Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Narayan, * Narayan Aras schrieb: Sophie Gautier wrote: Hmm, I think you are missing something : it is not sure that admins of existing users forums (eg. http://user.services.openoffice.org/fr/forum/index.php) will want to leave OpenOffice.org infrastructure. These forums are intended to provide assistance to users of each office suite based on OOo : at this moment OOo, OOO/StarOffice, NeoOffice and LibreOffice. I am sure they want to keep their freedom to manage their forums as they want. Well, here are some considerations: 1. Experienced users who provide help to newbies may not leave OOo forums (They may spend some of their time at LibO forums, though). If you call them product independent forums, this might be easier to understand. 2. Many of the problems found in LibO would be common across all variants. So a LibO user should search at the OOo forum first to see if it is solved for any other variant. We should link to the independent forums at least as long the common basis covers the most problems. However, as time passes, LibO code would grow independently, and most of those problems would not apply. In other words, the OOo forums would be useful for LibO users in the beginning. After a few months, LibO forums can run on their own. I don't think in terms of months - this common basis will probably be valid for one or several years. Even with a mainly different UI functionality will be similar throughout the products. Given this situation, LibO support team has three options: 1. Do NOT start a separate forum. Redirect users to the existing forums at OOo. We can do both IMHO. An ability to search several forums (fora?) would be great - don't know if this is tricky. 2. Copy the whole data (for all variants), because many of the problems apply to LibO today. (BTW we should be able to deprecate issues that no longer exist in the current LibO version.) Please don't duplicate such content - an option to mark topics as deprecated (or version dependent) is a really good idea. 3. Live with a fragmented knowledge base and start a new forum anyway. There will ever be some fragmentation - people work, discuss and post their questions and solutions wherever it fits their needs. You will have noticed the necessity for off-line handling for many tasks, therefore no alternative to mailing lists at the moment. With the new Drupal site there might be new opportunities - if they will fit people's needs we will see. Just to inform you: There is already a LibO dedicated forum (maintained by Sam), that might be moved over to the main site, when Drupal becomes active. If this will be done, needs further discussion among the people actively involved in this topic. Best regards Bernhard [1]: http://libreofficeforum.org/ -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi, Le 15/12/2010 06:20, Narayan Aras a écrit : Hi Sophie, [...] we have a lot of legacy data, so this is very important to take them in consideration. This is an important knowledge base. Well, I hope Michael is aware of this data and its old format. If the idea is to make is available through Drupal, then this would be an early goal for Drupal team. Hmm, I think you are missing something : it is not sure that admins of existing users forums (eg. http://user.services.openoffice.org/fr/forum/index.php) will want to leave OpenOffice.org infrastructure. These forums are intended to provide assistance to users of each office suite based on OOo : at this moment OOo, OOO/StarOffice, NeoOffice and LibreOffice. I am sure they want to keep their freedom to manage their forums as they want. Best regards JBF -- Seuls des formats ouverts peuvent assurer la pérennité de vos documents. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi *, On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 6:55 AM, Michael Wheatland mich...@wheatland.com.au wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Sophie Gautier gautier.sop...@gmail.com wrote: [...] We will never force anyone to do anything. In my mind, once the Drupal development is complete and implemented then people will want to move tools. Then they can make their decision on a basis where Drupal is functional. Whether they then like it or not cannot be anticipated yet. As I understand it, this is why the SC asked the website team to develop Drupal. No SC never asked the website team to devlop Drupal. There were many Drupal fans/supporters that strongly voiced their opinion to choose drupal as CMS. But they just couldn't manage to setup a demo that met the basic requirements. That is why SC did choose Silverstripe, with the option to reconsider moving to Drupal early spring next year. By then, the drupal site should shine, the drupal supporters will be happy with it and they are sure it will convince people to switch. But in the end it depends on the user-interface of the drupal site whether the people who work with it will ask for the switch or beg the SC to stick with silverstripe. I didn't look at the current state of affairs wrt drupal, and probably will not have time for evaluation this year anyway, so I cannot give feedback yet. [...] It should be made clear to those contributing where the project is going, this ensures that the work and project are aligned. Second guessing SC decisions is not good for community morale and discourages contribution. Sophie is part of the SC, so it can hardly be second guessing the decisions. And she also explained herself pretty clearly: She (as part of the SC) will not tell people to use whatever if the people won't like it. So I don't understand the fuzz about it. Again I state: What I saw of drupal in October did put me off, I'd never want to use drupal in a state like this. That's where SC decision comes in: It gives drupal folks a very, very fair chance to present themselves, gives them enough time to work without pressure/need to hurry on a cool site that will convince users not becuase it is drupal, the great tool that can do everything when you configure it properly, but because it actually *does* that stuff. IMHO, The Drupal website development has been a great example of the community creating the tool they want. they in this case is mainly drupal-supporters, not the whole community, and especially not the people who will maintain the content. Those people will only get a chance to make their decision when the drupal-team announces their page as we think everything is ready, go check it out and provide feedback And yes, you got input from various groups that in part already use drupal for their work and stuff, but still this is hardly the community. ciao Christian -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 3:32 AM, Christian Lohmaier lohmaier+ooofut...