Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi Alex, Alexander Thurgood wrote (30-05-11 11:41) Le 29/05/11 20:43, Cor Nouws a écrit : Well, some weeks (ago?) I've seen passing some discussion about this (not followed details). The devil is in the detail :-)) Well, there are a lot of interesting details below. But do they really say something about this: But to me it looks as a misinterpretation. - yes, support contracts are important, because also that generates revenues for the companies sponsoring developers of LibreOffice; - no, a support contract will not in general guarantee 'enterprise stability', because... what ís 'enterprise stability'? I simply agree with you about things that have to mature, that a better roadmap would be great and so on. (leaving your words below as reference (1), not snipping them as case of exception) I could even add some more from my own experience. But I do not understand why the current situation per see will be a blocker for professional deployment. Just as OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice is used in enterprises. Easy enough to think of possible improvements, but that is not the same. Also for bug-fixes: that there is no guarantee that any bug will be fixed. If you really want to have one fixed, there is the obvious choice. Kind regards, Cor 1) How about : Not making the product any less functional than how it was when the project behind the product was taken over with much hue and cry about how the Foundation will protect past investments by building on the solid achievements of our first decade Users and companies who are persuaded to switch from OOo to LibO are entitled to expect that the product not be less functional than it was when under different stewardship. I'm not saying it has to be perfect, no software is, but if you are used to using Product A with a given functionality framework, and then someone comes along and says Join our merry band, we will protect the previous investment made in Product A with our Product B, then it is legitimate to expect that functionality framework to continue to provide as broad a spectrum as possible. Anything less, and the new group has failed in its mission and its duty to protect that past investment. I was one of the first to follow from OOo, and made a significant donation when the Foundation started its fundraising, but that is not what I'm concerned about the most. I still believe that it can be a good product, but I have my sincere doubts about it being enterprise ready and am not afraid to be honest and say/write so. It doesn't make me less of an enthusiast, just that I am honest enough with regard to the state of the project to qualify my statements in relation to the use of LibreOffice as a business tool. IMO the initial remark from Michael Meeks was to indicate that when you want to be rather sure (...) that specific fixes are done or features realized, you are welcome to do it yourself, have someone doing it (after all it is open source) or get a support contract that gives the right for fixing an amount of issues. So if an enterprise relies on specific features, it can simpley wait for the moment that is happens ... but probably it is not the most logic choice. Which is what I said in my first sentence, that some bugs will be fixed eventually at any rate, no matter what, just not necessarily within any given timeframe. Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. On the Foundation FAQ page, one can find this : Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to users of LibreOffice? A: LibreOffice is The Document Foundation's reason for existence. We do not have and will not have a commercial product which receives preferential treatment. We only have one focus - delivering the best free office suite for our users - LibreOffice. our users : who are they ? Individuals ? Businesses ? Charities ? Educational and Training Institutions ? Their needs are different, sometimes converging, at others diverging. The project needs to know how to cater to those needs and listen to those who are in need. Telling people to get stuck in isn't going to happen for the majority of use cases where people just want to use the software - this is not a new problem in the free software development world, we all know that there are often far more casual users and non-coding contributors than actual code contributors, so why don't we just face those facts. If the way forward is to request monetary contributions for fixing bugs, let us be honest about it. However, I know for certain that some developers do not really like the idea of a bug bounty system, because it brings with it an associated perceived obligation to produce a result and a requirement by the project in general to manage more carefully how developer resources are
RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Yes, Zed, but that DOES NOT WORK!! -Original Message- From: Zed [mailto:z...@zed.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 2:22 AM To: users@libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation Richard rich...@hornick.us wrote: HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. The following appears at the bottom of every post you receive. Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Zed -- Zed COMPUTER LITERACY? You mean my computer can READ?! -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi :) I noticed a relevant email about this sort of thing earlier today so i have forwarded the request to the postmaster email address So, if anyone on this list has issues with unsubscribing and cannot manage them on their own, feel free to contact postmas...@documentfoundation.org I hope this helps! Good luck and regards from Tom :) From: Richard rich...@hornick.us To: users@libreoffice.org Sent: Tue, 31 May, 2011 17:49:19 Subject: RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation Yes, Zed, but that DOES NOT WORK!! -Original Message- From: Zed [mailto:z...