[Marketing] Press kit for OpenOffice.org 2.0 final

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Hi all,

We still have some time because beta 2 just got released, but I think we
should prepare a press kit for OpenOffice.org 2.0 final like we had for
previous major releases.

I created a new issue for this effort which includes a link to an old
press kit:

   http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=54015

Help is welcome!


Best regards,
Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Update of press kit.

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Funny, I also just sent an email regarding a press kit. ;-)

I think we should pick the nicest logos, screenshots, flyers, etc.
and either copy them to a new location or probably better just
link to them from the press kit location.

Here are the links to the outdated press kits:

   http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/presskit.html
   http://www.openoffice.org/press/1.1/


All the best,
Erwin


Adam Moore wrote:
Here is the link I found for the press kit. It is pretty out of date. How do 
you think we should approach updating it?


For example the logos link points to an unused website.




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[Marketing] Update of press kit.

[Adam Moore]

Here is the link I found for the press kit. It is pretty out of date. How do 
you think we should approach updating it?

For example the logos link points to an unused website.

-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] OO Text

[Adam Moore]

Take a look at this thread from the art mailing list. This should get you 
started. It will also be a good place to ask questions.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=art&msgNo=865

On 8/28/05, J K <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> I am interesting in contributing my time and resources
> to creating Open Office promotional materials. I have
> been creating promotional materials for Firefox for
> about a month and a half and they are very popular and
> widely used by members of the SFx Community. You can
> see examples at the address below.
> I am first of all wondering what the Open Office Logo
> text type is, and is there any reference to the Visual
> Identity Guidelines for logo usage? I appreciate your
> time and look forward to contributing as I love the
> Open Office application and have used it for several
> features on my website including, The Firefox Features
> Slideshow, Anne Geddes Slideshow and more. I am am
> anxious to get started. Thank you. Sincerely Kenneth J
> Saunders webmaster Mouserunner.com 
> http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_PromoMatAnimPg3.html
> 
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> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

[Marketing] FYI: Microsoft Expands Code Sharing

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

FYI

"The software giant is offering over 60 government and international
organizations the option to view proprietary source code for the latest
version of its Office software, including Outlook, Microsoft Word, and
Excel.
...
Although Microsoft Office remains the most popular business software,
analysts say more and more people are paying attention to products like
Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice, based on the open-source OpenOffice
program."

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/2250842910

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Re: [Marketing] Asia OpenOffice Conference?

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Onn Chee,

Would the event focus on users or developers? What kind of sessions
would you like to have? What time frame and location do you suggest?
Would it be o.k. to have the sessions in English? If not, what would
be the preferred language?

BTW, since your proposing an OpenOffice.org conference, you might
want to also send your proposal to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list.


Best regards,
Erwin


Wong Onn Chee wrote:

Hi everyone,

I am interested to organise a pan-Asia OpenOffice conference here in 
Singapore.
Given the rapid growth of Asian-based Linux distributions which use 
OpenOffice and the governmental support for OpenOffice in Asia, the time 
is ripe for an major OO event to be held in Asia to raise the profile of 
OO among the general public. Some of the Asian distro players I came 
across expressed interest in such an event.


For discussion sake, the conference may consist of two portions - one 
which addresses the use of OO among households and the other addresses 
the use of OO in corporates.


However, I will need some advice on how I can kickstart this with the 
help of the OO marcon community.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Onn Chee
Singapore Marcon





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[Marketing] OO Text

[J K]

Hello,
I am interesting in contributing my time and resources
to creating Open Office promotional materials. I have
been creating promotional materials for Firefox for
about a month and a half and they are very popular and
widely used by members of the SFx Community. You can
see examples at the address below. 
I am first of all wondering what the Open Office Logo
text type is, and is there any reference to the Visual
Identity Guidelines for logo usage? I appreciate your
time and look forward to contributing as I love the
Open Office application and have used it for several
features on my website including, The Firefox Features
Slideshow, Anne Geddes Slideshow and more. I am am
anxious to get started. Thank you. Sincerely Kenneth J
Saunders webmaster Mouserunner.com
http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_PromoMatAnimPg3.html

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[Marketing] click icon buttons linked to your site

[yc]

Hello,
It would be great to be able to post on sites different click 
buttons,like with firefox/thunderbird like this:

--
href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=131048&t=82";>border="0" alt="Get Firefox!" title="Get Firefox!" 
src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/80x15/white_1.gif"/>

--

Sincerely

http://www.myspace.com/g3n3r4t0r

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[Marketing] FireFox plugins for OpenOffice Writer, Calc, Impress

[Dmitry Makhno]

Hello,

FireFox and OpenOffice have the same goal make real crossplatform free 
and easy to use tools.


My imagine drawing me an operation system based on browser... May be I 
wrong about it...

So I have a suggestion make communication plugins.

Plugin 1:
My suggestion is make possible to press on .doc, .xls, .ppt (that is 
MSOffice formats) and OpenOffice document types links and then open it:

- or in the same window (as Acrobat Reader in IE)
- or openning in different window or tab of FireFox
- or run OpenOffice env in OS window.
and then save it on own dessicion.

Plugin 2:
Make possible to send pages directly to Writer with built-in images.

Plugin 3:
Make possible send grids to Calc for making possible calculation.

Addin 4:
Make in OpenOffice with "save as Web using css" preview in FireFox.


I'm sure it is very unussual to send suggestion to two projects.
I think it is the best way to place this suggestion in order for future 
implementation.

And partnership bettween openoffice.org and mozila.org.

P.S. Please leave me in CC, if it is possible. I'll glad if you both 
start to do it.



-
With best regards,
 Dmitry Makhno
 Senior QA Manager
 Bug Huntress QA Lab
 www.BugHuntress.com

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[Marketing] Asia OpenOffice Conference?

[Wong Onn Chee]

Hi everyone,

I am interested to organise a pan-Asia OpenOffice conference here in 
Singapore.
Given the rapid growth of Asian-based Linux distributions which use 
OpenOffice and the governmental support for OpenOffice in Asia, the time 
is ripe for an major OO event to be held in Asia to raise the profile of 
OO among the general public. Some of the Asian distro players I came 
across expressed interest in such an event.


For discussion sake, the conference may consist of two portions - one 
which addresses the use of OO among households and the other addresses 
the use of OO in corporates.


However, I will need some advice on how I can kickstart this with the 
help of the OO marcon community.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Onn Chee
Singapore Marcon





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[Marketing] List of conferences attended or planned?

[Jean Hollis Weber]

Is there a list on the OOo website of conferences attended or 
planned to be attended by representatives of OOo? If so, where is 
the list? I looked around the Marketing pages for awhile and 
couldn't find anything except some recent references in the 
"Events" section of the MP home page, which appears to cover only 
conferences organised by OOo, not those where OOo was represented 
with a trade show booth and perhaps some speakers.


Such a list would help give newer members of the marketing group 
(such as me) a clearer idea of what OOo has been doing in this 
area and what we're going to be doing.


Jean

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Re: [Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Bruce Byfield]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 14:14 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
> I'd like to suggest some policies for conferences and  
> businesses. 

This might be obvious, but, as someone who has done a lot of marketing
for companies, could I suggest the following:

- Before every conference, the reasons for attending are articulated.
This exercise will not only help to focus efforts, but also provide some
loose criteria for evaluating the success of the conference and whether
to attend it again. Whether for companies or for open source projects,
it's very easy to attend a conference because it seems a good idea and
not evaluate whether the effort and the money spent were worth the
results.

- Instead of waiting to see what journalistse might have to say, make an
effort to contact them and cater to our needs. Have press-kits ready to
hand out.  If possible, offer interviews with OOo stalwarts at the
event , and maybe offer exclusives. The more that OOo makes an effort to
make journalists' lives easier, the more coverage the project is likely
to have and the more positive it is likely to be -- not because of
deliberate bias, I hasten to add, but simply out of the natural human
tendency to think and speak well of those who help them. At some
conferences, outreach to journalists may even be the main reason for
attending.

-- 
Bruce Byfield 604-421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 18:31 +0200, Charles-H.Schulz wrote:

> +1. We could also add as a perequisite: at least one computer with OOo 
> on it.

I'd say at least one, but probably at least one per person on a booth. A
data projector is also handy for large screen demonstrations and if
possible at least OOo on 2 platforms to demonstrate cross-platform
capability. Windows and Linux are good because it is an area of
competitive advantage. We need to identify and accentuate competitive
advantage beyond price. Mind you I can think of times when a computer
would not be essential - a book fayre for example.

> Absolutely yes. In theory, the MarCons and generally the project leads 
> are qualified to be representatives. The other people speak only on 
> their own behalf.

Isn't this how it is in any case? I just assumed it. Maybe it just needs
reiterating from time to time to inform new members. I'd be reluctant to
start new sets of bureaucratic procedures when resources are stretched.
In fact instead of firefighting with existing under-funding perhaps a
fund raising project would be better to make sure we can sustain a
presence in specific events. Does Team OpenOffice publish accounts? If
so where? It would be useful to see sources of donations and how these
are spent to see if there are gaps and where these might be filled. Is
there sufficient to fund half a dozen projects across the world or are
we just participating in wishful thinking?

> > Another question might be, what events we "officially" want
> > to support, i.e. fund with money from Team OpenOffice.org,
> > mention on the OpenOffice.org home page, etc.
> 
> At some point the question would also boil down to this one: how much 
> money can we spend on the whole.

> Then, I would classify events in the following way:



> Third point. You saw the three different kinds of events I described 
> above. Let's put some priority on them, and let's add some flexibility 
> to these priorities.
> category I: highest priority. Maximum efforts should be put there. 
> Except for OOoCON, the subsidiarity policy applies.
> category II: average priority, depending on the context: are we having a 
> major release? is there something important we should tell the world 
> about?  subsidiarity applies there too.
> category III: education events are important, but we should make sure 
> that we wouldn't make a mistake in going there (sometimes computing is 
> just not the topic),

aaargh! Education IT is *not* computing! :-) Education IT is using IT to
support learning. Its not just about teaching people to be computer
scientists. (what is the big fixation on coding ;-). The vast majority
of people we spoke to at NEA were not conputer teachers. I can use OOo
to teach every subject including things like citizenship,
internationalism, social enterprise. Its a clear market advantage over
the opposition if you understand the market. I'm supposed to be the
education expert so I can inform people about the right shows to attend
and the right approach to get educators on board. One key difference at
NEA is that we were presenting OOo to new users who are extremely
influential with other potential new users. I'd say that from a
marketing point of view this was more important than preaching to the
converted. 

>  and there are tons of other events. If you pick one 
> that you feel could help boost OOo's popularity, go for it. Subsidiarity 
> also applies here.

I agree with that entirely which is why I funded the presence at NEA. A
cynic might say I was just doing it to further the INGOTs and to an
extent that is right because the INGOTs were designed fundamentally as a
killer application to further OOo through education. The opposition
spends $400m a year on marketing. We can't match that so we need to do
something different. To me it makes no difference if its an OOo booth or
an INGOT booth (Ok, Louis, all mine will be INGOT booths from now
on :-)) the intention is to provide a compelling reason to use OOo that
the opposition can't match. If someone can think of an equivalent for
lawyers, dentists, car mechanics or whatever, go for it. Successful
entrepreneurs are more valuable than coders because successful
entrepreneurs have the potential to keep many coders productive.
Entrepreneurs started Sun. Sun bought the Star Office code base and
released it as OOo, Sun pays for most of the coding effort - think about
it.

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

So why dont they work with us?  Novell has a fork, Red Hat and Ubuntu 
build on the Novell fork.  IBM is working thier own fork under the 
SISSL and not contributing back.  The question must be asked, "Do we 
have bad breath?"



I think these companies can (and BTW do) speak for themselves.

