
>> discussion has no connection with the technical issues which
>> have and will likely continue to appear.
>
> Fair enough.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 9:24 PM, Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org> wrote:
<snip>
> still I don't see why I should consider pointing people
> that want to update OOo to LO. I do think now that we
> should point more people to Lotus Symphony ... after
> all it will be very similar to AOO 4.0 and it's
> available now. But first we will get out this
> release.
>
I think this discussion would benefit from thinking more like a user.
Why would someone want to update OpenOffice? It is not like OOo 3.3
just stops working. It works with all of the latest operating
systems. So an OOo 3.3 user can continue using it. Of course, it is
very natural for a user to want something fresh, some new features,
some new toys. We all want that, right? So if a user asks about
"updating" or "upgrading" OOo 3.3, we should tell them that 3.4 is
coming, but they don't need to wait for that release to "upgrade their
experience". Talk to them about the great extensibility features in
OpenOffice, Show them the newly relaunched extensions and templates
repository. Point out some of the highlights there. Get the user to
understand that they don't need to install a new application, get new
bugs, new incompatibilities and new headaches just to get new
features. They can add (and remove) new features whenever they want.
Being perceptive about what users want allows us to be pro AOO, pro
user and pro public interest. Educating our users in how our product
works and how to best use OpenOffice should be a more mission of the
project.
-Rob
> Pedro.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>.
--- Mar 13/3/12, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> ha scritto:
...
>
> >If you are volunteering to mentor such a project just go
> ahead.
>
>
> Outside the scope of my interest level, but if you think the
> subversion devs "punted" on svnrdump you really haven't
> understood their mindset nor the scope of the actual tool
> that was developed.
>
Absolutely not .. I mean if someone finds it interesting
and fun (and evidently at least a mentor and a student
did), why not?
I added support for creation timestamps to libarchive
and to FreeBSD's implementation of the ext2/3 fs. No one
paid me to do it and no one that I know uses them but
it was sort of fun and I learned new things.
still I don't see why I should consider pointing people
that want to update OOo to LO. I do think now that we
should point more people to Lotus Symphony ... after
all it will be very similar to AOO 4.0 and it's
available now. But first we will get out this
release.
Pedro.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
>________________________________
> From: Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>
>To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
>Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:56 PM
>Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
>On 03/13/12 19:30, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>>
>> Still arguing from the what's best for the developers instead of what's
>> best for the general public at this particular point in time. No I'm
>> not saying that LO advocacy is essential in the interim, but denying
>> their existence doesn't do this project credit either.
>
>I am not denying their existance. I have said in the past that if
>someone get to write it we can have a webpage for derived
>code.
>
>In the proposed FAQ "Where can I download an update for
>OpenOffice" it is simply out of place.
>
>> Lemme set the record straight about what I've seen subversion do:
>> last year they mentored a GSoC student who wanted to develop a better
>> subversion -> git migration tool than what git-svn does natively.
>> Instead of laughing at the student, they worked with him on the proposal
>> and Google accepted it. At that point they made him a "partial committer"
>> and oversaw his work in their subversion repo. They brought him along
>> to the point where the code was good enough to go into a release, and
>> if you look for svnrdump you will see it's already in the 1.7 line.
>
>
>Non-profit doesn't necessarily mean altruistic. We all do things
>that we are not paid to do (at least I do) and things that don't
>directly benefit us (again my case here), but that doesn't mean
>we are easily convinced to do things we don't like are we don't
>care about for the greater good of humanity.
The principle motivator we usually talk about at apache is "enlightened
self-interest". The way the subversion developers applied that to
the aforementioned GSoC project was to ensure the resulting codebase
was useful in situations beyond the student's own itch. That's what
good projects do, focus on good outcomes for all participants.
>
>This lies more in the field of religion but is usually classified as
>the difference between divine love and human love.
>
>> Contrast that with the attitude the AOO developer team would show to
>> a person wanting to contribute an AOO -> LO migration tool to the ASF.
>> Like night and day.
>
>If you are volunteering to mentor such a project just go ahead.
Outside the scope of my interest level, but if you think the subversion
devs "punted" on svnrdump you really haven't understood their mindset
nor the scope of the actual tool that was developed.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>.
On 03/13/12 19:30, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>
> Still arguing from the what's best for the developers instead of what's
> best for the general public at this particular point in time. No I'm
> not saying that LO advocacy is essential in the interim, but denying
> their existence doesn't do this project credit either.
I am not denying their existance. I have said in the past that if
someone get to write it we can have a webpage for derived
code.
In the proposed FAQ "Where can I download an update for
OpenOffice" it is simply out of place.
> Lemme set the record straight about what I've seen subversion do:
> last year they mentored a GSoC student who wanted to develop a better
> subversion -> git migration tool than what git-svn does natively.
