Hi Louis,
Some weeks ago (we had lovely warm weeks here by the end April) I was
sitting in a park watching a family, sort of picnicking. The children
were a bit jumping, running, wanting to move further on. The father
babbled something, but hardly to understand. He looked more drunk to me
and indeed, in the warm sun, he soon fell asleep. The mother did not
manage to keep the children with her. Maybe not smart or convincing
enough. Anyhow, soon the children wandered over all corners of the park,
mostly as a group, enjoying the room for their games in the sun. The
mother seemed restless and looking around, uncomfortable with the
children being gone and out of sight too. But she was also clearing,
gathering the picnic stuff. And the man still in another world,
sometimes even snoring. (Although at that time my own wife called me -
some obliged shopping - I stayed a while cause this scene filled me with
some laugh and curiosity.)
After a while, the wife stood up after all, left to find the children. I
saw her waving and calling and the children, playing their games,
closely passed the picnic place. By then of course the father had woken
up and with lots of noise and body shaking explained the children that
they should have stayed with him, to be guided, prevent making accidents
and so on. The wife shaked here head, and I could hardly suppress loud
laughing.
You know, Louis. I was there as community representative in the
community council, when long time contributors, important l10n groups,
had severe problems with decisions taken by the main sponsor, late 2009,
early 2010 (but of course not for the first time).
You, named community manager, were invisible. As you were 'visible' in
the community council mainly by being absent, and leaving your tasks
untouched for months, years. Thus developments that already were so slow
and difficult were frustrated even more. (And I even lost my patience on
some moments...)
End September, as a unavoidable result of various circumstances, the
larger part of the broader (not Sun/Oracle) community left... To
continue working in an independent foundation, not dominated by a single
vendor. To create the foundation for the community that was envisioned
already so long.
Now, after the recent Oracle announcement you seem to have a sort of
waken up, suddenly.
But alas I do not have the impression that your new activity results in
complimentary communication wrt the developers and other community
contributors, that decided to continue their work in TDF.
Further more, from what you write it looks as if you are not yet really
aware of what is going on in TDF and around LibreOffice. The growing
support of companies paying developers. The enormous growth in creative
and motivated people from around the world, skilled in many different
areas, helping with their knowledge and time - on a level unprecedented
in ten years of OOo before.
So look: there is a vibrant community. There is a foundation that gives
level playing field to corporate sponsors. There is a development
process that is inviting, easy to join, and even further improved now
with these goals in mind.
As a result both new features and lower-level improvements come in
LibreOffice rapidly, as well as a reliable release schedule with
predictable quality. And more to come.
To me, and maybe I may say this as former community representative in
the community council, this all makes a great base for reunification of
the larger community. And you may recall that reunification, in a not to
distant future, was my hope, my wish. I wrote this to the OOo
discuss-list shortly after the start of TDF
(Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:44:20 +0200.
Subject: Re: [discuss] Fwd: [ooo-announce] OpenOffice.org
Community announces The Document Foundation )
Oh, back to what happened in the park, on that sunny day in April: The
man soon fell asleep again. And while my wife pulled to the shopping
mall, I saw the woman and children having some good time together.
Cheers,
Cor
Louis Suarez-Potts wrote (18-05-11 23:38)
Actually, Florian and I are discussing that exactly. The days of
stiff difference are over with; were over with when Oracle renounced
OOo as a revenue source. And in their lieu, discussions of
reconciliation.
[...]
Meanwhile, I continue to drive ODF interest, and continue to
represent OOo at ODF events; and continue to represent, as much as I
can, as energetically as I can, to the world. I have no animus toward
LibreOffice, though I do have my share of doubts; but my spirit is
stamped with OOo, its community, its goal,
[...]
--
- http://nl.libreoffice.org
- giving openoffice.org its foundation :: The Document Foundation -
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