Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Trivia Question - Further Observation

On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote:
> Hello Alex,
>
> In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood 
> <alex.thurgood@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
> > Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may,
> > or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from
> > other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions
> > to consider any given bug as a stopper or not.
>
> I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French 
> mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement.
>
> Now, I'm working with other people on this project:
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html
>
> During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo 
> Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing 
> list (for people who knows Italian: 
> http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) 
> , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community 
> LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones 
> (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like 
> the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less 
> stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate 
> oriented linux distribution based on Fedora?
>
> I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these 
> Meeks messages:
>
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html
>
> and to the extremely important "Breathing Master" discussion here:
>
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html
>
> Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I 
> know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification 
> for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo "cutting 
> edge" product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model.
>
> Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates 
> a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the 
> proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo.
>
> Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Gianluca

I am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer:  Make 
ALL functions work as advertised!
I had to make every option work properly and "exactly" like it was 
wanted, or I get "bad news" from my bosses.
I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out 
every possible value that would be used as input for the entered 
fields.  That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with 
number values.  But I was expected to have it completely working the 
first time it is use and every time it is used.

So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a 
cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose.

The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me 
wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not 
on others.  Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test 
for.  I know that there are people out there scratching their heads 
trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to 
be fixed.  But it will be fixed in due course.

I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new 
stuff in that version.  As a "cutting edge" product, we keep adding new 
and better features the product.  As a "stable" product, people keep 
fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed "before" 
the new options are added.  Most business models, that do not deal with 
money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those 
two product development "styles".

As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do 
their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the 
package.  What I would like to see is a dialog between those business 
people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO.  This 
would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out 
there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people 
respond about what is being done on their end.  That way if there is a 
fix already made, the business people could get the revised code or 
maybe a compiled package with those issues fixed.

TDF/LO needs to be a part of the process so no matter how fixes the 
code, all users will benefit from those fixes.  Also, with the 
constructive dialog between business development teams and TDF/LO 
development teams, it would be better in the long run for keeping good 
opinions about LibreOffice by the corporate/ business users.

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