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Posted to marketing@openoffice.apache.org by Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> on 2013/12/01 00:10:15 UTC
Re: 80 million downloads
I understand the message you stated is v clear but a personality associated with the product is not a bad thing, since you have declined the role maybe someone will step up into that role...intime
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Weir" <ro...@apache.org>
To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
Cc: "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>, dev@openoffice.apache.org
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 5:15:14 PM
Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 30-Nov-2013, at 16:56, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>
>> Good points Louis., thanks. but we still need a "maven" or two to crack the larger corporate environment.
>
> Done that, in previous instance of my role at OOo. It's not easy and does require persistence. Then, I was also salaried by Sun/Oracle, though my hot efforts on behalf of the community as such were sometimes met with cool water.
>
> But I do not think the tactics of yore are the ones to pursue now.
>
Keep in mind that corporate successes are not necessarily
publicly-known. I can say from first-hand knowledge that we're
getting a good reaction to IBM's recently-announced service offering
for AOO. But these corporations are unlikely to issue a press release
announcing this fact. This is different from public agencies where
their choices are a matter of public record.
> I think that emphasizing, as I did, QA, innovation, and mobile options, as well as the robust community that is reality based, is more important.
>
1+
We're in a very different time than say, 2002, when open source was a
new concept to many companies. The question is no longer, "Should we
use open source?" but "How should we use open source?". We already
won that first war, making open source a legitimate option. What
remains is a more conventional kind of technology use decision, which
considers price, of course, but also features, interop, migration,
training, etc., costs.
In any case, the thing to keep in mind is that we are in no way
diminished if someone decides to use LibreOffice. We should feel
good whenever anyone uses our code, whether in the original Apache
OpenOffice or whether in the winPenPack verison, the BSD port, the
OS/2 port, the Solaris port or in LibreOffice fork. It is all good.
-Rob
> Louis
>>
>> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
>> with The Vital Portal
>>
>> Alphonso Whitfield
>> info@thevitalportal.com
>> Vital
>> 912-816-2595
>> Skype: vital.i.net
>>
>> Visit us at:
>> The Vital Portal
>>
>> The Vital Portal On facebook
>>
>> Visit our Google Community
>>
>> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
>> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>> To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org, "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>
>> Cc: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 4:08:52 PM
>> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>>
>>
>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 15:47, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>>
>> > The Libre Office is getting acceptance because of its affiliation with the Ubuntu desktop and server operating platform. .
>>
>> It is claiming to be getting acceptance. It is being touted by a few supposedly prominent organizations, such as the South Tyrol org. But a few things.
>>
>> 1. We have IBM as a far more powerful and important contributor than LO has Ubuntu and Canonical. We do not trumpet that affiliation as much as we could, no doubt because we do not want to be too tightly affiliated with IBM and be seen as an appendage of IBM. I don't think we are. But I understand the concerns.
>>
>> 2. We need to use actual facts related to actual usage by enterprise-class users. Download numbers indicate, usually, individual users. These are important. But they do not persuade a lot of larger entities. (The Bring Your Own Device phenomenon is growing and is related to individual download numbers; but in the case of support, etc., one does, usually, need to have an enterprise buy it or enable that market; and support is often the point of decision for many.)
>>
>> And more on this tangent. The main point: facts and actual evidence.
>>
>> louis
>> >
>> >
>> > Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
>> > with The Vital Portal
>> >
>> > Alphonso Whitfield
>> > info@thevitalportal.com
>> > Vital
>> > 912-816-2595
>> > Skype: vital.i.net
>> >
>> > Visit us at:
>> > The Vital Portal
>> >
>> > The Vital Portal On facebook
>> >
>> > Visit our Google Community
>> >
>> > Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
>> > The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >
>> > From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>> > To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>> > Cc: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
>> > Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:35:54 PM
>> > Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>> >
>> >
>> > On 30-Nov-2013, at 14:15, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:56:19 -0500
>> >> Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 13:01, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:44:13 +0100
>> >>>> Hagar Delest <ha...@laposte.net> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> Le 27/11/2013 20:23, Rob Weir a écrit :
>> >>>>>> Yesterday we reached 80,072,389 downloads.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Well, I also saw this: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=62425 (South Tyrol government to standardise on LibreOffice) and especially the quote from last post: "We opted for LibreOffice over OpenOffice because we think this gives us more guarantees. It has a more consistent and constantly growing community of developers and by statute has to be independent from corporations," Pfeifer said.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> LibO is getting more and more momentum (French referential uses LibO too, something that will be implemented in more and more institutions). I wonder why AOO doesn't report similar successes.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Are we lacking marketing power? Or key people?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Hagar
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> We are perhaps too polite. We don't indulge in 'slanging matches' with the LibreOffice camp, unlike many of their proponents, who may not be as connected with the main LibreOffice core group, as (for example) list members here are with the Apache setup.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> We should emphasise AOO's stability; unfortunately any argument for stability or almost anything is very much an 'ad hominem' argument and can be shot down by a vociferous and technically incompetent user (we hae seen many such, both on this list and on the Forum(s)) who 'knows' that a computer is a 'magic box' and expects it to accomodate his incompetence.
