Hello Louis,
Le 26 mai 08 à 23:25, Louis Suarez-Potts a écrit :
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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.
Thank you for this quite interesting and exciting post. Perhaps as a
very first step - I understand the hardest work would come from the
Documentation project- every native-language project should add this
link : http://development.openoffice.org/ and add it proeminently on
its homepage. Second, perhaps we should have a new, easier to remember
URL for the Developer's guide: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/OpenOffice.org_Developers_Guide
.... That is not something easy to remember for our Asian friends
(and for nobody else, by the way). Should we get something like http://developerdocs.openoffice.org
?
Second, I would like to ask you and if you felt there was a need for
custom documentation writing; am not discussing documentation
localization but local, adapted to the cultural and practical needs-
documentation writing. I also know there are here and there some
documentation pieces that are not registered on our web site for
various reasons, but this also needs to be assessed.
Third, a bit out of topic, I would like to know if you had had news
about a potential UOF filter for OOo.
Best,
Charles.
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