Re: [tdf-discuss] Automatic Update / Update info
On 24/01/11 13:14, Jaime R. Garza wrote: Obviously if I have a stable version installed, I don't expect to be notified for RCs, but if I have an RC version installed I would expect to be notified for any new versions. Something akin to Mozilla's release, beta and nightly update channels should prove useful. LibreOffice could certainly learn a few things from Mozilla's approach to automatic updates and/or add-on discovery and installation. -- The only demand that property recognizes, is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. -- Emma Goldman, Anarchism Other Essays (1910) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format
On 02/01/11 17:07, Mark Preston wrote: Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form. My understanding is that Microsoft intends to implement strict OOXML gradually, with each successive release of Microsoft Office using an increasingly 'strict' form of transitional OOXML. Assuming that I am correct in this assumption, does it not make sense that Microsoft will make each successive version of their transitional OOXML backwards compatible with their last and that they will release updates or add-ons to ensure forward compatibility for older products (Office 2007 and 2010). Those are of course unfounded assumptions, but reasonable ones none the less. Thus if this is the case, we're not talking about maintaining support for 3+ different versions of OOXML but rather maintaining support for the latest version of Microsoft's transitional OOXML (and perhaps strict OOXML) which should (eventually) become strict OOXML. Now I assume nobody has an issue with strict OOXML (which is, as I understand it, an open standard) so why would you have an issue with implementing by graduations (in line with Microsoft) strict OOXML via a series of transitional specifications? Kind Regards, Lee Hyde. -- In order to offer someone a financial reward without him working for it, the government must first ensure that somebody else works for a financial reward without getting it. There is no other way. -- Douglas Wilson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format
On 02/01/11 18:49, Craig A. Eddy wrote: I'm trying to get you to understand that there are copyright and patent issues here that could embroil LO in legal battles that it really doesn't need. Just out of curiosity, were Microsoft to enforce their copyright over their version of OOXML, is it not proper legal etiquette to request removal of the offending code *before* taking the issue to court? If that is the case, LibO could simply remove the offending code in an update and publicise this new-found lack of interoperability with Microsoft Office is a direct result Microsoft’s litigious behaviour. Such would be a public relations nightmare for Microsoft would it not, and against its own best interests. Also, are there any previous cases where a proprietary standard has been withdrawn or locked down via legal action such as this? Lee Hyde. -- We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism. -- Emma Goldman, What is Patriotism? (1908) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format
On 02/01/11 19:01, Larry Gusaas wrote: No. What is included is a community decision, not just the developers. My interpretation is that *The Document Foundation* and *LibreOffice* projects are driven more by informal consensus rather than democracy per se. That is to say that the various steering committees make their final decisions based upon a mixture of community opinion, technical and pragmatic considerations. An efficient community driven project has to give greater weight to the latter of these three (technical and pragmatic considerations) whilst also taking on board *valid* community discussion. It would seem, thus, that the engineering steering committee have decided that the arguments against implementing OOXML are outweighed by the technical and pragmatic benefits of full interoperability with the world leading office suite (which perhaps lamentably is Microsoft Office). The politics of this decision may be contentious to the community (or rather this mailing list) but basing decisions on a political platform such as this will only lead to LibO falling into obscurity because it doesn't *just work*. Regards, Lee Hyde. -- The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism and pressure of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will preserve civilization. -- Andrei Sakharov, The New York Times (July 22nd, 1968) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format
On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote: That is pure condescension. He is saying that because I do not write code my opinion is worthless and nobody will listen to me. That is hardly condescension, merely a statement of fact. The reality is, that if you or I want a greater say on matters such as these, the best way is to become a contributor proper. To do so merely demonstrates our qualifications to speak *authoritatively* on such matters. Furthermore, what you're arguing for is the intentional crippling of *LibreOffice* on political grounds! I suspect that such a view, were it expressed by God himself, would be ignored by any rational developer! On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote: Then why is this list called Discuss? Isn't this the place for discussions? Or should we quit wasting our time giving our opinions on the project? After all, if we do not write code we are not contributers to the community and have no say in the community. You have wholly misconstrued the meaning of my last e-mail. Yes, there is a *core community* of contributors whose opinions, backed by the verasity of their qualifications (as people who contribute code, GUI designs, etc...), are given greater weight and are perhaps more likely to reach the ears of the steering committee members. However, that should not preclude the contributions of we layman. It simply means that we have to *debate* our point in a well reasoned manor. Doing so increases the probability that our ideas will *inspire* or *chime with* those of one or more core contributors, and thus work their way up the greasy pole to one of the committee members. Also, I suspect that many if not all of the committee members frequent these mailing list, so if you can argue your case well you may well influence the project albeit in unseen ways. However, you do need to recognise that your opinions