>> >>>
>> >>> That said, and I agree with Rory, I also think that emphasizing AOO's use by enterprises and other large-scale entities, would only help. And calling out South Tyrol's claims wouldn't be bad, either. After all, they do not seem to be based on anything like fact.
>> >>>
>> >>> louis
>> >>
>> >> It would be good to start by always refuting the claim that "OO is dead"; our (AOO) claims must always be based on facts, not on the unsupported assertions of ill-informed journalists. In the computer press one cannot (unfortunately) insist on "right of reply", which one usually can get in the newspapers of record.
>> >
>> >
>> > One of the things I did during Ye Olde OOo Days, that I would rather not re-do, was use a rhetoric putting MSFT in the role of Bad Guy—in this case, the analogue would be replacing MSFT with LO.
>> >
>> > I think we are in agreement not to do that.
>> >
>> > What I did that was more positive was create the Major Deployments page. That was then taken to levels far above my initial frame and maintained for a long while. It showed those enterprise users we knew about, and did so per region, etc.
>> >
>> > I'd think something like that would be useful, again. My interest is not to critique others, exactly, but to make it easier for journalists to get the facts.
>> >
>> > And that leads me then to: What facts do we want to emphasize?
>> >
>> > The ones I generally point to:
>> >
>> > * QA excellence
>> > * Innovations—especially those that would be of interest to enterprises. (That is: it's nifty to have other sorts of innovation but if the innovations are not actually useful or of only limited use, then the quality of the innovation is diminished. Of course, myopic journalists can still—and will still—simply point to the numbers, in the abstract.)
>> > * Ease of use and support: How hard is it is for AOO to be adopted? To drop in as a replacement for whatever is there? To integrate with mobile ambitions? What languages?
>> > — regarding each of these, a key point is expected production not just by a vague claim of community but by a more identifiable body of stakeholders—that is, companies that have staked significant business on the development and distribution and also upkeep of AOO.
>> > — and in regards to languages, as I learned with OOo, it's one thing to have a gazillion localizations but it's quite another to maintain them. The more that can be said about the groups maintaining the localizations, the better; the more information, yes, but also the more that can be revealed about their fragilities.
>> > * mobile integration: nearly everyone associated with enterprises wants a mobile version of AOO. Such are coming into being. The Android AOO version is, from what I can gather, more a proof of concept than a really usable thing, though the developer is working to change that. He sees what he has to do but is just one guy.
>> >
>> > The iOS UX Write, with which I am associated, is more usable. It's to be able to read/write ODT files (note: .odt) and also MSFT .docx files; but not the full suite's formats. (At some point.)
>> >
>> > It also can work with the "cloud" storage services, e.g. Box.
>> >
>> > No doubt, LO can also point to some things like this. But these that we would point to would be factually present and would be identified as clearly as possible, that is, without any misleading claims. Identifying these, too, would illustrate the persistent and very much growing strength of the real community.
>> >
>> > louis
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie>
>> >>
>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>> >> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@openoffice.apache.org
>> >
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: marketing-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>> > For additional commands, e-mail: marketing-help@openoffice.apache.org
>> >
>> >
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: marketing-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: marketing-help@openoffice.apache.org
>
Re: 80 million downloads
Posted by Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com>.
On 30-Nov-2013, at 18:10, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
> I understand the message you stated is v clear but a personality associated with the product is not a bad thing, since you have declined the role maybe someone will step up into that role…in time
I have no doubt people will and are in fact filling in the role
But I have not declined it.
I just do not have the resources to pursue it. It takes a lot of time, which is to say, money.