@googlemail.com wrote: And yes, you got input from various groups that in part already use drupal for their work and stuff, but still this is hardly the community. If you can suggest more ways to get feedback than the mailing lists and the wiki I am all ears. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi, :-) There is also the question of who would administer a Drupal site. I'm not currently aware of any candidates with the right profile, unless Christian was willing to do it. Administering one of TDF's Web resources requires a lot of technical knowledge and experience. It's not the same as simply setting-up a site, theming it, installing a choice of modules and away we go. The code base behind the website is managed via a TDF-managed git repository. You can't just tweak and edit files on the server. The admin has to have the knowledge to be able to configure site modules in a way that properly interacts and works with the server and other TDF resources possibly affected. Christian will be able to tell you a lot more about those technical aspects. The admin has to be someone known and trusted by TDF and Ooodevs De, because he/she will have access to important project resources. Even if one found someone from outside with the necessary knowledge and experience of Drupal *and* of system admin, that person would still have to go through at least the qualification period (currently stated as 3 months in the soon-to-be-applicable community bylaws [1]) before being a possible candidate. From the past discussions of Drupal, I'm not aware of any candidates for the job - unless Christian himself were to take on the task. By candidate, I mean someone with the necessary technical qualifications *plus* the motivation, desire and long-term commitment to steering and handling the changeover, and to dealing with the site administration on an on-going basis. In addition, before being adopted as LibO's new CMS, a fully-operational, full-featured demo has to be offered for *thorough prior evaluation*. It's not enough to be evangelizing Drupal and saying it *can* do this and it *can* do that. It has to be proven and concretely demonstrated that it's a superior choice and that TDF/LibO really *needs* it. True meritocracy is supposed to be the driving force behind this project. No official decision has yet been taken by the SC/BoD (i.e. via a vote that complies with the community bylaws), so Drupal is presently a possible choice for consideration, but not more. You only have to read the SC meeting minutes [2] to be clear about that: vote if to start with Silverstripe or Drupal result: 6 for Silverstripe vs. 2 for Drupal - 2/3rd majority for Silverstripe reason to vote for Silverstripe was in most cases that a fast go-live is expected and that there are people to do administration and take care about content reason to vote for Drupal was the higher flexibility (and therefore better long-term solution) as well as having several people with good knowledge about drupal suggestion is that the website team should do some more planning, what we need regarding website, additional services, and see how this can be achieved with drupal. We see the need of a more sophisticated CMS in the future. Let me say that it's not that I'm against the adoption of Drupal per se. But I think that it would have to be proven that it's in the community's interests, and I would not like to see the project bulldozed through hype, disinformation and hypothetical claims. [1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/CommunityBylaws [2] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Steering_Committee_Meetings#Minutes_2010-10-27 David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Michael, *, On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Michael Wheatland mich...@wheatland.com.au wrote: On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 3:32 AM, Christian Lohmaier lohmaier+ooofut...@googlemail.com wrote: And yes, you got input from various groups that in part already use drupal for their work and stuff, but still this is hardly the community. If you can suggest more ways to get feedback than the mailing lists and the wiki I am all ears. Sorry if I sounded too negative, I just wanted to support Sophie's POV since I had the impression you did not listen to what she actually wrote, but only what you wanted to hear, thus leaving the objective level and on the rim to getting personal. The feedback will come in January, after the first release is out of the door and people have time to evaluate the drupal site, give it a try. The Editors/Maintainers/NL-Project members don't have fancy requirements, but they need a tool that they are comfortable with. So it is not about the features you need to add to drupal, but about the editor, the page-creation, linking, etc., the very basic stuff that needs to be appealing. ciao Christian -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Personal Statement (was: Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?)
