Daniel Carrera wrote: > Mathias Bauer wrote: > > [big snip] > >> "Free" developers very often prefer smaller projects, just because it's >> easier to enter them, it's easier to understand them, it's easier to add >> own contributions (and get the credits :-)). I think that's quite >> understandable and of course it's OK, but that should be seen when we >> are discussing contributions to OOo (or the lack of them). > > Though nothing you said was wrong, I would like to point out that we > must still thrive to make the project as open and as welcomming to > people as possible. And there are ways this can be done. I mentioned the > idea of a "testing" branch that is less stringent about stability than > the development branch. Another thing we can do is encourage people to > write macros and extensions. This relates directly to what you said above.
I agree that improvement is necessary (and possible). But I think it is important to point out the real problems we face with patches and other contributions because so many people and also a lot of people in this thread (of course not you :-)) just grumble and say very stupid things about why there might be not more contributions to OOo. There have been a lot of very ignorant and impolite comments in this thread. This ignorance sometimes really makes me mad. It's interesting to see that the less people know the louder they shout. But that's the way trolls get their food. > A lot of features can be implemented through extensions. If we made it > easier for people to submit and install extensions, we might get a good > sub community there. It could take some pressure off from the core > project. Think of Firefox, for example. A lot of features are > implementeed through extensions. This removes pressure for those > features being part of the standard FF download, and encourages people > to contribute in a small way. IMHO it is not hard to create OOo extensions and also their deployment is very easy. The deployment of OOo extensions is much better than in Firefox, our package manager even has a live deployment feature! Mozilla (not Firefox!) does not have such an extension/package manager at all. <OT> I for myself see the deployment means of Firefox as a misconception. You must either click on a link of drop something into the browser window. Thunderbird is better, you can select Extensions from the dialog. Deinstallation of extensions does not work reliably (I know this from own experience). Additionally it is not possible without expert knowledge to install components on an installation (not only a user) base. Even if you know how to do it, it doesn't work for many extensions. The whole system lacks a professional design and I'm sure that they will run into serious trouble in the near future. Besides that I love it. :-) Our own extension deployment with its layer system that allows deinstallation without leaving remainders in the system is technically superior and easier to use. (BTW: we call extensioms "Add-Ons".) </OT> Developing OOo extensions is basically not more complicated than developing Firefox extensions, maybe people find it easier to do it in JavaScript (what is possible in OOo2.0 also BTW!), but Java (or StarBasic) is not rocket science. In the near future we will provide extension templates for developers that will make it even easier. Of course you need to know some basic things about the way an Add-On integrates with the OOo GUI, and of course you must understand at least the APIs you want to use for the implementation of your functionality. But without understanding a lot of the Mozilla infrastructure you also can't create non-trivial extensions for it. IMHO the GUI interface for of OOo is even easier to understand than the DOM/XUL stuff from Mozilla. I saw examples where professional developers created an OOo extension in one or two weeks of work. An amateur might need more time, but I think it's not too much. The templates I mentioned will hopefully speed things up. The problem is that a browser is a "kewl" software, an office program isn't, so people get more attracted by browser extensions. That's life. The biggest problem for us (beneath the missing "kewlness" factor) is that writing GUI components in Add-Ons is not so easy, the XUL stuff in the Mozilla family is just great. Unfortunately that isn't something you can change in a month or so. Best regards, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer - OpenOffice.org Application Framework Project Lead Please reply to the list only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a spam sink. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
