[PRIVATE] RE: [tdf-discuss] user forums ?

I don't want to take this response to either ooo-dev or tdf-discuss.

I think your compromise is an interesting one, but I don't think it is 
feasible.  There are political issues and technical issues.

The technical issue is having a different URL that accesses the same pages be 
served back as if they are all at that URL, but without any other change of 
content.  As soon as an absolute URL is followed within the forums, that is 
going to be the URL in the response.

(Redirection doesn't work for the reasons I just gave.  Framing doesn't work 
for lots of reasons. I tried that until I switched to add-on domains on a LAMP 
hosting service.)

If the served content is to be changed (top banners, page footers, custom 
content in addition to that) there is far more server load and the problem 
that the service will be hosted by Apache and any terms of service will be 
those by the ASF.  And ASF would have to operate it and have acceptable-to-it 
site administrators, forum administrators, etc.

There is where the political and governance issues collide - OOo Marketing, 
TDF concern about being captive, ASF concern about the integrity of sites they 
operate, and the issues of degrees of distrust among the respective 
communities.  From the TDF side alone, consider the antipathy to questions on 
Microsoft Office - OpenOffice.org document interchange and the hostility to 
Lotus Symphony issues being addressed.

The anguish over the iCLA and PPMC oversight that the OpenOffice.org Forums 
team just went through would be nothing compared to what it would take to 
allow separate governance over a TDF-facing aspect of the Forums.  Of course, 
that anguish was a tempest in a teapot.  I notice that no one has been 
disturbed about it since the cut-over succeeded, mostly because the PPMC has 
far more critical matters for its attention.

I favor how you are looking for compromise solutions, but multiple branding of 
the same site is perhaps not going to work.

It would be useful to discuss this with the current OpenOffice.org Forum 
operators if you have not already.  I am not sure how they would react to this 
prospect.  And they might have some insight that others have not noticed.

Cordiali saluti,



 - Dennis E. Hamilton
   tools for document interoperability,  <http://nfoWorks.org/>
   dennis.hamilton@acm.org  gsm: +1-206-779-9430  @orcmid







-----Original Message-----
From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pescetti@openoffice.org]
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 03:18
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] user forums ?

Cor Nouws wrote:
> Andrea Pescetti wrote (05-11-11 13:02)
> > when it comes to user support the people
> > involved are much more pragmatic
> That would be my expectation too. And then 'people involved', I would
> read as those with questions, answers and with moderation tasks.

Yes, that was my understanding.

> > But I'd still give a thought if we can't really avoid the massive
> > duplication of effort and, through simple DNS tweaking, offer the same
> > forum under the two adresses http://user.services.openoffice.org/ and
> > http://forum.libreoffice.org/ ...
> Sounds as an interesting idea. Then both could redirect to say
> forum.opensoftwareofficesuites.org (just to give it a name now) which
> should have a look that is more neutral and serving both.

You don't need a third "neutral" URL: people accessing through
http://forum.libreoffice.org/ would always just see that URL, exactly as
it happens now with http://user.services.openoffice.org/ and
http://ooo-forums.apache.org/ (which are totally equivalent, and if you
use one you don't notice that the other one exists). And branding can be
adapted too, and possibly made dependent on the URL. But technology is
really easy in this case: the main issue, as I wrote, is political.

Regards,
   Andrea.

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