Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging users: initial results of the survey

Paul, everyone,


Le 2013-11-11 21:18, Paul a écrit :
> On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:33:43 -0700
> Ken Springer <snowshed1@q.com> wrote:
>
> > What I didn't like was being told my issues were not important.  BS!
> > It's important to me.
> If it's important to you, you can fund a developer to work on it for
> you, or work on it yourself. If not, then unfortunately the developer 
> is
> doing this for his own reasons, and gets to choose what he wants to
> work on. Obviously it makes sense for developers to listen to the users
> and work on what the majority of users think is important, but a) they
> are not actually obligated to do so, and b) don't assume your issues 
> are
> everybody's issues.


Very true. Also, it might be useful to remember that developers tend to 
contribute because they only want to and find a particular interest in 
doing so. Maybe it's for a plain old business interest, but when you're 
a volunteer developer, which is the case of the largest majority of 
developers on LibreOffice, you contribute because it's fun or you just 
want to help with specific things that bug you (not necessarily the 
others).


> > Let's say you have a car, and every 4th time you go to use it, it
> > won't start.  You take it to your mechanic, and each time you do, he
> > tells you "it's not important, he's got bigger problems to solve".
> > Are you going to continue to take it to that mechanic, or are you
> > going to find a different mechanic?
> What if the mechanic has too much work just dealing with peoples cars
> that won't start at all? Should he drop all that and deal with your
> issue? Why?
>
> This depends on the severity of the issues you are bringing up, and as
> I don't know the issues you have raised, I cannot speak to that, I'm
> just pointing out that so far you are not making a strong case for why
> your issues were important, only that you don't like being told your
> issues are not pressing. Nobody likes that, but sometimes it's true.
>
> > Regardless of product, if the vendor/supplier/developer tells you
> > that your issue is not important, will you use that product in the
> > future?
> I would just like to point out here that people love to complain about
> open source not solving their pet issues promptly, but few of them have
> actually tried to get issues solved in commercial products. I have. And
> just because I paid for the software is absolutely *no* guarantee that
> my issue will be attended to. Commercial software is just as likely to
> tell you your issues are not important. It depends on the product, for
> sure, but this is not always about open source vs. commercial, or even
> necessarily about any particular product. More often than not it is
> users thinking that because it is open source, and they actually have
> access to the developers to post bugs to, that this means their bugs
> automatically must get attended to, and if the developers respond with
> "Sorry, we're too busy working on things lots of users want. Your
> issues just aren't important right now" then they are being personally
> insulted. They assume that for all commercial software any issue they
> post will immediately get seen to, and because open source doesn't work
> that way, it is not good enough. Unfortunately this just isn't true of
> commercial software.
>
> Not saying you are saying this, I just wanted to point this out because
> I see it a lot, and your email didn't actually say that this wasn't the
> case for you.

True again. However, there's a way out of this. It may not be an easy 
way, but there's a way: contributing to LibreOffice. I realize that many 
people are complaining that contributing is difficult or even that they 
submitted several bug reports and nothing came out of that. I'm not 
arguing against that, but let's face it: contributors to a Free and Open 
Source Software project end up being in charge. Users aren't. The good 
thing about being a user of Free and Open Source Software is that 
fundamental freedoms and rights are being passed on to each user. But 
unless you go and fix it yourself, or pay someone to do it, or gather a 
team of people including developers who can tackle the issue, you're 
essentially left hoping your issue will catch the eye of someone. In a 
proprietary software environment, you do not, in fact, get listened to 
because you're paying. That's just not the way it works. But the 
perception plays against Free and Open Source Software here.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in and by itself LibreOffice is 
not a product. It's not even marketed as a product, but rather as a 
community. In this regard our marketing may fly against the definition 
of traditional marketing. I'll add one more shameless plug here: 
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2012/10/21/marketing-workshop-2012/ 
 but that will give you a good summary of how it works and why we would 
lose anyway if we were to work like MSFT.

Hope this helps,

Charles.


> Paul

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