Hi all, sorry ... I seem to be a bit lost at the moment. To be honest, I neither have the technical competence, nor do I know all the details with regard to our community processes. What I currently perceive is, that there is a discussion covering Silverstripe and Drupal and some decisions / recommendations that have been made by the SC. Personally, I do miss a discussion like Yes you are right. The alternative in XYZ is ABC. Do you think that this will work for you / can be implemented in this or that way? That is what I currently think - personally: * The current website is - at a first glance - somehow simple to understand, but fails when looking at other details. So yes, we do need a viable alternative... * The Silverstripe site requires some love to communicate to our users that LibreOffice is high quality. This both refers to the editorial content (David is working on it), and an appealing visual design. If we fail with the site content, we won't need any website technology successor ;-) * The Drupal website team is working hard to provide a scalable alternative that suits needs from man others. But, it appears to me the there is some rush (we originally considered half a year to be sufficient to get, and to incorporate the desired input). Don't get me wrong - I'm deeply impressed how ambitious the plans are for providing a perfectly set-up Drupal. But, personally I'm so busy at the moment (or maybe I am just unable to manage my time properly), that I fail to provide any substantial input that has been requested long time ago. The consequence: I sometimes feel a bit hesitant when it comes to the Drupal website - because I don't know whether my requirements are met (my = statements related to Design Team needs). Maybe this is similar to other guys here ... Finally, to me it is not about the technological approach, but the better solution that suits our needs. And - as far as I can see - there are many more challenging requirements than to simply set up a good web infrastructure. OOo had a huge success, because of many non-web tools - and the web based tools to promote and to work on the software itself. So my question is, whether we can step back and think about, whether there is a chance to improve both tools, streamline processes, ease work? If yes, then the decision is somehow easy ;-) So my plea is - please be patient with us all to finally deliver LibreOffice 3.3, let us take some deep breath (some of us are working since months without any significant pause), and pick up the discussions on the next gen infrastructure. In the meantime ... Please consider to work together to make the Silverstripe based page a success, and thus, make LibreOffice a success. The more we learn within these next weeks and months, the better we will know why and how Drupal may be a better match for us. For those closely related to Drupal website development (with - maybe - less experience working on Silverstripe), please put together all your knowledge and try to work on the issues other members like Sophie do mention. In my point-of-view, some small proof-of-concepts may help to let other people understand how things will get better ... and you'll get the chance to get hands-on based feedback ;-) Okay, sorry for the lengthly mail, but (to me) this was very important. Please read on ... Am Donnerstag, den 16.12.2010, 07:47 +0930 schrieb Michael Wheatland: And yes, you got input from various groups that in part already use drupal for their work and stuff, but still this is hardly the community. If you can suggest more ways to get feedback than the mailing lists and the wiki I am all ears. Personally, I do scan the blog postings quite regularly. It would be great to get some easy-to-grasp information there. Then, the progress is much less hidden (again, a very personal statement, because I'm unable to dig deeper in the wiki) and the chance for explaining the thoughts that might improve the processes (e.g. Sophie talks about) is much better. I'm sorry if this puts even more workload on you (and the team), but I do think it will pay off in the end. Less (felt) surprises, less discussions afterwards. How does that sound? Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Michael, On 14/12/2010 08:49, Michael Wheatland wrote: On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Sophie Gautier gautier.sop...@gmail.com wrote: There is already forum that exist and they use phpBB technology for some or may be most of them. Drew has the knowledge here. For the French speaking one, it will be linked on our support page once the final version is announced because the admins and moderators don't want to provide supports on dev versions. I don't know if they have been asked, but I'm not really sure they will accept to migrate on a Drupal tool when they seems very happy with the technology they are currently using (and they have choose). There might be also an issue on migrating the existing database, not sure it's worth the cost. There is a clear benefit of having a forum, as there are clearly a lot of people who prefer not to use mailing lists. Yes, of corse, this is why they already exists in several languages. Again this community is not born yesterday and has already settled several ways of work and support for their users. Did you already visit the different forums in the Italian, German, Japanese,... language projects? Have a look and ask you the question what should they change their tool, what will that bring to the community? I would suggest that deliberately separating a language team from the main community is counter productive to one of the reasons that LibreOffice was formed, to unite the community across all languages. It is how our community works and has always work. Why again should you tell people how they have to work, when they are already organized and it has proven that it was the way to go for them. LibreOffice was created to solve a governance issue, not a tool issue. A tool is not a community. When the Drupal site has been created I am sure the French speaking team can make the assessment, and if decided so, migration from phpBB to Drupal is quite simple. That will be to each language forum to choose what they want. Even though they chose to stay with the tool they are use to, they still will be part of the community. And we are not going to duplicate the resources by settling different tools to serve the same purpose. Please again consider that this community exists since several years, is organized, structured, used to work together. The tool is not the community. So don't force them to use a tool if they don't want to, don't force them to comply to a structure that do not speaks to their language or their culture. We are not all on the same model, we are not the Mozilla, the Ubuntu community or the Gnome one. We have a 10 years story behind us, let us build on this, not start again as if nothing has been