Re: [tdf-discuss] Request: Installation Instructions

Hi Rene, all,

it seems that your mail started an evolution in this thread leading to 
negative feelings and reproaches that should be avoided.

The Steering Committee asked me and Cor Nouws to have a eye on this (and 
the other lists we're subscribed to) in order to keep discussions on 
topic and avoid misbehavior.

Sorry for stepping in so late, but I'm unable to be present 24 hours a 
day...

Rene Engelhard schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 09:03:35AM -0600, Alexandro Colorado wrote:
> > > unsuspecting users to the same problem that OOo has been famous for:
> > > there is no obvious way to start to install the files.  Dependencies for
>
> dpkg -i *.deb?
>
> > > each .deb have to be met, but nothing indicates the order with which to
> > > install them.  When dealing with 52 .deb files it's like trying to do a
> > > jigsaw puzzle where all distinguishing marks have been filed off.
>
> Nope. Really, I expect anybody having root on a Debian-based system to know
> dpkg. Seriously.

This is your personal opinion, you didn't blame anybody - nothing to say 
against it.

But as the follow-up turned out to become more personal, I want to add 
my comments here (dedicated to all posters here in this thread):

Your expectation is only valid for yourself - you can't tell anybody 
else to follow your opinion.

People with different experience and opinions should never be treated as 
fools or idiots.

In a volunteer community nobody has the right to force anybody to do 
something. If it might be a bug-fix, an addition to the readme, a piece 
of documentation, artwork or (really necessary at the moment) work on 
the LibreOffice website.

But on the other hand nobody is allowed to exclude a contribution just 
because of his or her opinion, political or other interests. If there 
are valid reasons they have to be discussed and decided - but this 
should never be done by any individual.

I don't know if René's position not to include additional installation 
instructions is shared by the majority of developers. It only shows that 
we should have a closer look at the Community Bylaws.

The board deciding on including or excluding features and code 
contributions is *not* the Engineering Steering Committee [ESC]. Their 
task is "to provide technical guidance, settle technical disputes ..."

The Board of Directors [BoD] - elected by all approved members of 
community - has to provide (among others) "strategic planning, dispute 
settlement and community guidance", so it's their duty to find our 
community's way if there are oppositional interests in different groups 
of our community.

But normally our intentions are not controversial at all: We want to 
improve our office suite, get more people to install and use it and find 
new contributor and more high quality contributions.

So - to come back to the very topic here:

Thanks to David [1] there will be a bug filed to include his how-to 
(might be based on NoOp's posting[2]) in the Linux version of LibreOffice.

I don't see a reason why René would have to be the one to do this 
inclusion, if there is anybody else able to do so.

If there are more than personal reasons not to include it, this should 
be mentioned in the bug report and brought back to this list for further 
consideration. I think here on this list is the best mixture of "just" 
users and people with profound knowledge of our product. I'd love to see 
some input by our UX expert(s), but this seems to me a basic political 
question: Do we want to make it as easy as possible to install and use 
our product on every supported platform?

Only in case there is no common agreement on this topic the SC (being in 
the position of the BoD until the first election) should be involved.

So please let's keep on the good work and avoid insulting each other 
just because we're individual people with different opinions on one or 
another topic.

Best regards

Bernhard

[1]: <http://go.mail-archive.com/eJqKKG7fNBgkKexh2MZnTm21RXA=>
[2]: <http://go.mail-archive.com/a2cePZ-wvSelzyGuwyfsWvRJhSM=>

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