On Sep 11, 2012, at 12:27 AM, "Jürgen Schmidt" <jogischm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, > > based on an enquiry for some partnership I think it make sense to > discuss a general question. Which features, improvements, enhancements > should be part of AOO by default or which belongs more in a broader > eco-system around AOO and should be better provided as an extension. > Means we provide support on basis of technical collaboration to achieve > the realization of such an extension but we prefer probably the > realization (hosting) outside of the project to avoid confusion or to > benefit some parties over others. > > There are more things that should be taken into account and I would like > to hear other opinions on this as well. > > Things that comes to my mind where I would always prefer an extension > solution: > > - Connectors to some non free, non open source software based on > proprietary API's. It can be different when a solution is based on open > standards and is of more general use like for example a connector or > better UCP to allow access of file in a CMS via CMIS. > > - Dependencies on external GPL, LGPL libraries. > > - Rarely used features only important for a minority of our users. I > think we want to minimize the default memory footprint where possible > and making these kind of features available as extensions can make > sense. But it shows also that it can make sense to have extensions > hosted in our repo as well ;-) > > - ... > > What do others think about it. > I think those are reasonable guidelines. Amother category is a "standard extension" that is under ALv2 and is part of a release. There are a similar set of considerations for the code author. For example an extension may be 100% proprietary but a core code change is always open source. So there are trade-off's depending on business model. We should probably think of what install enhancements we can make to better facilitate bundling of extensions. To the developer and user, extension + easy install integration should feel the same as adding a feature to the core. Maybe EuroOffice is a good use-case here? They do a lot with bundled extensions. -Rob > Juergen > > >