done. Look what happened the last week-end, how many languages have been updated by their team, isn't it a very beautiful community working together with the developers? I hope you understand my point and don't get it against your work or Drupal. Again it is very important that every body is assured that there is no obligation for them to comply to a tool or another, it is not a matter of tool, but a matter of work that has to be done to build a product and its project. For that we need tools that's true, but if they are already existent, used, etc, they should not be changed. Kind regards Sophie -- Founding member of The Document Foundation -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Narayan, On 14/12/2010 19:52, Narayan Aras wrote: Hi Sophie, What is wrong in using a new powerful tool that gives many more facilities compared to the old tool? nothing at all, provided every body has the same access the old one provided. Of course, I am not suggesting that users should be forced to use a tool that does not fit their needs. a small difference here, it's not users but contributors, just a small difference Why don't we try out a small pilot project and get the early user feedback, and see what happens? :) again, it's not users but contributors, still different but why not, let see who will duplicate the efforts and resources. A major factor in favor of trying new technologies is, we don't have old legacy data; so there are no worries about losing data because of non-compatibility. we have a lot of legacy data, so this is very important to take them in consideration. This is an important knowledge base. Note that LibO itself has a major paradigm shift vis-a-vis OOo: 1. It will have a new design paradigm (feature vs content) 2. it will have new interfaces I don't understand what you're saying here, what is this new design and new interfaces? Could you give some link to that? So why is it that we want a paradigm shift in LibO design; but not for the help community? still I don't understand A case in point is this thread itself. It started when I wanted to know if Drupal is going to be adopted. I never got my answer. I give one and ask some questions, may be you don't read it or do not want to answer. And seems I'm still an SC member ;-) But we have since then covered a lot of other inter-related ideas. Now a mail chain is the least efficient tool for such conceptual discussion. * We cannot reach any conclusion. * A latecomer cannot read it and understand what is happening. Sorry, I can't easily access web content, that is why I'm stuck with mailing lists. See, this is the second power outage until I begin this mail, funny isn't it :) A concept map (or an argument map) are the best tool for conceptual discussion. Both can be collaboratively plotted in Drupal. I'm use to conceptual map on papers, sorry not easy to put on Drupal I fear ;-), but yes I work quite often with them, useful tool, that's true. People can argue for and against any idea, and it actually reaches a conclusion. It is used by NASA for taking mission-critical decisions. So why should we still use mail lists for the same purpose? Just because we have that old habit? Ah, I didn't often meet NASA people, even if there is mission critical decision to take here ;-) So using mailing list is not an old habit, I would love to use other funny things like forum and online tools, it's just the only way to communicate and participate I have :-) sorry to bother you with poor but expensive connexion consideration, it seems however we are the major part of the world in this situation. Kind regards Sophie -- Founding member of The Document Foundation -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 3:25 AM, Sophie Gautier gautier.sop...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Narayan, Of course, I am not suggesting that users should be forced to use a tool that does not fit their needs. a small difference here, it's not users but contributors, just a small difference I disagree, we should not be catering to contributors, but all users. The OOo contribution community has been too small for too long. If we really do want to succeed we need to see all users as potential contributors and provide equal access and respect. It started when I wanted to know if Drupal is going to be adopted. I never got my answer. I give one and ask some questions, may be you don't read it or do not want to answer. And seems I'm still an SC member ;-) It is a shame that there are some in the community who did not listen to, or misinterpreted the SC decision statement, isn't it. The official SC decision statement made it clear that Drupal will replace Silverstripe when it is considered ready. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/592 A concept map (or an argument map) are the best tool for conceptual discussion. Both can be collaboratively plotted in Drupal. I'm use to conceptual map on papers, sorry not easy to put on Drupal I fear ;-), but yes I work quite often with them, useful tool, that's true. It is actually quite easy with the Graphmind Drupal module http://drupal.org/project/graphmind Michael Wheatland -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On 15/12/2010 08:00, Michael Wheatland wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 3:25 AM, Sophie Gautier gautier.sop...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Narayan, Of course, I am not suggesting that users should be forced to use a tool that does not fit their needs. a small difference here, it's not users but contributors, just a small difference I disagree, we should not be catering to contributors, but all users. The OOo contribution community has been too small for too long. If we really do want to succeed we need to see all users as potential contributors and provide equal access and respect. So it will be the end of the topic for me because you don't want to understand: how will you recruit the hundred of contributors currently taking care of the forums if they don't want to be force to use Drupal? Will you tell them that you don't care about them, as you're don't care about what I try to explain to you since weeks ? It started when I wanted to know if Drupal is going to be adopted. I never got my answer. I give one and ask some questions, may be you don't read it or do not want to answer. And seems I'm still an SC member ;-) It is a shame that there are some in the community who did not listen to, or misinterpreted the SC decision statement, isn't it. Yes, shame on me, you're right. My decision is to go for Drupal where needed and to respect the community decision if they don't want to use Drupal as a 'all in one tool' because they are already doing a great work with another tool and want to stay with it. Period. So you can blame me, but I won't move from this position to battle for the respect of the community. And again a tool if far from a community in my eyes. The official SC decision statement made it clear that Drupal will replace Silverstripe when it is considered ready. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/592 A concept map (or an argument map) are the best tool for conceptual discussion. Both can be collaboratively plotted in Drupal. I'm use to conceptual map on papers, sorry not easy to put on Drupal I fear ;-), but yes I work quite often with them, useful tool, that's true. It is actually quite easy with the Graphmind Drupal module http://drupal.org/project/graphmind just that you need an access to the web, that was what I mean. Not everybody has a web access. So as said at the beginning of this mail, end of topic for me. Kind regards Sophie -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
