Hi Sophie,
first .. it is very sad to hear you talking this way. But I can
understand why and share some (most) of your views.
I found myself reading the council mail archive some weeks ago and found
the very first council agenda:
http://council.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=60
reading the agenda I felt like dejavu esp. on that points :
underestimation by Sun of community contributors
lack of clear policy to cope with the community
But I'd like to say, that "by Sun" is not true anymore .. this seems to
be more general nowadyas (e.g. developers who tell technical writers to
read the code, if they like to document a feature ..). At the other
hand, things are improving ...
Sophie Gautier schrieb:
...
For you information, Kami's version has caused a lot of issues for me
(as a project lead) and I have been the target of several insults for
not endorsing it or on the contrary for not reacting publicly against it.
The fact is that Kami never goes here to ask for our help and that we
have a responsibility in front of the OpenOffice.*name that are
released and are deployed in several companies and administrations.
This is not only a toy...
All I can say, is that Kami came up several times at the germanophione
lists and asked for help .. and if there is material he could include.
Those questions have been answered .. and that's it. (I'll say more
about this in reply to Kami)
....
About the documentation project, it happens that in the same time of
the template contest, somebody at Sun has proposed to the community
council, in a private mail, that some templates where offered or sells
(I didn't really understand and didn't want to understand a private
mail that should be public) to those who answered to the user survey.
In the same time of the contest, and without knowing or even
evaluating what we are offering, it was really disappointing for my
point of view. Something that is tactless to not even take
informations before the proposal. The same has happened for the
Extension project...
I agree. But some years ago we would have seen the new market place
being established without even a private notice. So things are
improving. Unfortunately, many people don't actually know how to follow
our own mission. Quoting from "about us":
OpenOffice.org is ... a virtual community working through
OpenOffice.org's numerous projects. The community comes together at
www.openoffice.org ...
There is nothing about private communication, about hosting content on
other sites or about "kindly donating features" that have implemented
beforehand.
Anyway .. within the last year I got the impression that many people try
to learn what this "community-thing" is and try to understand the power
(and the problems) of the community. I think of the QA team at sun, the
documentation team, the guis who got the spec project going .. but also
some of our users (e.g. the team at Munich or even RedFlag).
The new online update page is directing people to English only links
where the same resources are existing in my language. We (the fr
project) have not been consulted for this page. I know by experience
that tomorrow I will be responsible for a page that contain several
grammatical and syntax inconsistencies, but where, when do I have been
asked for help on this page ? Should I remember that English
documentation in a French product is forbidden by a law ? Why should I
be ever the one that request ? Why don't we act as a project ?
*sigh* I don't know. I can only tell, that I felt very tired of asking
such questions .. esp. after the Council-meeting at Lyon and the "Call
home for updates" discussion. This was btw. one of the reasons that made
me leave from responsible positions within the project .. because I am
not responsible. (Ok, it was only one reason of many .. lack of time is
still the main reason).
My experiences here are about several projects where the community and
my project could bring resources, feedback, developments. But it seems
that (what I have been said on the OOo/SO list) a language project is
not representative whatever the magnitude of its user base.
Remember the Lyon Council meeting? A users study is more valuable than
the voice of our users (even if those users are trainers, technical
experts or teachers). This is even the case, when we as the community
have no idea, how the study was taken.
Well I can accept that .. but it is not very encouraging.
Anyway ... the only way seems to go on and promote the community idea
and be open for new ideas and contributions.
André
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