[New Contributor] , some initial questions...

[Asghar Rahmani <as...@gmx.de>]

 30 July 2012

hello everybody,

I´m  a new AOO contributor, living in Germany.

Since 2 months I try to get a general technique-focused overview of ODF
related entities (products, standards,
communities, press, ...) to become a technical writer.  For online and
printed magazines (primary) in German
 language, targeting Java developers.
I´m a Sun Certified Java Programmer and a  NetBeans user since 2005.

Even being familiar with some Apache projects as a normal user, I´m
completely new to ASF.  
Therefore currently also busy with learning about ASF organization and
it´s  Infra-services (Bugzilla, Jira, ApacheCMS,
cWiki, SVN, Blog), relevant to me for a successful contribution to those
ASF communities, dealing with ODF standard. 
(the AOO and ODF toolkit projects).
 
Perhaps the low-level Documentation-set of these 2 communities is the
best matching work-area for me
(i. e. UNOIDL & JURE references, Developer Guide, JavaDoc of ODF-toolkit
public API).

Another sounding AOO´s work area to me is i18n (specially it´s
Right-to-Left Writing System subarea).

I  document  useful information and have still to find the matching
manner to interact well with the community.
(min. overhead at both sides for max. result for both sides)

                                                                       
             * * *

my first questions:
1.- I don’t have an account for www.openoffice.org.  Do I need it
really? (prefer to avoid)

2- Can you provide me  link to resources, describing overall
architectural overview of Apache Web Infrastructure ?

3- Can you provide me a link to Bugzilla-vs-Jira  docs? (feature list,
lang used to develop,...)

4- Where can I follow the discussion or find learning material about our
community´s work areas, impacting significantly
the design and content of AOO public APIs and low-level documentations
for developers :

    * merging IBM Symphony 3.0.1 into AOO 3.4.X (impacts?)
    * embedding ODF toolkit 0.5  into AOO 4.0  SDK (impacts?)
    * latest information about AOO Plugin for NetBeans (if any)
    * Eclipse vs NetBeans doc, restricted to AOO plug-in (if any available)
    * …... (?)

I´m already subscribed to AOO and ODF-toolkit´s dev mailing lists and
have an account on AOO issue-tracker (Bugzilla).

I appropriate any further information, recommendation helping me to “Get
Involved” around AOO 4.X.

I need time to get required overview about OOo 3.x, AOO 3.4.0 (my
default Office Suite on Win XP box), ASF´s Infra, OASIS
ODF standard and things related to transition period (OOo → AOO).
Even my work is naturally intended towards AOO 4.X SDK, I have already
different  feedback for 3.4.X area, being sent to
community at right time . These ALL have time. …

For now I wish enjoying the current collective work for the very close
release of AOO 3.4.1. Good luck.


Many Thanks in Advance,
Asghar Rahmani

Re: [New Contributor] , some initial questions...

[Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Asghar Rahmani <as...@gmx.de> wrote:
>  30 July 2012
>
> hello everybody,
>

Hi Asghar, welcome to the project.  I'll try to answer some of your
questions.  Others can help fill in the details.

> I´m  a new AOO contributor, living in Germany.
>
> Since 2 months I try to get a general technique-focused overview of ODF
> related entities (products, standards,
> communities, press, ...) to become a technical writer.  For online and
> printed magazines (primary) in German
>  language, targeting Java developers.
> I´m a Sun Certified Java Programmer and a  NetBeans user since 2005.
>

This is great.  We could certainly use some technically-competent
press coverage.  Most of what we see is superficial, looking at
inter-project politics.

> Even being familiar with some Apache projects as a normal user, I´m
> completely new to ASF.
> Therefore currently also busy with learning about ASF organization and
> it´s  Infra-services (Bugzilla, Jira, ApacheCMS,
> cWiki, SVN, Blog), relevant to me for a successful contribution to those
> ASF communities, dealing with ODF standard.
> (the AOO and ODF toolkit projects).
>

For ODF, I hope you are also looking at the standards work at OASIS,
and the plugfest interop work that the OpenDoc Foundation promotes.

> Perhaps the low-level Documentation-set of these 2 communities is the
> best matching work-area for me
> (i. e. UNOIDL & JURE references, Developer Guide, JavaDoc of ODF-toolkit
> public API).
>
> Another sounding AOO´s work area to me is i18n (specially it´s
> Right-to-Left Writing System subarea).
>
> I  document  useful information and have still to find the matching
> manner to interact well with the community.
> (min. overhead at both sides for max. result for both sides)
>
>
>              * * *
>
> my first questions:
> 1.- I don’t have an account for www.openoffice.org.  Do I need it
> really? (prefer to avoid)
>

Apache Committers have an Apache ID that gives them write access to
the the Subversion repository, CMS (which stores into Subversion) and
Pootle (used for translations).  Those are the only systems that today
have direct access limited to committers.  But in each of those
systems we're happy to accept patches from non-Committers.

Other systems, including the wiki and the support forums, are open to
everyone to create accounts.

> 2- Can you provide me  link to resources, describing overall
> architectural overview of Apache Web Infrastructure ?
>

This page has several useful links, including some to overview and
reference pages on the CMS we use to manage the website:

http://www.apache.org/dev/

> 3- Can you provide me a link to Bugzilla-vs-Jira  docs? (feature list,
> lang used to develop,...)
>

I'd recommend a Google query for this.

> 4- Where can I follow the discussion or find learning material about our
> community´s work areas, impacting significantly
> the design and content of AOO public APIs and low-level documentations
> for developers :
>
>     * merging IBM Symphony 3.0.1 into AOO 3.4.X (impacts?)
>     * embedding ODF toolkit 0.5  into AOO 4.0  SDK (impacts?)
>     * latest information about AOO Plugin for NetBeans (if any)
>     * Eclipse vs NetBeans doc, restricted to AOO plug-in (if any available)
>     * …... (?)
>

The list of mailing lists for the project is here:

http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/mailing-lists.html

The topics you list are things that would be discussed on ooo-dev.
Some have already been discussed and you can catch up on those
discussions in the archives.

> I´m already subscribed to AOO and ODF-toolkit´s dev mailing lists and
> have an account on AOO issue-tracker (Bugzilla).

> I appropriate any further information, recommendation helping me to “Get
> Involved” around AOO 4.X.
>
> I need time to get required overview about OOo 3.x, AOO 3.4.0 (my
> default Office Suite on Win XP box), ASF´s Infra, OASIS
> ODF standard and things related to transition period (OOo → AOO).
> Even my work is naturally intended towards AOO 4.X SDK, I have already
> different  feedback for 3.4.X area, being sent to
> community at right time . These ALL have time. …
>

It sounds like you are quite busy.  Feel free to send more questions
to the list.  But I'd recommend using a separate thread for entirely
different topics, so we all can follow the discussion more easily.

Regards,

-Rob

> For now I wish enjoying the current collective work for the very close
> release of AOO 3.4.1. Good luck.
>
>
> Many Thanks in Advance,
> Asghar Rahmani