RE: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Sophie, Of course, I am not suggesting that users should be forced to use a tool that does not fit their needs. a small difference here, it's not users but contributors, just a small difference I used the word user to mean readers and contributors. :) Why don't we try out a small pilot project and get the early user feedback, and see what happens? :) again, it's not users but contributors, still different but why not, let see who will duplicate the efforts and resources. Michael, it boils down to your explaining how this will work. * How easy it is to migrate old data. (A small demo will help) * Old vs new demo videos to convince how the new tool is better (I can help here). A major factor in favor of trying new technologies is, we don't have old legacy data; so there are no worries about losing data because of non-compatibility. we have a lot of legacy data, so this is very important to take them in consideration. This is an important knowledge base. Well, I hope Michael is aware of this data and its old format. If the idea is to make is available through Drupal, then this would be an early goal for Drupal team. Note that LibO itself has a major paradigm shift vis-a-vis OOo: 1. It will have a new design paradigm (feature vs content) 2. it will have new interfaces I don't understand what you're saying here, what is this new design and new interfaces? Could you give some link to that? So why is it that we want a paradigm shift in LibO design; but not for the help community? still I don't understand OK from the blogs etc, this is what I understood: LibO team exited from Oracle to follow their vision of how OOo should have been developed. One of the goals was Content-based development (against feature-based development). The Go-OO talked about prohibitive politics at Sun (not Oracle, mind). They specifically mentioned that some features/bugfixes were deliberately avoided at Sun. It seems all their patches are included in LibO now (features+bugfixes). Further, Go-OO announced closing Go-OO to continue with LibO. To me, all this means that the LibO team will do something different from what Sun/Oracle were doing. It is not just a power struggle or clash of egos. (correct me if I am wrong). So, we ARE talking about breaking away from the old philosophy that was prevalent for 10-20 years. If so, why not consider new ways of working also? A case in point is this thread itself. It started when I wanted to know if Drupal is going to be adopted. I never got my answer. I give one and ask some questions, may be you don't read it or do not want to answer. And seems I'm still an SC member ;-) DUH!! one of the MANY problems in mail lists is that we never know if we are talking to royalty. :) In a forum, your designation would have told me you are SC member. I will have to go back and search for your answer. :( But we have since then covered a lot of other inter-related ideas. Now a mail chain is the least efficient tool for such conceptual discussion. * We cannot reach any conclusion. * A latecomer cannot read it and understand what is happening. Sorry, I can't easily access web content, that is why I'm stuck with mailing lists. See, this is the second power outage until I begin this mail, funny isn't it :) I don't see how power outage will make a difference. What's the difference between a mail list and a forum page? Both are delivered one page at a time! Both pages are supposed to be light (so as to not take time in loading). A concept map (or an argument map) are the best tool for conceptual discussion. Both can be collaboratively plotted in Drupal. I'm use to conceptual map on papers, sorry not easy to put on Drupal I fear ;-), but yes I work quite often with them, useful tool, that's true. Michael, here is your chance to prove that Drupal can provide easy concept charts! ;) So using mailing list is not an old habit, I would love to use other funny things like forum and online tools, it's just the only way to communicate and participate I have :-) sorry to bother you with poor but expensive connexion consideration, it seems however we are the major part of the world in this situation. Again, I don't think forum are any different from a mail list in poor connectivity situation. BTW, I am glad that a highly active SC member is concerned about poor connectivity. This indeed is a huge problem around the world. But you are focusing on loading of HTML pages. A far more serious problem we face is in downloading LibO itself. Why does LibO continue to offer only full downloads; and not updates? That will help people with poor connectivity tremendously! Oracle Open Office offers update. Their marketing brochure actually boasts of large savings based on this single difference. So why does LibO not talk about online updates as a development goal at all?? Also, since Oracle OO also is
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 9:25 PM, Sophie Gautier gautier.sop...@gmail.com wrote: There is already forum that exist and they use phpBB technology for some or may be most of them. Drew has the knowledge here. For the French speaking one, it will be linked on our support page once the final version is announced because the admins and moderators don't want to provide supports on dev versions. I don't know if they have been asked, but I'm not really sure they will accept to migrate on a Drupal tool when they seems very happy with the technology they are currently using (and they have choose). There might be also an issue on migrating the existing database, not sure it's worth the cost. There is a clear benefit of having a forum, as there are clearly a lot of people who prefer not to use mailing lists. I would suggest that deliberately separating a language team from the main community is counter productive to one of the reasons that LibreOffice was formed, to unite the community across all languages. When the Drupal site has been created I am sure the French speaking team can make the assessment, and if decided so, migration from phpBB to Drupal is quite simple. Mike Wheatland -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Narayan, *, On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Narayan Aras narayana...