Most issues are already known, but in many cases the solution is not
that simple, even if it might appear to be on the surface.
The more parties participate, the more ideas, goals, objections, etc.
come together.


A perfect summary of my motivation to post the question on LXer today.
-Sam



Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I'd love to review them.

BTW, do we have anybody here who could review German content coming
from me?


Erwin


Daniel Carrera wrote:

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


Daniel,

Do you have any new articles drafted? If yes, could these be
"constructively" reviewed somewhere, e.g. on the PR list?



Not at the moment, no.

Cheers,
Daniel.



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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

So why dont they work with us?  Novell has a fork, Red Hat and Ubuntu 
build on the Novell fork.  IBM is working thier own fork under the SISSL 
and not contributing back.  The question must be asked, "Do we have bad 
breath?"


I think these companies can (and BTW do) speak for themselves.

Most issues are already known, but in many cases the solution is not
that simple, even if it might appear to be on the surface.
The more parties participate, the more ideas, goals, objections, etc.
come together.


Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

Daniel,

Do you have any new articles drafted? If yes, could these be
"constructively" reviewed somewhere, e.g. on the PR list?


Not at the moment, no.

Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Daniel,

Do you have any new articles drafted? If yes, could these be
"constructively" reviewed somewhere, e.g. on the PR list?


Cheers,
Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 22:36 +0200, Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:
> Daniel,
> 
> I'm sorry, that's probably just my typical critical German attitude! ;-)
> I tend to focus on the issues rather than the opportunities.
> 
> Writing articles about OpenDocument and the OpenOffice.org features
> is great idea! Don't get me wrong!
> 
> I just think (considering all the recent discussions) we should try
> to establish some kind of QA for the PR efforts, including my own!!!
> 
> Just ignore my negative comments! How would we get the information
> about what happens on the EU/EC level?

>From places such as
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/opensource/index_en.htm

Look for EU funded projects that are related to Open Source. Look at
potential for OOo projects that could be funded by EU grants. Publicise
why this would be good for the EU tax payer in the case of OOo etc. 

Take other projects such as the Birmingham City Library Open Source
trial and the fact they use OOo on their Linux workstations. Work with
OSC to do joint press releases as they are the managing agents.

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around 
saying constantly that the priority is to increase the number of 
developers. Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is 
a big disconnect.  There are reasons why it's hard to attract 
volunteers to this project, coders or other.



I'm very interest in the opinions of individual and corporate
contributors including those from Novell, Red Hat, and other major
companies.


So why dont they work with us?  Novell has a fork, Red Hat and Ubuntu 
build on the Novell fork.  IBM is working thier own fork under the SISSL 
and not contributing back.  The question must be asked, "Do we have bad 
breath?"




I'm personally (not speaking for Sun as a whole!!!) less interested
in random opinions from people who will never write a line of code.


Such people are no help!




Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

One more comment, many individual developers become corporate developers
at some point!

Erwin


Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:
Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying 
constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers. 
Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big 
disconnect.  There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to 
this project, coders or other.



I'm very interest in the opinions of individual and corporate
contributors including those from Novell, Red Hat, and other major
companies.

I'm personally (not speaking for Sun as a whole!!!) less interested
in random opinions from people who will never write a line of code.


Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I said *independent* developers...tofu-eating communists who are not 
employed or are working for themselves.


If they developed code for OpenOffice.org outside of OpenOffice.org and
thus showed serious interest in developing for the project, I do care.
Otherwise I'm much less interested, because I do not want to throw
something away for something which might not really exist.


Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying 
constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers. 
Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big 
disconnect.  There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to 
this project, coders or other.


I'm very interest in the opinions of individual and corporate
contributors including those from Novell, Red Hat, and other major
companies.

I'm personally (not speaking for Sun as a whole!!!) less interested
in random opinions from people who will never write a line of code.


Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Adam Moore wrote:

I know of a couple of people who commit code for the mac port and they don't 
eat tofu. I'm not sure about the communist thing. They could be employed, 
but not by a company that funds their developing time.
 



lol



On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Adam Moore wrote:

   


I was not referring to Erwin. Yes there are quite a few Novell developers
not doing l10n work. Take a look at http://ooo.ximian.com/planet for a 
 


list
   


of a few.


 


I said *independent* developers...tofu-eating communists who are not
employed or are working for themselves.

   


On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


 


Adam Moore wrote:



   

Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you 
 


did.
   




 


It's like explaining a (bad) joke...

"...he [Erwin/Sun] didn't seem to care what outsiders thought. As it is
the people on the inside doing the code."

The reason I am concerned for the future of OOo is that Sun treats it
like a proprietary project. The development method in fact bears little
resemblance to an open source project. Can you name any independent
developers who are not l10n who commit code but are not on the Sun team?

Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying
constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers.
Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big
disconnect. There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to
this project, coders or other.

Or maybe I'm out of touch and Microsoft is winning at killing interest.

-Sam








   




 


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

I know of a couple of people who commit code for the mac port and they don't 
eat tofu. I'm not sure about the communist thing. They could be employed, 
but not by a company that funds their developing time.

On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Adam Moore wrote:
> 
> >I was not referring to Erwin. Yes there are quite a few Novell developers
> >not doing l10n work. Take a look at http://ooo.ximian.com/planet for a 
> list
> >of a few.
> >
> >
> I said *independent* developers...tofu-eating communists who are not
> employed or are working for themselves.
> 
> >On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Adam Moore wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you 
> did.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>It's like explaining a (bad) joke...
> >>
> >>"...he [Erwin/Sun] didn't seem to care what outsiders thought. As it is
> >>the people on the inside doing the code."
> >>
> >>The reason I am concerned for the future of OOo is that Sun treats it
> >>like a proprietary project. The development method in fact bears little
> >>resemblance to an open source project. Can you name any independent
> >>developers who are not l10n who commit code but are not on the Sun team?
> >>
> >>Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying
> >>constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers.
> >>Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big
> >>disconnect. There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to
> >>this project, coders or other.
> >>
> >>Or maybe I'm out of touch and Microsoft is winning at killing interest.
> >>
> >>-Sam
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

I'm sorry, that's probably just my typical critical German attitude! ;-)
I tend to focus on the issues rather than the opportunities.


Thank you.


Writing articles about OpenDocument and the OpenOffice.org features
is great idea! Don't get me wrong!


:-)



Just ignore my negative comments! How would we get the information
about what happens on the EU/EC level?


I can't suggest a general program, but I can speak of my experience. I 
wrote a fairly complete article on the EU/EC and OpenDocument. I got the 
information from Gary Edwards who is in the OASIS committee, which in 
turn is was approached directly by EC reps.


On another level, the EC makes public announcements that just don't get 
a lot of press. For example:


http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3439

That was also a major source of information for my article. Likewise, 
you can find reports on the OASIS web page, XML cover pages, etc.


http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-06-17-a.html

Gary will surely have more information on this topic.

Likewise, when Gary and I talked to Eric Kriss, we got first-hand 
information on what he was thinking. We got to learn about what the 
state of Massachussets simply by talking to the guy in charge.



Some times you have to get a little creative. Some times you just have 
to be daring (I didn't know Eric would want to talk to me).


Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Adam Moore wrote:

I was not referring to Erwin. Yes there are quite a few Novell developers 
not doing l10n work. Take a look at http://ooo.ximian.com/planet for a list 
of a few.
 

I said *independent* developers...tofu-eating communists who are not 
employed or are working for themselves.



On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Adam Moore wrote:

   


Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you did.


 


It's like explaining a (bad) joke...

"...he [Erwin/Sun] didn't seem to care what outsiders thought. As it is
the people on the inside doing the code."

The reason I am concerned for the future of OOo is that Sun treats it
like a proprietary project. The development method in fact bears little
resemblance to an open source project. Can you name any independent
developers who are not l10n who commit code but are not on the Sun team?

Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying
constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers.
Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big
disconnect. There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to
this project, coders or other.

Or maybe I'm out of touch and Microsoft is winning at killing interest.

-Sam






   




 




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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

I was not referring to Erwin. Yes there are quite a few Novell developers 
not doing l10n work. Take a look at http://ooo.ximian.com/planet for a list 
of a few.

On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Adam Moore wrote:
> 
> >Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you did.
> >
> >
> It's like explaining a (bad) joke...
> 
> "...he [Erwin/Sun] didn't seem to care what outsiders thought. As it is
> the people on the inside doing the code."
> 
> The reason I am concerned for the future of OOo is that Sun treats it
> like a proprietary project. The development method in fact bears little
> resemblance to an open source project. Can you name any independent
> developers who are not l10n who commit code but are not on the Sun team?
> 
> Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying
> constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers.
> Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big
> disconnect. There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to
> this project, coders or other.
> 
> Or maybe I'm out of touch and Microsoft is winning at killing interest.
> 
> -Sam
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[swhiser]

Jason Faulkner wrote:


I just would like to avoid personal accusations.
   





s/personal/all :)

As I said prior, we're all shooting for the same goal.

 



Nice sentiment. I don't believe it's true.
-Sam


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Re: [Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Adam Moore]

Then feel free to copy it from the blog link I gave you.

On 8/30/05, Louis Suarez-Potts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Aug 30, 2005, at 4:27 PM, Adam Moore wrote:
> 
> > I just wanted to throw in the list of booth needs I came up with
> > after the
> > NEA Conference. Would this be useful?
> 
> yes!
> 
> > If so, how should I format it to make
> > it useable for you.
> >
> > http://adammooreooo.blogspot.com/2005/07/list-of-what-to-have-for-
> > booth.html
> 
> Oh, just about any way. As we'll probably end up putting it on the
> Web, straight text is fine.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> louis
> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Adam Moore wrote:


Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you did.
 


It's like  explaining a (bad) joke...

"...he [Erwin/Sun] didn't seem to care what outsiders thought. As it is 
the people on the inside doing the code."


The reason I am concerned for the future of OOo is that Sun treats it 
like a proprietary project. The development method in fact bears little 
resemblance to an open source project. Can you name any independent 
developers who are not l10n who commit code but are not on the Sun team?


Why then are Sun people connected with the project going around saying 
constantly that the priority is to increase the number of developers. 
Somebody does not understand the problem(s)...or there is a big 
disconnect.  There are reasons why it's hard to attract volunteers to 
this project, coders or other.


Or maybe I'm out of touch and Microsoft is winning at killing interest.

-Sam







On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Adam Moore wrote:

   


On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


 


Adam Moore wrote:



   


snip



I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of 
 


OpenOffice
   

 


he


   


felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to


 


make.


   



 


Such a decision may be taken out of their hands if they are not curious
as to why they cannot get free help from independent developers.

Don't you guess, though, they already know?

-Sam


   


He does seem to already know, but he didn't seem to care what outsiders
thought. As it is the people on the inside doing the code.


 


Adam-
Thank you so much! You just made my ENTIRE point.
-Sam

   





 


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 20:03 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote:

> * Host IRC talks. Like the one from Robin Miller at Newsforge.

What about the presentations done to the NL people on IRC? There must be
some of that material that could be used. Some controversy is not
necessarily a bad thing. Microsoft want to get rid of piracy, we think
it would be in our favour to get rid of piracy so maybe we suggest joint
talks with MS to brainstorm the problem :-). 

> Now, consider that we are a world-wide project. An article writen in 
> French can be repurposed for a German publication a month later. There's 
> a lot of opportunity to reuse material.


> Now, consider that I am just one person who is not even terribly 
> interested in marketing. Surely, a larger team could keep the press going.
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel.
-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[Jason Faulkner]

> 
> 
> I just would like to avoid personal accusations.



s/personal/all :)

As I said prior, we're all shooting for the same goal.

