On 04/23/2015 08:43 PM, Nancy K wrote:
> Hi everyone, I just wanted to suggest that negative points made in
> these articles can be turned around and made into good public
> relations by addressing these points as separate blog posts. Several
> positive blog posts linking back to OpenOffice would be easier to
> read than one article addressing too many topics. I also noticed
> comments on these articles describing what people like and that is a
> peek into features some future customers might desire. Maybe that
> needs to be implemented, or maybe not. Maybe a feature people like
> can be the platform to something no one has thought to develop yet. I
> really believe in open source freedom to dream big. I know that there
> are marketing volunteers and writing volunteers. At one time there
> was a usability/ui/ux start. Unlike coding jobs that can be done
> independently, what do you think about creating a way to work
> together on some of the marketing/writing/usability/web design jobs?
> I can think of one way to do this - but I bet you can think of better
> ways. One beginning idea is to devote one page to addressing the
> facts that need to be presented, the ideas that need to be surveyed,
> the features that are desirable, anything else that can be used by
> the marketing team and the writers to post in blogs. Focusing on the
> things that can be accomplished and the direction that needs to be
> broadcast. I know that having this focused information would help me
> develop the infographics I still would like to create for this
> project. I would also like to work on any html5/css3/seo/web design
> and usability project and brainstorm on any marketing ideas. But I
> don't know what is needed - what the priority is. Ever since I
> started following the development list, I have seen an increase in
> downloads for every version that is developed. I have also seen
> amazing support between the developers. Obviously Apache Open Office
> developers are doing a lot of things right! I think this is a
> creative, fun and positive group with a lot of passion for coding.
> Nancy Nancy Web Design Free 24 hour pass to lynda.com.
> Video courses on SEO, CMS, Design and Software Courses
>
>
> From: Pedro Giffuni <p...@apache.org> To: OOo Apache
> <dev@openoffice.apache.org> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2015 7:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Two current articles
>
> Hello;
>
> I just wanted to mention that while it indeed appears that Apache
> OpenOffice is over-going a crisis, you can rest assured that in
> opensource there is no such thing as death.
>
> We always knew that other projects would take our code and won't give
> back, we always knew that there would be a dirty PR game against us,
> and to be honest, none of that ever stopped us from considering the
> idea of Apache OpenOffice as a TLP in the ASF and it didn't stop us
> from doing code that we like. That obviously hasn't stopped people
> from downloading the code either.
>
> To make this absolutely clear: the brand for "Apache OpenOffice"
> cannot be assigned to a non-ASF project, it will stay here and we are
> not merging with anyone else.
>
> Apache OpenOffice, under an Apache License, will live on as long as
> some one finds value in taking the code and use it for whatever
> purpose they want. This was what we wanted to do and this is what is
> still happening. The liberal licensing has already benefited other
> Apache Projects, and that alone was a great reason to have OpenOffice
> within the ASF.
>
> This said, there is a crisis, but crisis is actually an opportunity
> to change the way things are done. In a project where no one is
> getting paid to do anything, crisis doesn't really mean much of
> anything.
>
> Concerning the lack of Release Manager, I took the chance to check
> the Apache documentation about the role (it appears the httpd case is
> as authoritative as it gets):
>
> http://httpd.apache.org/dev/release.html
>
> "The release is coordinated by a Release Manager (hereafter,
> abbreviated as RM). Since this job requires trust, coordination of
> the development community, and access to subversion, only committers
> to the project can be RM. However, there is no set RM, and more than
> one RM can be active at a time. Any committer may create a release
> candidate, provided that it is based on a releasable (non-vetoed) tag
> of our current subversion repository corresponding to the target
> version number."
>
> Personally I wouldn't have the time to spend on this, and I feel
> better writing small pieces of code (I am not as active as I used to
> but now we have a new state-of-the-art random number generator in
> Calc). I am pretty sure there are capable committers that have the
> same time availability issue.
>
> I would suggest that the PMC, as a team, takes over the Release
> Management role. Any committer (and the PMC is full of them) can do
> the tasks.
>
> IMHO, at this time only reason for making a release is signing the
> Windows binaries, so hopefully the task is not too big for the PMC.
>
> Pedro.
>
>
Thanks for the love, Pedro and Nancy. We are indeed in a bit of a pause
but not dead! As Pedro points out, open source
applications rarely "die". It is certainly true, we need additional
volunteer developers. In my opinion. this requires more active
recruitment efforts and better triage by expending effort to identify
specific areas for fixing bugs, and, equally important, planning for the
future in terms of feature additions and possibly feature elimination.
Pedro's suggestions re a group effort for the RM are certainly good.
Nancy, I love your thoughts! I think you would be a great addition to
the marketing list and "team" if you aren't already. We could definitely
use more bloggers -- really on any subject related to OpenOffice.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
MzK
“What is the point of being alive if you don't
at least try to do something remarkable?”
-- John Green, "An Abundance of Katherines"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
