Rob Weir wrote:
On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Keith N. McKenna
<keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote:
Greetings All;
I was going through FAQ's and other pages on the AOO (incubating) site and
noticed that many still are showing that we support Windows 2000 as a
baseline operating system. I though I remembered some discussions a while
back on this list around that subject and thought we had decided that we
would no longer do that due to lack of testing resources.
IMHO, "support" is determined by what we do, not by what we say. If
no one is testing with Windows 2000, then it is hard to say we support
it. And if Microsoft does not make Windows 2000 CD's available to
developers for testing, due to a lawsuit, then it is rather difficult
for anyone who wants to test. Not impossible, but they would need to
get access to CD's or ISO images through unofficial means.
The major disagreement I have with this Rob is that we publish FAQ's and
installation documents on our official web site that lead people to
believe that Windows 2000 is supported. What does it say for us as a
responsible project when we tell people that despite what we clearly
show as a minimum requirement to use our software is really not what we
meant. All that does is leave a bad taste in the consumers mouth that
they most likely will tell there friends about. That to me is NOT the
image we should project.
Of course, we could have a dozen people say we *should* support
Windows 2000. But should does not mean anything. We really need to
find even a single person who says they *will* test with Windows 2000
and fix any problems that arise. Until that happens we don't really
support Windows 2000 in any meaningful way.
That is all well and good Rob, but again that needs to be clear to
people and not come as a surprise. I personally do not care one way or
the other if 2000 is supported or not. My concern is with the image that
we project to our user base. I am not a software engineer or coder so
therefore not qualified to judge what is or is not supportable withing
the code. That is why I brought this to the attention of the people that
are qualified to get better information to present to our users.
I went back through the archives and did find a number of threads but they
never seemed to reach a definite conclusion. I we are going to continue to
support it all well and good, but if we cannot then all FAQ's and other
documentation on the site should change to reflect that.
Support is not determined by consensus wishes. It is determined by
someone actually doing it.
Again Rob that is all well and good, but why are we publishing to the
world that Windows 2000 is the minimum Windows OS environment that our
product can run in?
Do we have any evidence that users have successfully installed and
used AOO 3.4.x on Windows 2000? If it works, we might just list it
"not a tested configuration, but some users report success.". In
other words, between "tested and supported" and "known to be broken"
is a middle territory where it is "use at your own risk".
I really do not know if we do our not Rob. What I do know is that we are
telling users on our official web site that Windows 2000 is the minimum
Revision of the OS that our product will run on.
Regards
Keith
-Rob
Regards
Keith