-- 
Jason Faulkner 

OldOs.org Owner/Admin / http://oldos.org / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Certified INGOTS Gold Assessor Trainer / http://www.theingots.org

OpenOffice.org Marketing Volunteer / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Louis Suarez-Potts]

Hi,

On Aug 30, 2005, at 4:27 PM, Adam Moore wrote:

I just wanted to throw in the list of booth needs I came up with  
after the

NEA Conference. Would this be useful?


yes!


If so, how should I format it to make
it useable for you.

http://adammooreooo.blogspot.com/2005/07/list-of-what-to-have-for- 
booth.html


Oh, just about any way. As we'll probably end up putting it on the  
Web, straight text is fine.


Thanks!

louis

smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Professional laid back? 

Aww, does that mean I have to wear a tie and one of those sporty looking 
coats ;)


(seriously people, we're all on the same team)


I just would like to avoid personal accusations.

Erwin



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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Daniel,

I'm sorry, that's probably just my typical critical German attitude! ;-)
I tend to focus on the issues rather than the opportunities.

Writing articles about OpenDocument and the OpenOffice.org features
is great idea! Don't get me wrong!

I just think (considering all the recent discussions) we should try
to establish some kind of QA for the PR efforts, including my own!!!

Just ignore my negative comments! How would we get the information
about what happens on the EU/EC level?


Erwin




Daniel Carrera wrote:

Erwin,

I responded to your email under the impression that you were honestly 
interested in suggestions on what we could write about. So I put down 
some suggestions. Please re-read your email and see how you only latch 
on to the negative, although this was my first time suggesting PR ideas, 
and you didn't acknowledge the things I did well, even when they are 
very important.


Fine, next time I'll just keep my ideas to myself and just let you 
wonder why so few people contribute to OOo.


Cheers,
Daniel.


Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

* Articles on using OOo. We have 5 main applications, lots of 
advanced features, many of which set us appart from the competiton. 
Surely we can write articles about this.




I don't have issues with people explaining OpenOffice.org via articles
provided that they are (somewhat) correct. It might be good to establish
somekind of review process for these kind of articles, because I have
seen too many articles and even books where people explain 
OpenOffice.org in an incorrect or at least not optimal way.


I'm not talking about you, but this has happened a few times. Thus, we
might want to establish somekind of review process. Typically those
articles don't have to prepared overnight.

* Success stories, migrations, case studies, etc. This week I'll be 
installing 15 Linux thin clients running OOo. Someone can interview 
me about it. Graham works with schools in New Zealand. Someone could 
interview him. Do a "parthership" with the INGOTs and run a few 
interviews of Ian to make an article with.




No offense, but this is PR work for INGOT not OpenOffice.org.
Yes OpenOffice.org will most likely benefit, but I don't see
this as "OpenOffice.org PR". Thus, it should be managed outside
of the OpenOffice.org project.

* Articles on the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Anything that supports 
ODF is by necessity good for OOo. Here are sme ideas:

 - Reports on the state of ISO approval.
 - Reports on the state of aduption by the European Comission.




How much do you know about the EU/EC internals? We should not write
about things without having facts, because otherwise we risk loosing
credibility.


 - Guides for format internals.
 - Articles on why ODF matters (see my article on Groklaw).
 - When a goverment like Massachusets talks about "open formats", we get
   get a lot of press and discussions. When MA first drew the list of
   allowed open formats, ODF was nowhere in the map. Today it is,
   because Gary, I and PJ had a discussion with Eric Kriss.




In general, with any kind of article or PR work, I think messages
that talk about the larger project should be inline with a pre-defined
partyline or get reviewed. People can comment as regular users, but
if a speficic title or role is attached (or gets attached by the press)
OpenOffice.org project related statements should be in inline with
the overall project messaging.


Best regards,
Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[Chad Smith]

THIS IS A BUNCH OF CRAP!

just kidding

I wanted to illustrate what was being requested by doing the exact 
oppostite.

Although, laid back and professional rarely go together. I'd just say 
friendly and respectful.

-Chad

On 8/30/05, Daniel Carrera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:
> 
> > In general it would be nice if people tried to maintain a professional
> > laid-back communication style!
> 
> In general it would be nice if people tried to be receptive of ideas and
> recognize valuable contributions so that the volunteer in question might
> be encouraged to contribute again later.
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel.
> --
> /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
> /\/_/ http://oooauthors.org
> /\/_/
> \/_/ "The pedant keep things in order, the genius
> / rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 


-- 
-Chad Smith

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 20:26 +0200, Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:
> > What you term "non-OOo developers" could mean any of us on the Marketing 
> > list.
> 
> Some people might feel offended, but yes, I include people like you and
> me who do not write code and do not have to make their living from
> writing code.

What about people that make a living from OOo in other ways and
contribute code (or anything for that matter) back, perhaps by
sponsoring a coder. It might not happen now except for Sun but it
certainly could happen in the future. Coders can be bought in so anyone
who can generate more income to fund coding than one coder is more
valuable to the project than a coder. That is why Sun is so powerful.

> The whole GPL/foundation question is not just a philosophical issue that
> can be discussed by open source supporter/evangelists/advocates.

But I think assuming that coders are the only people with an economic
interest in working on OOo is equally a mistake. If Open Source is to
flourish we need to get away from the only people that matter are coders
thing. Ok, without them there is no product but without sustainable
income generators to feed them there is no sustainable project either.
The OOo community needs sustainable business models that pay for
themselves and have the capacity to produce sufficient surplus to
contribute back otherwise we will be forever dependent on Sun and a few
donations here and there arguing the toss over this conference or that.
And what happens if at some point Sun can't or won't fund the coders? A
culture that is dependent is a culture that is vulnerable. Its nothing
against Sun its just reality. There is masses of EU money that can be
bid for. Open Source Academy is funded to about a million UKP from EU
money. Leonardo Da Vinci funding targets vocational exchanges up to
100,000 Euro. I have an Italian friend bidding for money for INGOT
development in Europe. If large corporates are not going to jump in and
so far it seems they aren't, we need to develop our own businesses and
income streams. 

> I see this similar to discussions about speed limits on freeways.
> If I don't drive or use a car and if I'm not a government official
> responsible for traffic, why should I be the main influencer in a
> discussion about speed limits.

Maybe not the main influence but you do have legitimate interest. You
are probably a tax/insurance payer and you probably foot the bill for
accidents if you live in the UK or you pay higher premiums for insurance
or you also have an environmental interest that the higher speed gas
guzzling affects. There is a lot of talk about community. Community is
collective responsibility and interests that transcend governments.
Governments provide some workable structure but in general govern by
consent of the community as Margaret Thatcher found when there was
massive civil disobendience against her poll tax. 

> Yes, everybody can have an opinion about the GPL/foundation
> question, and I actually I have one, too. However, I'm not a
> developer, I'm a manager of any developers and I do not a potential
> (major) sponsor of something like a foundation. Thus, why should
> my opinion be very important?

Because you are a member of the community.

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


In general it would be nice if people tried to maintain a professional
laid-back communication style!


In general it would be nice if people tried to be receptive of ideas and 
recognize valuable contributions so that the volunteer in question might 
be encouraged to contribute again later.


Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Tone & wording

[Jason Faulkner]

On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> In general it would be nice if people tried to maintain a professional
> laid-back communication style!
> 
> 
> 
Professional laid back? 

Aww, does that mean I have to wear a tie and one of those sporty looking 
coats ;)

(seriously people, we're all on the same team)

-- 
Jason Faulkner 

OldOs.org Owner/Admin / http://oldos.org / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Certified INGOTS Gold Assessor Trainer / http://www.theingots.org

OpenOffice.org Marketing Volunteer / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Adam Moore]

I just wanted to throw in the list of booth needs I came up with after the 
NEA Conference. Would this be useful? If so, how should I format it to make 
it useable for you.

http://adammooreooo.blogspot.com/2005/07/list-of-what-to-have-for-booth.html

On 8/30/05, Jason Faulkner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > • Scripts for booth-beings. These would be helpful talking
> > points. The idea is to help booth beings with our message and how to
> > represent OOo.
> >
> 
> 
> +1
> 
> Although maybe not scripts, possibly a "Booth FAQ" and some notes to go 
> by.
> 
> --
> Jason Faulkner
> 
> OldOs.org Owner/Admin / http://oldos.org / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Certified INGOTS Gold Assessor Trainer / http://www.theingots.org
> 
> OpenOffice.org Marketing Volunteer / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 



-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin,

I responded to your email under the impression that you were honestly 
interested in suggestions on what we could write about. So I put down 
some suggestions. Please re-read your email and see how you only latch 
on to the negative, although this was my first time suggesting PR ideas, 
and you didn't acknowledge the things I did well, even when they are 
very important.


Fine, next time I'll just keep my ideas to myself and just let you 
wonder why so few people contribute to OOo.


Cheers,
Daniel.


Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:
* Articles on using OOo. We have 5 main applications, lots of advanced 
features, many of which set us appart from the competiton. Surely we 
can write articles about this.



I don't have issues with people explaining OpenOffice.org via articles
provided that they are (somewhat) correct. It might be good to establish
somekind of review process for these kind of articles, because I have
seen too many articles and even books where people explain 
OpenOffice.org in an incorrect or at least not optimal way.


I'm not talking about you, but this has happened a few times. Thus, we
might want to establish somekind of review process. Typically those
articles don't have to prepared overnight.

* Success stories, migrations, case studies, etc. This week I'll be 
installing 15 Linux thin clients running OOo. Someone can interview me 
about it. Graham works with schools in New Zealand. Someone could 
interview him. Do a "parthership" with the INGOTs and run a few 
interviews of Ian to make an article with.



No offense, but this is PR work for INGOT not OpenOffice.org.
Yes OpenOffice.org will most likely benefit, but I don't see
this as "OpenOffice.org PR". Thus, it should be managed outside
of the OpenOffice.org project.

* Articles on the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Anything that supports 
ODF is by necessity good for OOo. Here are sme ideas:

 - Reports on the state of ISO approval.
 - Reports on the state of aduption by the European Comission.



How much do you know about the EU/EC internals? We should not write
about things without having facts, because otherwise we risk loosing
credibility.


 - Guides for format internals.
 - Articles on why ODF matters (see my article on Groklaw).
 - When a goverment like Massachusets talks about "open formats", we get
   get a lot of press and discussions. When MA first drew the list of
   allowed open formats, ODF was nowhere in the map. Today it is,
   because Gary, I and PJ had a discussion with Eric Kriss.



In general, with any kind of article or PR work, I think messages
that talk about the larger project should be inline with a pre-defined
partyline or get reviewed. People can comment as regular users, but
if a speficic title or role is attached (or gets attached by the press)
OpenOffice.org project related statements should be in inline with
the overall project messaging.


Best regards,
Erwin

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--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

Sorry I must have missed the point. He would not like the survey you did.

On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Adam Moore wrote:
> 
> >On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Adam Moore wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>snip
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of 
> OpenOffice
> >>>
> >>>
> >>he
> >>
> >>
> >>>felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to
> >>>
> >>>
> >>make.
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Such a decision may be taken out of their hands if they are not curious
> >>as to why they cannot get free help from independent developers.
> >>
> >>Don't you guess, though, they already know?
> >>
> >>-Sam
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >He does seem to already know, but he didn't seem to care what outsiders
> >thought. As it is the people on the inside doing the code.
> >
> >
> Adam-
> Thank you so much! You just made my ENTIRE point.
> -Sam
> 
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

[Marketing] Tone & wording

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Hi all,

In general it would be nice if people tried to maintain a professional
laid-back communication style!


Thanks,
Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Jason Faulkner]

> 
> 
> • Scripts for booth-beings. These would be helpful talking
> points. The idea is to help booth beings with our message and how to
> represent OOo.
> 


+1 

Although maybe not scripts, possibly a "Booth FAQ" and some notes to go by.