> Instead of laughing at the student, they worked with him on the proposal
> and Google accepted it. At that point they made him a "partial committer"
> and oversaw his work in their subversion repo. They brought him along
> to the point where the code was good enough to go into a release, and
> if you look for svnrdump you will see it's already in the 1.7 line.
Non-profit doesn't necessarily mean altruistic. We all do things
that we are not paid to do (at least I do) and things that don't
directly benefit us (again my case here), but that doesn't mean
we are easily convinced to do things we don't like are we don't
care about for the greater good of humanity.
This lies more in the field of religion but is usually classified as
the difference between divine love and human love.
> Contrast that with the attitude the AOO developer team would show to
> a person wanting to contribute an AOO -> LO migration tool to the ASF.
> Like night and day.
If you are volunteering to mentor such a project just go ahead.
Pedro.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
----- Original Message -----
> From: Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>
> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:14 PM
> Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
> On 03/13/12 18:45, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>> No, It's really very simple: we have developer snapshots and we
>>> want people to test them. At this precise time we need testers and
>>> people reporting bugs in the release. Bug reports from someone
>>> running LibreOffice are not useful to us.
>> The question isn't what's useful to *you*, it's what's
> useful to *them*.
>> Yes it'd be great if every user volunteered to be a sacrificial guinea
>> pig for us, but users have their own problems to think about too.
>
> Well ... I don't think that LibreOffice would be the best option. To
> be honest I would point people to Microsoft Office. It has
> less bugs, it has full support and every time you buy it you
> help the economy and the many professional developers
> behind it that feed their families.
>
> If people can't afford that and/or you mean strictly an OpenOffice
> replacement... end users would by happy with Lotus Symphony
> which is free. (no FreeBSD port yet though).
>
> Both options would mean someone else would be helping them, not
> me, and I can't really take the responsibility if their experience in
> another camp becomes sour so I recommend what I know and
> control. It's not like I am going to take Google out of their choices.
Good luck with that in a codebase of this size. Pretending that you
have some control over what goes on in this project is naive, you control
what you do with your own time and your own brain and not much else.
The only measure of control afforded to you beyond that is veto power.
>
>>> No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
>>> LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
>>> suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
>>> putting a huge effort for this release.
>> Yeah well I'm suggesting this isn't the most convivial attitude for
> you
>> to adopt as a participant in a public charity. Yes you all should be proud
>> of your accomplishments to date, I'm very happy with the progress so
> far.
>> But Simon's suggestion about using LO isn't offensive to me as an
> Apache
>> mentor of this project at all, and it shouldn't be to you. No matter
> what
>> sort of crappy attitude you get back from LO proponents, you should try
>> to be the adults in the conversation more often than not.
>>
> I don't think anyone is being a child here but at this point we all have
> one objective: release. Anything else seems out-of-place and is not
> really what we do for helping people.
Still arguing from the what's best for the developers instead of what's
best for the general public at this particular point in time. No I'm
not saying that LO advocacy is essential in the interim, but denying
their existence doesn't do this project credit either.
Lemme set the record straight about what I've seen subversion do:
last year they mentored a GSoC student who wanted to develop a better
subversion -> git migration tool than what git-svn does natively.
Instead of laughing at the student, they worked with him on the proposal
and Google accepted it. At that point they made him a "partial committer"
and oversaw his work in their subversion repo. They brought him along
to the point where the code was good enough to go into a release, and
if you look for svnrdump you will see it's already in the 1.7 line.
Contrast that with the attitude the AOO developer team would show to
a person wanting to contribute an AOO -> LO migration tool to the ASF.
Like night and day.
>> Well my point was about looking out for the entire user community,
>> and breaking interoperability for extension authors is not a small
>> matter no matter who does it. IOW that is a problem you should
>> work to resolve with the LO team, not to point fingers at each other
>> about.
>
> I *am* looking at the entire community but this particular line of
> discussion has no connection with the technical issues which
> have and will likely continue to appear.
Fair enough.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>.
On 03/13/12 18:45, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> No, It's really very simple: we have developer snapshots and we
>> want people to test them. At this precise time we need testers and
>> people reporting bugs in the release. Bug reports from someone
>> running LibreOffice are not useful to us.
> The question isn't what's useful to *you*, it's what's useful to *them*.
> Yes it'd be great if every user volunteered to be a sacrificial guinea
> pig for us, but users have their own problems to think about too.
Well ... I don't think that LibreOffice would be the best option. To
be honest I would point people to Microsoft Office. It has
less bugs, it has full support and every time you buy it you
help the economy and the many professional developers
behind it that feed their families.
If people can't afford that and/or you mean strictly an OpenOffice
replacement... end users would by happy with Lotus Symphony
which is free. (no FreeBSD port yet though).
Both options would mean someone else would be helping them, not
me, and I can't really take the responsibility if their experience in
another camp becomes sour so I recommend what I know and
control. It's not like I am going to take Google out of their choices.