@hotmail.com wrote: [...] It is difficult to believe that both sites are the result of the same product-brief. One of them is clearly not meeting the customer's intrinsic needs. The drupal development should focus about the technical aspects, not about the content. If the drupal team would care about the content, then they should do the discussion about that on the public list. As I said before, any future-proof CMS is fine provided someone has done careful feature-comparison. Especially for the features that are required by the different stakeholders. You're a couple of months late. We had that discussion already. and silverstripe does meet all relevant needs. Can SilverStripe or Drupal meet these needs better? I have not seen any study put on line. Has been done in the past. Executive summary Silverstripe: Does it out of the box, drupal has so many modules, so surely it can do the same and more and has a bigger fanbase/more users worldwide However the drupal demonstration sites sucked badly at the time, thus SC did vote for going live with Silverstripe. That there has not been much content on the site surely is not the fault of silverstripe. I'm very disappointed about this as well, but the reason is that almost nobody did provide content to put up on the site. Thankfully David and Italo did jump in and are working hard to get some content up that is good enough to make the switch from test.libreoffice.org to [www.]libreoffice.org ciao Christian -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi, :-) On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 21:41, Christian Lohmaier lohmaier+ooofut...@googlemail.com wrote: You're a couple of months late. We had that discussion already. and silverstripe does meet all relevant needs. Can SilverStripe or Drupal meet these needs better? I have not seen any study put on line. If you look at this comparative table [1], SilverStripe actually scores better than Drupal... [1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Evaluation_of_CMS_Platforms#Preconditions_to_go_live_with_one_of_the_CMS David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi David, 2010/12/12 David Nelson comme...@traduction.biz If you look at this comparative table [1], SilverStripe actually scores better than Drupal... [1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Evaluation_of_CMS_Platforms#Preconditions_to_go_live_with_one_of_the_CMS Look again ;) If questions go to http://www.libreofficeaustralia.org/richeditortest/rich-editor-test-book and http://libreofficeaustralia.org/node/51/revisions And again, you can add a lot of more advanced features if you want to. I'm leaving revision control (author-editor-publ) just because is not implemented yet, not than Drupal doesn't have that (that's basic). Kind regards -- http://www.cjenkins.net/ http://csl-tec.softwarelibrecr.org/ -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
2010/12/12 Carlos Jenkins hastciber...@gmail.com [OT] Michael, Did you upgrade lately the Drupal modules base? The Image Resize filter is broken, I'm disabling it for now while I check what happened. Kind regards Fixed, was a configuration parameter. Kind regards -- http://www.cjenkins.net/ http://csl-tec.softwarelibrecr.org/ -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
RE: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Christian, That there has not been much content on the site surely is not the fault of silverstripe. I'm very disappointed about this as well, but the reason is that almost nobody did provide content to put up on the site. Frankly I don't understand why the site should have almost no content (this has nothing to do with CMS). Why does it not have blogs, wiki and forum? (they get filled up by visitors; not content-writers.) Why does it not have marketing pages? (there are not left to casual contributors.) In fact, the SC should have used the sticky threads in forum to convey roadmaps and progress-reports to visitors. Note that each type of stakeholders (coders, documenters, website-makers, LibO-users) should have their own forums. Therefore SC can post separately customized messages for each target segment. The website also can have static pages such as FAQ created by SC. That would remove any confusion in people's mind, and better attract the contributors. I haven't seen anything worse than mail lists (especially for latecomers). Despite wading through hundreds of posts, all they get is various conflicting opinions (not official decisions). One such example is whether we will migrate to Drupal at all. Everyone has an opinion. But what's the official stand? Such far-reaching issues can be explained through FAQ or sticky posts at forum. Then the authors and contributors would know whether spending effort after Drupal is worthwhile. THIS IS TERRIBLE. Can SilverStripe or Drupal meet these needs better? I have not seen any study put on line. Has been done in the past. Executive summary Silverstripe: Does it out of the box, drupal has so many modules, so surely it can do the same and more and has a bigger fanbase/more users worldwide However the drupal demonstration sites sucked badly at the time, thus SC did vote for going live with Silverstripe. BTW by pure chance I came across this page: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Evaluation_of_CMS_Platforms#Preconditions_to_go_live_with_one_of_the_CMS IMHO the feature-comparison is readily available at CMS matrix website (www.cmsmatrix.org). So this exercise was not necessary. What we need is a collection of all stakeholders' needs. I posted a sample a few posts ago. The current IA does not cater to many of those needs. (This has nothing to do with CMS, but the IA design per se.) -Narayan -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi, On 12/12/2010 19:33, Narayan Aras wrote: Hi Christian, That there has not been much content on the site surely is not the fault of silverstripe. I'm very disappointed about this as well, but the reason is that almost nobody did provide content to put up on the site. Frankly I don't understand why the site should have almost no content (this has nothing to do with CMS). This is the contrary, Christian said that the content has not been develop for the www.libreoffice.org website. Not that it should have no content. Thanks to David and Italo, we will have this site very soon now :) Why does it not have blogs, wiki and forum? (they get filled up by visitors; not content-writers.) ha, may be because there is wiki and forum elsewhere already? Why does it not have marketing pages? (there are not left to casual contributors.) I was on my way to ask for an l10n.libreoffice.org, may be this is something to discuss, but we should ask on the list first? In fact, the SC should have used the sticky threads in forum to convey roadmaps