Re: You lost a new Ubuntu user
With respect of the cost of pressed CDs vs DVDs for shipit, I don't know how much they cost. However, some newspapers in the UK give away DVDs with their newspapers, of course they may be advertising subsidized to offset the cost. Cost of printing DVD is equal of CDs (as far as I know), so I think the right way to solve this is to offer to buy or order for free (like ship it) DVD instead of CD (but leaving CD also as a choice). Also I would suggest to have monthly or three-monthly CDs with updates for main (which could be commercial offering) so users who just want to up to date their systems can get it, throw it in, read some legal yada yada yada, click agree, enter their password (if they're admins) and vola, their system get's updated. More or less harsh lesson of this thread is that lot of people still have dialups or even don't have stable Internet connection at all - or it is very costly (there are countries were they still pay about local traffic too, in Mb/$n). It would rock that Ubuntu/Cannonical could offer them some help - even for fee. Just my two euro cents, Peter. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: You lost a new Ubuntu user
2008/12/29 Peteris Krisjanis pec...@gmail.com: Cost of printing DVD is equal of CDs (as far as I know), so I think the right way to solve this is to offer to buy or order for free (like ship it) DVD instead of CD (but leaving CD also as a choice). Also I would suggest to have monthly or three-monthly CDs with updates for main (which could be commercial offering) so users who just want to up to date their systems can get it, throw it in, read some legal yada yada yada, click agree, enter their password (if they're admins) and vola, their system get's updated. More or less harsh lesson of this thread is that lot of people still have dialups or even don't have stable Internet connection at all - or it is very costly (there are countries were they still pay about local traffic too, in Mb/$n). It would rock that Ubuntu/Cannonical could offer them some help - even for fee. Just my two euro cents, Peter. Lots of old computers have only CD drives, no DVD drive. That's bitten me at least three times, back when I was installing Fedora instead of Ubuntu for people, and the computer wouldn't read the disc! -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת ا-ب-ت-ث-ج-ح-خ-د-ذ-ر-ز-س-ش-ص-ض-ط-ظ-ع-غ-ف-ق-ك-ل-م-ن-ه-و-ي А-Б-В-Г-Д-Е-Ё-Ж-З-И-Й-К-Л-М-Н-О-П-Р-С-Т-У-Ф-Х-Ц-Ч-Ш-Щ-Ъ-Ы-Ь-Э-Ю-Я а-б-в-г-д-е-ё-ж-з-и-й-к-л-м-н-о-п-р-с-т-у-ф-х-ц-ч-ш-щ-ъ-ы-ь-э-ю-я ä-ö-ü-ß-Ä-Ö-Ü -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: You lost a new Ubuntu user
Dotan Cohen wrote: 2008/12/29 Peteris Krisjanis pec...@gmail.com: Cost of printing DVD is equal of CDs (as far as I know), so I think the right way to solve this is to offer to buy or order for free (like ship it) DVD instead of CD (but leaving CD also as a choice). Also I would suggest to have monthly or three-monthly CDs with updates for main (which could be commercial offering) so users who just want to up to date their systems can get it, throw it in, read some legal yada yada yada, click agree, enter their password (if they're admins) and vola, their system get's updated. More or less harsh lesson of this thread is that lot of people still have dialups or even don't have stable Internet connection at all - or it is very costly (there are countries were they still pay about local traffic too, in Mb/$n). It would rock that Ubuntu/Cannonical could offer them some help - even for fee. Just my two euro cents, Peter. Lots of old computers have only CD drives, no DVD drive. That's bitten me at least three times, back when I was installing Fedora instead of Ubuntu for people, and the computer wouldn't read the disc! In such a scenario we can have an option of CD or DVD when we order via shipit. -- Manish Sinha Personal Blog: http://www.manishsinha.info Tech Blog: http://manishtech.wordpress.com OpenPGP Key: 99E6658F -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: You lost a new Ubuntu user
2008/12/29 Dotan Cohen dotanco...@gmail.com: 2008/12/29 Peteris Krisjanis pec...@gmail.com: Cost of printing DVD is equal of CDs (as far as I know), so I think the right way to solve this is to offer to buy or order for free (like ship it) DVD instead of CD (but leaving CD also as a choice). Also I would suggest to have monthly or three-monthly CDs with updates for main (which could be commercial offering) so users who just want to up to date their systems can get it, throw it in, read some legal yada yada yada, click agree, enter their password (if they're admins) and vola, their system get's updated. More or less harsh lesson of this thread is that lot of people still have dialups or even don't have stable Internet connection at all - or it is very costly (there are countries were they still pay about local traffic too, in Mb/$n). It would rock that Ubuntu/Cannonical could offer them some help - even for fee. Just my two euro cents, Peter. Lots of old computers have only CD drives, no DVD drive. That's bitten me at least three times, back when I was installing Fedora instead of Ubuntu for people, and the computer wouldn't read the disc! So this corner case would be that user: a) doesn't have DVD reader; b) doesn't have good Internet connection; So only solution to such scenario is multi disc installation, two disc with most important software from 'main' and third for translation stuff, for example. As far as I know it wouldn't require Earth shattering changes in code to allow this (Just have correct /etc/apt/sources.list and preloaded package list). Question is - do Ubuntu community has resources to help such users? Maybe someone has already started blueprint according to this problem? Anyway, I agree that there is lot of such users in the world and in long term Ubuntu and it's ecosystem would only benefit of having solution of installing/upgrading Ubuntu via offline means. Another my two cents, Peter. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Outdated binaries in the archive due to Packages-arch-specific or FTBFS