@zed.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 2:22 AM To: users@libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation Richard rich...@hornick.us wrote: HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. The following appears at the bottom of every post you receive. Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Zed -- Zed COMPUTER LITERACY? You mean my computer can READ?! -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org In case of problems unsubscribing, write to postmas...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Richard rich...@hornick.us wrote: HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. The following appears at the bottom of every post you receive. Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Zed -- Zed COMPUTER LITERACY? You mean my computer can READ?! -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
I'm getting tired of these Linux versus Windows discussions. Let's say that both platforms have their advantages and their disadvantages. So far the discussions here haven't produced much useful information. As for stability. On my systems OpenOffice is much more stable than LibreOffice. I don't care if software is free or not, it needs to be able to do the job. In the past I have bought versions of StarOffice. I write a lot of papers with many formulas inside it. The better way to do this is using OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Best regards, John Bijnens On 31/05/2011 5:10, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:16 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote: On 31/05/11 1:45 AM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and exactly like it was wanted, or I get bad news from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a cutting edge product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a stable product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed before the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development styles. As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That way if there is a fix already made, the business people
Re: unsubscribing (was: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation)
On 31/05/11 07:22, Zed wrote: Richardrich...@hornick.us wrote: HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. The following appears at the bottom of every post you receive. Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Zed Which may not be most helpful. The confirmation email I still have states: Welcome! You have been subscribed to the users@libreoffice.org mailinglist. To unsubscribe send a message to: users+unsubscr...@libreoffice.org ^ And for help send a message to: users+h...@libreoffice.org And, to the OP, if you put your request inside another thread with an unchanged subject, it'll get missed. If you start a new thread with a suitable subject line you'll get more folk's attention. And simply saying without success won't help anyone diagnose possible problems - /exactly how/ did you try to unsubscribe? What happened (or not) as a result? -- Mike Scott Harlow, Essex, England -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: unsubscribing (was: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation)
Hi :) The first email is meant to be informative and show many options, not just for unsubscribing but for many other functions. The part about how to unsubscribe is this bit To unsubscribe send a message to: users+unsubscr...@libreoffice.org So, to unsubscribe try sending an email to users+unsubscr...@libreoffice.org Notice that the users+ part at thte beginning is an important part of the address but in some email clients it gets treated differently from the rest of the address, ie not blue and underlined. It doesn't matter what, if anything, is in the subject-line and it doesn't need anything in the contents of the email either. Note that when you send an email to that address you get a proper confirmation email which sometimes gets thrown out by spam filters. I hope that helps! Good luck and regards from Tom :) From: Mike Scott m...@scottsonline.org.uk To: users@libreoffice.org Sent: Tue, 31 May, 2011 8:34:14 Subject: Re: unsubscribing (was: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation) On 31/05/11 07:22, Zed wrote: Richardrich...@hornick.us wrote: HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. The following appears at the bottom of every post you receive. Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Zed Which may not be most helpful. The confirmation email I still have states: Welcome! You have been subscribed to the users@libreoffice.org mailinglist. To unsubscribe send a message to: users+unsubscr...@libreoffice.org ^ And for help send a message to: users+h...@libreoffice.org And, to the OP, if you put your request inside another thread with an unchanged subject, it'll get missed. If you start a new thread with a suitable subject line you'll get more folk's attention. And simply saying without success won't help anyone diagnose possible problems - /exactly how/ did you try to unsubscribe? What happened (or not) as a result? -- Mike Scott Harlow, Essex, England -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 31/05/11 7:27 PM, John Bijnens wrote: I'm getting tired of these Linux versus Windows discussions. Let's say that both platforms have their advantages and their disadvantages. So far the discussions here haven't produced much useful information. As for stability. On my systems OpenOffice is much more stable than LibreOffice. I don't care if software is free or not, it needs to be able to do the job. In the past I have bought versions of StarOffice. I write a lot of papers with many formulas inside it. The better way to do this is using OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Best regards, John Bijnens On 31/05/2011 5:10, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:16 