Re: We're on slashdot!
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:14 AM, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. Perhaps in The ASF ... said that there was no need for additional donations we should have been more compassionate. AIUI the business model used by TDF and TeamOOo requires donations. Statements like this damage our relationship with potential downstream consumers, and risk reducing ecological diversity. A key goal should be to encourage the development of a rich and deep office office ecosystem. I would feel much more comfortable adopting the position that Apache does not need or use cash donations to fund development but encourages exciting and innovative downstream efforts of all kinds and understands that some not-for-profit players need donations right away to get keep hacking. But maybe some good could come out of this. Why not get together to release a statement clarifying who needs donations right now, why and what cool stuff they are going to fund with the cash? (Something positive with as many potential players as possible...) (Personally, I would love to see the FSF enter the ring with a downstream GPL GNUberOffice integrating emacs, R, GIMP etc) Robert
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 2:14 AM, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/**2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_**alive_well/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. I think you did fine, Shane, well done. I will observe that The Register also considered the comment about LibreOffice to be pointed. Cross-community comments like that need to be made with extraordinary care. On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Robert Burrell Donkin robertburrelldon...@gmail.com wrote: But maybe some good could come out of this. Why not get together to release a statement clarifying who needs donations right now, why and what cool stuff they are going to fund with the cash? (Something positive with as many potential players as possible...) I think that would be a risky move. LibreOffice is not downstream from AOOo, but rather both projects share common ancestral code from StarOffice. I believe for either project to imply it is the leader or owner of the StarOffice legacy community would be divisive rather than uniting. S.
Re: We're on slashdot!
Shane, Well done. On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/**2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_**alive_well/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. - Shane On 10/14/2011 11:45 AM, Shane Curcuru wrote: Oh, my what an... extraordinarily colorful and controversial set of quotes to rip out of the middle of different postings they put together: http://developers.slashdot.**org/story/11/10/14/1531252/** OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-**Wont-Helphttp://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/10/14/1531252/OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-Wont-Help And boy, are there some misunderstandings out there. - Shane
Re: We're on slashdot!
On 10/15/2011 3:36 AM, Robert Burrell Donkin wrote: On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:14 AM, Shane Curcurua...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. Perhaps in The ASF ... said that there was no need for additional donations we should have been more compassionate. If you have the magic spell that causes reporters to always quote you accurately and completely, please do let me (and especially Sally) know! I was not given a chance to review the story text before posting. AIUI the business model used by TDF and TeamOOo requires donations. Statements like this damage our relationship with potential downstream consumers, and risk reducing ecological diversity. A key goal should be to encourage the development of a rich and deep office office ecosystem. I'm not sure I'd say Key goal, but yes, that's a good thing overall. I would feel much more comfortable adopting the position that Apache does not need or use cash donations to fund development but encourages exciting and innovative downstream efforts of all kinds and understands that some not-for-profit players need donations right away to get keep hacking. Personally, I'd prefer to focus on what we need to do, and that we're happy to work with any other willing communities. The point is that the ASF does not have an urgent need of more funding to help the Apache OpenOffice podling continue operations, nor will more funding directly help them create a release sooner/with more features/whatever. And - separately - I'm still wondering why Team OpenOffice e.V. chose the specific wording in their fundraising release, and wondering why they haven't officially communicated with Apache lists about it. I have to admit that lack of communication is... quite disappointing. But maybe some good could come out of this. Why not get together to release a statement clarifying who needs donations right now, why and what cool stuff they are going to fund with the cash? (Something positive with as many potential players as possible...) (Personally, I would love to see the FSF enter the ring with a downstream GPL GNUberOffice integrating emacs, R, GIMP etc) We need to focus on working on our mission and telling our stories. I'm confident other organizations will find their own ways forward. (On the official level, at least; if you want to go blog about new ideas for collaboration please do!) - Shane Robert
Re: We're on slashdot!
Great job… I even liked that fact that even they understood that the warm-wishes to TDF were sincere. I also appreciate that they used the term pointedly to enforce that. On Oct 14, 2011, at 8:14 PM, Shane Curcuru wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. - Shane On 10/14/2011 11:45 AM, Shane Curcuru wrote: Oh, my what an... extraordinarily colorful and controversial set of quotes to rip out of the middle of different postings they put together: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/10/14/1531252/OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-Wont-Help And boy, are there some misunderstandings out there. - Shane
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Simon Phipps si...@webmink.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 2:14 AM, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/**2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_**alive_well/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. I think you did fine, Shane, well done. I will observe that The Register also considered the comment about LibreOffice to be pointed. Cross-community comments like that need to be made with extraordinary care. On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Robert Burrell Donkin robertburrelldon...@gmail.com wrote: But maybe some good could come out of this. Why not get together to release a statement clarifying who needs donations right now, why and what cool stuff they are going to fund with the cash? (Something positive with as many potential players as possible...) I think that would be a risky move. LibreOffice is not downstream from AOOo, but rather both projects share common ancestral code from StarOffice. I believe for either project to imply it is the leader or owner of the StarOffice legacy community would be divisive rather than uniting. just for the records and to be clear StarOffice is stone age and LibreOffice is based on OOo source code. And LibreOffice code has evolved since the fork has taken place. AOO is based the latest OOo code base. Juergen
Re: We're on slashdot!
Well I'd have to write a book to respond to SO many interesting ideas, so I guess I'll remain mum. The truth is out there...well several interpretations of it anyway. The press release that came out today was very good by the way. On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Shane Curcuru a...@shanecurcuru.org wrote: Oh, my what an... extraordinarily colorful and controversial set of quotes to rip out of the middle of different postings they put together: http://developers.slashdot.**org/story/11/10/14/1531252/** OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-**Wont-Helphttp://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/10/14/1531252/OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-Wont-Help And boy, are there some misunderstandings out there. - Shane -- --- MzK There is no such thing as coincidence. -- Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Rule #39
RE: We're on slashdot!
Well, the demonstration of initial confusion in the Team OpenOffice.org approach is certainly clear. The teamopenoffice press release is assumed to be from OpenOffice.org in the Slashdot lede. (To help with that, apparently Team OO.o holds an OO.o trademark or claimed to at one point.) I've read through the German materials at the site and, while Google Translator does stumble, the gist of it is pretty clear. This has all the appearance of an over-the-top plea to fund 4 guys to save OpenOffice.org from death-by-abandonment. To further the confusion, the download link for OpenOffice.org 3.3 is into http://download.openoffice.org. The Thank you for your contribution after a Paypal donation (they have my 5 Euro) is also a page on http://openoffice.org. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Shane Curcuru [mailto:a...@shanecurcuru.org] Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 08:46 To: ASF Marketing Publicity; ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: We're on slashdot! Oh, my what an... extraordinarily colorful and controversial set of quotes to rip out of the middle of different postings they put together: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/10/14/1531252/OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-Wont-Help And boy, are there some misunderstandings out there. - Shane
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I've read through the German materials at the site and, while Google Translator does stumble, the gist of it is pretty clear. This has all the appearance of an over-the-top plea to fund 4 guys to save OpenOffice.org from death-by-abandonment. To further the confusion, the download link for OpenOffice.org 3.3 is into http://download.openoffice.org. The Thank you for your contribution after a Paypal donation (they have my 5 Euro) is also a page on http://openoffice.org. Is it even four guys? They list five title-related email addresses and give the same phone number five times. If I didn't know Team OO existed before now I'd wonder if someone had just built a site from random images.
RE: We're on slashdot!