There are quite a number of outdated binaries in the archive in universe, which is not covered by the current britney outdate report. A significant portion of these are outdate because Packages-arch-specific masks them preventing any new builds, but the old binaries have not been removed from the archive. I've made a list of all packages which were outdate in intrepid and are still outdate in jaunty, and now want to start filing bugs against them - what should I do in these bugs: Subscribe ubuntu-archive for NBS processing, or leave them for a MOTU/core-dev to ack the need for NBS removal? If the second, is there some way the bugs should be tagged as relating to archive cleanliness, so they can be usefully queried for? The outdates which are not due to Packages-arch-specific are generally FTBFS bugs - there are even some packages which have been FTBFS since hoary (!). When a package has been FTBFS for a long time, is there some way to mark the FTBFS bug such that the outdated binaries will get removed before Jaunty is released, if no one has got around to fixing them? Max. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: You lost a new Ubuntu user
On Mon, 2008-12-29 at 19:53 +, Richard Tattersall wrote: I dont feel that the time is quite right to move to having the default release as a DVD. Why not have more than one default release? Ok it sounds tricky but if the DVD release is simply a superset of the CD it should not be much more work. As I said before, with 16 gig USB drives becoming common and netbooks with entirely solid stat storage it would be really neat to buy a solid state disc with Ubuntu and all the popular apps pre-installed and just insert it into your machine. A lot of people would pay for that convenience and it's something tat would e pretty well impossible to do with proprietary software. Obviously at some point in the future as the code increases this will have to happen, but surely this should be a decision taken by the core developers only when they feel that trying to make it fit on a CD will mean removing too much of the core functionality to make it a viable out-of-the-box desktop experience. Much of the usefulness and charm of Ubuntu comes from it maintaining its relatively small size and handyness, even on older systems. As a small aside, i also fear that moving to a DVD too early may result in unessesary bloat. To an extent one man's bloat is another's essential feature :-) Is it not possible to release cd images with a default language other than english? Surely the most logical solution would be to have a separate .iso released for handful of the most common languages. I am not familiar with how translation in software really works so please correct me if I am barking up the wrong tree here. Not sure with Ubuntu but OOo has separate localisation projects and each project can produce it's own ISO if it wants to. I would also like to lend support to the idea of asking the user before the installer connects to the internet. Although it may seem trivial to some people, I see it as simply being polite. I dont want to feel like my OS thinks it knows what I want better than I do. Agreed. I think this is a bit of a different issue really because updates would still be needed whatever the size of the default install. A simple dialog along these lines would suffice, and help the user to feel like they are using an OS, not the other way around: To install the the following components you have selected, extra packages must be downloaded from the internet: packages To install these now, please click continue. If you do not wish to install these right now, please click install later continueinstall later -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Go-OOO.org?
I was considering filing a bug for package request or creating a spec for Go-Ooo.org for inclusion in Ubuntu, or possibly as a replacement for OpenOffice.org vanilla. Start-up time is faster and feature set is expanded. There seems to be some contention between the world in general and Sun over OOo; people have forked or threatened to fork the project several times, and Go-OOo seems to be the most active as far as I can tell. I'm not sure where this will lead in the future-- possibly to a stagnating OOo from Sun and then to a completely different office suite, or possibly to a new fork, or possibly to Go-OOo, or possibly to some improvement in community view and/or management of Sun's OOo-- but I think the current political atmosphere and the availability of a more featureful fork warrants some investigation. Has anyone else tried this thing? I'm curious to know any opinions (political and technical, but please if you must pick one than go more technical than political) on the software, as well as any better or more active forks out there, or other viable alternatives entirely. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Go-OOO.org?