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote: On 31/05/11 1:45 AM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and exactly like it was wanted, or I get bad news from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a cutting edge product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a stable product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed before the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development styles. As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Well said! I find this attitude most pervasive in the Ubuntu crowd, but it exists to some extent with all distributions. When you get into the management of companies, especially companies with 5 PCs yet name a Director of IT, the we don't pay for nuthin' attitude is even policy. I have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of time and cash to various OpenSource projects. Participated in driver bug shoots and even published a completely free book to provide both promotion AND A USER MANUAL to a Java class library I found to be above all others out there. http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/The-Minimum-You-Need-to-Know-About-Java-and-xBaseJ All users get to pull it down completely free. Months of my life and thousands of dollars in professional editing to provide what most OpenSource projects lack, a usable manual + tutorial. On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 17:22 -0400, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 03:46 PM, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-30 2:53 PM, Roland Hughes wrote: On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 14:34 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-29 3:58 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote: An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? No, because there isn't one, because there is no requirement or even strong recommendation. But of course there is certainly nothing wrong with buying a support contract if you want one. It's a common cultural problem in the OpenSource community. Everyone thinks they deserve all software for free, but if you have a company or business email address you should spend all of your money so that they can continue to have free software. It doesn't matter what OpenSource operating system or application/software package you are using, this irrational response persists. I imagine it is even more persistent in the LO world since they just cut free of Sugar Daddy and now need a revenue source. I've never seen or noticed such an attitude - certainly not anything nearly as pervasive or prevalent as you seem to by suggesting. Well, that attitude has been seen before by some people I know. I get mine free, while you have to pay for yours , is the mindset I see myself from time to time. Open Source does cost. It costs people's time and effort, even if they provide it for free. Then there is the costs of the support system. I am not talking about paid consultants. I am talking about Domain names, hosting systems or accounts, servers and other physical needs to keep the TDF/LO web sites up and running. Then there is the fees to display at events and conventions. Then there is the marketing banners, brochures, pamphlets, handouts, etc., etc., that is part of the materials that are used for marketing at such an event. Then there is the people who wants to produce DVDs to get to people who cannot download the package software, due to bandwidth issues or other constrants to their Internet usage. These people who make these DVDs have money tied up with DVD cases, Printable DVD media, Printing the DVD case covers and the inserted pamphlets, and how about buying a printer that can print on the printable DVD media. All these things cost money. For TDF/LibreOffice, they wish to raise the need funds to provide for the money being spent for the physical costs of the services required for their web hosting needs, plus any marketing costs spent or will be spent marketing the product. Then there is the local people who make the DVDs. They need to help cover their costs in making the DVDs and the shipping costs to send it out to those who will need their DVD printing/shipping services. Sure, there are people who volunteer their time and efforts programing/developing, marketing, and may other task involved with the creation and distribution of an Open Source software package. But there are things that cost money as well. There are businesses that have volunteered their people and money to help the cause of Open Source. But nothing is truly free. Somewhere it costs someone money. Time is money too. If you want free software, you are paying for it by your time and efforts finding it, downloading it, maybe promoting it to your friends and family, supporting it in the email lists, or even donating some cash to it via its fundraising efforts. FOR ME I am a part of the North American Community DVD Project. I have donated space on my hosting account and bought a domain for its testing portal http://libreoffice-na.us/ . I have bought DVD cases, printable media, and a printer to print onto those printable media. I will be handing out many of these DVDs to local people, organizations, businesses, and government agencies - ALL out of my own fixed income pocket. I am
