OK, I changed the subject on this since I think what we need to discuss
applies to more than just CD-ROMs...I hope that's OK, see my reply below...
On 05/14/2012 01:06 PM, Rob Weir wrote:
On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:53 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi
On 2012-05-14, at 12:47 , Kay Schenk wrote:
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Rob Weir<[email protected]> wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 8:08 PM,<[email protected]> wrote:
Hello,
I found so many invalid links(Dead links)or not open office software
related.
Because this page not update for years
http://www.openoffice.org/distribution/cdrom/
This page has repeatedly been the source of confusion and concern.
FWIW -- I de-linked the CDROM info from the current download page before we
went live. The old distribution info, of course, continued to live on...so
this was needed.
I started, rather feebly, a new page yesterday that I thought might be a
catch all for all manners of third party distributions --CDROM, other
builds not by Apache. That would tie in or actually be replaced by this new
page you started. yeah, we need to work on this, hopefully soon, to get
more options out there.
This new page is good until we determine HOW we even want to "verify"
what's being distributed by these methods.
What would "verify" mean? When I set up the CDROM project and distribution
category,
the verification was simple: the binaries and source (if that was what
they wanted to deliver, too;
a link would have worked, and did, usually) had to come from one of
OOo's mirrors, and we (Alex, at that point) pointed them to those. (That
was the mirrors list I set up but which was then later maintained by
several, including Florian E.)
Why not do the same? It must come from an AOO distribution mirror.
We simply trust those who claim that that is how they obtained the
binaries.
As to what is distributed on CDROM (or DVD): what they want, in addition
to a legitimate binary.
And it need not be, of course, in English.
I think I used "verify" instead of "vetting"...not the same thing.
So, a few areas to discuss-- folks that contact us about a more formal
inclusion (let's call them partners for this discussion), those that
don't, and finally, places we find on our own.
== non-formal distributions ==
Right now, as we've discovered, there are already folks distributing 3.4
that we don't know anything about. We don't know who they are, we don't
even know WHAT they've got in their distributions. They haven't asked
for permission from us, we don't even know where they're obtaining what
they've got.
We should, by some means, address this immediately in some way --
message on the home page etc. We don't know who they are, we don't even
know WHAT they've got in their distributions.
This doesn't require any process by us.
== partners, more formal requests ==
I would put the former CD-ROM folks in this category. We provided a list
for our customers to obtain OOo in this way.
Your ideas about obtaining software from one of the mirrors is good here.
Rob's replacement page for distribution talks about our establishing a
process--
http://ooo-site.staging.apache.org/distribution/index.html
so let's talk about that. What should this process be? What are we
requiring from them. What information do we need from third party folks,
like CD-ROM providers or other builds/methods of distribution, that come
to us?
== and finally, helping ourselves ==
Do we know of any sites with AOO 3.4 that we want to include for users
with potentially helpful distributions? This is a case where no one has
contacted us but we found something that might be useful, and tested it
out to our satisfaction.
A case in point would be (me) putting that UpUbuntu link in the install
guide. These folks didn't even come to us, and there have been concerns
by other ooo-dev folks about it. At the time, many were excited about
it, but, well...maybe not so fast... Does adding something like this to
a page on our site somehow make us responsible for it?
Further thoughts?
The prior discussion on this was last week, in a thread called "Who is
Page Maintainer Now? http://www.openoffice.org/distribution/cdrom/";
-Rob
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MzK
"Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
And life has a funny way of helping you out
Helping you out."
-- "Ironic", Alanis Morissette