Check the detailed description of the openoffice.org base package. The second last line of the long entry specifies that it is Go-oo.org -- Bruce Miller, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada br...@brmiller.ca; (613) 745-1151 George Bernard Shaw famously said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. Translation software designers have listened. I have one where the default source language is en_US and the default target language is en_GB. From: John Moser john.r.mo...@gmail.com To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 5:00:43 PM Subject: Re: Go-OOO.org? On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:48 PM, John Moser john.r.mo...@gmail.com wrote: I was considering filing a bug for package request or creating a spec for Go-Ooo.org for inclusion in Ubuntu, or possibly as a replacement for OpenOffice.org vanilla. Aaaand some more googling around brings up claims that the version in Ubuntu's repositories -is- Go-oo ... https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+question/14965 That threw me, because Go-oo purports to not be Sun branded, and Ubuntu's OOo splash screen uses Sun's branding last I checked... Ah well. The question still stands. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Go-OOO.org?
I wouldn't suggest such a change right now for a few reasons: a) Open Office (and its derivatives I assume) is a bear to package. Transition packages between releases open up more points of failure. Will Go-Ooo.org last, or die in 2 months? Given that it's not clear whether the fork or upstream will win out, I don't think it's a good idea, as we may end up switching right back again next release, with nothing to show for it but a lot of aggravation and borked upgrades. b) Ubuntu's garnered quite a bit of favor from Sun. The recent releases include much better integration with Java, and we're starting to see collaborative efforts like Nexenta. Kicking out Open Office might be considered as telling Sun to shove off. c) Open Office has name recognition. Not as much as Firefox, but enough for losing it to hurt. d) We're already using some of Go-Ooo.org's patches. If there's more features you want, more patches can be used. Eventually this won't be maintainable, but for now I think it makes sense to patch in the features while keeping Open Office. That said, I think that Open Office is slowing taking on water, and I'll be giving Go-Ooo.org a try. Their site claims that their spreadsheet formulas are more compatible with Excel, which was my mother's biggest complaint about Open Office. I'm intrigued, but I think it should be put up for consideration for Jaunty+1, or at the most packaged beside Open Office for Jaunty. Are any other distros jumping ship on Open Office? Joe Terranova On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:48 PM, John Moser john.r.mo...@gmail.com wrote: I was considering filing a bug for package request or creating a spec for Go-Ooo.org for inclusion in Ubuntu, or possibly as a replacement for OpenOffice.org vanilla. Start-up time is faster and feature set is expanded. There seems to be some contention between the world in general and Sun over OOo; people have forked or threatened to fork the project several times, and Go-OOo seems to be the most active as far as I can tell. I'm not sure where this will lead in the future-- possibly to a stagnating OOo from Sun and then to a completely different office suite, or possibly to a new fork, or possibly to Go-OOo, or possibly to some improvement in community view and/or management of Sun's OOo-- but I think the current political atmosphere and the availability of a more featureful fork warrants some investigation. Has anyone else tried this thing? I'm curious to know any opinions (political and technical, but please if you must pick one than go more technical than political) on the software, as well as any better or more active forks out there, or other viable alternatives entirely. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Go-OOO.org?
On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Joe Terranova joeterran...@gmail.com wrote: I wouldn't suggest such a change right now for a few reasons: a) Open Office (and its derivatives I assume) is a bear to package. Transition packages between releases open up more points of failure. Aye, I'm not sure why I mentioned the possibility of replacing OOo with it; the nebulous thought path I was trying to put forth was something akin to put Go-OO in Universe, as a 'replaces OOo' or 'supplies OOo' with the possibility that if A) it's more favored, or B) Sun sinks, it can be promoted to replace OOo in Main some time in one possible future. It's too early to make a push for replacing OOo, just I'm curious on the advantages of Go-OO as a base package versus OOo. b) Ubuntu's garnered quite a bit of favor from Sun. The recent releases include much better integration with Java, and we're starting to see collaborative efforts like Nexenta. Kicking out Open Office might be considered as telling Sun to shove off. I see your point; however, consider the political atmosphere for a second: the current purported situation is that Sun basically gets open source code (solver, MacOSX interface, etc) submitted to it, tells the developers to shove off, then writes their own. If that -is- the behavior of Sun, and the community is only begrudgingly accepting it, and a particular fork can provide a healthier package, what then? I am not taking sides here (yet); the above is what I've heard, it may be surrounded by hyperbole propaganda, typical for any political issue. What I will say is this: at the point where a vendor partnership starts costing you technically, I favor technical improvement over vendor favor and marketing BS. Use OOo if OOo is good; if it really starts to fall to pieces, jump ship. c) Open Office has name recognition. Not as much as Firefox, but enough for losing it to hurt. Ubuntu has name recognition. Shipping Go-OO with OpenOffice.org and no reference to Sun on the splash screen will look rather status-quo to most; flat out branding it as Go-OO with a link to Go-OO.org on the splash screen will make a few people go huh? and drive up popularity of Go-OO, with the icons, UI, and names of the components being familiar enough (since they're, you know, the same application) that people will likely barely actually notice. That, of course, makes this a political topic as much as a technical one; Ubuntu is as much an 800 pound gorilla as Dell. Imagine Dell advertising that -any- Dell Dimension Desktop comes with either Windows Vista or Ubuntu Linux -on TV-! Actually shipping Go-OO in the default install would have to be a very carefully considered decision, both for the reason you gave, and for the reason I gave. By the by, here's the default Go-OO splash screen: http://ashuboss99.googlepages.com/Go-OOSplashScreen.png d) We're already using some of Go-Ooo.org's patches. If there's more features you want, more patches can be used. Eventually this won't be maintainable, but for now I think it makes sense to patch in the features while keeping Open Office. Ah ok, that clears up some confusion for me (I found evidence that Ubuntu's OOo is Go-OO, but it's still branded as Sun OOo). Or creates some. I've heard both ways and it's been pointed out here that Ubuntu uses go-oo (in whole or in part is nebulous to me). openoffice.org (1:2.4.1-8) unstable; urgency=high * debian/control.in: - Homepage: http://www.go-oo.org, thanks Renato Yamane The long-term eventual decision is going to be either A) stick with OOo, with as minimal patches as possible (likely); or B) pick a fork (like Go-OO), and apply as minimal patches as possible (unlikely). I've been hearing that Sun sucks and they're destroying OpenOffice.org and the community hates them and there's severe defects in the whole thing and everyone needs to have their own OOo fork about every 2 or 3 months for the past year and a half at least, so I'm thinking it might be a little out of proportion but then again there may be some truth to it That said, I think that Open Office is slowing taking on water, and I'll be giving Go-Ooo.org a try. See above comment. Emphasis on slowly but yeah, that's what I hear. Their site claims that their spreadsheet formulas are more compatible with Excel, which was my mother's biggest complaint about Open Office. I'm intrigued, but I think it should be put up for consideration for Jaunty+1, or at the most packaged beside Open Office for Jaunty. Are any other distros jumping ship on Open Office? I'm with Universe, just because I personally want to play with and compare. Replacing OOo with a fork in main in Jaunty+1 would probably be too fast unless Sun goes from getting community criticism to blatant major asshole mode somehow, or unless we wake up one day to see Shuttleworth has written a 5 page blog entry about how awesome Go-OO/OxygenOffice/whatever is. Debian seems to use the same as
Re: Go-OOO.org?
Speaking as someone with a strictly armchair interest in this topic, I'd like to make a few observations here - The way (non-Sun) people talk about OO.o reminds me of the way people used to talk about the pre-Firefox Mozilla project - worthy and important, but with low developer morale due to an ugly, hostile codebase. A certain amount of mud will always get slung at a project of OO.o's size, and Sun often have valid excuses for the mud that gets thrown their way, but I've never heard a community member stand up and defend Sun's behaviour, or give examples of how Sun went the extra mile to help them out. That silence speaks more to me than the noise on the other side. The evidence seems to be that when Sun's OO.o team makes its mind up, only action can force them to change it - you can't debate them into a better solution. As such, it's important that other players in the OO.o game have a good set of actions available to them. Go-oo is one such action, giving community developers an easier target for adoption of their code - somewhat analogous to Andrew Morton's branch of Linux. Go-oo also makes further actions possible - some subtle, some drastic. Developing a good vocabulary of actions will be important in order to improve the development process without suffering the upheaval that would come from an x.org-style fork. Towards the subtle end of the scale, Go-oo makes it possible to start referring to the Sun codebase as Sun's tree rather than upstream, forcing Sun to earn their reputation as the true version of OO.o. Towards the drastic end of the scale, Go-oo could request that Sun pull the patches they're interested in, rather than getting patches pushed at them with whatever extra paperwork they request, putting the cost of Sun's bureaucracy back on Sun's balance sheet. So what does this mean for Ubuntu? Mainly that we need to weigh our actions not only in terms of what produces the best short-term results for users, but also whether the message it sends will improve the process in the long-term. As Joe said, publicly ditching the upstream OO.o would send far too negative a message right now. If Sun continues to drag its heels, the next move might be to start talking about how Ubuntu adds value over the basic OO.o, putting some gentle corporate pressure on Sun to get their act together. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Go-OOO.org?
