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If the last version of each line 3.4.6 and then 3.5.6 were kept in the support loop for a bit longer than just a few months, that would help some people. I know each line keeps getting better and better, by the time the .4 version is out, but I have been seeing references to AOO 4.0 as if they will be skipping over the 3.6, 3.7, etc., etc.. So if people see the original OOo version, now AOO, at 4.0 and LO is at 3.6 or 3.7, LO will look behind them.

So we need to get people use to the fact that we are doing a different version numbering, and we are also supporting our earlier lines for longer than the 2 or 3 months it seems now. I do not know how to really explain my fears that people will start thing TDF/LO is not as professional as AOO seems, or LO is not something business users should use but AOO is.

Also how many "normal" people would even get what a LTS version is all about?

I do not think our developers should slow down the pace, but it does no good to have a new version needing to be installed every month or two, if business users will thing that LO is putting out buggy products just to keep a release schedule. MSO can get away with it, LO cannot.

We have been told that there will be a version/line in the future that will not need to have a full install for every new version coming out, but some "patch" release changing a .3 to a .4 version. Hopefully that will happen before the end of the year. If not by then, hopefully it is as soon as possible after that. That will help all of us get business users to except a rapid deployment schedule if all they have to do is install a patch, like they now do with MSO.


On 06/05/2012 04:55 PM, Tom Davies wrote:
Hi :)
Thanks :)  I think that reinforces what Marc Pare is saying about needing more than a month or so 
support.  Also it seems the overlap period will be far greater, unless they switch to only doing 
LTSes every 4 years to be more in-line with MS.
Regards from
Tom :)

--- On Tue, 5/6/12, Craig Olofson<c.olofson@gmail.com>  wrote:

From: Craig Olofson<c.olofson@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Of "business ready use" and bugs in LibreOffice and a 
LibreOffice LTS
To: marketing@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Tuesday, 5 June, 2012, 21:46

Fyi

Canonical changed LTS support for the desktop from 3 to 5 years, starting with 12.04, to better 
accommodate their OEM customers.

Normal Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Previous Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) 
releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server. Starting with Ubuntu 
12.04 LTS, LTS releases will be supported for 5 years on both the desktop and the server.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

hth,
-Craig

On 06/05/2012 01:42 PM, Tom Davies wrote:
Hi :)
Ubuntu LTS lasts for 3 years (for desktops) but are released every 2 years.
This gives orgs the 1 year of testing they need before migrating from the previous LTS and moving 
to the new one.  If they gave 3 years support and released every 3 years then orgs would have a 1 
year gap running an unsupported LTS while they were still testing the new one.  Now i understand 
why the 1 year overlap is so important to Ubuntu.
Regards from
Tom :)

--- On Tue, 5/6/12, Marc Paré<marc@marcpare.com>   wrote:

From: Marc Paré<marc@marcpare.com>
Subject: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Of "business ready use" and bugs in LibreOffice and a 
LibreOffice LTS
To: marketing@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Tuesday, 5 June, 2012, 21:23

Hi Charles,

Le 2012-06-05 09:12, Charles-H. Schulz a écrit :
Thank you for bringing that up, it's an interesting discussion. Here's
what I think reading your message. You're asking in fact two questions.
One of which might already have been answered by a few of our corporate
members/sponsors.
* LTS obviously means long term support. Both "support" and "long term"
       deserve careful consideration. I will in this email first focus on
       the term "support". If we speak of support, we must think of a
       support provider. In this case, does this mean we should think -as
       TDF, as a project- of providing professional support to users
       (obviously for a fee)? I don't think it's your idea, but I thought I
       would highlight the implications of such a matter.
* Have we studied what some of the existing support/service providers
       on LibreOffice already offer? I am not so sure but I'm under the
       impression that you can order support (and in this case a "LTS" kind
       of support) from Suse and Canonical (there are others) on one
       specific version of LibreOffice. That is, these vendors have one
       reference version of LibreOffice, say the 3.4.5, and they provide
       support and services on it making it their de facto LTS version.
Yes, this is fine as they will guarantee that LibreNormal Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 
months. Previous Ubuntu LTS
(Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop
and 5 years on the server.  Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, LTS releases
    will be supported for 5 years on both the desktop and the server. Office will work on their systems and they will 
take care of any dependencies and network-ability. But I don't think they would undertake any code revision and code 
features into their LTS versions, not unless they have a large team of coders, which in this case would make them 
"competitors" to our work/product (read "fork"). This would take us back to the days of the many 
different versions of OOo -- the same situation that drew all of these different groups into one LibreOffice community.

Leaving support/service providers to develop an LTS version, in my opinion, is not the right 
strategy to adopt.

Back to your suggestion: do you mean we should relabel the older branch
"LTS", knowing that each of our releases in one branch really works
like a "service pack"? If we had the ability to provide incremental
updates (we will one day) we would have the feelings we have two
versions, and sometimes "maintenance updates". So at some point, say
the 3.5.4, we label it LTS, because we're close to open a new branch,
the 3.6, and we can suggest service providers to base their support
offers on this one for the time being. Did I get you right?
No. I suggest that at some point, the TDF/LibreOffice should designate an LTS version for 
large/small organizations/businesses. These would have developers oversee the fixing of bugs for a 
fixed term (let's say a 3 year period) after which time another LTS version would be designated. 
The LTS maintenance would NOT introduce any new functions to the distro but only service bug 
correction. IMO, if any business entity would like to add any new functionality, then this is where 
a support/service provider would step in and, hopefully, contribute any development of code back to 
the community.

I don't really think this is a new concept as even Mozilla-Firefox offers its own "Extended Support 
Release (ESR)" version for corporate users[1]. When critical software packages are installed in large 
corporations, a lot of energy in investment of time, training and documentation is expended in order to get 
employees up to speed. LibreOffice certainly falls into this category (critical software -- wordprocessing 
software). While Firefox ESR is being released initially for a period of approximately 1 year, IMO, I believe 
they will ultimately find that a longer term will be necessary for these large organizations. As for a 
version of LibreOffice LTS (or ESR), the impact of change for large organizations is even larger due to the 
amount of training of staff of new features (even more so in the educational field with the training of 
younger students).

If we are looking to supplant MSO in the office place, we need to realize and accept the simple fact that the 
amount of software/network testing as well as (and even more importantly) the training of staff for large 
orgainizations is considerable. I sincerely doubt that a "one year"-term LTS for LibreOffice would 
suffice; one year is just about enough time to test out the suite before it is even installed; most 
organizations simply do not have the manpower to move any quicker.

If we wish to compete in the large business market place we need to plan and develop more 
strategically with our releases. Developing an LTS version will fix this. Otherwise, the choice 
will remain MSO for office use, where MSO has a longer term of support with incremental changes for 
bugfixes and where LibreOffice will remain marginalized as an office suite.

Best,

-- Charles-H. Schulz Co-founder&   Director, The Document Foundation,
Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany Rechtsfähige Stiftung des
bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details:
http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint Mobile Number: +33 (0)6 98 65
54 24.
Cheers,

Marc

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal#Benefits


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