[please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
So I gave the first actual presentation (keynote?) at the Open Source
China, Open Source World (put on by Copu) last week, in Guangzhou. Big
event, very theatrical and for that very reason, important. The timing
was rather perfect: MS had just announced its upcoming (but let's
see...) support of ODF and its commitment to perfecting the standard
using the open process.
MS was sitting in the audience. China is staunchly for real open
standards now and thought he official document standard is UOF, they
are keen on ODF and to harmonize ODF/UOF.
My presentation was brief--we were allotted 15 minutes or so--but I
packed in the highlights and expressed our interest in working with MS
on ODF in the Oasis TC. I also emphasized that OOo in particular and
Foss in general gave millions and potentially billions what MS can't:
access to the tools of informatic production. Proprietary apps are by
definition exclusive; open ones inclusive.
The reception was enthusiastic, not only that day but subsequent.
OpenOffice.org was privileged and its importance in every way
appreciated.
But to convert attention to users and users to contributors is neither
obvious nor trivial. The community in China--which is not identical
with the ZH NLC--would benefit, as with the Indian and other regions--
structure and attention. I made some proposals with the CC on this
issue. Certainly, we need to work with existing companies and groups
to ensure that developers and contributors of all sorts can actually
do what they want to do--contribute to OOo--without excessive
frustration.
Most urgently, and I heard this repeatedly, we need developer
documentation. Not user documentation but rather developer
documentation: how to work on OOo. We need, too, to simplify the
material we already have on the wiki so that developers and
contributors can efficiently find things. Stuff is there, I know it
is, but it's not easy to find for most. I think coordinating with the
NLC projects, so that all point to the right pages, makes sense. And
it may also make sense to use a static page as this target, eg,
development.openoffice.org. (That page also could use some cleaning up.)
To conclude: The China, Indian, Brazilian communities are at varying
degrees of development, with the Brazilian probably the most
coherently advanced. But all shine with potential, not as troves of
users (though there is that) but as deep wells of developer and
contributor talent and interest. Organizing and producing material so
that new contributors can start working fast is of utmost importance.
I would be delighted to see if the Documentation team could work with
developers to help do this, and would argue that we could reasonably
use OOo's resources to this end, provided sufficient exist. The
stakes, I think, are pretty high.
-louis
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