and progress-reports to visitors. Why the SC should have done that ? Note that each type of stakeholders (coders, documenters, website-makers, LibO-users) should have their own forums. We have already our mailing lists, no needs to duplicate the info vectors imho. Therefore SC can post separately customized messages for each target segment. We do not need to post message to anybody, message is here since some time, just take it. The website also can have static pages such as FAQ created by SC. Why should we create a FAQ, every body, each community has the possibility to write a FAQ That would remove any confusion in people's mind, and better attract the contributors. I don't understand your point here. I haven't seen anything worse than mail lists (especially for latecomers). ha, but that's the only way for people like me to contribute, sorry. Despite wading through hundreds of posts, all they get is various conflicting opinions (not official decisions). Could you give an example here? It seems that the EN site has some delay, but some other sites are ready to go, so decision has been taken already :) And we have take the Silverstripe option, so the decision is made also. Now, I don't know how it is called in english, but we may also study other solutions, something like a technological prospective. Unfortunately I don't have the skills and the time to develop them, so I'm confident the community will be able to answers with tools corresponding to our needs, QATrack is one of the best example :-) One such example is whether we will migrate to Drupal at all. Everyone has an opinion. But what's the official stand For the moment, we are working on Silverstripe. We are a very very large community and hence have very different needs, QA, l10, docs come at the topf of my mind. Our community is not new, it comes with a past of work and usage. We have already some tools we are using for very specific purpose, we have some language teams that have some scope and needs that are very different from others. So the decision of a CMS has not to be taken on the next 5 minutes. I, as an SC member, understand that Drupal is able to do everything, I quite very well know Drupal members in the francophone community and know also how they are passionate. It's great, but actually I would only like it to do what I need and it does not seem the case. For the moment Silverstripe is doing all what my (meaning the one I belong, not the one I own) group needs, so yes, that will influence my vote. Such far-reaching issues can be explained through FAQ or sticky posts at forum. I still don't understand what you miss Then the authors and contributors would know whether spending effort after Drupal is worthwhile. THIS IS TERRIBLE. No, I don't think so. Just go to the different groups and ask what is needed. And see if what is already used fulfill the needs or if there is another better tool where this group should invest time and money to work with. The other way is to let them ask, and try to adapt the technology. Nothing terrible here, just life :) Kind regards Sophie -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Sophie Gautier wrote: We are a very very large community and hence have very different needs, QA, l10, docs come at the topf of my mind. Our community is not new, it comes with a past of work and usage. I agree with this. The OpenOffice.org volunteers now employ dozens of tools, see slide 7 of http://www.ooocon.org/index.php/ooocon/2010/paper/view/207 for a list of 20 or so tools/technologies in use, often with overlapping or identical scope. Forcing a new technology on volunteers (even if it is by far the best technology from a technical point of view) is always risky unless you accept that you can do without those volunteers who simply do not want to abandon the old, bad tools they got used to. Regards, Andrea. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 2:03 AM, Narayan Aras narayana...@hotmail.com wrote: Why does it not have blogs, wiki and forum? (they get filled up by visitors; not content-writers.) A forum and heavily integrated communication and support system is coming with Drupal which will support communication through mailing list, forum and XML. I am not sure how we would migrate items from a Silverstripe forum to a Drupal forum as they have to be attributed to a user. Please be patient, Drupal is only a couple of months off. One such example is whether we will migrate to Drupal at all. Everyone has an opinion. But what's the official stand? I don't know if there is misconception or misinformation. After Drupal has been developed into a full community site, it will replace Silverstripe. This is my interpretation of the decision made by the SC. This decision was announced on the website development wiki which nobody has challenged this for 2 months now. We have been in constant contact with Florian, our SC member, directly who has overseen the development with this goal clearly in mind, in line with the SC decision. As such I would put forward that anybody stating otherwise is ill informed or has misinterpreted the initial vote outcome. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/592 The discussion that Stefan has quoted is an internal documentation team discussion about if using Drupal as the primary tool for documentation development is the best option (Not relevant to the discussion here). If anybody can interpret the decision in any other way can they please cite a reference to a SC decision which contradicts this original vote for Silverstripe as an effective intermediate to the larger Drupal project. http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Evaluation_of_CMS_Platforms#Preconditions_to_go_live_with_one_of_the_CMS IMHO the feature-comparison is readily available at CMS matrix website (www.cmsmatrix.org). The matrix which was constructed on the wiki had not been updated for Drupal. It supports 90% of the requriements out of the box, and we have setup all of the other 'preconditions' already. We are now building the rest of the community site not covered by this matrix. By the way www.cmsmatrix.org is inaccurate. I just read through the Drupal matrix and 50% of the assessment is totally incorrect. Samuel Gómez wrote: First step: leave http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website for talking about the TDF website and create http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/LibO/... for LibreOffice topics. LibreOffice website would come in http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/LibO/Website , etc. The document foundation Wiki currently reflects the TDF structure with 'website' being a project team rather than reflecting the infrastructure of the websites. To summarise: The official position as per the SC vote is to use Silverstripe until Drupal is considered ready, at which point we will move the content over to Drupal and replace the Silverstripe site. We are progressing well down this path and should be ready to do as the SC has requested early next year. Unless there is a discussion and decision otherwise I suggest that we all align our efforts with the SC decision and work towards improving the content on Silverstripe and the further consulting with project teams leading to the final Drupal site. Michael Wheatland -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