For instance, it would be quite nice to have an apparatus—a web page wiki—that validates claims about the qualities of AOO we want broadcast.
And it would be nice, very nice, to have a strategy.
That is not too much. I could surely do it, and would love to do it. But I have also to meet my client obligations in order to actually put the bacon (or vegetarian equivalent—Quorn?) on the table.
best
Louis
>
>
> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
> with The Vital Portal
>
> Alphonso Whitfield
> info@thevitalportal.com
> Vital
> 912-816-2595
> Skype: vital.i.net
>
> Visit us at:
> The Vital Portal
>
> The Vital Portal On facebook
>
> Visit our Google Community
>
> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Rob Weir" <ro...@apache.org>
> To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
> Cc: "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>, dev@openoffice.apache.org
> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 5:15:14 PM
> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 16:56, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Good points Louis., thanks. but we still need a "maven" or two to crack the larger corporate environment.
>>
>> Done that, in previous instance of my role at OOo. It's not easy and does require persistence. Then, I was also salaried by Sun/Oracle, though my hot efforts on behalf of the community as such were sometimes met with cool water.
>>
>> But I do not think the tactics of yore are the ones to pursue now.
>>
>
> Keep in mind that corporate successes are not necessarily
> publicly-known. I can say from first-hand knowledge that we're
> getting a good reaction to IBM's recently-announced service offering
> for AOO. But these corporations are unlikely to issue a press release
> announcing this fact. This is different from public agencies where
> their choices are a matter of public record.
>
>> I think that emphasizing, as I did, QA, innovation, and mobile options, as well as the robust community that is reality based, is more important.
>>
>
> 1+
>
> We're in a very different time than say, 2002, when open source was a
> new concept to many companies. The question is no longer, "Should we
> use open source?" but "How should we use open source?". We already
> won that first war, making open source a legitimate option. What
> remains is a more conventional kind of technology use decision, which
> considers price, of course, but also features, interop, migration,
> training, etc., costs.
>
> In any case, the thing to keep in mind is that we are in no way
> diminished if someone decides to use LibreOffice. We should feel
> good whenever anyone uses our code, whether in the original Apache
> OpenOffice or whether in the winPenPack verison, the BSD port, the
> OS/2 port, the Solaris port or in LibreOffice fork. It is all good.
>
> -Rob
>
>> Louis
>>>
>>> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
>>> with The Vital Portal
>>>
>>> Alphonso Whitfield
>>> info@thevitalportal.com
>>> Vital
>>> 912-816-2595
>>> Skype: vital.i.net
>>>
>>> Visit us at:
>>> The Vital Portal
>>>
>>> The Vital Portal On facebook
>>>
>>> Visit our Google Community
>>>
>>> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
>>> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>>> To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org, "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>
>>> Cc: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>>> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 4:08:52 PM
>>> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>>>
>>>
>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 15:47, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Libre Office is getting acceptance because of its affiliation with the Ubuntu desktop and server operating platform. .
>>>
>>> It is claiming to be getting acceptance. It is being touted by a few supposedly prominent organizations, such as the South Tyrol org. But a few things.
>>>
>>> 1. We have IBM as a far more powerful and important contributor than LO has Ubuntu and Canonical. We do not trumpet that affiliation as much as we could, no doubt because we do not want to be too tightly affiliated with IBM and be seen as an appendage of IBM. I don't think we are. But I understand the concerns.
>>>
>>> 2. We need to use actual facts related to actual usage by enterprise-class users. Download numbers indicate, usually, individual users. These are important. But they do not persuade a lot of larger entities. (The Bring Your Own Device phenomenon is growing and is related to individual download numbers; but in the case of support, etc., one does, usually, need to have an enterprise buy it or enable that market; and support is often the point of decision for many.)
>>>
>>> And more on this tangent. The main point: facts and actual evidence.
