Hi, Sorry for full quote from Louis' post. This post made a long thread but I think we didn't see our conclusion. Was this topic discussed in Koper? Thanks, khirano
On 04/05/05, Louis Suarez-Potts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Friends, > > Earlier this year,[1] we held an emergency meeting whose purpose was to > clarify the position of the NLC leads regarding changes made to OOo and > to see about being included as early as possible in the process deciding > those changes. It was understood by all that as Sun largely determines > the shape of SO/OOo (OOo being the same codebase as SO), that we would > have to negotiate with Sun marketing directly. > > Late April, after numerous delays, an initial meeting was held by > Erwin Tenhumbeg, Young Song, Iyer Venkatesan, and me, to discuss how to > proceed. Iyer and Erwin are product managers involved with StarOffice > and OOo; Young of course works with the l10n groups. This meeting, > though, which focused on the NLC communities, goes beyond them. > > The meeting was quite positive. We all want to include more of the > community in deciding OOo's shape and roadmap. Equally, we also > recognize the need of structure for any such inclusion. Because > discussions on OOo affect StarOffice, and vice versa, we must approach > the issue of including community input very early on carefully. NDAs > may very well be needed for discussions that involve StarOffice > marketing. StarOffice is of course a proprietary application and its > roadmap and future is a thing of competitive interest. > > Meanwhile, OOo's efforts to systematize community interest in > enhancements (RFEs) has stalled, as many are probably aware, though we > are trying to get things going again. We made some attempts in this > regard late last year but lack of interest and meaningful progress (and > the holidays) arrested that development. > > So, a couple of proposals. > > 1. First, that we re-initiate the discussion of handling community input > for 3.0. It's too early to set a date for when we should do this by, > but it makes sense to start thinking of it. (Why is it too early? > Because there is no good sense even of what 3.0 will look like.) For > background, Sun has not previously included community input so early. > Last year's Q-Concept document was issued after most major decisions had > been made. It was a step in the right direction; this process is a much > greater step. This proposal, of course, spans the breadth of the > project, and is not specific to the NLC and the overall logic should be > articulated by the ESC and CC. But we can start thinking about it in > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > 2. Second, and this proposal can work within #1 above, we discussed a > model where representatives of the NLC leads might meet directly with > StarOffice marketing and product management leads. The idea is to > represent to SO product management the desires of the NLC users. As > mentioned above, representative leads may have to sign NDAs with Sun, as > they would be discussing proprietary information with the company. > > The second point is at best a half-way solution. I would prefer #1, of > course, as it conforms with OSS ideals. But let's be pragmatic. What > is needed now is for the application in development address the needs of > major users, and the most major users are, i believe, represented by the > NLC communities. What #2 provides is a way for the many users > represented by the NLC to have their voices heard. It's not as > democratic as #1 above, however, and should not be seen as a complete > solution; it is a temporary compromise. But I think we should consider > it. > > What to do now? > > I'd like for the NLC leads to consider this proposal. For number 1, > we--the entire project but especially the proddev team--needs to devise > protocols for managing RFEs, etc., and can discuss those in > [EMAIL PROTECTED] But, please, read the archives, first. [2] > > [1] > <http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=4404> > > [2] > <http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=proddev > > > > > Cheers, > Louis --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