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca -- Lettura gratuita o acquisto di libri e racconti di fantascienza, fantasy, horror, noir, narrativa fantastica e tradizionale: http://www.letturefantastiche.com/ -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and exactly like it was wanted, or I get bad news from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a cutting edge product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a stable product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed before the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development styles. As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That way if there is a fix already made, the business people could get the revised code or maybe a compiled package with those issues fixed. TDF/LO needs to be a part of the process so no matter how fixes the code, all users will benefit from those fixes. Also, with the constructive dialog between business development teams and TDF/LO development teams, it would be better in the long run for keeping good opinions about LibreOffice by the corporate/ business users. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi :) My understanding is ... That TDF does keep a list of bugs to be fixed and wish-list items. Triagers go through and assign various values such as easy (or difficult), critical (or Low importance). Anyone can go through the list and pick something to work on. Sometimes that 'anyone' is a business with paid developers, sometimes it might be an individual that just loves the product and cares deeply about improving it or is interested in clever or practical or elegant coding. Sometimes it might be a person learning coding under a mentor. The anyone's (or their employees/contractors) can usually expect some help and support from other devs if they want it, especially if they intend to give the code to TDF. Having written the code they can then choose to keep it secret and just try to apply it to each new release (or new install) OR they can choose to give the code to TDF so that it can go through quality control, alpha-testing, beta-testing before being incorporated into the main product which all us users can alpha beta test if we choose. Typically this ends up covering a hugely diverse range of real-world hardware in combinations that would have most sensible lab-techs shuddering. The advantage to business 'anyones' of giving the new code fixes to TDF is that future releases of LO will already contain the fixes and they will have already undergone testing against the new release. So the anyones don't have to re-apply their coding and then just hope it still works or go through their own quality testing against a limited number of machines. During this whole process the list of bugs and wish-list items gets updated tags. As normal users we can choose whether to use the older stable releases such as 3.3.0 - 3.3.2 (at the moment) or go for development releases to help bug-test the latest fixes and developments. My understanding of Fedora is that it is the development/testing branch of RedHat and that other projects keep an eye on what happens with Fedora in order to see what programs and stuff might be worth exploring for themselves. Debian has a testing and a development branch that are available separately from their stable release. SliTaz has a Cooking and a Stable release. Most projects seem to have an edition that is not quite considered stable yet but hopefully will become the new stable version later. I happen to like the way Ubuntu backports fixes to it's latest LTS release in a manner suggested by Kracked Press. If LO had a sort-of LTS release in a similar way then it might help business users too. Regards from Tom :) From: webmaster for Kracked Press Productions webmas...@krackedpress.com To: users@libreoffice.org Sent: Mon, 30 May, 2011 14:45:31 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 2011-05-29 3:58 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote: An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? No, because there isn't one, because there is no requirement or even strong recommendation. But of course there is certainly nothing wrong with buying a support contract if you want one. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi Alex, Alexander Thurgood wrote (30-05-11 11:41) Le 29/05/11 20:43, Cor Nouws a écrit : Well, some weeks (ago?) I've seen passing some discussion about this (not followed details). The devil is in the detail :-)) [...] Thanks for finding those ;-) I'm to occupied with obligations and (business) must-do's at the moment. Try to find time for a serious read, thought and reply on Wednesday. Regards, Cor -- - http://nl.libreoffice.org - giving openoffice.org its foundation :: The Document Foundation - -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
It's a common cultural problem in the OpenSource community. Everyone thinks they deserve all software for free, but if you have a company or business email address you should spend all of your money so that they can continue to have free software. It doesn't matter what OpenSource operating system or application/software package you are using, this irrational response persists. I imagine it is even more persistent in the LO world since they just cut free of Sugar Daddy and now need a revenue source. I actually laugh when I'm greeted with this mentality. They have no idea if you are a one many shop or a Fortune 50 corporation. They all think you can plunk down hundreds of thousands of dollars on a whim to keep software coming to them. I told many this would happen, and even watched it happen about a decade ago. When the bulk of the community switched from programmers to consumers. Since they aren't programmers, they don't think programmers should be paid and have no idea how many thousands of hours it takes to correctly design, develop, and TEST a commercial grade application. All they know is that they expect commercial grade software for free...thanks to Microsoft for dramatically lowering the bar on what qualifies as commercial grade software. If, however, you tell them to show up at their Union/factory job and work 60/hours per week for 6 months absolutely gratis, they will unleash holy hell on you. There was actually a fund raising bar thing on the libreoffice site when the broke away. I don't see it now. You see, those people who work for an OpenOffice project at the top don't work for free either. On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 14:34 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-29 3:58 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote: An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? No, because there isn't one, because there is no requirement or even strong recommendation. But of course there is certainly nothing wrong with buying a support contract if you want one. -- Roland Hughes, President Logikal Solutions (630)-205-1593 http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com http://www.infiniteexposure.net No U.S. troops have ever lost their lives defending our ethanol reserves. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 2011-05-30 2:53 PM, Roland Hughes wrote: On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 14:34 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-29 3:58 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote: An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? No, because there isn't one, because there is no requirement or even strong recommendation. But of course there is certainly nothing wrong with buying a support contract if you want one. It's a common cultural problem in the OpenSource community. Everyone thinks they deserve all software for free, but if you have a company or business email address you should spend all of your money so that they can continue to have free software. It doesn't matter what OpenSource operating system or application/software package you are using, this irrational response persists. I imagine it is even more persistent in the LO world since they just cut free of Sugar Daddy and now need a revenue source. I've never seen or noticed such an attitude - certainly not anything nearly as pervasive or prevalent as you seem to by suggesting. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
HELP!!! I am receiving 20 and more emails daily. I have tried many, many times to unsubscribe with NO SUCCESS. PLEASE give me an email, land line, snail mail address, or phone number where I can UNSUBSCRIBE. rich...@hornick.us -Original Message- From: Gianluca Turconi [mailto:pub...@letturefantastiche.com] Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 8:38 AM To: users@libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca -- Lettura gratuita o acquisto di libri e racconti di fantascienza, fantasy, horror, noir, narrativa fantastica e tradizionale: http://www.letturefantastiche.com/ -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 05/30/2011 03:46 PM, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-30 2:53 PM, Roland Hughes wrote: On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 14:34 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-29 3:58 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote: An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? No, because there isn't one, because there is no requirement or even strong recommendation. But of course there is certainly nothing wrong with buying a support contract if you want one. It's a common cultural problem in the OpenSource community. Everyone thinks they deserve all software for free, but if you have a company or business email address you should spend all of your money so that they can continue to have free software. It doesn't matter what OpenSource operating system or application/software package you are using, this irrational response persists. I imagine it is even more persistent in the LO world since they just cut free of Sugar Daddy and now need a revenue source. I've never seen or noticed such an attitude - certainly not anything nearly as pervasive or prevalent as you seem to by suggesting. Well, that attitude has been seen before by some people I know. I get mine free, while you have to pay for yours , is the mindset I see myself from time to time. Open Source does cost. It costs people's time and effort, even if they provide it for free. Then there is the costs of the support system. I am not talking about paid consultants. I am talking about Domain names, hosting systems or accounts, servers and other physical needs to keep the TDF/LO web sites up and running. Then there is the fees to display at events and conventions. Then there is the marketing banners, brochures, pamphlets, handouts, etc., etc., that is part of the materials that are used for marketing at such an event. Then there is the people who wants to produce DVDs to get to people who cannot download the package software, due to bandwidth issues or other constrants to their Internet usage. These people who make these DVDs have money tied up with DVD cases, Printable DVD media, Printing the DVD case covers and the inserted pamphlets, and how about buying a printer that can print on the printable DVD media. All these things cost money. For TDF/LibreOffice, they wish to raise the need funds to provide for the money being spent for the physical costs of the services required for their web hosting needs, plus any marketing costs spent or will be spent marketing the product. Then there is the local people who make the DVDs. They need to help cover their costs in making the DVDs and the shipping costs to send it out to those who will need their DVD printing/shipping services. Sure, there are people who volunteer their time and efforts programing/developing, marketing, and may other task involved with the creation and distribution of an Open Source software package. But there are things that cost money as well. There are businesses that have volunteered their people and money to help the cause of Open Source. But nothing is truly free. Somewhere it costs someone money. Time is money too. If you want free software, you are paying for it by your time and efforts finding it, downloading it, maybe promoting it to your friends and family, supporting it in the email lists, or even donating some cash to it via its fundraising efforts. FOR ME I am a part of the North American Community DVD Project. I have donated space on my