>>>
>>> louis
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
>>>> with The Vital Portal
>>>>
>>>> Alphonso Whitfield
>>>> info@thevitalportal.com
>>>> Vital
>>>> 912-816-2595
>>>> Skype: vital.i.net
>>>>
>>>> Visit us at:
>>>> The Vital Portal
>>>>
>>>> The Vital Portal On facebook
>>>>
>>>> Visit our Google Community
>>>>
>>>> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
>>>> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>
>>>> From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>>>> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>>>> Cc: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
>>>> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:35:54 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 14:15, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:56:19 -0500
>>>>> Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 13:01, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:44:13 +0100
>>>>>>> Hagar Delest <ha...@laposte.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Le 27/11/2013 20:23, Rob Weir a écrit :
>>>>>>>>> Yesterday we reached 80,072,389 downloads.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Well, I also saw this: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=62425 (South Tyrol government to standardise on LibreOffice) and especially the quote from last post: "We opted for LibreOffice over OpenOffice because we think this gives us more guarantees. It has a more consistent and constantly growing community of developers and by statute has to be independent from corporations," Pfeifer said.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> LibO is getting more and more momentum (French referential uses LibO too, something that will be implemented in more and more institutions). I wonder why AOO doesn't report similar successes.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are we lacking marketing power? Or key people?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hagar
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We are perhaps too polite. We don't indulge in 'slanging matches' with the LibreOffice camp, unlike many of their proponents, who may not be as connected with the main LibreOffice core group, as (for example) list members here are with the Apache setup.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We should emphasise AOO's stability; unfortunately any argument for stability or almost anything is very much an 'ad hominem' argument and can be shot down by a vociferous and technically incompetent user (we hae seen many such, both on this list and on the Forum(s)) who 'knows' that a computer is a 'magic box' and expects it to accomodate his incompetence.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That said, and I agree with Rory, I also think that emphasizing AOO's use by enterprises and other large-scale entities, would only help. And calling out South Tyrol's claims wouldn't be bad, either. After all, they do not seem to be based on anything like fact.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> louis
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be good to start by always refuting the claim that "OO is dead"; our (AOO) claims must always be based on facts, not on the unsupported assertions of ill-informed journalists. In the computer press one cannot (unfortunately) insist on "right of reply", which one usually can get in the newspapers of record.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One of the things I did during Ye Olde OOo Days, that I would rather not re-do, was use a rhetoric putting MSFT in the role of Bad Guy—in this case, the analogue would be replacing MSFT with LO.
>>>>
>>>> I think we are in agreement not to do that.
>>>>
>>>> What I did that was more positive was create the Major Deployments page. That was then taken to levels far above my initial frame and maintained for a long while. It showed those enterprise users we knew about, and did so per region, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I'd think something like that would be useful, again. My interest is not to critique others, exactly, but to make it easier for journalists to get the facts.
>>>>
>>>> And that leads me then to: What facts do we want to emphasize?
>>>>
>>>> The ones I generally point to:
>>>>
>>>> * QA excellence
>>>> * Innovations—especially those that would be of interest to enterprises. (That is: it's nifty to have other sorts of innovation but if the innovations are not actually useful or of only limited use, then the quality of the innovation is diminished. Of course, myopic journalists can still—and will still—simply point to the numbers, in the abstract.)
>>>> * Ease of use and support: How hard is it is for AOO to be adopted? To drop in as a replacement for whatever is there? To integrate with mobile ambitions? What languages?
>>>> — regarding each of these, a key point is expected production not just by a vague claim of community but by a more identifiable body of stakeholders—that is, companies that have staked significant business on the development and distribution and also upkeep of AOO.
>>>> — and in regards to languages, as I learned with OOo, it's one thing to have a gazillion localizations but it's quite another to maintain them. The more that can be said about the groups maintaining the localizations, the better; the more information, yes, but also the more that can be revealed about their fragilities.
>>>> * mobile integration: nearly everyone associated with enterprises wants a mobile version of AOO. Such are coming into being. The Android AOO version is, from what I can gather, more a proof of concept than a really usable thing, though the developer is working to change that. He sees what he has to do but is just one guy.
>>>>
>>>> The iOS UX Write, with which I am associated, is more usable. It's to be able to read/write ODT files (note: .odt) and also MSFT .docx files; but not the full suite's formats. (At some point.)
>>>>
>>>> It also can work with the "cloud" storage services, e.g. Box.
>>>>
>>>> No doubt, LO can also point to some things like this. But these that we would point to would be factually present and would be identified as clearly as possible, that is, without any misleading claims. Identifying these, too, would illustrate the persistent and very much growing strength of the real community.
>>>>
>>>> louis
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie>
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@openoffice.apache.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: marketing-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: marketing-help@openoffice.apache.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: marketing-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: marketing-help@openoffice.apache.org
>>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@openoffice.apache.org
Re: 80 million downloads
Posted by Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com>.
