2016 budget proposals

Dear community,

the year 2015 is over, and we have achieved a lot of exciting things, thanks to your amazing work, dedication, passion and support - thank you so much for being part of our community and working with us on the joint goal of fostering LibreOffice!

In order to support the community even better, we would like to create a better budgetting process, have a concrete plan for 2016 already now, with a few "pools" or "buckets" defined, ideally:

1. community events (aimed at getting face-time for community contributors)
2. infrastructure (e.g. compute power/hardware/storage, cloud, VMs),
3. marketing (aimed at representing the project to the outside world)
4. other (anything that does not fit into the above)

The idea is to have a good plan for 2016 already now, while keeping the administrative overhead low, and have two authorizers (one of them being a board member or deputy, the other one from the wider community) responsible for each budget, which means getting receipts, approving and tracking expenses, and clarifying questions with Florian or Sophie.

To get a better understanding of your needs, we ask you to send us your budget requests within *three weeks* from this e-mail, i.e. by 2016-03-02 to floeff@documentfoundation.org

While I monitor some of the lists, please always send your proposals/requests *directly* to me so they are not lost!

Please let us know your requests for funds *alongside* some items you envision to be paid from these funds. The items are not binding, the spending in the end is the responsibility of the authorizers, but some examples help the board in getting a better understanding of the funds required to best match your needs. If possible, please also mention the amount of travel costs associated. We'll factor in some margin, but concrete numbers and ideas are very much welcome to have a plan for 2016.

As a sample, a request could look like this:

Hi all,

I would like to remind you about the budget proposal Florian has made
some time ago, the deadline is approaching, so please don't miss it :slight_smile:
Cheers
Sophie

Hi,

Florian Effenberger píše v St 10. 02. 2016 v 18:05 +0100:

In order to support the community even better, we would like to create a
better budgetting process, have a concrete plan for 2016 already now,
with a few "pools" or "buckets" defined, ideally:

1. community events (aimed at getting face-time for community contributors)
2. infrastructure (e.g. compute power/hardware/storage, cloud, VMs),
3. marketing (aimed at representing the project to the outside world)
4. other (anything that does not fit into the above)

Olivier is currently working on a webservice that is able to show the
help online [and hopefully in a better quality than the current
wikihelp].

For a long time, we are discussing also a way to edit the help more
conveniently, ideally directly from the web interface [use case: the
user sees wrong / old help content -> proposes an update -> somebody
from the documentation team approves that -> everybody wins :-)]

Unfortunately, the progress is slow, we did not attract any web
developers yet, and trying to develop that only via GSoC tasks is too
slow.

I propose to have a Documentation budget item for a tender to create
such a webservice - any objections, please?

Technically, it would still work on top of the .xhp files; it turns out
that we can clean up the format a bit to make it more readable, and
changing all the tools and workflows is too much work.

All the best,
Kendy

Hi Kendy,

Hi,

Florian Effenberger píše v St 10. 02. 2016 v 18:05 +0100:

In order to support the community even better, we would like to create a
better budgetting process, have a concrete plan for 2016 already now,
with a few "pools" or "buckets" defined, ideally:

1. community events (aimed at getting face-time for community contributors)
2. infrastructure (e.g. compute power/hardware/storage, cloud, VMs),
3. marketing (aimed at representing the project to the outside world)
4. other (anything that does not fit into the above)

Olivier is currently working on a webservice that is able to show the
help online [and hopefully in a better quality than the current
wikihelp].

Thanks to Olivier for this great work, I tested it yesterday and it's
already a nice move. Just for my understanding, I thought it was to be
able to replace the current embedded browser LibreOffice is providing.
So that mean that the help files could be displayed either locally and
on a webservice? And the wiki will be abandoned in that case?

For a long time, we are discussing also a way to edit the help more
conveniently, ideally directly from the web interface [use case: the
user sees wrong / old help content -> proposes an update -> somebody
from the documentation team approves that -> everybody wins :-)]

Unfortunately, the progress is slow, we did not attract any web
developers yet, and trying to develop that only via GSoC tasks is too
slow.

