Hi Ken, Sounds like you've already drafted the basis of a good constructive message. Paraphrasing:
I've got a real project at work to find a video conferencing solution. I'm motivated and technical. I prefer open source. I researched and tested several solutions, and was impressed that Openmeetings appears to have a lot going for it: * active community * momentum, etc. But, I was forced to move on to testing other solutions because the ease of adoption was not there. * documentation was scattered, incomplete, or missing * existing documentation was difficult to use (e.g., pasting from the PDF, across page breaks, hopelessly broke script files to the point where I gave up and made my own) * I was unsure which web site even was the right one -- there's one in Germany, and two in the USA. I understand that high-level organization of a project requires leadership and effort that is often not what developers want to do, but I hope that you can use this feedback in a constructive way to ensure that the development effort does not go to waste. Perhaps a "recruiting" effort would discover that there are passionate users of the system who given the opportunity to volunteer could and would contribute to the marketing/documentation/organization aspects of the project. Some of the priorities that I see: * A singular, or at least coherent web presence is critical. * Up-to-date documentation in an easy-to-use format (HTML) * Introductory content for new users, new contributors, curious onlookers * Singular, clear source of source code and binaries Respectfully, Greg Rundlett On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:06 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote: > Hi, all. As you've noted, I recently kicked the tires on a bunch of > videoconferencing solutions. The one that was the biggest disappointment was > Openmeetings; it seemed to have a lot going for it, an incredibly active > developer community, and that it was going places. But... > > - Its documentation was scattered, incomplete, or missing; that which was > there > was difficult to make use of (e.g., pasting from the PDF, across page breaks, > hopelessly broke script files to the point where I gave up and made my own -- > clearly, it should be in HTML, or with links to Pastebin, or *something*). > > - I was unsure which web site even was the right one -- there's one in > Germany, > and two domestic ones. > > - Likewise, downloads; the Sourceforge points to the Apache Incubator (which I > think is hosted on Google Code, IIRC). But the files there aren't the ones > they talk about downloading in the docs; THOSE are hosted on a different > Google > Docs page. > > -Etc. > > Honestly, there's even a decent chance it was the better choice, but every > step > felt like slogging through molasses, and when I couldn't figure out the GUI, > and there was no (apparent) documentation on a bunch of that stuff, I threw in > the towel. Which, what with the resources and momentum they have, is a shame. > > I have a strong suspicion, though, that the developers are suffering from > can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees-ism. They're so used to what they're used > to (if you will) that they don't realize just how hard it is to break in as a > newbie. I'd like to bring their attention to some of these issues, but when I > started drafting the e-mail in my mind, it began to sound an awful lot like > "Your product sucks so I went with something better," which might, shall we > say, be counter productive. > > Suggestions on how to approach this? > > Thanks, > > -Ken > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