Here is the team in Team OpenOffice.org: http://teamopenoffice.org/de/das-team.html - Dennis E. Hamilton tools for document interoperability, http://nfoWorks.org/ dennis.hamil...@acm.org gsm: +1-206-779-9430 @orcmid -Original Message- From: Donald Whytock [mailto:dwhyt...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 10:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org; dennis.hamil...@acm.org Subject: Re: We're on slashdot! On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I've read through the German materials at the site and, while Google Translator does stumble, the gist of it is pretty clear. This has all the appearance of an over-the-top plea to fund 4 guys to save OpenOffice.org from death-by-abandonment. To further the confusion, the download link for OpenOffice.org 3.3 is into http://download.openoffice.org. The Thank you for your contribution after a Paypal donation (they have my 5 Euro) is also a page on http://openoffice.org. Is it even four guys? They list five title-related email addresses and give the same phone number five times. If I didn't know Team OO existed before now I'd wonder if someone had just built a site from random images. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Oct 14, 2011 7:04 PM, Donald Whytock dwhyt...@gmail.com wrote: Is it even four guys? They list five title-related email addresses and give the same phone number five times. If I didn't know Team OO existed before now I'd wonder if someone had just built a site from random images. Many of us know the people involved very well and regard them as friends, which is I assume why there's been no discussion of the matter on this list before now. The company was informally created by a group of Sun Hamburg staff and is the steward of the (apparently considerable) donations of the community over the last few years, made through a link on the OOo home page. S.
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Simon Phipps si...@webmink.com wrote: On Oct 14, 2011 7:04 PM, Donald Whytock dwhyt...@gmail.com wrote: Is it even four guys? They list five title-related email addresses and give the same phone number five times. If I didn't know Team OO existed before now I'd wonder if someone had just built a site from random images. Many of us know the people involved very well and regard them as friends, which is I assume why there's been no discussion of the matter on this list before now. The company was informally created by a group of Sun Hamburg staff and is the steward of the (apparently considerable) donations of the community over the last few years, made through a link on the OOo home page. Ah. My apologies; I regret that my first exposure to them came via that press release.
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Oct 14, 2011, at 1:04 PM, Donald Whytock dwhyt...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I've read through the German materials at the site and, while Google Translator does stumble, the gist of it is pretty clear. This has all the appearance of an over-the-top plea to fund 4 guys to save OpenOffice.org from death-by-abandonment. To further the confusion, the download link for OpenOffice.org 3.3 is into http://download.openoffice.org. The Thank you for your contribution after a Paypal donation (they have my 5 Euro) is also a page on http://openoffice.org. Is it even four guys? They list five title-related email addresses and give the same phone number five times. If I didn't know Team OO existed before now I'd wonder if someone had just built a site from random images. Team OpenOffice.org is a German non-profit started by some people in the Hamburg office back when OO.o was newly open-sourced to collect and handle monies to support community events. Sun employees started it extra to their day jobs, and many sources sent it money (including individuals and companies such as IBM). Sun didn't want to collect / handle such donations directly, and the Hamburg guys needed a way to pay for conferences, etc. Much if their dispersement has historically been to individual community members in support of travel to OOo conferences. Team OpenOffice.org did undertake and secure the global registration of the OpenOffice.org trademark because Sun was initially content to leave it unregistered since first use in the US provides some protection, but after Team OpenOffice.org secured the mark legally they were asked to transfer it to Sun and did so...they were all Sun employees afterall. They are currently five of the engineers who have been working on OpenOffice for much of their lives (20+ years in more than one case). This code is their baby, and for better or worse they wish to continue to produce a product the way they think it should be done. They have expressed interest in seeing AOO.o become a viable upstream. I think what's happening now is reporters trying to make sense of a complicated story with many factions. It probably isn't a coincidence that LibreOffice Con is this weekend and we're the real deal messaging is coming from LO and TOOo is concerned about dilution of the OOo brand... My $.02 Danese
Re: We're on slashdot!
On Oct 14, 2011 7:26 PM, Danese Cooper dan...@gmail.com wrote: It probably isn't a coincidence that LibreOffice Con is this weekend and we're the real deal messaging is coming from LO and TOOo is concerned about dilution of the OOo brand... We've not seen any messaging like that here in Paris; in fact, the LibreOffice people seem to go out of their way to avoid any brand confusion. Where have you seen that messaging? S.
Re: We're on slashdot!
And I'm on El Reg! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even if it was a little tweaked in the story. - Shane On 10/14/2011 11:45 AM, Shane Curcuru wrote: Oh, my what an... extraordinarily colorful and controversial set of quotes to rip out of the middle of different postings they put together: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/10/14/1531252/OpenOffice-Is-Dying-And-IBM-Wont-Help And boy, are there some misunderstandings out there. - Shane
