Allen Pulsifer wrote: > If most or almost all of the LO contributors joined the Apache > OpenOffice project, if only to lend moral support and help heal the > rift, that would only be good for LO and the TdF.
> Thorsten Behrens wrote: > Allen, how can you, with a straight face, ask people here to come over to a different project, > that likely noone here is really happy with, that was setup as a fait acompli, marketed as the > "natural upstream", removes rights from people's contributions, and is effectively competing > (by how the proposal reads)? Hello Thorsten, I do not agree with your conclusion that the Apache OpenOffice project is a competing project. You simply chose to view it that way. There are others, such as myself, who view it as a potential upstream project, where all of the contributions at the upstream project can be used by LibreOffce. In that respect, it is similar to python, java, boost, hsqldb, libjpeg, curl, lpsolve, or anyone of hundreds of other project. Are those competing projects? Second, I can recommend that LibreOffice contributors join Apache OpenOffice because I am firmly convinced that would be in the best interests of the LibreOffice project. Amazingly, your response does not even argue otherwise. Instead, your response focuses on the fact even if it were in the best interests of the LibreOffice project, for personal reasons you would never consider reconciling with it. That to me is just astounding, that you are open and brazen about putting your personal issues ahead of the project. Here's what could have been: The world could have woken up one morning to an announcement by the TdF congratulating the Apache Foundation for joining the OpenOffice community, and stating that it was looking forward to working with Apache, IBM and all other interested parties to create the best possible open document technologies, and that the TdF would be incorporating those technologies into LibreOffice in order to make it the best end-user office suite possible. The world could have then read in the press and trade magazines that virtually all of the LibreOffice developers had joined the Apache OpenOffice project, that the community had been reunited and that the future was bright. The end users (remember the end users, the ones I talked about in my last post that you seem intent on ignoring?), heartened by the optimistic message and comforted by the reunification of the community, would have come back off the sidelines looking to benefit from the project, and many of them would have discovered LibreOffice. The LibreOffice project would when be boosted by thousands of new users, and possibly could over time have developed a reputation as the best OpenOffice package. Instead, due to your personal issues, the world has heard a much different story: that you were dissed or slighted; that there is possibly some problem with the TdF or LibreOffice that people keep talking about, and no matter how much it is denied, the nagging feeling persists that it might be true; and that the LibreOffice community refuses to work with IBM or the Apache Foundation for personal reasons. It seems that your story about being dissed or slighted in one of your favorite stories, and you are determined to keep telling it for a long time. I'm quite certain that the end users (remember the end users, the ones I talked about in my last post that you seem intent on ignoring?) aren't interested in that story. With just a few simple actions on your part, you could have accomplished in a few minutes what would have taken you at least a year to accomplish with just programming (if it can even be accomplished that way at all). That's right, in this world, marketing matters. User perception matters. The best mouse trap does not always win. A few positives stories in the press can make or break a fledgling project. You can spend years developing software, and then sabotage it in a minute with a poor marketing decision. Such is that nature of business. So my all means, continue forward with your decision that your personal story is what really matters. That is your prerogative. Meanwhile, the LibreOffice project will never be what it could have been. The opportunity that has been lost will never come back again. That is the tragedy. Best Regards, Allen -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted