On 09/16/2012 09:48 PM, Rob Weir wrote:
On Sep 16, 2012, at 11:38 PM, "Keith N. McKenna"
<keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote:
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.
Actually I don't think we disagree on this. At one point in time
(OpenOffice.org 3.3?) Windows 2000 was presumably tested and that is
why it is on the supported list. The fact that it remains on that list
is purely due to a kind of inertia: documentation in rest stays at
rest unless acted on by an outside force.
So I agree that the website is out of synch with reality here and that
this is suboptimal. Two easy ways to fix: someone volunteers to do
some minimal testing with Windows 2000 to confirm basic operations, or
we remove it from the supported list.
Of course even if removed it could come back once tested.
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.
If you feel strongly about this then you could propose to change the
website and if their are no objections after 72 hours assume lazy
consensus and go ahead and make the changes.
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
At least the following web pages need some attention:
* http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs.html
(not sure of navigation to this one)
* http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_aoo34.html
(linked from download)
* http://www.openoffice.org/download/common/instructions.html
(linked from main download)
* http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_30.html
(legacy download has this and probably still accurate)
Many installation docs on the wiki as well
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MzK
"Just 'cause you got the monkey off your back
doesn't mean the circus has left town."
-- George Carlin