hosting account and bought a domain for its testing portal http://libreoffice-na.us/ . I have bought DVD cases, printable media, and a printer to print onto those printable media. I will be handing out many of these DVDs to local people, organizations, businesses, and government agencies - ALL out of my own fixed income pocket. I am providing these things because I want to support TDF/LO in whatever ways I am able to. I no longer can help program/develop the software, since 3 strokes have wiped much of my skills. Next, hopefully, the NA group will be working on shipping DVD out to people who cannot download the software themselves. I know of many people who cannot do this. Not even half of all households in the USA has broadband. Many cannot afford it, while others have no access to it, even if they have the money. So we hope to be able to get a system worked out where people can order the DVD online [some way] for the costs of the media and the shipping, etc., and maybe a little profit that could go into a regional marketing fund and some to go into the International marketing fund. SO there are people out there who feel that they will keep getting their open source software free, while others keep paying for it, for them to have it free. Those people may thing they get free since they are not paying for it
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 2011-05-30 5:22 PM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 03:46 PM, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2011-05-30 2:53 PM, Roland Hughes wrote: On Mon, 2011-05-30 at 14:34 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote: It's a common cultural problem in the OpenSource community. Everyone thinks they deserve all software for free, but if you have a company or business email address you should spend all of your money so that they can continue to have free software. It doesn't matter what OpenSource operating system or application/software package you are using, this irrational response persists. I imagine it is even more persistent in the LO world since they just cut free of Sugar Daddy and now need a revenue source. I've never seen or noticed such an attitude - certainly not anything nearly as pervasive or prevalent as you seem to by suggesting. Well, that attitude has been seen before by some people I know. I get mine free, while you have to pay for yours , is the mindset I see myself from time to time. Open Source does cost. I didn't say it doesn't cost anything... I said I didn't see the attitude exhibited as described by Roland. And what you then go on to describe is *not* the same thing as Roland described, not even close... Of course free software costs... and I for one am very appreciative of the efforts (yours and others, here and elsewhere) of those who make free software possible. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi guys, .. wrote (30-05-11 23:36) On 2011- ... On 05/30 ... On 2011-05- ... On Mon, 2011-05- ... With due respect to all you opinions, knowledge, smart wordings etc, etc ... but how many new features, maked as fixed bugs, or new bugs could you have tested in the mean time? Or documentation reviewed, or ... I do not say it is something you have to do, of course, but it is something you might consider. Cheers, Cor -- - http://nl.libreoffice.org - giving openoffice.org its foundation :: The Document Foundation - -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 31/05/11 1:45 AM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and exactly like it was wanted, or I get bad news from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a cutting edge product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a stable product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed before the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development styles. As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That way if there is a fix already made, the business people could get the revised code or maybe a compiled package with those issues fixed. TDF/LO needs to be a part of the process so no matter how fixes the code, all users will benefit from those fixes. Also, with the constructive dialog between business development teams and TDF/LO development teams, it would be better in the long run for keeping good opinions about LibreOffice by the corporate/ business users. We have been a business user of open source software and especially OOO, LO from way back before it was open sourced. Possibly there is a difference in expectations. Managing use of products
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
On 05/30/2011 08:16 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote: On 31/05/11 1:45 AM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote: Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com ha scritto: Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not. I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important Breathing Master discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo cutting edge product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, Gianluca I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and exactly like it was wanted, or I get bad news from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a cutting edge product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a stable product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed before the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development styles. As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That way if there is a fix already made, the business people could get the revised code or maybe a compiled package with those issues fixed. TDF/LO needs to be a part of the process so no matter how fixes the code, all users will benefit from those fixes. Also, with the constructive dialog between business development teams and TDF/LO development teams, it would be better in the long run for keeping good opinions about LibreOffice by the corporate/ business users. We have been a business user of open source software and especially OOO, LO from way back before it was open sourced. Possibly there is a difference in expectations. Managing use of products such as LO is different from