-- 
Jason Faulkner 

OldOs.org Owner/Admin / http://oldos.org / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Certified INGOTS Gold Assessor Trainer / http://www.theingots.org

OpenOffice.org Marketing Volunteer / [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Adam Moore wrote:


On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Adam Moore wrote:

   


snip



I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of OpenOffice 
 


he
   

felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to 
 


make.
   



 


Such a decision may be taken out of their hands if they are not curious
as to why they cannot get free help from independent developers.

Don't you guess, though, they already know?

-Sam
   




He does seem to already know, but he didn't seem to care what outsiders 
thought. As it is the people on the inside doing the code.
 


Adam-
Thank you so much! You just made my ENTIRE point.
-Sam





 




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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

On 8/30/05, swhiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> Adam Moore wrote:
> 
> >snip
> >
> >
> >
> >I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of OpenOffice 
> he
> >felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to 
> make.
> >
> >
> >
> Such a decision may be taken out of their hands if they are not curious
> as to why they cannot get free help from independent developers.
> 
> Don't you guess, though, they already know?
> 
> -Sam


He does seem to already know, but he didn't seem to care what outsiders 
thought. As it is the people on the inside doing the code.




-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

There is a contradiction here.  You and Louis and others at Sun have 
always been saying, 'We need to get more developers...'


I'm saying that it's possible they aren't coming for a reason, but you 
seem afraid to find out why.


I'm not afraid, I just want to set the right expectations. Not all
comments are equally important.


Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

* Articles on using OOo. We have 5 main applications, lots of advanced 
features, many of which set us appart from the competiton. Surely we can 
write articles about this.


I don't have issues with people explaining OpenOffice.org via articles
provided that they are (somewhat) correct. It might be good to establish
somekind of review process for these kind of articles, because I have
seen too many articles and even books where people explain 
OpenOffice.org in an incorrect or at least not optimal way.


I'm not talking about you, but this has happened a few times. Thus, we
might want to establish somekind of review process. Typically those
articles don't have to prepared overnight.

* Success stories, migrations, case studies, etc. This week I'll be 
installing 15 Linux thin clients running OOo. Someone can interview me 
about it. Graham works with schools in New Zealand. Someone could 
interview him. Do a "parthership" with the INGOTs and run a few 
interviews of Ian to make an article with.


No offense, but this is PR work for INGOT not OpenOffice.org.
Yes OpenOffice.org will most likely benefit, but I don't see
this as "OpenOffice.org PR". Thus, it should be managed outside
of the OpenOffice.org project.

* Articles on the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Anything that supports ODF 
is by necessity good for OOo. Here are sme ideas:

 - Reports on the state of ISO approval.
 - Reports on the state of aduption by the European Comission.


How much do you know about the EU/EC internals? We should not write
about things without having facts, because otherwise we risk loosing
credibility.


 - Guides for format internals.
 - Articles on why ODF matters (see my article on Groklaw).
 - When a goverment like Massachusets talks about "open formats", we get
   get a lot of press and discussions. When MA first drew the list of
   allowed open formats, ODF was nowhere in the map. Today it is,
   because Gary, I and PJ had a discussion with Eric Kriss.


In general, with any kind of article or PR work, I think messages
that talk about the larger project should be inline with a pre-defined
partyline or get reviewed. People can comment as regular users, but
if a speficic title or role is attached (or gets attached by the press)
OpenOffice.org project related statements should be in inline with
the overall project messaging.


Best regards,
Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Charles-H.Schulz wrote:

+1. We could also add as a perequisite: at least one computer with OOo 
on it.


Let's reduce that to "strongly prefer". No one doubts that having at 
least one computer with OOo on it is very important, but it might not be 
possible some times.


Besides that, yes, I agree.

At some point the question would also boil down to this one: how much 
money can we spend on the whole.

Then, I would classify events in the following way:
I. the OpenOffice.org events : OOoCON OOoRegicon, official events made 
by NL projects
II. the FLOSS events: Linux World, Linux Expo, Solutions Linux, local 
events, etc.
III. the other events: the NEA is a good example, but there are others 
of course.


Another way to divide events is based on their out-reach value. One of 
our goals is to get people who are not using OOo to start using OOo. 
This means going to conferences that are not about OOo or even FLOSS 
because those are the people who haven't heard of OOo yet.


I'll elaborate on this point in a moment.

On these three types of events, we should apply the subsidiarity 
principle (EU commission is taking control of my brain). The 
subsidiarity principle means that an event that can be supported (ie.e 
funded) locally, by the corresponding NL projects for instance, has to 
be funded locally. If it can't, the request has to be sent either to the 
Marketing project either to Team OpenOffice.org (this point needs some 
work) who will then see if it can send money or not, and why.  In short, 
subsidiarity means that what can be done and funded locally has to be 
done and funded locally.


I like the subsidiary idea, yes. It fits well into how open source is.

If I think of what the open source model is, the first words that come 
to my mind are "de-centralized", "grass-roots", and "bazaar". It seems 
to me that grass roots model like what Charles is proposing would 
naturally tend to work well in an open source project.


So here I'll say +1.

Second point, related to the aforementioned policy. Who is in "charge" 
locally of funding or supporting the event. NL project leads or, when 
there's no NL projects, MarCons. If there isn't any MarCon available, 
call either Jacqueline or John and they'll get parachuted over the 
warzone :-) ...


In general, that sounds good.

Of course there will be exceptions. The NEA conference is an example. It 
was announced ahead of time on the marketing list, but neither the leads 
nor the MacCons were interested in. So it was funded by the volunteers 
going in themselves.



Third point. You saw the three different kinds of events I described 
above. Let's put some priority on them, and let's add some flexibility 
to these priorities.
category I: highest priority. Maximum efforts should be put there. 
Except for OOoCON, the subsidiarity policy applies.
category II: average priority, depending on the context: are we having a 
major release? is there something important we should tell the world 
about?  subsidiarity applies there too.
category III: education events are important, but we should make sure 
that we wouldn't make a mistake in going there (sometimes computing is 
just not the topic), and there are tons of other events. If you pick one 
that you feel could help boost OOo's popularity, go for it. Subsidiarity 
also applies here.

If you wish I can design a .sxc matrix about this...


I think I would say that categories I and III are highest priority, for 
different reasons:


* I is important for "in-reach". So the community members meet.
* III is important for "out-reach". So people who have never heard of 
OOo, hear about it.


In general, I'd say that II scores relatively low in both "in-reach" and 
"out-reach" (people in FLOSS conferences already know about OOo) so 
should probably be our lowest priority.


Another thing, you said that some times computing isn't the topic. But 
remember that for "out-reach" computing doesn't have to be the topic. 
Some examples from education:


* If you are a language teacher, you'd be interested in OOo because it'd 
help your students write their homework without spending money.


* If you are an art teacher, you'd be interested in OOo Draw.

So, if the conference isn't about computers, you modify your message so 
that it appeals to the audience.


Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Ryan Singer]

On 8/30/05, Charles-H.Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> 
> You know Sam, critics are easier than action. So let's talk about
> mismanagement, as you seem prone to point out its weaknesses. Let's talk
> about YOUR management of the Marketing Project and see how great it was
> by then. If it wasn't so pathetic I'd be rolling on the floor laughing.


Was that really necessary? Why don't we all just calm down and back off.

Charles.
> 
> >
> > Erwin
> 
> 
> 
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> 


-- 
_
Ryan Singer

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Adam Moore wrote:


snip

 

I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of OpenOffice he 
felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to make.


 

Such a decision may be taken out of their hands if they are not curious 
as to why they cannot get free help from independent developers.


Don't you guess, though, they already know?

-Sam



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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

snip




Yes, I risk ignoring developers who have such strong opinions that
they did not want to have anything to do with OpenOffice.org under
its current structure. Thus, did not indicate any level of
commitment. However, to me listening to everybody seems to be of
higher risk to me.

There is a contradiction here.  You and Louis and others at Sun have 
always been saying, 'We need to get more developers...'


I'm saying that it's possible they aren't coming for a reason, but you 
seem afraid to find out why.


-Sam




Best regards,
Erwin




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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


Erwin-
This comment is a bit scary.  It's the point of getting input...from 
people who have been turned off by OOo's licensing setup...those who 
have not been participating.

-Sam



I just don't believe in demanding statements coming from "random"
people. It's like saying if creates a foundation, IBM, Novell, Intel,
Google, etc. will all give millions of dollars to sponsor it. I might
believe companies that already showed some level of commitment,
I might even believe companies who are not committed yet, but can
make a strong case, but for sure I would not believe anybody
outside of those companies.

Yes, I risk ignoring developers who have such strong opinions that
they did not want to have anything to do with OpenOffice.org under
its current structure. Thus, did not indicate any level of
commitment. However, to me listening to everybody seems to be of
higher risk to me.


Best regards,
Erwin


Erwin-
Has it occurred to you that the public discussion of this issue might 
reinforce Sun's position?

-Sam





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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


Unfortunately the press often likes to turn everyting into an
official statement.


They do. I certainly try to be careful when I talk to the press.


* Important events receive a response within no more than 2 days.
* Each week must have at least one press article on OOo.
* Any 6-month period must average at least 4 articles on OOo.


These are all good ideas, provided that we find enough things to write
about. What things would you write about over the next weeks?


Depends on the publication. They don't all have to be press releases. 
But here are some ideas:


* Articles on using OOo. We have 5 main applications, lots of advanced 
features, many of which set us appart from the competiton. Surely we can 
write articles about this.


* Success stories, migrations, case studies, etc. This week I'll be 
installing 15 Linux thin clients running OOo. Someone can interview me 
about it. Graham works with schools in New Zealand. Someone could 
interview him. Do a "parthership" with the INGOTs and run a few 
interviews of Ian to make an article with.


* Articles on the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Anything that supports ODF 
is by necessity good for OOo. Here are sme ideas:

 - Reports on the state of ISO approval.
 - Reports on the state of aduption by the European Comission.
 - Guides for format internals.
 - Articles on why ODF matters (see my article on Groklaw).
 - When a goverment like Massachusets talks about "open formats", we get
   get a lot of press and discussions. When MA first drew the list of
   allowed open formats, ODF was nowhere in the map. Today it is,
   because Gary, I and PJ had a discussion with Eric Kriss.

* Of course, we can announce conferences. That's always important.

* Host IRC talks. Like the one from Robin Miller at Newsforge.

Now, consider that we are a world-wide project. An article writen in 
French can be repurposed for a German publication a month later. There's 
a lot of opportunity to reuse material.


Now, consider that I am just one person who is not even terribly 
interested in marketing. Surely, a larger team could keep the press going.


Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Erwin-
This comment is a bit scary.  It's the point of getting input...from 
people who have been turned off by OOo's licensing setup...those who 
have not been participating.

-Sam


I just don't believe in demanding statements coming from "random"
people. It's like saying if creates a foundation, IBM, Novell, Intel,
Google, etc. will all give millions of dollars to sponsor it. I might
believe companies that already showed some level of commitment,
I might even believe companies who are not committed yet, but can
make a strong case, but for sure I would not believe anybody
outside of those companies.

Yes, I risk ignoring developers who have such strong opinions that
they did not want to have anything to do with OpenOffice.org under
its current structure. Thus, did not indicate any level of
commitment. However, to me listening to everybody seems to be of
higher risk to me.


Best regards,
Erwin




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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I don't like the idea of only a small number of people being able to do 
PR. However, if could be assured that this small group could actually 
maintain a high press presence and respond to events quickly (eg. "an 
open letter from Corel on OpenDocument") I would feel more confortable.


The number might not have to be small, but I'm not a fan of having
everybody talk to the press with mix messages (about the project).
I mean everybody is free to talk about their very personal
OpenOffice.org activities, but if they talk about projects, features,
realease dates, etc. they should use some kind of official message.
At the very minimum, people should make very very clear what parts
of the message are personal opinions vs. official statements.
Unfortunately the press often likes to turn everyting into an
official statement.