I propose to have a Documentation budget item for a tender to create
such a webservice - any objections, please?

not on my side :slight_smile:

Technically, it would still work on top of the .xhp files; it turns out
that we can clean up the format a bit to make it more readable, and
changing all the tools and workflows is too much work.

I forgot where do we stand with the extended tooltips, is there still a
technical issue to extract them and what remains is the l10n problem?
Thanks,
Cheers
Sophie

Hi,

Hi,

Florian Effenberger píše v St 10. 02. 2016 v 18:05 +0100:

In order to support the community even better, we would like to create a
better budgetting process, have a concrete plan for 2016 already now,
with a few "pools" or "buckets" defined, ideally:

1. community events (aimed at getting face-time for community contributors)
2. infrastructure (e.g. compute power/hardware/storage, cloud, VMs),
3. marketing (aimed at representing the project to the outside world)
4. other (anything that does not fit into the above)

Olivier is currently working on a webservice that is able to show the
help online [and hopefully in a better quality than the current
wikihelp].

Currently for evaluation: http://hc3.edx.srv.br and is work in progress.
I restored the navigation and I left ugly styles to make sure it will be
improved one day.

For a long time, we are discussing also a way to edit the help more
conveniently, ideally directly from the web interface [use case: the
user sees wrong / old help content -> proposes an update -> somebody
from the documentation team approves that -> everybody wins :-)]

Unfortunately, the progress is slow, we did not attract any web
developers yet, and trying to develop that only via GSoC tasks is too
slow.

I propose to have a Documentation budget item for a tender to create
such a webservice - any objections, please?

Absolutely not. +1000.

Technically, it would still work on top of the .xhp files; it turns out
that we can clean up the format a bit to make it more readable, and
changing all the tools and workflows is too much work.

modulo the insertion on the <?xsl:stylesheet../> in each xhp file, which
is easily automated and should not change a pixel in the display.

regards

Hi Sophie, All

Hi Kendy,

Hi,

(snip)

Thanks to Olivier for this great work, I tested it yesterday and it's
already a nice move. Just for my understanding, I thought it was to be
able to replace the current embedded browser LibreOffice is providing.
So that mean that the help files could be displayed either locally and
on a webservice? And the wiki will be abandoned in that case?

I'm no wizzard of web technology so I had to start the long march with
the first step which is the proof of concept. In this particular case
the difference between a online and local help service is a change in
the protocol (from html:// to file://, which I had not solved yet) and
all the rest is the same.

On the wikihelp, I don't think it has to be abandonned. "Au contraire",
it has matured and it works. Let's stay with the wikihelp, until the
other solution proves better.

(snip)

I forgot where do we stand with the extended tooltips, is there still a
technical issue to extract them and what remains is the l10n problem?

One of the challenges.

Regards

Hi Sophie,

Sophie píše v Pá 26. 02. 2016 v 13:51 +0100:

> Olivier is currently working on a webservice that is able to show the
> help online [and hopefully in a better quality than the current
> wikihelp].

Thanks to Olivier for this great work, I tested it yesterday and it's
already a nice move. Just for my understanding, I thought it was to be
able to replace the current embedded browser LibreOffice is providing.
So that mean that the help files could be displayed either locally and
on a webservice?

That's the hope, yes.

And the wiki will be abandoned in that case?

No point in maintaining 2 services doing the same work; so once the
pages generated directly from .xhp's are better than those from
wikihelp, I can imagine the switch & slowly abandoning wikihelp
("freeze" it and make available only for old versions, or so).

> Technically, it would still work on top of the .xhp files; it turns out
> that we can clean up the format a bit to make it more readable, and
> changing all the tools and workflows is too much work.

I forgot where do we stand with the extended tooltips, is there still a
technical issue to extract them and what remains is the l10n problem?

With working directly on .xhp's, the extended tooltips are not a blocker
any more, can be extracted or not, neither of these possibilities is a
problem.

All the best,
Kendy