On 30/11/2013 Louis Suárez-Potts wrote:
On 30-Nov-2013, at 16:22, Rob Weir wrote:
And let's not forget that Emilia-Romagna recently announced a
migration to OpenOffice
(the discussion has evolved into many interesting directions, but I'm
picking this message for answering)
The main issue I see here is that the OpenOffice adoption (or
non-adoption!) happens without the OpenOffice project being aware of
anything.
It is natural that private or public entities considering a migration
will have their established consultants and ask them. But we should have
enough "official" information available to anybody who is considering a
migration. Something that can immediately reassure them that the
"OpenOffice is dead" meme is false, that a lot of innovation is ongoing
at OpenOffice, that OpenOffice is not only maintained, but also getting
much better.
There's a lot of work to be done here, not only by writing "Why" pages
and wiki pages, but being more visible at small, local events and
conferences. Technical excellence is to be pursued and is our main focus
at the moment, but we also need to improve outreach and to get people to
see correct information.
I learned that my region is migrating to OpenOffice from a post by Rob
to this list. They had never contacted the project in public or in
private. It's OK of course; they are not forced to do so; but it
deserves a reflection. How many other "silent" decisions to migrate (or
not to migrate) are taken every day without the project being aware of
it? And can we as a project do something more for decision-makers to be
properly informed?
And I would also
point to Italo V's rather heated denunciation of the migration and
AOO about it
To the benefit of those who do not speak Italian: that was later
somewhat retracted/rectified, see same site. But I agree with other
people on this list that everyone's focus should not be on which open
source office suite is better; the real obstacle is persuading
organizations to adopt free and open source software and do it with the
right spirit. Fights over which variant is better undermine the
credibility of free/open source in general, and contribute to keep more
organizations tied to proprietary solutions.
Regards,
Andrea.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