* Important events receive a response within no more than 2 days.
* Each week must have at least one press article on OOo.
* Any 6-month period must average at least 4 articles on OOo.


These are all good ideas, provided that we find enough things to write
about. What things would you write about over the next weeks?


All the best,
Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> > What you term "non-OOo developers" could mean any of us on the Marketing
> > list.
> 
> Some people might feel offended, but yes, I include people like you and
> me who do not write code and do not have to make their living from
> writing code.
> 
> The whole GPL/foundation question is not just a philosophical issue that
> can be discussed by open source supporter/evangelists/advocates.
> 
> I see this similar to discussions about speed limits on freeways.
> If I don't drive or use a car and if I'm not a government official
> responsible for traffic, why should I be the main influencer in a
> discussion about speed limits.
> 
> Yes, everybody can have an opinion about the GPL/foundation
> question, and I actually I have one, too. However, I'm not a
> developer, I'm a manager of any developers and I do not a potential
> (major) sponsor of something like a foundation. Thus, why should
> my opinion be very important?
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Erwin
> 
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> 
I'll also say after talking to one of the major developers of OpenOffice he 
felt the same way too. This is a decision for the development team to make.

-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

What you term "non-OOo developers" could mean any of us on the Marketing 
list.


Some people might feel offended, but yes, I include people like you and
me who do not write code and do not have to make their living from
writing code.

The whole GPL/foundation question is not just a philosophical issue that
can be discussed by open source supporter/evangelists/advocates.

I see this similar to discussions about speed limits on freeways.
If I don't drive or use a car and if I'm not a government official
responsible for traffic, why should I be the main influencer in a
discussion about speed limits.

Yes, everybody can have an opinion about the GPL/foundation
question, and I actually I have one, too. However, I'm not a
developer, I'm a manager of any developers and I do not a potential
(major) sponsor of something like a foundation. Thus, why should
my opinion be very important?


Best regards,
Erwin

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Adam Moore]

On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> > This I completely understand and is something that I struggle with
> > understanding for myself. That said our PR work is not very good right 
> now.
> > I have posted for people to join me in increasing our PR with press and 
> have
> > gotten little response other than to say I'm posting to the wrong list 
> and
> > the only list they tell me to post to they say is not used anymore. I 
> would
> > hope to have a better response to this at least from the leads. As of 
> now I
> > don't know if anyone has contacts with the press and how they are using
> > them. But I do know that I really only see Louis quoted in articles. I 
> would
> > like to hear from Bruce Byfield who he contacts to get information and 
> what
> > type of people in the organization interests him to quote.
> 
> Are you subscribed to the PR list?

  Yep and I put my post there and the dev list. I asked for people to 
respond on the PR list because I thought it was more fitting and I was told 
it doesn't belong there.

BTW, we probably also have to define some "rules" regarding public
> relations activities beyon press releases.

  That's kind of what I was trying to get organized.
 
I think everybody is open to additional PR, provided we have something
> interesting to say. However, I'm not a fan of wrong statements or
> controversial discussions just for the sake of getting press
> attention. For example, I remember a statement about a specific
> OpenOffice.org features, its functionality and its naming which
> were completely wrong and just reflected this person's own
> preferred strategy. It was not this feature, but a volunteer
> can't say OpenOffice.org 6.0 will have voice recognition and
> will run on any device just because I would like to see this
> happen. I can only make such a statement if I implement the
> feature myself or know for sure that this will happen.

 I completely agree. Really I just want it to get more organized. I would 
like to see a team work on this with a solid leader heading it up. Someone 
who will follow through with the team. 
 
> Here are my thoughts on this. We don't sell a product. We make more money
> > by Novell selling their product and Sun selling StarOffice. We get this
> > money by them wanting to put development time back into OpenOffice. The
> 
> It's easy for me to say this, because I'm working for Sun,
> but this statement is true.
> 
> > Here is how I feel we should advance with this. Have 4 Main conferences 
> we
> > go to every year. We then have 1 or 2 conferences that we vote on to go 
> to
> > each year. This would allow us to look at new conferences and provide 
> for
> > conferences that are more regional, but important for us to be at.
> 
> Focussing on a few major events definitely makes sense. What events do
> you suggest? BTW, keep in mind that there are people/communities outside
> of the US and Europe. ;-)

 I kept that in mind, but unfortunately it seems that most major events 
happen in the US and Europe.
 OOoCON
OSCON (If we can get more developers there and do more talks)
At least 1 LinuxWorld
DLS if we can make it a OOoRegicon
A large Australian event.
Some event in India. It is of growing usage there and it seems to get good 
press.
I would like to see us at an education conference also. That's how you 
insert technology into the future.
 Otherwise what I would like to see is if we can get a booth and man it with 
enough people with enough resources then just go for it.


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

[Marketing] Some suggestions...

[Louis Suarez-Potts]

Hi, *

First, I'd like to suggest that we focus our attention on what needs  
to be done now: prepare for OOoCon and the (eventual) release of 2.0.


Second, I'd like to suggest some policies for conferences and  
businesses.  I don't think, or anyway hope, that they will be  
particularly controversial. The reason for them is to ensure that  
OOo, the entire project, is represented as strongly as possible and  
that representations are on message: that we are saying essentially  
the same thing.



*  I would like that for any conference we attend, that we do so as  
strongly as possible.  This means having the right collateral, CDs,  
booth-beings; and it also means that we are all on message.  In  
practice, that point won't really have much impact, and so far, at  
every conference booth I've personally observed, the message has been  
well presented.  Matthew's and Adam's presentations at OSCON were  
exemplary, as were Solveig's and Benjamin's intelligent commentary on  
OOo at Comdex 2003.  Indeed, if Benjamin, Adam, Matthew and others  
want to help they could script some pointers for others, so that it's  
easier for the less experienced to talk about OOo. These can be  
easily stored in the Docs and Files section of MP.


** Thus, there are several suggestions here, some of them repeating  
what others have said (and are already doing):
• Collateral and banners--if groups want to form to develop  
this, super.  It could involve the Art project, as well as others
• Scripts for booth-beings. These would be helpful talking  
points. The idea is to help booth beings with our message and how to  
represent OOo.
* Demonstrations of what OOo can do.  I tend to think this is  
really important... Lots of people are unsure how our Base works, or  
Macros, or whatever.  We need to have set pieces to demonstrate the  
capabilities of the suite.


*  As to longer presentations at conferences I would like for us  
to compile a library of presentations delivered.  We had started  
something like that before but discontinued it.  The idea would be to  
help in the creation of compelling presentations. You know,  
collaborate.  It would also help us refine our message and make it  
easier for those about to present on OOo. Along these lines--refining  
presentations--we could use IRC for some of this (handling questions,  
say) or even devices like Skype, for practice runs.


Speaking for myself, I have given so far this year maybe 15, probably  
more, presentations on OOo, throughout the world, and the year has a  
quarter to go, at least. These have ranged from large lectures to  
presentations on smaller panels and more or less informal  
discussions. I know it would be helpful for me to have others  
critique my own presentations; I lose sight of how I come across. As  
well, though I tend to prefer vanilla presentations (no frills, just  
the facts), I've also noted how good some other presentations are,  
especially at more business-centric conferences.  Having a library we  
could all use would help.


The overall point here: If we go to a conference representing OOo, we  
need to do so as strongly as possible, and to represent the entire  
project.



Third, regarding sponsorship & OOo.  This is probably the least  
controversial point of non-controversial points. I think we would all  
agree that if one goes to a conference representing OOo one is there  
to represent OOo and will do so.  Of course, that does not mean that  
one cannot thank one's sponsors, or otherwise ethically mention one's  
sponsor.  Nor am I insinuating here that the sponsors of OOo have  
ever done anything other than be ethical.  I am simply seeking to  
clarify things.  It would also help if one were to identify one's  
sponsorship or affiliation.  The point is the eliminate possible  
confusion.


Cheers,

Louis

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I think this is a bit of a different issue really. On a booth, its
unlikely that you will always have available an "official spokesperson"
unless there are very many of them. Some shows might have press people
there to talk to others don't. We didn't see any press at NEA but there
were press people at DLS. It won't always be predictable either. At LUG
radio, no press but Mark Shuttleworth came up to the booth to talk about
education and FLOSS. I think proven expertise in the target market is
more important than being a project lead when dealing directly with
customers. The best person to sell OOo to a bunch of lawyers is a
lawyer, to teachers a teacher etc. If the show is a sales opportunity
its different from a press conference.  


What I'm saying here is that if people talk to the press and thus
voluntarily or involuntarily become official OpenOffice.org
representatives, they should be very careful about what they are
saying. There unfortunately have been occasions (which I won't
explain because I don't want to do finger pointing) where people
got "too excited" about getting the opportunity to talk to the
press that they did not present the official OpenOffice.org view
and the reality, but their desired state/strategy.

People can express their own opinions wherever they want, but
I believe it is not good if these opinions appear as the
"OpenOffice.org opinions". This becomes in particular dangerous
if self-elected tiles are included in those articles.


The thing about NEA is that I did fly from Europe to LA and I did pay
all the expenses because education is important. Ok, Sun didn't think so
and that's fine, but if people can prove expertise in the focussed
market and they can raise their own funding it seems rather silly to say
it can't be done because it wasn't on a planned list. Again back to the
fundamental principle. Will it help promote OOo?


I personally don't mind privately sponsored activities as long
as the project benefits (depending on whatever the project believes
is beneficial), does not get misused/exploited and does represent
OpenOffice.org correctly. It's like saying Sun, IBM, HP and Microsoft
are partners (BTW, I'm not referring to any real person or company
here) when in fact, "your" company only knows some people at those
companies. It's not the best analogy, but I just think whoever
decides to represent OpenOffice.org has to follow some guidelines,
otherwise they should have a booth for their company or product
XYZ.


All the best,
Erwin




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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

 This I completely understand and is something that I struggle with 
understanding for myself. That said our PR work is not very good right now. 
I have posted for people to join me in increasing our PR with press and have 
gotten little response other than to say I'm posting to the wrong list and 
the only list they tell me to post to they say is not used anymore. I would 
hope to have a better response to this at least from the leads. As of now I 
don't know if anyone has contacts with the press and how they are using 
them. But I do know that I really only see Louis quoted in articles. I would 
like to hear from Bruce Byfield who he contacts to get information and what 
type of people in the organization interests him to quote.


Are you subscribed to the PR list?

BTW, we probably also have to define some "rules" regarding public
relations activities beyon press releases.

I think everybody is open to additional PR, provided we have something
interesting to say. However, I'm not a fan of wrong statements or
controversial discussions just for the sake of getting press
attention. For example, I remember a statement about a specific
OpenOffice.org features, its functionality and its naming which
were completely wrong and just reflected this person's own
preferred strategy. It was not this feature, but a volunteer
can't say OpenOffice.org 6.0 will have voice recognition and
will run on any device just because I would like to see this
happen. I can only make such a statement if I implement the
feature myself or know for sure that this will happen.

 Here are my thoughts on this. We don't sell a product. We make more money 
by Novell selling their product and Sun selling StarOffice. We get this 
money by them wanting to put development time back into OpenOffice. The 


It's easy for me to say this, because I'm working for Sun,
but this statement is true.

 Here is how I feel we should advance with this. Have 4 Main conferences we 
go to every year. We then have 1 or 2 conferences that we vote on to go to 
each year. This would allow us to look at new conferences and provide for 
conferences that are more regional, but important for us to be at.


Focussing on a few major events definitely makes sense. What events do
you suggest? BTW, keep in mind that there are people/communities outside
of the US and Europe. ;-)


All the best,
Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Hello,

swhiser wrote:


Charles-H.Schulz wrote:


Thank you Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.
Charles.