>> No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
>> LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
>> suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
>> putting a huge effort for this release.
> Yeah well I'm suggesting this isn't the most convivial attitude for you
> to adopt as a participant in a public charity. Yes you all should be proud
> of your accomplishments to date, I'm very happy with the progress so far.
> But Simon's suggestion about using LO isn't offensive to me as an Apache
> mentor of this project at all, and it shouldn't be to you. No matter what
> sort of crappy attitude you get back from LO proponents, you should try
> to be the adults in the conversation more often than not.
>
I don't think anyone is being a child here but at this point we all have
one objective: release. Anything else seems out-of-place and is not
really what we do for helping people.
> Well my point was about looking out for the entire user community,
> and breaking interoperability for extension authors is not a small
> matter no matter who does it. IOW that is a problem you should
> work to resolve with the LO team, not to point fingers at each other
> about.
I *am* looking at the entire community but this particular line of
discussion has no connection with the technical issues which
have and will likely continue to appear.
Pedro.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
----- Original Message -----
> From: Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>
> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:29 PM
> Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
> On 03/13/12 18:00, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> On 03/13/12 17:36, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>>>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other
> projects,
>>>>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>>>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>>>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>>>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>> In general I am OK with that, but I think here we talk with the code:
>>> Other projects can take our code and integrate it with their project
>>> and we like and encourage that but that doesn't mean we are going
>>> to recommend their project in our webpages or wikis.
>>>
>>> Do you really think we are doing all this hard work to put together
>>> a release to recommend people to download something else?
>> Well the thing is, right now the situation is that you haven't
> released.
>> What you tell people to do between now and then will change as the facts
>> change, but informing users about alternatives is actually a way to gain
>> their respect, and playing silly games to hide those alternatives under
>> the guise that the truth needs to be colored somehow does a disservice
>> to your users, and to the reputation of this project as a providing a
>> public vendor-neutral resource.
>
> No, It's really very simple: we have developer snapshots and we
> want people to test them. At this precise time we need testers and
> people reporting bugs in the release. Bug reports from someone
> running LibreOffice are not useful to us.
The question isn't what's useful to *you*, it's what's useful to *them*.
Yes it'd be great if every user volunteered to be a sacrificial guinea
pig for us, but users have their own problems to think about too.
>
> No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
> LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
> suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
> putting a huge effort for this release.
Yeah well I'm suggesting this isn't the most convivial attitude for you
to adopt as a participant in a public charity. Yes you all should be proud
of your accomplishments to date, I'm very happy with the progress so far.
But Simon's suggestion about using LO isn't offensive to me as an Apache
mentor of this project at all, and it shouldn't be to you. No matter what
sort of crappy attitude you get back from LO proponents, you should try
to be the adults in the conversation more often than not.
>>> Sure I love the idea of having a great family playing under the same
>>> umbrella but realistically that is not happening and if people want
>>> to work with us the best place to do it is here.
>> Well you still have some harder collective choices to make regarding
>> interoperability once you start gearing up for a 4.0 release that
>> may provide an upgrade path for 3.4 users but will diverge from
>> the plans of the LibreOffice team. Having an open communication
>> channel will benefit both communities as well as the entire user
>> base of both products, don't you think?
>
> This discussion has nothing to do with interoperability. We can
> be different and each project will support their own releases
> looking at the other over the shoulder and still interoperate.
>
> This said and this is only IMHO: I think we can forget about
> interoperability beyond the standard ODF. In at least a case
> I am aware of, LO is breaking the extensions API and has
> no interest to share the changes.
Well my point was about looking out for the entire user community,
and breaking interoperability for extension authors is not a small
matter no matter who does it. IOW that is a problem you should
work to resolve with the LO team, not to point fingers at each other
about.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>.
On 03/13/12 18:00, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>> ...
>>
>> On 03/13/12 17:36, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>
>> In general I am OK with that, but I think here we talk with the code:
>> Other projects can take our code and integrate it with their project
>> and we like and encourage that but that doesn't mean we are going
>> to recommend their project in our webpages or wikis.
>>
>> Do you really think we are doing all this hard work to put together
>> a release to recommend people to download something else?
> Well the thing is, right now the situation is that you haven't released.
> What you tell people to do between now and then will change as the facts
> change, but informing users about alternatives is actually a way to gain
> their respect, and playing silly games to hide those alternatives under
> the guise that the truth needs to be colored somehow does a disservice
> to your users, and to the reputation of this project as a providing a
> public vendor-neutral resource.
No, It's really very simple: we have developer snapshots and we
want people to test them. At this precise time we need testers and
people reporting bugs in the release. Bug reports from someone
running LibreOffice are not useful to us.