On 30-Nov-2013, at 18:10, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
> I understand the message you stated is v clear but a personality associated with the product is not a bad thing, since you have declined the role maybe someone will step up into that role…in time
I have no doubt people will and are in fact filling in the role
But I have not declined it.
I just do not have the resources to pursue it. It takes a lot of time, which is to say, money.
For instance, it would be quite nice to have an apparatus—a web page wiki—that validates claims about the qualities of AOO we want broadcast.
And it would be nice, very nice, to have a strategy.
That is not too much. I could surely do it, and would love to do it. But I have also to meet my client obligations in order to actually put the bacon (or vegetarian equivalent—Quorn?) on the table.
best
Louis
>
>
> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
> with The Vital Portal
>
> Alphonso Whitfield
> info@thevitalportal.com
> Vital
> 912-816-2595
> Skype: vital.i.net
>
> Visit us at:
> The Vital Portal
>
> The Vital Portal On facebook
>
> Visit our Google Community
>
> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Rob Weir" <ro...@apache.org>
> To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
> Cc: "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>, dev@openoffice.apache.org
> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 5:15:14 PM
> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 16:56, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Good points Louis., thanks. but we still need a "maven" or two to crack the larger corporate environment.
>>
>> Done that, in previous instance of my role at OOo. It's not easy and does require persistence. Then, I was also salaried by Sun/Oracle, though my hot efforts on behalf of the community as such were sometimes met with cool water.
>>
>> But I do not think the tactics of yore are the ones to pursue now.
>>
>
> Keep in mind that corporate successes are not necessarily
> publicly-known. I can say from first-hand knowledge that we're
> getting a good reaction to IBM's recently-announced service offering
> for AOO. But these corporations are unlikely to issue a press release
> announcing this fact. This is different from public agencies where
> their choices are a matter of public record.
>
>> I think that emphasizing, as I did, QA, innovation, and mobile options, as well as the robust community that is reality based, is more important.
>>
>
> 1+
>
> We're in a very different time than say, 2002, when open source was a
> new concept to many companies. The question is no longer, "Should we
> use open source?" but "How should we use open source?". We already
> won that first war, making open source a legitimate option. What
> remains is a more conventional kind of technology use decision, which
> considers price, of course, but also features, interop, migration,
> training, etc., costs.
>
> In any case, the thing to keep in mind is that we are in no way
> diminished if someone decides to use LibreOffice. We should feel
> good whenever anyone uses our code, whether in the original Apache
> OpenOffice or whether in the winPenPack verison, the BSD port, the
> OS/2 port, the Solaris port or in LibreOffice fork. It is all good.
>
> -Rob
>
>> Louis
>>>
>>> Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
>>> with The Vital Portal
>>>
>>> Alphonso Whitfield
>>> info@thevitalportal.com
>>> Vital
>>> 912-816-2595
>>> Skype: vital.i.net
>>>
>>> Visit us at:
>>> The Vital Portal
>>>
>>> The Vital Portal On facebook
>>>
>>> Visit our Google Community
>>>
>>> Join our Vital Portal Webinars at:
>>> The Vital Portal WebEx Meeting Center .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>>> To: marketing@openoffice.apache.org, "Alphonso Whitfield III" <aw...@vital-inet.com>
>>> Cc: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>>> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 4:08:52 PM
>>> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>>>
>>>
>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 15:47, Alphonso Whitfield III <aw...@vital-inet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Libre Office is getting acceptance because of its affiliation with the Ubuntu desktop and server operating platform. .
>>>
>>> It is claiming to be getting acceptance. It is being touted by a few supposedly prominent organizations, such as the South Tyrol org. But a few things.
>>>
>>> 1. We have IBM as a far more powerful and important contributor than LO has Ubuntu and Canonical. We do not trumpet that affiliation as much as we could, no doubt because we do not want to be too tightly affiliated with IBM and be seen as an appendage of IBM. I don't think we are. But I understand the concerns.
>>>
>>> 2. We need to use actual facts related to actual usage by enterprise-class users. Download numbers indicate, usually, individual users. These are important. But they do not persuade a lot of larger entities. (The Bring Your Own Device phenomenon is growing and is related to individual download numbers; but in the case of support, etc., one does, usually, need to have an enterprise buy it or enable that market; and support is often the point of decision for many.)
>>>
>>> And more on this tangent. The main point: facts and actual evidence.