Charles-
You sound threatened.


No I don't. But you acted as if you wanted to make some noise that you 
couldn't manage to do here.



I don't understand that reaction.


Please read my second post on the issue. Once again, GPL is definitely 
something I would like to see, but it's the point of bringing the issue 
on the outside at this moment that is wrong and confusing.
Sam, you know marketing, don't you? So tell me about how these two 
following messages do not overlap and confuse our audience:

-OOo2 beta is released, test it!
-Why isn't OOo under a GPL license?
That's what, as a marketer, you do not wish to do. That's pure 
confusion, potentially raising a controversy and as an outcome 
potentially harming our image and blurring our message. So, thank you 
Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.

Charles.


-Sam




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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

swhiser wrote:


Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


I wonder how many comments will actually come from real OpenOffice.org
contributors or at least people who have expressed serious believable
interest in developing for OpenOffice.org.



Erwin-
This comment is a bit scary.  It's the point of getting input...from 
people who have been turned off by OOo's licensing setup...those who 
have not been participating.

-Sam

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Daniel Carrera]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


For example, is it better being present at an event at all, even if
the presence is poor, than having no presence?

Since we all want that OpenOffice.org appears in the best light
possible, I think we need define some kind of minimum level of
presence or engagement, in case we decide to go to an event.


I'd suggest that a couple of people at the booth is a good minimum.

Look at it this way: The NEA conference went well. Hundreds of people in 
a position to influence others heard about OOo for the first time. This 
conference had exactly two OOo representatives. If we set the minimum 
higher than two it means that something like the NEA conference could 
not happen.



A simple
table where 50% of the time nobody is available as a contact
person because the booth is understaffed, is probably not
something that puts OpenOffice.org in the best light


So let's say that we expect at least one person *at the booth* at all 
times and at least two people *at the booth* at least 50% of the time.


So, it doesn't matter if "only" two people volunteer, if they are 
willing to stay at the booth for the entire length of the conference 
except for short breaks. Like at the NEA conference.



It would be useful to have some consistent messaging and a few
official spokes people, e.g. the marketing project leads,
community council members and maybe native-lang project leads.


I don't like the idea of only a small number of people being able to do 
PR. However, if could be assured that this small group could actually 
maintain a high press presence and respond to events quickly (eg. "an 
open letter from Corel on OpenDocument") I would feel more confortable.


Perhaps it'd be better to have PR targets. For example:

* Important events receive a response within no more than 2 days.
* Each week must have at least one press article on OOo.
* Any 6-month period must average at least 4 articles on OOo.

So we have a clear picture of what "a good job" looks like. And if we 
are not meeting those targets, then we add PR people until we do.


This would add a healthy level of clarity and accountability. It woudld 
be easier to know if the PR team is doing a good job, and whether or not 
the PR team needs to be expanded or not.




Another question might be, what events we "officially" want
to support, i.e. fund with money from Team OpenOffice.org,
mention on the OpenOffice.org home page, etc.


A problem here is that anything you decide will be limited by the 
mentality of whoever is making the decision. This, by definition, puts a 
cap on new ideas and flexibility. For example, if you've never heard of 
the NEA conference, or you don't know the education market, you might 
feel that this is not an important event.


So there must at least be a clause saying that this list of events is 
only a minimum, and we are willing to officialy support some other 
event. I don't want to see us missing an important opportunity because 
one person doesn't understand the market and simply says "this 
conference is not in our official list".


Another issue that we must not forget is the human factor. An open 
source project relies on volunteers. That means that you must be willing 
to work within the constraints of what the volunteers happen to be 
interested in, or have expertise on. It's no use telling someone they 
can't go to conference A and must instead work on conference B, if their 
interest lies in A but not in B.




I'm not sure what the selection criteria should be, but
enough local "human resources" could be one


That is a good criteria, because it helps us rely on the realities of 
our community instead of what one person thinks is important. Another 
obvious criteria is community interest. If many people want to go to 
conference A but not B, you probably should support that even if you 
would prefer that they be interested in B. You know, you sort of have to 
go with the flow a bit.


Cheers,
Daniel.
--
 /\/`) Leave your mark at OpenOffice.org
/\/_/  http://oooauthors.org
   /\/_/
   \/_/"The pedant keep things in order, the genius
   /   rules the chaos" -- Sigrid Kronenberger


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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


I wonder how many comments will actually come from real OpenOffice.org
contributors or at least people who have expressed serious believable
interest in developing for OpenOffice.org.

I'm personally less interested in philosophical comments from open
source "advocates" who for example do not have to feed their kids with
their OpenOffice.org development work, or at least do not take those
developers into consideration.

Anybody can ask for a GPL and a foundation, but it's not that easy
to solve the related issues, e.g. sponsorship, affected jobs, etc.

I'm again not saying that the GPL or a foundation is bad, but I'm
not a fan of discussions by people who are not (or at least much
less) personally affected (I mean the non-OOo-developers who might
comment to the article).



What you term "non-OOo developers" could mean any of us on the Marketing 
list.


I'm curious what people think.

It's a mistake to believe that I am advocating GPL.  Please re-read the 
article.


-Sam




Best regards,
Erwin



swhiser wrote:


http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html

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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 17:42 +0200, Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

> For example, is it better being present at an event at all, even if
> the presence is poor, than having no presence?

Its a no brainer to say that a poor presence is undesirable. The prime
consideration should always be will this be an effective promotion of
OOo. The issue really is who decides what a poor presence is and does
one instance or aspect being poor mean the situation is forever
irretrievable. We should use experience to learn and improve and accept
occasionally that things don't happen as planned. That happens a lot in
bazaars. Cathedrals generally don't get too much going wrong but then
not much innovation takes place either.

> Since we all want that OpenOffice.org appears in the best light
> possible, I think we need define some kind of minimum level of
> presence or engagement, in case we decide to go to an event. I'm
> not sure what this minimum level should look like. A simple
> table where 50% of the time nobody is available as a contact
> person because the booth is understaffed, is probably not
> something that puts OpenOffice.org in the best light (I'm not
> saying that this has happened!).

I already suggested that we get some basic art work that can be shipped
to any conference. There really is no reason for a booth to look bad.
For NEA I got a white sheet with a large OOo transfer on it for the
table and that looked perfectly professional in keeping with the other
booths. We did not have such a cover at DLS because no-one particularly
took responsibility for it but its easy to fix, we learnt something. The
artwork was 4 large 2m x 0.7m rolled up paper columns costing £140.
These could easily be shipped anywhere at minimal cost. So we can solve
the problem of a booth looking acceptably professional without breaking
the bank. That's the easy part ;-)

> Another question is, who may say what (as an "official"
> OpenOffice.org representative)?

> It would be useful to have some consistent messaging and a few
> official spokes people, e.g. the marketing project leads,
> community council members and maybe native-lang project leads.
>  From my point of view it does not work if everybody feels
> empowered to represent OpenOffice.org in press interviews
> without engaging an "OpenOffice.org official".

I think this is a bit of a different issue really. On a booth, its
unlikely that you will always have available an "official spokesperson"
unless there are very many of them. Some shows might have press people
there to talk to others don't. We didn't see any press at NEA but there
were press people at DLS. It won't always be predictable either. At LUG
radio, no press but Mark Shuttleworth came up to the booth to talk about
education and FLOSS. I think proven expertise in the target market is
more important than being a project lead when dealing directly with
customers. The best person to sell OOo to a bunch of lawyers is a
lawyer, to teachers a teacher etc. If the show is a sales opportunity
its different from a press conference.  

>  An open source
> project obviously has less boundaries and restrictions than
> a corporate environment, but for example at Sun there are
> very strict policies regarding press interviews, etc., and
> I think these policies make sense. 

They do for a corporate company with a marketing budget and a large
legal department. The difficulty you have with an Open Source community
is that you can't use payment as the incentive to get people to do the
work, you have to be more opportunistic than a corporate needs to be and
you have to have different incentives to motivate volunteers. If Sun
wants you to go to LA to represent them at a show, they will instruct
you to go, pay your expenses and your salary. That is a significant
difference.

> We probably need official
> press kits and press FAQs for those people to hand out who do
> not hold an official OpenOffice.org role. Even the "official
> spokes people" should not be allowed to say anything they
> want to about OpenOffice.org, because wrong or misleading
> statements from them can be very damaging to the project.

How often has this happened so far? I'm just curious, because if you tie
everything up with red tape you need to be sure that the benefit
outweighs the losses. I doubt many people on this list have formally
made press announcements and claimed to represent OOo let alone show it
in a bad light. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

> A question that affects me myself as a Sun employee is, how
> much a sponsoring company (Sun in my case) may promote itself
> when it is officially representing OpenOffice.org.
> 
> Yes, I admit that I do mention Sun and I do let them look good,
> but I typically also try to include most/all other "good citizens",
> i.e. I also mention companies like Novell in my presentations.
> Novell (e.g. Michael Meeks) typicall mentions Sun. If I'm
> supposed to do an OpenOffice.org presentation, I'm not just
> using the StarOffice

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I wonder how many comments will actually come from real OpenOffice.org
contributors or at least people who have expressed serious believable
interest in developing for OpenOffice.org.

I'm personally less interested in philosophical comments from open
source "advocates" who for example do not have to feed their kids with
their OpenOffice.org development work, or at least do not take those
developers into consideration.

Anybody can ask for a GPL and a foundation, but it's not that easy
to solve the related issues, e.g. sponsorship, affected jobs, etc.

I'm again not saying that the GPL or a foundation is bad, but I'm
not a fan of discussions by people who are not (or at least much
less) personally affected (I mean the non-OOo-developers who might
comment to the article).


Best regards,
Erwin



swhiser wrote:

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html

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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Hi,
swhiser wrote:


Charles-
What about the benefit of an open discussion?  There's never been an 
attempt to understand what people really think out in the open.

-Sam

I'm all for open discussions... here, or on any other OOo list. But not 
in the press. What kind of controversy do you want to stirr up exactly? 
Do you think this open discussion, which isn't one really, would serve 
OOo and its image? Especially when I, and others, told you that we're 
all for the GPL? It's a non-issue, but on the outside it is a big one.

Charles.


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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Hello Erwin,

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


Hi all,

Due to the recent discussions there seem to be more general
questions that need to be answered independently of the actual
events and the people going to those events.

For example, is it better being present at an event at all, even if
the presence is poor, than having no presence?

Since we all want that OpenOffice.org appears in the best light
possible, I think we need define some kind of minimum level of
presence or engagement, in case we decide to go to an event. I'm
not sure what this minimum level should look like. A simple
table where 50% of the time nobody is available as a contact
person because the booth is understaffed, is probably not
something that puts OpenOffice.org in the best light (I'm not
saying that this has happened!).

+1. We could also add as a perequisite: at least one computer with OOo 
on it.



Another question is, who may say what (as an "official"
OpenOffice.org representative)?

It would be useful to have some consistent messaging and a few
official spokes people, e.g. the marketing project leads,
community council members and maybe native-lang project leads.
From my point of view it does not work if everybody feels
empowered to represent OpenOffice.org in press interviews
without engaging an "OpenOffice.org official". An open source
project obviously has less boundaries and restrictions than
a corporate environment, but for example at Sun there are
very strict policies regarding press interviews, etc., and
I think these policies make sense. We probably need official
press kits and press FAQs for those people to hand out who do
not hold an official OpenOffice.org role. Even the "official
spokes people" should not be allowed to say anything they
want to about OpenOffice.org, because wrong or misleading
statements from them can be very damaging to the project.



Absolutely yes. In theory, the MarCons and generally the project leads 
are qualified to be representatives. The other people speak only on 
their own behalf. As for Marketing material, I think, although some here 
may have a better idea, that we have to make sure to use:

-the press kit (on the web site it's in the about us section)
-the newest product brochure made for the 2.0.
At least that's how I've seen the FR community behave...