No silly games were played, unless you mean the line about trying
LO as an interim solution (by Simon). I personally think such a
suggestion is rather offensive with the developers that have been
putting a huge effort for this release.
>> Sure I love the idea of having a great family playing under the same
>> umbrella but realistically that is not happening and if people want
>> to work with us the best place to do it is here.
> Well you still have some harder collective choices to make regarding
> interoperability once you start gearing up for a 4.0 release that
> may provide an upgrade path for 3.4 users but will diverge from
> the plans of the LibreOffice team. Having an open communication
> channel will benefit both communities as well as the entire user
> base of both products, don't you think?
This discussion has nothing to do with interoperability. We can
be different and each project will support their own releases
looking at the other over the shoulder and still interoperate.
This said and this is only IMHO: I think we can forget about
interoperability beyond the standard ODF. In at least a case
I am aware of, LO is breaking the extensions API and has
no interest to share the changes.
I think eventually both projects will diverge completely but I
don't think that is so bad: I think we want both projects to
be extremely cool in different ways.
Pedro.
(And now I am going back to coding... :) )
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
----- Original Message -----
> From: Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>
> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:51 PM
> Subject: Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
> Hi Joe;
>
> Iwas confused about Simon and his relationship to this project so now
> that it's clear he is not a committer or PPMC member, I do respect that
> he is entitled to his opinion and he is indeed welcome to express it
> here.
>
> That said ...
>
> On 03/13/12 17:36, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>
>>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
> In general I am OK with that, but I think here we talk with the code:
> Other projects can take our code and integrate it with their project
> and we like and encourage that but that doesn't mean we are going
> to recommend their project in our webpages or wikis.
>
> Do you really think we are doing all this hard work to put together
> a release to recommend people to download something else?
Well the thing is, right now the situation is that you haven't released.
What you tell people to do between now and then will change as the facts
change, but informing users about alternatives is actually a way to gain
their respect, and playing silly games to hide those alternatives under
the guise that the truth needs to be colored somehow does a disservice
to your users, and to the reputation of this project as a providing a
public vendor-neutral resource.
>
> Sure I love the idea of having a great family playing under the same
> umbrella but realistically that is not happening and if people want
> to work with us the best place to do it is here.
Well you still have some harder collective choices to make regarding
interoperability once you start gearing up for a 4.0 release that
may provide an upgrade path for 3.4 users but will diverge from
the plans of the LibreOffice team. Having an open communication
channel will benefit both communities as well as the entire user
base of both products, don't you think?
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Pedro Giffuni <pf...@apache.org>.
Hi Joe;
Iwas confused about Simon and his relationship to this project so now
that it's clear he is not a committer or PPMC member, I do respect that
he is entitled to his opinion and he is indeed welcome to express it
here.
That said ...
On 03/13/12 17:36, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>
>>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>>> benefit general members of the public.
>>>
>>>
In general I am OK with that, but I think here we talk with the code:
Other projects can take our code and integrate it with their project
and we like and encourage that but that doesn't mean we are going
to recommend their project in our webpages or wikis.
Do you really think we are doing all this hard work to put together
a release to recommend people to download something else?
Sure I love the idea of having a great family playing under the same
umbrella but realistically that is not happening and if people want
to work with us the best place to do it is here.
And that's basically what I mean with wearing an Apache hat.
Also please note that email is a poor method of communication that
doesn't express well what the writer is thinking: when I make a public
comment and I follow it with a wink " ;) " you are expected to take
it with a grain of salt.
regards,
Pedro.
Re: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
You're entitled to a dissenting opinion as an individual,
but shaping the marketplace is not part of what we do
as a public charity. Just look at how the subversion
project has handled contributions related to git migration tools
for instance (yes you chose an apt example but just don't know
the true history)- our role organizationally is to facilitate user
satisfactionno matter where they may ultimately find it.
Friendly internal competition in terms of overall community is fine,
but respect for other open source projects should not be sacrificed
as a result. LibreOffice is part of the landscape now, like it or not,
and failing to mention them simply to avoid elevating any attention
towards them is not what I'd call friendly internal competition.
----- Original Message -----
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:28 PM
> Subject: Competition (was: Clarifying facts)
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>> At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects,
>> we provide our work for the public benefit and leave
>> discretion about adoption to the public. Please keep
>> that in mind, and stick to providing resources that
>> benefit general members of the public.
>>
>>
>
> I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you
> mean than what you wrote.
>
> Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is
> impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against
> every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is
> available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in
> competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that
> users report, then we are competing against every other market player
> who is also trying to satisfy those customers.
>
> So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we
> write software that no one wants or uses.
>
> But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking
> competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For
> example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's
> imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use
> OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new
> release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice".
> In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing
> campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be
> inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO.
>
> We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its
> benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the
> right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of
> community development. It would be very odd if git developers came
> over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion.
>
> -Rob
>