RE: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi Michael, Why does it not have blogs, wiki and forum? (they get filled up by visitors; not content-writers.) A forum and heavily integrated communication and support system is coming with Drupal which will support communication through mailing list, forum and XML. I am not sure how we would migrate items from a Silverstripe forum to a Drupal forum as they have to be attributed to a user. Please be patient, Drupal is only a couple of months off. I was talking of the SilverStripe version, which was supposed to fill the void. There is no significant activity there. These are formation days for LibO community; so I expect more content (policies, directions) coming from the leadership. The website structure should focus on recruiting people in different streams, and guide them to proper page. Each landing page for a specific type of stakeholder (coder, documenter, etc.) should brief the new visitor thoroughly. It should explain the workflow, and provide links to all resources, tools and repositories. Also, SilverStripe forums would have been a welcome relief from these darned mail lists. Unless there is a discussion and decision otherwise I suggest that we all align our efforts with the SC decision and work towards improving the content on Silverstripe and the further consulting with project teams leading to the final Drupal site. Well, if the Drpal site was say a year down the road, I'd say SilverStripe was worth a shot. But the fact is, the SilverStripe project is almost telescoping into Drupal project. Even if contents are added within next 10 days, the useful life will be 2 months max. Then there's the headache of migrating everything to Drupal! I wonder if this is really worth the effort. So, rather than adding features in SilverStripe, it may be better to populate it with static contents. Examples are: From the SC: FAQ, Policy statements, roadmap, sticky threads at each forum for newcomers. From the marketing team: Description about LibO (how it is different from OOo), branding inputs Come to think of it, these contents can be placed in the Drupal site directly. It seems to be mature enough structurally. New sections can be added in parallel. I volunteer to be a moderator at Drupal. -Narayan -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Narayan Aras narayana...@hotmail.com wrote: So, rather than adding features in SilverStripe, it may be better to populate it with static contents. This is what is currently happening with the exception of the download page which is custom coded in Silverstripe. We will rebuild this in the native Drupal infrastructure when we are ready to launch. There was a flurry of discussion around this earlier and people seemed more happy to use the current infrastucture for communication (mailing list and wiki) and wait for the Drupal implementation. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
[libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
Hi all, Recently David has pointed out that the LibreOffice leadership has not decided anything about the Drupal site. (He cites Steering Committee MoMs that there are no plans to migrate to a Drupal site). Michael on the other hand believes that a Silverstripe site is only temporary (except the wiki part), and Drupal site is the future. This is highly confusing state of affairs: Nearly half of the volunteers' effort and time will be wasted, because one of the two projects will be closed in near future. I think we should have a better clarity from the leadership on this issue. Let us put all our effort on only one project. BTW it is OK if the leadership declares a healthy competition between the two and see who comes out on top. I will be rooting for both. Let the better idea/implementation win. So what is it going to be? Thanks, -Narayan -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
I hope this clears things up for you Narayan, I think you may be getting confused about the project teams (documentation team) choice to use the Drupal site as their development tool. To summarise the official plan for the LibreOffice.org domain: Now: Static HTML (Implemented through GIT) Very soon: Silverstripe (Being developed at test.libreoffice.org) Early 2011: Drupal (Being developed at libreofficeaustralia.org) The reasoning for this decision made by the Steering Committee, as stated in the conference call was that Drupal was the obvious choice for the official LibreOffice site, being powerful, extendable and having a massive developer/user base, but there were not enough developers on board yet willing to put in the time to develop the Drupal site. At the time there was a few people who could launch a site based on Silverstripe quickly (Expected within about a week but has taken a big longer) in order to create an online presence beyond static html pages. This site is currently located at test.libreoffice.org, which was largely left up to anybody who was willing to contribute to build what they wanted across the different languages, which was acceptable as the site is temporary and the longer term planning and development is going into the Drupal site. Effort will not be wasted on the Silverstripe site as we plan to move the pages from Silverstripe to Drupal when we are ready to launch the site. It is likely that the only difficulty we will have will be if people start to try to extend Silverstripe beyond it's capabilities with custom coding as is necessary for the proposed download page. Michael Wheatland -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
RE: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?
If you want to see the current state of the Silverstripe site, look at http://www.test.libreoffice.org. I did, and was surprised by lack of progress there. Since it the rapid-deployment system, it should have all contents by now. It should have been hosting the interactive content too. (wiki, forum, etc.) If it has all this, the lack of elaborate structure can be overlooked. But it does NOT have the content (both static and interactive). So if we compare only the empty shells, then Drupal site is more ready! The navigation system at Drupal site is much more evolved. So which is the scaffolding site, and which is the permanent one? And coming back to my original topic, how is this to be decided? -Narayan -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to website+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