and ideas aren't necessarily going to chime with those of the developers. In such cases you'll either have to *put up* (learn to code or create some mock-ups to better illustrate your points) or *shut up*, because the reality is, no developer is going to work on an idea if (s)he doesn't agree with it and/or if there's no chance the steering committee is going to include it. This is *not* condescension in any sense, it is a recognition of the reality that not every opinion and idea can be implemented. In the context of this thread, two arguments have been made. One that favours interoperability for the sake of pragmatism and user experience, and one that favours crippling *LibreOffice* for the sake of politics and principals. In my humble opinion, the steering committee made the correct decision; *The Document Foundation* should not be bogged down by politics, else it'll run itself into the ground. Kind Regards, Lee Hyde. On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote: I guess I will quit wasting my time here and go back to just giving support to OpenOffice.org users. -- Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel -- Dr. Samuel Johnson (April 7th, 1775) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
[tdf-discuss] Re: Just make the damn thing work! (was Re: Dictionary Syncing)
On 01/01/11 17:07, Zaphod Feeblejocks wrote: Why does Thunderbird, which ships with American English need an extension before it can use a British English dictionary? Why can Thunderbird not share a dictionary with LibO. What about Scribus? MSO users are used to a shared dictionary across apps. I *think* Mozilla Thunderbird uses hunspell now, so surely it should be possible to share dictionaries with OOo/LibO. I wonder whether it would be appropriate to launch a new project, under the auspices of The Document Foundation, concerned with language. It could co-ordinate collaboration efforts between organisations like dicollect, wiktionary and alike to produce standardised spelling and grammar dictionaries and thesauruses for use by other projects (that use hunspell). The reason why I suggest a separate project is that, outside of product integration efforts, the standardisation of language requires (I assume) very different skill-sets to those required for coding, and organisations like dicollect and wiktionary are probably best placed to take the lead in that arena. Also, I agree with everything Zaphod said. Kind Regards, Lee Hyde. -- Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel -- Dr. Samuel Johnson (April 7th, 1775) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Just make the damn thing work! (was Re: Dictionary Syncing)
On 01/01/11 17:35, Charles Marcus wrote: What I think we are or should be striving for is to simply be the best Office/Productivity software available, whether free or commercial. We do and should NOT have to put Microsoft Office Down in order to raise ourselves up. If we cannot stand on our own to feet based solely on our own merits, then we deserve to fall flat on our faces. I *think* that is precisely the point *Zaphod* was attempting to make. More precisely (s)he was attempting to highlight a perceived duplication in efforts that may prove a hindrance to that goal. -- The only demand that property recognizes, is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. -- Emma Goldman, Anarchism Other Essays (1910) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Dictionary Syncing
On 01/01/11 18:46, Jonathan Aquilina wrote: My apologies for the mis understanding there Lee. I think the problem we would run into is 2 different schools of thought on how the same goal should be achieved. Possibly, but then that is the nature of collaboration is it not? In any case, both projects share something in common, and that is crowd-sourcing. Thus both would presumably benefit from merging those 'crowds' together. What I would suggest is pursuing my first idea as a starter (assuming the wiktionary people are amenable at all to it) 1) Define a HTML standard which would allow the scraping of wiktionary articles for spellings, alternatives and localised spellings, definitions, etymological information, synonyms and antonyms. It could be as simple as adding custom tags (i.e. alt-spelling, loc-spelling lang=fr-FR, antonym, synonym, etc...) to wiktionary articles. If implemented properly this provide the grounds for dicollect (and other similar projects) to scrap wiktionary for alternative and localised spellings, antonyms, synonyms and alike. In any case, I suspect this would represent a large undertaking. Especially if such a collaboration went beyond the above suggestion into other territories involving language. Which is why I suggested starting up a separate (from LibO) language standardisation project under the broader banner of The Document Foundation. Kind Regards Lee Hyde -- I foresee a universal information system (UIS), which will give everyone access at any given moment to the contents of any book that has ever been published or any magazine or any fact. The UIS will have individual miniature-computer terminals, central control points for the flood of information, and communication channels incorporating thousands of artificial communications from satellites, cables, and laser lines. Even the partial realization of the UIS will profoundly affect every person, his leisure activities, and his intellectual and artistic development. But the true historic role of the UIS will be to break down the barriers to the exchange of information among countries and people. -- Andrei Sakharov, Saturday Review/World (August 24th, 1984) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc
On 01/01/11 19:20, Craig A. Eddy wrote: So, what am I saying? You don't NEED to add something useless like Outlook or Evolution to LO. You just have to allow Thunderbird to connect to it, and people can make their own choice as to whether they want all the other bells and whistles. Therefore, no increase in size due to bundling but the advantage that those that WANT the extras can have them without difficulty I agree, an integration add-on for Thunderbird (and any other e-mail clients or contact managers with an add-on architecture) would be a far better use of resources. Simply making contacts available to LibreOffice would do wonders for mail-merge luck functionality (for the life of me I can't think of any other functionalities one would require of an outlook clone). -- The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism and pressure of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will preserve civilization. -- Andrei Sakharov, The New York Times (July 22nd, 1968) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Dictionary Syncing