>>>
>>> louis
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>
>>>> From: "Louis Suárez-Potts" <lu...@gmail.com>
>>>> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>>>> Cc: marketing@openoffice.apache.org
>>>> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 2:35:54 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: 80 million downloads
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 14:15, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:56:19 -0500
>>>>> Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 30-Nov-2013, at 13:01, Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:44:13 +0100
>>>>>>> Hagar Delest <ha...@laposte.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Le 27/11/2013 20:23, Rob Weir a écrit :
>>>>>>>>> Yesterday we reached 80,072,389 downloads.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Well, I also saw this: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=62425 (South Tyrol government to standardise on LibreOffice) and especially the quote from last post: "We opted for LibreOffice over OpenOffice because we think this gives us more guarantees. It has a more consistent and constantly growing community of developers and by statute has to be independent from corporations," Pfeifer said.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> LibO is getting more and more momentum (French referential uses LibO too, something that will be implemented in more and more institutions). I wonder why AOO doesn't report similar successes.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are we lacking marketing power? Or key people?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hagar
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We are perhaps too polite. We don't indulge in 'slanging matches' with the LibreOffice camp, unlike many of their proponents, who may not be as connected with the main LibreOffice core group, as (for example) list members here are with the Apache setup.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We should emphasise AOO's stability; unfortunately any argument for stability or almost anything is very much an 'ad hominem' argument and can be shot down by a vociferous and technically incompetent user (we hae seen many such, both on this list and on the Forum(s)) who 'knows' that a computer is a 'magic box' and expects it to accomodate his incompetence.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That said, and I agree with Rory, I also think that emphasizing AOO's use by enterprises and other large-scale entities, would only help. And calling out South Tyrol's claims wouldn't be bad, either. After all, they do not seem to be based on anything like fact.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> louis
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be good to start by always refuting the claim that "OO is dead"; our (AOO) claims must always be based on facts, not on the unsupported assertions of ill-informed journalists. In the computer press one cannot (unfortunately) insist on "right of reply", which one usually can get in the newspapers of record.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> One of the things I did during Ye Olde OOo Days, that I would rather not re-do, was use a rhetoric putting MSFT in the role of Bad Guy—in this case, the analogue would be replacing MSFT with LO.
>>>>
>>>> I think we are in agreement not to do that.
>>>>
>>>> What I did that was more positive was create the Major Deployments page. That was then taken to levels far above my initial frame and maintained for a long while. It showed those enterprise users we knew about, and did so per region, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I'd think something like that would be useful, again. My interest is not to critique others, exactly, but to make it easier for journalists to get the facts.
>>>>
>>>> And that leads me then to: What facts do we want to emphasize?
>>>>
>>>> The ones I generally point to:
>>>>
>>>> * QA excellence
>>>> * Innovations—especially those that would be of interest to enterprises. (That is: it's nifty to have other sorts of innovation but if the innovations are not actually useful or of only limited use, then the quality of the innovation is diminished. Of course, myopic journalists can still—and will still—simply point to the numbers, in the abstract.)
>>>> * Ease of use and support: How hard is it is for AOO to be adopted? To drop in as a replacement for whatever is there? To integrate with mobile ambitions? What languages?
>>>> — regarding each of these, a key point is expected production not just by a vague claim of community but by a more identifiable body of stakeholders—that is, companies that have staked significant business on the development and distribution and also upkeep of AOO.
>>>> — and in regards to languages, as I learned with OOo, it's one thing to have a gazillion localizations but it's quite another to maintain them. The more that can be said about the groups maintaining the localizations, the better; the more information, yes, but also the more that can be revealed about their fragilities.
>>>> * mobile integration: nearly everyone associated with enterprises wants a mobile version of AOO. Such are coming into being. The Android AOO version is, from what I can gather, more a proof of concept than a really usable thing, though the developer is working to change that. He sees what he has to do but is just one guy.
>>>>
>>>> The iOS UX Write, with which I am associated, is more usable. It's to be able to read/write ODT files (note: .odt) and also MSFT .docx files; but not the full suite's formats. (At some point.)
>>>>
>>>> It also can work with the "cloud" storage services, e.g. Box.
>>>>
>>>> No doubt, LO can also point to some things like this. But these that we would point to would be factually present and would be identified as clearly as possible, that is, without any misleading claims. Identifying these, too, would illustrate the persistent and very much growing strength of the real community.
>>>>
>>>> louis
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie>
>>>>>
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