On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Andrew Sayers andrew-ubuntu-de...@pileofstuff.org wrote: Speaking as someone with a strictly armchair interest in this topic, I'd like to make a few observations here - The way (non-Sun) people talk about OO.o reminds me of the way people used to talk about the pre-Firefox Mozilla project - worthy and important, but with low developer morale due to an ugly, hostile codebase. A certain amount of mud will always get slung at a project of OO.o's size, and Sun often have valid excuses for the mud that gets thrown their way, but I've never heard a community member stand up and defend Sun's behaviour, or give examples of how Sun went the extra mile to help them out. That silence speaks more to me than the noise on the other side. Political argument. On that field, are you suggesting +1 for sun's side This has happened before, it's not a disaster, it'll iron itself out; or -1 for sun's side this happens, but they are handling it particularly bad and digging their own grave? Developing a good vocabulary of actions will be important in order to improve the development process without suffering the upheaval that would come from an x.org-style fork. If it's going the way of X, the better action once it's clear that this either can't be reversed or would take far too much effort to do so, would be to fork, and (from the sidelines) to encourage or push a fork. It's entirely up to each distribution how they decide to play politics in this case (see Debian/Iceweasel vs Ubuntu/Firefox, neither is correct in how they're handling it, it's just the distro maintainers' opinions), but they do have that weight and their visible actions cause those kinds of shifts. Up until that point, obviously, we either A) expect that things will get better; or B) expect such a shift will be more damaging (to reputations, to development of the new fork, to the community, etc) than helpful right now. Towards the subtle end of the scale, Go-oo makes it possible to start referring to the Sun codebase as Sun's tree rather than upstream, forcing Sun to earn their reputation as the true version of OO.o. Towards the drastic end of the scale, Go-oo could request that Sun pull the patches they're interested in, rather than getting patches pushed at them with whatever extra paperwork they request, putting the cost of Sun's bureaucracy back on Sun's balance sheet. Interesting strategy; however Sun has shown either A) they don't care enough to integrate feature X; or B) they do, but since you won't dual-license it and sign an agreement transferring copyright to them, they'll just expend their resources writing their own. Forcing Sun to pull would, in essence, be an attempt to force them to abandon their practice of having contributors sign a JCA, as anyone dissenting against this can contribute to the fork (Go-OO), effectively forcing most developers away and creating a bigger community draw to the fork, stagnating OOo or forcing them (as I said) to simply abandon the core goals of the JCA and pull, pull, pull... In other words, the Pull strategy WILL hurt Sun, and WILL take OOo out of their hands; the workload to reproduce significant features submitted to Go-OO would pile up too fast, and the project will become more and more feature-complete over time. With the ability to pull from Sun's tree without consequence, Sun simply can't catch up to this, and can only shut down open source OOo development. Eliminating their JCA would prevent them from shipping Star Office as-is, presumably; although Go-OO is LGPL and Sun could get away with using modules without LGPL-ing their code if they integrated such code. That, of course, would be the action of Go-OO or such a fork (though Go-OO is probably the largest; OxygenOffice and a few others are based on it). If it does happen, be very worried for Sun's continued control over OOo, as it'll be in jeopardy as soon as that fork gains momentum. So what does this mean for Ubuntu? Mainly that we need to weigh our actions not only in terms of what produces the best short-term results for users, but also whether the message it sends will improve the process in the long-term. True. Again, my interest is in understanding the current situation and figuring out what'll happen in the long term; although I wouldn't mind getting there faster... As Joe said, publicly ditching the upstream OO.o would send far too negative a message right now. Depends on what message you want to send. Again with Debian/IceWeasel, if Shuttleworth and friends want to send the message, Abandon ship, Sun sucks, and try to force an X fork, this would be the strategy to use; maybe now, maybe later. If that is NOT what Ubuntu wants to do (I'm pretty sure it's not), then they need to simply be quiet. On an aside, the drama would be academically amusing. I think Sun would actually shit bricks. Maybe I'll make a Demotivation poster satirizing this... If Sun
Re: Go-OOO.org?
