On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 3, 2011, at 11:09 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> >
> > Please see Simon Phipps' email earlier today that contained a very
> similar suggestion with some more detail, it would be nice to bring these
> two threads together.
> >
>
> Simon's email, from what I can tell, boils down to:
>
> 1. The podling goes along as suggested.
> 2. The TDF continues business as usual.
>
That's so far from being a valid interpretation of my proposal I almost
don't know where to begin.
What I am saying is that ASF is being entrusted with something it has never
had before; a consumer brand of inestimable value, combined with an
enormous, non-technical end-user community. OpenOffice.org is probably the
most recognised open source consumer brand after Linux. Servicing that
responsibility is a massive task. I've seen a few e-mails with people with
hand-waving it away ("how hard can it be?" etc) but those of us with
experience of OpenOffice know that it's daunting.
If I were voting on this incubator proposal (and of course I know I am not),
I would want to know that the people proposing it had a grasp of the
enormity of the task and a plan for dealing with it /from day one/ and not
from an undefined point in the future after which Apache has a serious
reputational problem with that end-user community and a serious enforcement
problem with that trademark.
Since I did not see any hint of this in the proposal, my suggestion for how
to deal with it from day one is to explore co-operation with LibreOffice,
who have the build infrastructure, distribution infrastructure, translation
and localisation infrastructure and indeed marketing infrastructure already
in place, following eight months of hard work on their part. Ask them if
they would be willing to create OpenOffice.org-the-binary-download for you.
Ask them to host that binary download. Then as the Apache project falls into
place, continue to collaborate for the good of the open source community.
> color me confused: first Simon slams the ASF for not actively
> engaging TDF and others (although we, of course, did) but now
> his suggestion is to basically ignore each other...
>
Actually I thought my whole e-mail was pretty reasonable and in fact a call
for ASF and TDF /not/ to ignore each other. But apparently my lame attempts
to talk of collaboration and conciliation are "slamming" and the people who
are flinging mud at TDF are just fine and get no rebuke from the ASF
President. I must have done a terrible writing job...
S.