On 31/12/10 16:00, sophie wrote: You can reach them on the FR list, they are part of our community since a long time. But adding the code won't be enough, there is a lot of work behind that needs several hands. So my advice should be first to look for a community to handle the effort. Kind regards Sophie Have you considered a link-up with Wiktionary. A collaboration with an established crowd-sourcing initiative such as Wiktionary could mitigate at least some of the issues of man-power you highlight. Furthermore such a collaboration could lead to more feature rich dictionary and thesaurus, as part of LibreOffice. A dictionary that corporates definitions, pronunciation guides and etymological information as well as alternative spellings (etc...) Just my tuppence! -- I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. -- Thomas Jefferson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Request: Installation Instructions
On 22/11/10 17:50, Rene Engelhard wrote: On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 03:52:41PM +, Lee Hyde wrote: Nonsense. dpkg -i *.deb is user friendly, despite what you want to claim. That graphical tools might make it difficult is no argument. It is obvious that the dpkg method described is a more involved proceedure than a meta-package or installation script. Like it or not Rene the icon metaphor is the predominant UI paradigm in modern operating systems. That may one day change, but I cannot see the command line supplanting it. On 22/11/10 17:50, Rene Engelhard wrote: If those end users don't think, yes, you're right. I was not aware of the aforementioned dpkg method myself, and trust me I'm no fool I'm simply not familiar with all of the ins and outs of the linux command line. Nor do I have the time and/or inclination to do so for such a trivial use-case as software installation. On 22/11/10 17:50, Rene Engelhard wrote: No, my position taken to the logical conclusion would not be that (as I think there's use cases for GUIs - I didn't say anything against them here but just mentioned that dpkg is basics - we don't need GUIs but that we need a drivers license for computers. Mandatory for everyone who wants to use PCs. The same as if you would not be allowed to drive a car if you don't know where the steering wheel or the gas pedal is, neither would you be allowed to use a gear car when you only know automatic. Learn basics, or live with people telling you that you need to look at basics before you do stuff. This is an absolutely horrendous view to hold! Such patronising views only serve to hold back the FOSS community. Strange as it may seem to you Rene, many are intimedated by the command line. They shouldn't be, but they are, and your above comments will do nothing to assuage such end-users. In fact there more likely to turn back to Windows or MacOSX than adapt to your way of thinking/doing. Some of us like our icon metaphors and prefer our double-click install to your open terminal navigate to directory dpkg -i *.deb. Also, The reason that people are required to qualify for a driving license before driving a car is that behind the wheel of a car a bad driver can easily kill a fellow road-user/cyclist/pedestrian. Now unless the 1980s film 'War Games' was an accurate representation of computing the same cannot be said of a technophobic office worker, in fact if anything they be better off staying well clear of the command line. I'm afraid that your patronizing 'get orf my land you idiot' mentality will serve only to exclude the vast majority of end-users, as it has in the past, and without a significant user base LibreOffice will degenerate into little more than a hobby project and rightly so (if it chooses to alienate the majority of computer users instead of embrace them). -- Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel. -- Ernesto 'Che' Guevara -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Request: Installation Instructions
On 22/11/10 17:58, Rene Engelhard wrote: Beisde that, you agree that .deb is what users should know. How on earth are they then NOT to know how to install them? (And install all of debs one program consists of?) I'm but a lowly Ubuntu user Rene, and I usually favour the use of repositories which should nominally include all dependencies. But when no repository is forth coming, as is the case with LibO (x86-64) I am forced to slum it and use .deb files. The usual behavior when double-clicking a .deb file is for the software centre to launch and offer me the oppertunity to install (almost identical to setup.exe and installer in windows) but since LibO consists of multiple dependencies software centre throws a bit of a hissy fit regarding unresolvable dependencies; it seems to me that a meta package and/or a script that installs the whole suite would be preferable to directing the user to open a terminal, navigate to the directory containing the .deb files and type 'dpkg -i *.deb'. But then again, I am but a humble Ubuntu user! On 22/11/10 17:58, Rene Engelhard wrote: If we follow your thinking, there would be NO dependencies at all allowed and every app needs to include every possible piece of software it needs - be it (security-)buggsy, grossly oudated, unstable or whatever) just to please users. [ Disclaimer: The packages which get out of the installer and are in that .tar.gz DO suck. I don't deny that. I wholeheartly agree with you that THEY are user-unfriendly. dpkg is not. ] I have no problem with dpkg at all, and I will likely use it to install LibO whenever I get around to it. But most end users are not as inquisitive as I when presented with what, to the uninitiated, looks like dozens of separate installers and will either try to install each package one by one (and be thwarted by errors) or give up. Now we can either accept that reality and provide a simpler means of installing LibO (a repository, a meta-package, an install script, etc...) or we can edit the ReadMe to reflect the dpkg method for installation (and hope the average end user will look to the ReadMe) or we can do both. I favour the latter myself. -- Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel -- Dr. Samuel Johnson (April 7th, 1775) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
