Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Fw: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Is 3.5.4 ready for business users?

Hi :)
Many people are willing and even enjoy testing and trying out the latest newest version especially 
if that means they get to play with new features.  There are so many of them they even have names 
such as "early adopters".  We need to attract more of them!!  

Those people are not looking for stability.  They are looking for fresh and exciting or just trying 
to stay ahead of the game and see what is coming up next.    

Sell those new early releases using those aspects  as the way of promoting them.  

If you blatantly lie and tell people that the new branch is "stable" then those ear4ly-adopters  
lose interest and go elsewhere, to other projects that ARE doing new and exciting things AND 
telling people about it.  

At the same time, by claiming that the latest new thing IS your most stable version then if/when 
they find regressions they wont bother looking at previous versions.  After all you have just told 
them there is no version more stable than the one they have been given and therefore any problems 
are NEW bugs.  So, they walk away to find other products that do have the functionality they are 
looking for and just tell people they know that LO is just not ready yet.  

In almost all cases that got as far as the Users List those blockers were solved by simply getting 
them to try the 3.4.6 release.  The one that didn't have all the regressions you would expect from 
a new and exciting branch.  

I seem to be explaining this really badly.  If i say it 1 way around people think i am a jerk 
because of course i should expect regressions in the latest software.  But what if i don't want the 
latest?  What if i want something solid and reliable?  

The official website has been telling people  that 3.5.0 and so on where the most reliable when 
they weren't!!  If it told them instead that they were getting the ultra-latest then they might be 
happier about accepting regressions and perhaps looking back for a more stable version.  If they 
are told it IS the most stable version then WHY would they look?


Now there is a question on the User List asking if the  3.5.4 is stable and ready for corporate 
use.  NO-ONE can TRUSTS the official TDF line, as repeated by Italo, because it has been used so 
many times before and then found to be false in so many cases.  Which part of this line is true 
this time and which part is a lie this time?  "3.5.x is stable, although there are some 
regressions".  The 1st part tells us that it is ready for corporate usage, the 2nd part contradicts 
that.  

However the whole discussion can be avoided by actually telling the truth instead of lying about it 
and then trying to cover-up the lie.  Sell the product on what really ARE its good points (ok, and 
stretch it a little as every marketing department for every product probably does).  

Regards from
Tom :)



--- On Sun, 3/6/12, Italo Vignoli <italo.vignoli@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Italo Vignoli <italo.vignoli@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Fw: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Is 3.5.4 ready for business 
users?
To: marketing@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Sunday, 3 June, 2012, 11:07

3.5.x is stable, although there are some regressions which impact on
some users. Of course, this is not implying that 3.5.x is perfect, and
we will never have a perfect software as bugs and regressions are part
of the process especially when you are developing new features on a 20
years old code base.

Unfortunately, as it is the case for proprietary software as well, the
only way to check if bugs and regressions impact your usage patterns is
to install the software and start using it.

Tom Davies wrote:

> Hi :) The 3.5.0 was blatantly not ready for business use and was not
> stable, as we saw from the number of problems people had on the
> lists, problems that were often solved by going back to 3.4.x.  It
> was absurd to claim that 3.5.0 or 3.5.1 or 3.5.2 were stable.

-- 
Italo Vignoli - italo.vignoli@gmail.com
mob +39.348.5653829 - VoIP 5316436@messagenet.it
skype italovignoli - gtalk italo.vignoli@gmail.com

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