Am Freitag, 23. Dezember 2011 schrieb Ross Gardler < [email protected]>: > What a great post - thank you Jürgen >
thanks > Can I request that this goes on the AOO blog? I recognise this is your > own thoughts, but you can make that clear (as you did here). You > correctly observe that the AOO project needs to do a better job of > communicating the good - this post does just that so lets give it more > visibility. I can definitely blog it, yes. I will try to find some time asap ... Juergen > > Ross > > 2011/12/23 Jürgen Schmidt <[email protected]>: >> Hi all, >> >> before i will leave for a short Christmas break i would like to share some >> thoughts with you about the last months, my private expectations, and my >> wishes for the next year. >> >> Oracle's announcement to stop their investment in OpenOffice.org was a shock >> for me. Well the reason is obvious, I was paid by Oracle and worked on this >> project. The people who know me from the past know that i am a 100% >> OpenOffice.org guy and I always appreciated to work on this project and with >> our community. I always felt part of the overall community. I know the >> reasons that were responsible for the LibreOffice fork and the split of the >> community and i have to confess that i can understand it. But i didn't liked >> how it was made. If Oracle would have done this step 6 month earlier I am >> sure we wouldn't have this fork and this split of the community. We would >> potentially still have the go-oo fork which was the foundation for >> LibreOffice but that is something different. Anyway it is as it is at moment >> and we will see how it moves forward in the future. >> >> The grant to Apache was at least the appropriate signal that OpenOffice.org >> as a project will never die. The brand is to big and to important, the >> opportunities around the product and the overall eco system are great and I >> was very sure that the project will continue. >> >> But a lot of work was and still is in front of us. We had to deal with a lot >> of things in parallel where other derivative projects didn't had to deal >> with at least not in the public. We had to migrate the whole OpenOffice.org >> infra structure to Apache and had to ensure that it work. I think we were >> very successful here and have migrated nearly everything we need from a >> technical perspective. >> Our mission was to migrate as much as possible of the available stuff of >> www.openoffice.org and at least save it for later use. I think we did it! >> Thanks to all who made this possible. And we can concentrate in the future >> on some structural and conceptual redesign of the main portal page >> www.openoffice.org to provide the information to our users that they need to >> find the product, to find more information like help, discussion forums, to >> find the way in the community if they want to do more etc. >> >> We couldn't simply use the code as it was and could continue with the >> development as in the past because of the different license. A huge >> challenge that is still ongoing and where i had many problems with at the >> beginning. It is not easy to explain why you remove something and replace it >> with something new that provide the same functionality but is under a more >> appropriate license. It's simply boring work and no developer really like >> it. But is a prerequisite for Apache and in the end it is better for our eco >> system because the Apache license is much friendlier for business usage as >> any other open source license. As an individual developer I don't care too >> much about all the different open source licenses, as along as the work i do >> is good for the project and in the end for our users. But i learned that the >> Apache license can be a door opener for more contributors and more >> engagement of companies. And i think that is important and can only help our >> project. >> >> And not everything is bad. With the IP cleanup we really cleaned up many >> things and Armin's replacement for svg import/export is the best solution we >> ever had for OpenOffice and with the biggest potential for further >> improvements. All this is really motivating for the future! >> >> Well we had a lot of noise and communication problems on our mailing lists >> and i think we missed to transport the message that OpenOffice.org has found >> a new home under the Apache foundation and we have missed to communicate the >> progress we have made in the pubic. We can do much better in the future! And >> i am looking forward to work with all of you on this communication part in >> the future. We don't have to be shy, we work on a great project with a great >> product and we should have enough to communicate and to share in the public >> (not only on our mailing list but on all the modern and very useful medias >> like facebook, Google+, twitter, ...) >> >> For the next year I expect that we find a way to guide and control our >> project a little bit better. I expect our first release early ne-- > Ross Gardler (@rgardler) > Programme Leader (Open Development) > OpenDirective http://opendirective.com >