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi :) Hopefully some of those issues will be discussed and agreed, perhaps even voted on as the official membership grows. Hopefully issues will be up for further discussions again when the membership is much larger again. Support Contracts need to be available for very much less and hopefully will be. A £200 GBP / month is reaching the realms of paying an in-house dev. Maybe only about 6hours/month (including over-heads) but way beyond the reach of most users. Regards from Tom :) From: Alexander Thurgood alex.thurg...@gmail.com To: users@libreoffice.org Sent: Sun, 29 May, 2011 8:58:24 Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation Le 28/05/11 09:57, t...@iafrica.com a écrit : Hi, Thanks Alex Appreciate your thoughts.. Does that mean I have to buy special support to correct bugs in a released version of LibO? If then you might as well cut the hype about open system and charge licence fee's like MS at least then we might get an Impress that basically works. Not as such, because some bugs will be fixed eventually whatever happens, but : - if you want enterprise stability in LibreOffice, the advice I have been given and told to disseminate is to take out a support contract with one of the more general enterprise support providers (Novell, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu ?, others ?) which are specifically offering LibreOffice support ; - taking out a support contract will help those companies, who currently contribute code to the development of LibreOffice, to prioritise bug fixing and feature development - it makes no difference if the bug you have discovered was part of a functionality already included in Impress or some weird behaviour that you might have discovered from one version to the next - development and releases will continue irrespective of such consideration ; - even functionality that used to work in previous OOo versions, and no longer works in LibO, will not necessarily receive priority treatment - the major stopppers are bugs that cause crashes, and only then if they are multiplatform, mulit-OS (with a slight preference for Linux and Windows) and are perceived by the core developers as affecting many users. I doubt that you will find any of the above written down _clearly_ in any of the Foundation's, or LibreOffice.org's website pages, although much of it is present in the various discussion lists (developer, foundation, marketing). It is one of my major gripes with the project as it currently stands that there is a lot of hype and very little down to earth in your face explanation of a consensus of where the project should be going. Perhaps that is just down to my personality of requiring things to be as clear as possible up front so that at least I can weigh up whether it is potentially worth investing more in the project than I currently do (and I am already fairly heavily involved). An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? FWIW, if you trawl around the net a bit, you can find enterprise support vendors for LibreOffice : http://www.credativ.co.uk/services/support/projects/office/libreoffice/ at 200 GBP / month whether such a contract will actually get your bug problem fixed is another matter... http://www.lanedo.com/libreoffice.html No publicly accessible pricing that I could see. They also offer to actually fix bugs. HTH, Alex -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Hi Alexander, Alexander Thurgood wrote (29-05-11 09:58) - if you want enterprise stability in LibreOffice, the advice I have been given and told to disseminate is to take out a support contract with one of the more general enterprise support providers (Novell, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu ?, others ?) which are specifically offering LibreOffice support ; [...] An example : can anyone point me to a webpage from the Foundation or the LibreOffice.org site where it clearly states that LibreOffice is not intended for business use or that if you are a business you should buy support ? Well, some weeks (ago?) I've seen passing some discussion about this (not followed details). But to me it looks as a misinterpretation. - yes, support contracts are important, because also that generates revenues for the companies sponsoring developers of LibreOffice; - no, a support contract will not in general guarantee 'enterprise stability', because... what ís 'enterprise stability'? IMO the initial remark from Michael Meeks was to indicate that when you want to be rather sure (...) that specific fixes are done or features realized, you are welcome to do it yourself, have someone doing it (after all it is open source) or get a support contract that gives the right for fixing an amount of issues. So if an enterprise relies on specific features, it can simpley wait for the moment that is happens ... but probably it is not the most logic choice. Regards, Cor -- - http://nl.libreoffice.org - giving openoffice.org its foundation :: The Document Foundation - -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation
Thanks Alex Appreciate your thoughts.. Does that mean I have to buy special support to correct bugs in a released version of LibO? If then you might as well cut the hype about open system and charge licence fee's like MS at least then we might get an Impress that basically works. Plse note that I was using a published feature of Impress not some weird functionality that I would expect to pay for to resolve/develop. It sucks. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+h...@libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