A question that affects me myself as a Sun employee is, how
much a sponsoring company (Sun in my case) may promote itself
when it is officially representing OpenOffice.org.

Yes, I admit that I do mention Sun and I do let them look good,
but I typically also try to include most/all other "good citizens",
i.e. I also mention companies like Novell in my presentations.
Novell (e.g. Michael Meeks) typicall mentions Sun. If I'm
supposed to do an OpenOffice.org presentation, I'm not just
using the StarOffice customer pitch, even though StarOffice
is based on OpenOffice.org and Sun is still the main code
contributor.

Another question might be, what events we "officially" want
to support, i.e. fund with money from Team OpenOffice.org,
mention on the OpenOffice.org home page, etc.


At some point the question would also boil down to this one: how much 
money can we spend on the whole.

Then, I would classify events in the following way:
I. the OpenOffice.org events : OOoCON OOoRegicon, official events made 
by NL projects
II. the FLOSS events: Linux World, Linux Expo, Solutions Linux, local 
events, etc.
III. the other events: the NEA is a good example, but there are others 
of course.


On these three types of events, we should apply the subsidiarity 
principle (EU commission is taking control of my brain). The 
subsidiarity principle means that an event that can be supported (ie.e 
funded) locally, by the corresponding NL projects for instance, has to 
be funded locally. If it can't, the request has to be sent either to the 
Marketing project either to Team OpenOffice.org (this point needs some 
work) who will then see if it can send money or not, and why.  In short, 
subsidiarity means that what can be done and funded locally has to be 
done and funded locally.
Second point, related to the aforementioned policy. Who is in "charge" 
locally of funding or supporting the event. NL project leads or, when 
there's no NL projects, MarCons. If there isn't any MarCon available, 
call either Jacqueline or John and they'll get parachuted over the 
warzone :-) ...


Third point. You saw the three different kinds of events I described 
above. Let's put some priority on them, and let's add some flexibility 
to these priorities.
category I: highest priority. Maximum efforts should be put there. 
Except for OOoCON, the subsidiarity policy applies.
category II: average priority, depending on the context: are we having a 
major release? is there something important we should tell the world 
about?  subsidiarity applies there too.
category III: education events are important, but we should make sure 
that we wouldn't make a mistake in going there (sometimes 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Adam Moore]

On 8/30/05, Charles-H.Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> Thank you Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.
> Charles.
> 
> swhiser wrote:
> 
> > http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html
> >
> 
> 
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> 
> 
I think the post is somewhat reasonable. It doesn't cast anything in a bad 
light and it gives us an idea of what people out their want. He also makes 
sure he's not acting as a representative of OpenOffice.

-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Charles-H.Schulz wrote:


Thank you Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.
Charles.





Charles-
You sound threatened.  I don't understand that reaction.
-Sam



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Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

Charles-H.Schulz wrote:


Thank you Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.
Charles.

swhiser wrote:


http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html




Charles-
What about the benefit of an open discussion?  There's never been an 
attempt to understand what people really think out in the open.

-Sam





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Re: [Marketing] Questions around events

[Adam Moore]

Excllent topic Erwin.

On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Due to the recent discussions there seem to be more general
> questions that need to be answered independently of the actual
> events and the people going to those events.
> 
> For example, is it better being present at an event at all, even if
> the presence is poor, than having no presence?

 Not if the presence is poor, but at the NEA conference with about 5000 
people through the exhibiting booths Ian and I were able to handle it well. 
I don't think at any of these conferences we get inundated with people. 3 
would probably be best so when lunches or bathroom breaks are necessary we 
have at least 2 people at the booth.

Since we all want that OpenOffice.org appears in the best light
> possible, I think we need define some kind of minimum level of
> presence or engagement, in case we decide to go to an event. I'm
> not sure what this minimum level should look like. A simple
> table where 50% of the time nobody is available as a contact
> person because the booth is understaffed, is probably not
> something that puts OpenOffice.org in the best light (I'm not
> saying that this has happened!).

 See above.
 
Another question is, who may say what (as an "official"
> OpenOffice.org representative)?
> 
> It would be useful to have some consistent messaging and a few
> official spokes people, e.g. the marketing project leads,
> community council members and maybe native-lang project leads.
> From my point of view it does not work if everybody feels
> empowered to represent OpenOffice.org in press interviews
> without engaging an "OpenOffice.org official". An open source
> project obviously has less boundaries and restrictions than
> a corporate environment, but for example at Sun there are
> very strict policies regarding press interviews, etc., and
> I think these policies make sense. We probably need official
> press kits and press FAQs for those people to hand out who do
> not hold an official OpenOffice.org role. Even the "official
> spokes people" should not be allowed to say anything they
> want to about OpenOffice.org, because wrong or misleading
> statements from them can be very damaging to the project.

 This I completely understand and is something that I struggle with 
understanding for myself. That said our PR work is not very good right now. 
I have posted for people to join me in increasing our PR with press and have 
gotten little response other than to say I'm posting to the wrong list and 
the only list they tell me to post to they say is not used anymore. I would 
hope to have a better response to this at least from the leads. As of now I 
don't know if anyone has contacts with the press and how they are using 
them. But I do know that I really only see Louis quoted in articles. I would 
like to hear from Bruce Byfield who he contacts to get information and what 
type of people in the organization interests him to quote.
 
A question that affects me myself as a Sun employee is, how
> much a sponsoring company (Sun in my case) may promote itself
> when it is officially representing OpenOffice.org.
> 
> Yes, I admit that I do mention Sun and I do let them look good,
> but I typically also try to include most/all other "good citizens",
> i.e. I also mention companies like Novell in my presentations.
> Novell (e.g. Michael Meeks) typicall mentions Sun. If I'm
> supposed to do an OpenOffice.org presentation, I'm not just
> using the StarOffice customer pitch, even though StarOffice
> is based on OpenOffice.org and Sun is still the main code
> contributor.

 Here are my thoughts on this. We don't sell a product. We make more money 
by Novell selling their product and Sun selling StarOffice. We get this 
money by them wanting to put development time back into OpenOffice. The 
unfortunate part is the ones that don't give back to the OpenOffice 
community at large. But those probably wouldn't sponsor nor at as an 
official for openoffice. 
 
Another question might be, what events we "officially" want
> to support, i.e. fund with money from Team OpenOffice.org,
> mention on the OpenOffice.org home page, etc.
> 
> There are probably some key events that we should focus on.
> I'm not sure what the selection criteria should be, but
> enough local "human resources" could be one since flying
> people from Germany to India or from Russia to the US just
> to do booth duty is probably to expensive, at least if
> these people receive some kind of sponsorship.

 Absolutely understandable. This is completely unofficial, but it seems we 
have the most people in Western Europe, India, Australia, USA, and I am sure 
there is a good South American country that I can't think of. These are the 
places I think we should focus on as a whole. For places like Japan I think 
the native language projects are the ones to look into these.
 Here is how I feel we should advance with this. Have 4 Main conferences we 
go to every 

Re: [Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Thank you Sam for this fine mess. That's what I call a disservice.
Charles.

swhiser wrote:


http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html




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[Marketing] Request developers' comments on OpenOffice under GPL

[swhiser]

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/42367/index.html

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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Hi,

Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:


redundant effort; look at Firefox pulling away.



BTW, why don't you spend your time on FireFox then?


Erwin, that would be a curse for them...
Sam, I guess everybody here should be ready to listen to critics, and 
FWIW I think that if there is something on which everyone agrees here is 
that we should go towards GPL and a foundation. Sorry, it's not a new 
idea here.
But this is not a reason to insult people and projects like you do, 
especially with pseudo or grossly-drawn arguments such as the Sun-CIA 
conspiracy against OOo, pretendly prohibiting licenses and whatever else 
you have in mind.
You know Sam, critics are easier than action. So let's talk about 
mismanagement, as you seem prone to point out its weaknesses. Let's talk 
about YOUR management of the Marketing Project and see how great it was 
by then. If it wasn't so pathetic I'd be rolling on the floor laughing.


Charles.



Erwin




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[Marketing] Fwd: Google Alert - OpenOffice

[Ryan Singer]

It begins.
-- Forwarded message --
From: Google Alerts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Aug 29, 2005 7:57 PM
Subject: Google Alert - OpenOffice
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Google Alert for: *OpenOffice*

Setting up *OpenOffice*.org with Sun Java on FC4
64
NewsForge - USA
Unfortunately *OpenOffice*.org 2.0 beta does not work very well with GCJ. 
For example, the *OpenOffice*.org Base component crashes when *...* 

*OPENOFFICE*.ORG ANNOUNCES VERSION 2.0 PUBLIC BETA
2
Linux PR (press release) - Darien,CT,USA
The *OpenOffice*.org project is pleased to announce that the second public 
beta release of *OpenOffice*.org 2.0 is now available for download. *...* 

*OpenOffice* 2.0 vs. MS Office
Review
Slashdot - USA
trewornan writes "There's an interesting, if partisan, review of *OpenOffice
* 2.0 in comparison to Microsoft Office over on Real Tech News. *...* 

*OpenOffice* 2.0 Beta 2
Released
TechSpot - USA
*...* this. *OpenOffice*, a free office suite developed by Sun Microsystems 
for those not in the know, is now in Beta 2 of the 2.0 release. *...* 

Gartner pours cold water on enterprise Linux
desktops
LinuxWorld.au - St Leonards,Australia
A recent report by analyst firm Gartner says that despite recent hype around 
open source desktop software, technologies such as Linux and *OpenOffice*.org 
are *...* 

--
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Ryan Singer

Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[shiser]

Quoting Adam Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:


I think good english translation would be.

If you say so..


 >

 I think "gross mismanagement" is too strong and broad a statement
and would like to appologize to those at Sun who would
unintentionally be included under that rash umbrella.

 I believe that Sun community managers do a good job with the
material at their disposal.  Rather it is structural problems that
may need correction and in partuicular certain stifling influences
among the volunteers that are detrimental to the success of the
project.

 -Sam


On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> The gross mismanagement of this project -- leaving aside its bad
> structure -- is too big an insult to ignore.

If you think ...
( I could not find a better translation for "Wenn Du meinst ...".)

Erwin




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--
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com

[Marketing] Questions around events

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

Hi all,

Due to the recent discussions there seem to be more general
questions that need to be answered independently of the actual
events and the people going to those events.

For example, is it better being present at an event at all, even if
the presence is poor, than having no presence?

Since we all want that OpenOffice.org appears in the best light
possible, I think we need define some kind of minimum level of
presence or engagement, in case we decide to go to an event. I'm
not sure what this minimum level should look like. A simple
table where 50% of the time nobody is available as a contact
person because the booth is understaffed, is probably not
something that puts OpenOffice.org in the best light (I'm not
saying that this has happened!).

Another question is, who may say what (as an "official"
OpenOffice.org representative)?

It would be useful to have some consistent messaging and a few
official spokes people, e.g. the marketing project leads,
community council members and maybe native-lang project leads.
From my point of view it does not work if everybody feels
empowered to represent OpenOffice.org in press interviews
without engaging an "OpenOffice.org official". An open source
project obviously has less boundaries and restrictions than
a corporate environment, but for example at Sun there are
very strict policies regarding press interviews, etc., and
I think these policies make sense. We probably need official
press kits and press FAQs for those people to hand out who do
not hold an official OpenOffice.org role. Even the "official
spokes people" should not be allowed to say anything they
want to about OpenOffice.org, because wrong or misleading
statements from them can be very damaging to the project.

A question that affects me myself as a Sun employee is, how
much a sponsoring company (Sun in my case) may promote itself
when it is officially representing OpenOffice.org.

