Hi everyone,There was some talk recently and, also a while ago, about the Download page and which version(s) should be offered by default of the page. I think we should revisit the logic of this page.
We are presently suggesting and offering visitors to the site the default of our "most recent version" of LibreOffice. While this is great for larger feedback results for de-bugging it does not necessarily present a good choice for those looking for a stable, solid and reliable document application for their work or office deployment.
Although some other software packages offer their product on a release cycle much like ours - most notably the Mozilla group - our product is unique in that LibreOffice is in many cases used by groups or individuals where the resulting end-user document(s) are clearly dependent on the use of a quality-assured application. In short, an application that does not add any formatting error to the end product.
While any deployment of LibreOffice would sensibly involve advanced planning where the weight of using the "most recent version" as opposed to a more seemingly "solid previous version" (this, hopefully the norm), I do not believe that we are giving enough warning to individual users of the risks behind using our "most recent version" as opposed to an earlier "solid performing version". I believe that such a warning should appear on our Download page.
I would then propose the following minimal changes to the Download page in order to address this issue:
Rework the sentence: "LibreOffice Linux - rpm (x86_64), version 3.5.2, English (US). Not the version you wanted? Change System, Version or Language" which seems to span/draw the equivalent of 2 lines on users' monitors to:
"LibreOffice Linux - rpm (x86_64), most recent version 3.5.2, English (US). Not the version you wanted? Change System, Previous Stable Version or Language (Release Notes Details)" <--- the "Release Notes Details would link to the http://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/ page
This should still keep sentence to 2 lines on the users' monitors and, at the very least, allow users time to reflect of their choice of versions before hitting the default download buttons.
I believe this would show a more responsible use of our Download page by giving warning to users of their choice of versions by giving them notice of the differences of versions and their scale of reliability.
Cheers, Marc -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to marketing+help@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted