Re: [native-lang] Update: Sun/NLC meeting

Hi Jörg, all,

Joerg Barfurth wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Andre Schnabel wrote:
> 
>> As Christian already said .. we *are* helping, some of us *did* go 
>> through the RFE process (I never did, as I've foreseen, what would 
>> happen).  But sometimes it seems, our help is not wanted.
> 
> 
> It is my impression that the RFE process never took off, because it was 
> too late for OOo 2.0. And not much has happened since the initial ideas 
> were floated, because 2.0 is still not out and most work still goes there.

I join Christian here, it's not about getting feature implemented but 
influence the decisions that are taken.

> 
> OOo 2.0 had one big step forward in handling planned changes by making 
> most of the work public. The 'Q concept' was published, specs were 
> published and announced - sometimes well before implementation and most 
> feature issues were entered in IZ instead of the Sun-internal bug 
> tracking system. This already would have allowed community 
> participation, but it was not explicitly solicited. It is my impression 
> that this opportunity was not used very much.

I agree with you and here I wave between two feelings : 1) the community 
was not mature enough to measure this level of sharing, 2) Q-concept and 
specs have not been explained correctly to the community.
As for EIS where informations about QA are missing, we need also to be 
aware where and when we can intervene and when and where we can't.

> 
> But now OOo 2.0 is approaching a close and now is the time to return to 
> the things that were formerly postponed to 'post-2.0' and to consider 
> any new ideas for the 3.0 release cycle. This is what Louis is doing here.

That is also where we are trying to help him and please, don't forget 
why this conversation appeared :)

> 
> What did you foresee would happen with the RFE process? AFAICT the plan 
> was to implement a better RFE process for the release after 2.0,

oups, I was not aware of that. We have begin to work on RFE process some 
time ago now and nobody told me that it was postponed after 2.0. Anyway 
I have postponed my participation because nothing was moving at all.

  and
> this is still possible and you can participate in making that a reality. 
> If you don't participate, you shouldn't complain if it doesn't happen. 
> And if you and others don't participate because you 'foresee' it not 
> becoming a reality, then that may simply be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What if you participate (or try to) and been answered that your complain 
is not the good one because you're not representative ? All the work we 
are trying to do here is to answer this question.
We have to put some process, mostly communication process between us 
(NLC leads) but also between Sun and our communities. We have feedback, 
we are able to analyze some of this feedback, we have people who wants 
to participate both to development and to other tasks.
We are between this community and Sun (may be more for leads that have 
Sun releases) and part of our work is to allow a good understanding 
between our communities and Sun, in the two way. Believe me it's not easy :)

> 
> Of course the very long release cycle we've been having is a large part 
> of the problem and because of it most RFE submitted after the 2.0 
> planning phase are still waiting in some queue. But that this is a 
> problem is known and there is an ongoing discussion how this problem can 
> be avoided - again for the time *after* 2.0.

Where is this ungoing discussion taking place ? Why aren't we part of it 
or do I miss to subscibe to a list ? What about regressions that are not 
RFEs and targeted to OOolater ?

> 
>> Honestly saying, I don't really know, why I care about issues, that 
>> could be resolved within minutes .. 
> 
> 
> How do you know that? If you know, why don't you resolve them yourself? 
> Do you have examples? Do you consider that changing the user interface 
> requires more than changing the code (e.g. specifications, 
> documentation, translation).

Most leads here are aware about documentation, translation and so on :)

> 
> There certainly were problems with how some issues were handled. But all 
> participants occasionally make mistakes (e.g. some issues remain 
> unhandled, because they have the wrong owner, component, status or 
> target milestone. If you see some systematic problem, then you should 
> attempt to get the process improved. For RFEs the need to improve the 
> process is known and has just been sleeping.

Well, hard to hear when a new process has been put in place in July and 
that you have take some time during your vacation to work on it !
And yes there are some systematic problems that either the community and 
Sun have to adress, this is what we are trying to do, I guess
This is why I don't want to see new categories in IZ, or anything else 
where we try to work on that anyhow will be ignored. As I said, we have 
no time and energy to waste on a process that leads nowhere.

I recognize that we have missed the specs publication. So now we will 
work with them, a team is already in place in my project and I've asked 
  Christian Jansen to add a target for all projects specs when he will 
have time.
I know that we shouldn't discuss about this on issues, going on the 
dev@project list and speak to the developper in charge is a possibility, 
but this is not a clear and good process when :
- the developper is already working on the features, it's too late
- each time you have to proove that you are speaking for a community and 
not on your own name,
- each time you have to proove that the feedback you've got from your 
community is as important as the one Sun has. This is exhausting.
- there is no way here for us to imply companies that want to implement 
a complete feature,
- there is no way for us to give a clear representation of the needs of 
our users base.

Kind regards
Sophie



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