Politically, I wonder what is so wrong with JCA. Apache software foundation mandates a similar action too. Technically, Oo.o 3 starts faster than go-oo. I cannot comment on Excel formulae. But I doubt whether switching would really provide any benefit to Ubuntu, which is worth the effort involved. On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 7:21 AM, John Moser john.r.mo...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Andrew Sayers andrew-ubuntu-de...@pileofstuff.org wrote: Speaking as someone with a strictly armchair interest in this topic, I'd like to make a few observations here - The way (non-Sun) people talk about OO.o reminds me of the way people used to talk about the pre-Firefox Mozilla project - worthy and important, but with low developer morale due to an ugly, hostile codebase. A certain amount of mud will always get slung at a project of OO.o's size, and Sun often have valid excuses for the mud that gets thrown their way, but I've never heard a community member stand up and defend Sun's behaviour, or give examples of how Sun went the extra mile to help them out. That silence speaks more to me than the noise on the other side. Political argument. On that field, are you suggesting +1 for sun's side This has happened before, it's not a disaster, it'll iron itself out; or -1 for sun's side this happens, but they are handling it particularly bad and digging their own grave? Developing a good vocabulary of actions will be important in order to improve the development process without suffering the upheaval that would come from an x.org-style fork. If it's going the way of X, the better action once it's clear that this either can't be reversed or would take far too much effort to do so, would be to fork, and (from the sidelines) to encourage or push a fork. It's entirely up to each distribution how they decide to play politics in this case (see Debian/Iceweasel vs Ubuntu/Firefox, neither is correct in how they're handling it, it's just the distro maintainers' opinions), but they do have that weight and their visible actions cause those kinds of shifts. Up until that point, obviously, we either A) expect that things will get better; or B) expect such a shift will be more damaging (to reputations, to development of the new fork, to the community, etc) than helpful right now. Towards the subtle end of the scale, Go-oo makes it possible to start referring to the Sun codebase as Sun's tree rather than upstream, forcing Sun to earn their reputation as the true version of OO.o. Towards the drastic end of the scale, Go-oo could request that Sun pull the patches they're interested in, rather than getting patches pushed at them with whatever extra paperwork they request, putting the cost of Sun's bureaucracy back on Sun's balance sheet. Interesting strategy; however Sun has shown either A) they don't care enough to integrate feature X; or B) they do, but since you won't dual-license it and sign an agreement transferring copyright to them, they'll just expend their resources writing their own. Forcing Sun to pull would, in essence, be an attempt to force them to abandon their practice of having contributors sign a JCA, as anyone dissenting against this can contribute to the fork (Go-OO), effectively forcing most developers away and creating a bigger community draw to the fork, stagnating OOo or forcing them (as I said) to simply abandon the core goals of the JCA and pull, pull, pull... In other words, the Pull strategy WILL hurt Sun, and WILL take OOo out of their hands; the workload to reproduce significant features submitted to Go-OO would pile up too fast, and the project will become more and more feature-complete over time. With the ability to pull from Sun's tree without consequence, Sun simply can't catch up to this, and can only shut down open source OOo development. Eliminating their JCA would prevent them from shipping Star Office as-is, presumably; although Go-OO is LGPL and Sun could get away with using modules without LGPL-ing their code if they integrated such code. That, of course, would be the action of Go-OO or such a fork (though Go-OO is probably the largest; OxygenOffice and a few others are based on it). If it does happen, be very worried for Sun's continued control over OOo, as it'll be in jeopardy as soon as that fork gains momentum. So what does this mean for Ubuntu? Mainly that we need to weigh our actions not only in terms of what produces the best short-term results for users, but also whether the message it sends will improve the process in the long-term. True. Again, my interest is in understanding the current situation and figuring out what'll happen in the long term; although I wouldn't mind getting there faster... As Joe said, publicly ditching the upstream OO.o would send far too negative a message right now. Depends on what message you want to send. Again with
