> On 14 Jan 2015, at 12:46, Rory O'Farrell <ofarr...@iol.ie> wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:27:53 -0800 > "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> wrote: > >> Maintaining the independently-developed VCL GUI framework is an >> important concern. (Then there's UNO as a cross-platform COM >> derivative.) >> >> The problem with much of the complexity of AOO, it seems to me, >> is that it is difficult to find improvements that can be >> achieved with progressions of small changes that have every- >> think still working each step of the way. Combined with the >> level of expertise required to know what changes are safe >> and consistent with the architecture of AOO, there is a big >> challenge for identifying any major moves. >> >> It would be great to know what insights there are for >> cultivating and sustaining the necessary expertise and >> maybe simplifying the learning curve and entrance >> requirements. Maybe just keep doing more of what is >> already being done in this area? >> > > Changing a GUI framework as discussed here is a major task - fraught with > difficulty and hidden "gotchas". It would be better to put the effort going > into two areas: bug-fixing - there are many little bugs to be fixed; > secondly, improvement in the functionality. Here is not the place to start a > debate on what needs to be changed/improved, but we should bear in mind that > "bells and whistles" always attract users. If we let competitive products > outdistance us, we lose our share of the user base.
What “competitive products” do you mean? LibreOffice? Microsoft Office? Or perhaps you mean Calligra, which actually went through an intense refactoring (successful, too) several years ago. (Calligra is nice, but does not work with Mac OS X very well at all and is not maintained. Plans exist, but I get the feeling it’s like fusion power.) More to the point, and trying to be realistic…. OpenOffice is right now on maintenance mode, as far as I can tell. We will issue a 4.1.2 and probably further micro releases addressing bugs, midges, and gnats. But we’re not slaying dragons nor otherwise attempting ambitious projects. And it’s not a matter of bells and whistles—of glitter to appeal to fools who can’t otherwise see the gold. It’s rather matter of creating a product that the millions who are going to be using open source productivity applications can actually use on the platforms and environments they are given or buy. These will continue to be desktops (including laptops) but also mobile devices. That is: the future is not like the past and to pretend it is and will continue to so seems to me problematical. Yet any transition is bound to demand resources we can’t pull out of thin air. Note, this has always been the argument for the status quo here. (It was also coupled to the one you raised, earlier.) This obdurance is one reason I helped establish the new project Corinthia, which is a new thing altogether. But I also still believe that OpenOffice has a future and that investigating ways in which we can make OpenOffice not only easier to work on but to use would serve us—the overall community—well. louis --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