Yes, I admit that I do mention Sun and I do let them look good,
but I typically also try to include most/all other "good citizens",
i.e. I also mention companies like Novell in my presentations.
Novell (e.g. Michael Meeks) typicall mentions Sun. If I'm
supposed to do an OpenOffice.org presentation, I'm not just
using the StarOffice customer pitch, even though StarOffice
is based on OpenOffice.org and Sun is still the main code
contributor.

Another question might be, what events we "officially" want
to support, i.e. fund with money from Team OpenOffice.org,
mention on the OpenOffice.org home page, etc.

There are probably some key events that we should focus on.
I'm not sure what the selection criteria should be, but
enough local "human resources" could be one since flying
people from Germany to India or from Russia to the US just
to do booth duty is probably to expensive, at least if
these people receive some kind of sponsorship.


I'm looking forward to you open and friendly feedback as
well as your proposals how to answer these questions!


All the best,
Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Adam Moore]

I think good english translation would be.

If you say so..

On 8/30/05, Erwin Tenhumberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > The gross mismanagement of this project -- leaving aside its bad
> > structure -- is too big an insult to ignore.
> 
> If you think ...
> ( I could not find a better translation for "Wenn Du meinst ...".)
> 
> Erwin
> 
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 


-- 
Adam Moore
Community Volunteer
OOo blog: AdamMooreOOo.blogspot.com 

Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

The gross mismanagement of this project -- leaving aside its bad 
structure -- is too big an insult to ignore.


If you think ...
( I could not find a better translation for "Wenn Du meinst ...".)

Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

redundant effort; look at Firefox pulling away.


BTW, why don't you spend your time on FireFox then?

Erwin


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 08:38 -0400, swhiser wrote:

> The great amount of attention on OOoCon, RegiCon and WhatHaveYouCon 
> would be better spent generating networks and coordinating 
> communications outside The Little OOo Black Box to mainstream 
> publications, schools and universities who do not know OOo exists.

We need both. One is not exclusively better than the other. Its true
that we have a limit on resources but some things don't take too much
effort for a relatively good pay back - I'd say NEA falls into that
category because it got OOo to hundreds of people who did not know it
existed. DLS and OOoConf are a bit different but still important. It is
important to have a main conference. Face to face meetings are important
- that is why there needs to be opportunities for this outside Europe.
The USA is a big place so there is even a case for get togethers in
different places. If these can double up with getting OOo to new
potential users, especially connectors with many other people as is the
case with schools, its simply more efficient.

> The idea of cultivating developers for OOo -- given that the licenses 
> are repellant to developers who are not corporations -- is like pouring 
> dust on a dried out plant with hopes of reviving it.

I think that the strategies so far to get developers in have not been
particularly successful. The reasons are difficult to be sure about. But
it might be an idea to think of some new ones.

> I fear this is what Sun/Microsoft want of OOo, to leave room for the 
> StarOffice brand,

Star Office brand isn't going to me much good without OOo. Star Office
is just another office suite. OOo is what makes it compelling as a
standard.

>  but sadly this is a self-immolating strategy. It is 
> one reason why GPL'ing and restructuring the project through a 
> foundation may be the only way to make it effective again.

Personally I would be in favour of GPL and a foundation but that depends
on someone having sufficient resources to do it. At the moment that is
just Sun. Unless someone else comes along with comparable resources to
Sun or Sun decides its a good idea its not going to happen.

>  Look at the 
> release slippage; 

Since when did any software project not slip ;-)

> look at the code bloat; look at the forks producing 
> redundant effort; look at Firefox pulling away.

Code bloat is no worse than the main competitor but it is an area to
consider improvement. Its one of the subjects for a presentation at
OOoConf. Forks could be an issue and disenchantment is always going to
make that more likely. However to be effective a fork is going to have
to have corporate backing like with IBM. Firefox is doing well, good
luck to them.

> I hope describing these serious and fundamental problems, places this 
> thread in the StrangeLovian light it belongs.

Problems are there to be solved. Some things you can do something about,
some you can't. The key is in knowing which is which.

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Erwin Tenhumberg]

I fear this is what Sun/Microsoft want of OOo, to leave room for the 
StarOffice brand, but sadly this is a self-immolating strategy. It is 


Please, not the paranoid Sun/Microsoft story again! Sun could have
easily pulled out all engineers if Sun had wanted to.

one reason why GPL'ing and restructuring the project through a 
foundation may be the only way to make it effective again.  Look at the 


I'm not a Sun executive, and therefore I'm not the one who could
make such a decision, but from my past messages and conversations
people should know that I am generally open to the idea of a
foundation. However, so far I haven't seen a solid business case
for a foundation and AFAIK Sun has not been approached by any major
vendors who seriously wanted to support a foundation.

release slippage; look at the code bloat; look at the forks producing 


Like you Sam, I'm not an OpenOffice.org "hacker". Thus, I don't
know all the details, but I can say for sure (and various community
members have confirmed this) that past OpenOffice.org 2.0 builds
had some serious stability issues. I'm not sure how a different
license or a foundation would have helped here.

In addition, some OpenOffice.org build environments may appear
more open than Sun's, but Sun in contrast has to care about more
than just one platform.


All the best,
Erwin




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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[swhiser]

Ian Lynch wrote:


On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 22:06 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:

 

Jean, no one is saying, least of all me, that an excellent benefit of  
a hosting a booth at a conference is not community building.  It  
partly depends on the conference, of course.  Having a booth at a  
conference is fun, stressful, interesting, engaging; and the  
camaraderie created there is quite valuable: I have been to *many*  
conferences and manned many booths, and can speak to the connections  
formed there.
   



As can many of us. Seems a bit of an irony that the main function of
OOoconf is community building and seen as valuable in its own right yet
holding a miniconf at DLS with a booth isn't.

 

 But community building was not the focus.  The focus  
was representing OOo and what it can do and leveraging our presence  
there as much as possible so that the project could benefit.  Thus,  
community building was a "side benefit" though "obviously important,"  
to quote myself :-)
   



This seems to me too rigid a way of looking at things. What matters is
the outcome. If the side benefit turned out to be a major benefit why
worry if that was not the original priority? If the original plan was
not wholly successful in meeting its objectives what can be done to
learn from that and improve? The difference is one of approach, a
negative controlling view that suppresses the energy of the volunteers
or a positive view that taps into that energy and levers it. 

 

Of course, for a conference like OOoCon, part of the point is  
community building.  And the community, the OOo community, is  
implicated in it, even those who are not attending.
   



So we have all, I guess promoted OOoCon in our relevant circles whether
attending or not. That seems to be the main thing Erwin says needs
doing. Probably the most effective thing to do would be to regularly
post notices to the lists reminding people to keep the publicity going.
So why does every marketing initiative have to cease in a global project
because there is an important event taking place? 

 


I do hope I clarified things.
   



Hmmm

 


Cheers,
Louis
   

The great amount of attention on OOoCon, RegiCon and WhatHaveYouCon 
would be better spent generating networks and coordinating 
communications outside The Little OOo Black Box to mainstream 
publications, schools and universities who do not know OOo exists. While 
there are pockets of enlightened folks doing things effectively, the 
lists are drawing attention toward activities that are not effective for 
the what OOo is good for -- helping normal people replace a very bad vendor.


The idea of cultivating developers for OOo -- given that the licenses 
are repellant to developers who are not corporations -- is like pouring 
dust on a dried out plant with hopes of reviving it.


I fear this is what Sun/Microsoft want of OOo, to leave room for the 
StarOffice brand, but sadly this is a self-immolating strategy. It is 
one reason why GPL'ing and restructuring the project through a 
foundation may be the only way to make it effective again.  Look at the 
release slippage; look at the code bloat; look at the forks producing 
redundant effort; look at Firefox pulling away.


I hope describing these serious and fundamental problems, places this 
thread in the StrangeLovian light it belongs.


As Louis says, "Cheers"
-Sam

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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Ian Lynch]

On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 22:06 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:

> Jean, no one is saying, least of all me, that an excellent benefit of  
> a hosting a booth at a conference is not community building.  It  
> partly depends on the conference, of course.  Having a booth at a  
> conference is fun, stressful, interesting, engaging; and the  
> camaraderie created there is quite valuable: I have been to *many*  
> conferences and manned many booths, and can speak to the connections  
> formed there.

As can many of us. Seems a bit of an irony that the main function of
OOoconf is community building and seen as valuable in its own right yet
holding a miniconf at DLS with a booth isn't.

>   But community building was not the focus.  The focus  
> was representing OOo and what it can do and leveraging our presence  
> there as much as possible so that the project could benefit.  Thus,  
> community building was a "side benefit" though "obviously important,"  
> to quote myself :-)

This seems to me too rigid a way of looking at things. What matters is
the outcome. If the side benefit turned out to be a major benefit why
worry if that was not the original priority? If the original plan was
not wholly successful in meeting its objectives what can be done to
learn from that and improve? The difference is one of approach, a
negative controlling view that suppresses the energy of the volunteers
or a positive view that taps into that energy and levers it. 

> Of course, for a conference like OOoCon, part of the point is  
> community building.  And the community, the OOo community, is  
> implicated in it, even those who are not attending.

So we have all, I guess promoted OOoCon in our relevant circles whether
attending or not. That seems to be the main thing Erwin says needs
doing. Probably the most effective thing to do would be to regularly
post notices to the lists reminding people to keep the publicity going.
So why does every marketing initiative have to cease in a global project
because there is an important event taking place? 

> I do hope I clarified things.

Hmmm

> Cheers,
> Louis
-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[swhiser]

Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:


Hi,
On Aug 29, 2005, at 9:12 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:


Daniel Carrera wrote:


Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
Daniel Carrera wrote:

Do you feel that team-building within the community is  
unimportant?  For an open source project, I think that this sort  
of interaction  between members is very important. After all,  
"fun" and "community"  are the primary motivators for almost any  
volunteer.




It's obviously important but ought not to be seen as the primary   
reason for funding a conference.  It is usually seen as a side  
benefit.


I guess I rank community contact higher than you then. Because I  
think that it's significantly more than a "side benefit".




+1

Attracting and motivating volunteers seem to me to be absolutely  
essential for a project like OOo, given that everyone around OOo  
keeps complaining that they don't have enough people to do what  
needs to be done.


There are many ways to do attract and motivate volunteers; in my  
experience, interaction at conferences is a very important one of  
those ways.


Jean

Jean, no one is saying, least of all me, that an excellent benefit of  
a hosting a booth at a conference is not community building.  It  
partly depends on the conference, of course.  Having a booth at a  
conference is fun, stressful, interesting, engaging; and the  
camaraderie created there is quite valuable: I have been to *many*  
conferences and manned many booths, and can speak to the connections  
formed there.  But community building was not the focus.  The focus  
was representing OOo and what it can do and leveraging our presence  
there as much as possible so that the project could benefit.  Thus,  
community building was a "side benefit" though "obviously important,"  
to quote myself :-)




Louis-  You're chasing your tail.
-Sam



Of course, for a conference like OOoCon, part of the point is  
community building.  And the community, the OOo community, is  
implicated in it, even those who are not attending.


I do hope I clarified things.

Cheers,
Louis


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Re: [Marketing] Re: [marketing-events] Desktop linux summit

[Charles-H.Schulz]

Eric, Louis,

drop it. It's just Sam. "Everything that is exaggerated is 
non-existent", once wrote Talleyrand...


Best,
Charles.

Eric Renaud wrote:



This strident kind of exchange is one of the reasons OOo has 
difficulty. OOo is not sexy to the outside world and it's really not 
fun to have LS_P's pedantic hot breath on one's neck on the inside.

-Sam




Can we (any of us) not get personal?   And while I don't want to 
promote bickering - if you have to somehow vent to someone, send it 
directly to that person, not

the list.  No one appreciates being insulted in public . . .

Eric




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