Hey Thorsten,
I've just read your blog post and thought that I follow your advice and
join the discussion here.
You know that we've had a couple of discussions regarding OpenOffice.org
as a product and the role of QA and UX in the whole process. And we did
not agree on many things in these discussions due to totally different
points of view regarding what should be the evetual outcome of our work
or if there should be an outcone at all . Therefore, I must say that I
got a bit scarred seeing you as a nominee for the position that has
"Product" as a word in it's title. That there is noone else nominated
scares me more, I admit that.
However, I am worried not because I wouldn't know how much you love the
project, I really do. Ironically, that is exactly the issue I am worried
about. In my understanding, for this position you would need to love the
product more than the project. And definitely more than code ;-) From my
end-user driven perspective, the project exists for the love of the
product, and the Product Development Representatives should coordinate
the cooperative efforts of all OpenOffice.org projects towards one
vision. A vision of OpenOffice.org as a product that brings true value
to our project by providing true value to our users. Ultemately, it's
the outcome that matters. Think of music or visual art for instance.
It's a particular song people adore to listen to, or it's a famous
painting that is being starred at in a museum. Though the creation of
both might be thrilling, seeing your work, be it a song, a piece of
visual art or even a piece of software, thriving in the context of the
intended audience, making others a bit happier through your creation,
evetually gives any artist true reward.
My understanding of your position regarding OpenOffice.org as a product
based on our discussion in Italy last year, and please correct me if I
am wrong, is that code contributions or all kinds of engineering efforts
in general are more important than their quality in terms of their
product value and thus their value for the users. If I recall it
correctly, you consider our current processes for functional quality
(QA) and design quality (UX) as unnecessary impediments posed by a
bureaucratic instance to maintain its influence on the project. I mean,
at least to me, it's big gap in here that matters a lot for the position
you are applying.
Please don't get me wrong, it is certainly OK to have a different
motivation for being in this project but to persue a role that is more
outcome- and thus consumer-related requires a particular mind-set that
is incongruous to your attutude as I currently know it. So far, you've
been a valuable contributor from an engineering and and
community-growing perspective. I by no means have the attempt to
depriciate that. But in sum, I am uncertain that your convictions fit
this particular role of a Product Development Representative. At least
you'd have to convince me :-)
Best,
Andreas
--
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Sun Microsystems GmbH Andreas Bartel
Nagelsweg 55 User Experience Engineer
20097 Hamburg Phone: (+49 40)23646 672
Germany Fax: (+49 40)23646 550
http://www.sun.com mailto:[email protected]
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> Hi Thorsten, all,
> Thorsten Behrens wrote:
> Hi Martin, *,
>
> this is in response to your blog post here:
>
> http://blogs.sun.com/ratte/entry/openoffice_org_product_development
>
> (I'll separately post a blog entry about this, but would prefer
> discussion on this mailing list)
>
> You wrote:
>
>> The only candidate now for the non-code contributing projects for the
>> next round of council elections will be Thorsten Behrens. he's a well
>> known great supporter of the hacker driven "Product Development", from
>> my perspective a good representative of the code contributors. But not
>> for the non-code contributing PD projects of OOo as the charter of the
>> CC states. It's difficult to do a "no" vote against the only candidate
>> for this seat, especially if the candidate does good things for the
>> project and I consider him as a good friend of mine. But we need a
>> general review of the PD part of the project, and therefore I want to
>> see a person representing the classical school of product development
>> and call for a no-vote and call for new candidates.
>>
>>
> Martin,
>
> so do you really think someone capable of working on the strategic
> marketing plan will have _more_ time doing so when being a member of
> the CC? ;)
>
> More seriously, and as I wrote in my intro mail, I firmly believe
> that CC's central function is arbitration - i.e. talking to people,
> convincing folks, finding compromise. It's decidedly not the place to
> vote people into, because you need specific jobs A, B, or C done -
> that's what the different projects are for, for your example the
> marketing project. My selling point is surely not decades of
> marketing experience, but rather my ties into the wider community,
> for which I know very many people in person, and would call quite a
> few of them friends.
>
> I jump here. In your first introduction, that was not obvious that you
> will adopt this position of product dev representative. I for myself had
> also this question in mind. I've been one very concerned by the fact
> that nobody in the CC get the doc project or the QA project voices. For
> some times, product dev was only core code, and even if it's very
> important, that's not enough to deliver a good product. QA, is in the
> middle, Doc, Marketing and l10n are very important neighbors. This is
> the role of the product dev representative to give these projects a
> strong voice in the overall project.
> I've done QA work on CWS & sponsoring a tinderbox, I know a fair bit
> about the economies & strategies in FLOSS communities - and I do my
> legwork in advertising OOo, e.g. at CeBIT. As stated in my
> introduction mail, I'm explicitely running for this seat representing
> projects outside of raw code contribution in the council - in fact,
> I've always frowned upon the notion of being purely "code
> contributor", "qa engineer", or "marketer" - core to my motivation is
> my love for this project, that is OOo, and everything that's
> necessary to further its success. Across all camps.
>
> I've been able to see how you love this project, no doubt on that.
> I feel that currently there is a deep smog on our communication flow,
> see Rene's feeling today, mine on l10n, others on lingu list, may be a
> not so well balanced mail from Bjoern, whatever the great work he has
> done and the not answered question from Volker about odficons01. I guess
> we have some strange times to pass along. That should not disturb us
> from what we have to do: keep the community strong, working in
> confidence, attach importance to what really has, and forget the rest.
>
> I'm happy to see both Eike and you being candidates to the CC.
>
> Kind regards
> Sophie
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