[marketing-dev] Re: ping

Hi Louis,

Some weeks ago (we had lovely warm weeks here by the end April) I was 
sitting in a park watching a family, sort of picnicking. The children 
were a bit jumping, running, wanting to move further on. The father 
babbled something, but hardly to understand. He looked more drunk to me 
and indeed, in the warm sun, he soon fell asleep. The mother did not 
manage to keep the children with her. Maybe not smart or convincing 
enough. Anyhow, soon the children wandered over all corners of the park, 
mostly as a group, enjoying the room for their games in the sun. The 
mother seemed restless and looking around, uncomfortable with the 
children being gone and out of sight too. But she was also clearing, 
gathering the picnic stuff. And the man still in another world, 
sometimes even snoring. (Although at that time my own wife called me - 
some obliged shopping - I stayed a while cause this scene filled me with 
some laugh and curiosity.)
After a while, the wife stood up after all, left to find the children. I 
saw her waving and calling and the children, playing their games, 
closely passed the picnic place. By then of course the father had woken 
up and with lots of noise and body shaking explained the children that 
they should have stayed with him, to be guided, prevent making accidents 
and so on. The wife shaked here head, and I could hardly suppress loud 
laughing.

You know, Louis. I was there as community representative in the 
community council, when long time contributors, important l10n groups, 
had severe problems with decisions taken by the main sponsor, late 2009, 
early 2010 (but of course not for the first time).
You, named community manager, were invisible. As you were 'visible' in 
the community council mainly by being absent, and leaving your tasks 
untouched for months, years. Thus developments that already were so slow 
and difficult were frustrated even more. (And I even lost my patience on 
some moments...)

End September, as a unavoidable result of various circumstances, the 
larger part of the broader (not Sun/Oracle) community left... To 
continue working in an independent foundation, not dominated by a single 
vendor. To create the foundation for the community that was envisioned 
already so long.

Now, after the recent Oracle announcement you seem to have a sort of 
waken up, suddenly.
But alas I do not have the impression that your new activity results in 
complimentary communication wrt the developers and other community 
contributors, that decided to continue their work in TDF.
Further more, from what you write it looks as if you are not yet really 
aware of what is going on in TDF and around LibreOffice. The growing 
support of companies paying developers. The enormous growth in creative 
and motivated people from around the world, skilled in many different 
areas, helping with their knowledge and time  - on a level unprecedented 
in ten years of OOo before.

So look: there is a vibrant community. There is a foundation that gives 
level playing field to corporate sponsors. There is a development 
process that is inviting, easy to join, and even further improved now 
with these goals in mind.
As a result both new features and lower-level improvements come in 
LibreOffice rapidly, as well as a reliable release schedule with 
predictable quality. And more to come.

To me, and maybe I may say this as former community representative in 
the community council, this all makes a great base for reunification of 
the larger community. And you may recall that reunification, in a not to 
distant future, was my hope, my wish. I wrote this to the OOo 
discuss-list shortly after the start of TDF
    (Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:44:20 +0200.
     Subject: Re: [discuss] Fwd: [ooo-announce] OpenOffice.org
                  Community announces The  Document Foundation )

Oh, back to what happened in the park, on that sunny day in April: The 
man soon fell asleep again. And while my wife pulled to the shopping 
mall, I saw the woman and children having some good time together.

Cheers,
Cor


Louis Suarez-Potts wrote (18-05-11 23:38)

> Actually, Florian and I are discussing that exactly. The days of
> stiff difference are over with; were over with when Oracle renounced
> OOo as a revenue source. And in their lieu, discussions of
> reconciliation.
>[...]
> Meanwhile, I continue to drive ODF interest, and continue to
> represent OOo at ODF events; and continue to represent, as much as I
> can, as energetically as I can, to the world. I have no animus toward
> LibreOffice, though I do have my share of doubts; but my spirit is
> stamped with OOo, its community, its goal,
>[...]

-- 
  - http://nl.libreoffice.org
  - giving openoffice.org its foundation :: The Document Foundation -

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
For additional commands send email to [email protected]
with Subject: help