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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Paving the way for managing large projects
From:       "Michael Fair" <michael () daclubhouse ! net>
Date:       2003-12-12 7:16:51
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> On Thursday 11 December 2003 09:24, Michael Fair wrote:
>
> > BitKeeper makes [global development] easy, CVS doesn't make that
> > easy and that's what  Linus was driving at.  That's what I noticed that
> > made this worth pointing out.
>
> BK is not free and should be avoided by free projects.  I personally would
> choose for TLA (http://gnuarch.org/bin/view/Arch/WebHome) which has the
> same potential (even bigger) as BK.

Thanks for suggesting this.

The three that came to my mind were BK, Subversion, and TLA (FKA larch).
I've used none of the above.

I think one of the next moves on this front is really going to be to
educating ourselves about our alternatives.

I'm open to suggestions on how best to do that.

> > I'm envisioning a world where KOffice is one of - if not the - most
> > actively contributed to projects in all of OSS.  Why do I make such a
> > bold claim? MS Office.
>
> Unfortunately Office users are rarely programmers, and programmers rarely
> use office applications.

That's why I'm not using the word programmer, but instead contributer.

Templates, Scripts, and other tools used to automate KOffice can and
will be written by the end users themselves.  Programmers will build
the underlying platform that the office users utilize.  Programmers
will be hired by businesses to create automated workflows to move
data from one business unit to another.  There's a lot more in a release
then just just the core code and it's all that "fringe activity" that
I'm expecting the bulk of the contributions to be from.


> Most opensource programmers are users themselves and choose to work on the
> application because they use it.; so I don't think you are right.

I believe that once the momentum is building and the gap between KOffice
and Open Office featuresets closes we'll see an exponential growth in the
number of attempts at involvement.  OO has a large community, I see no
reason KOffice would be any different.  If your assessment was right than
OO would suffer from the same lack of developer conditions.

I believe there's a larger pride motivation of creating something that's
really useful that the programmer uses to justify his work.  That kind
of contribution to the larger community is a major win for a gift culture.

Most OSS programmers will get started with KOffice because their trying
to scratch a personal itch, but they'll stay because their family and
friends understand and use the application they're developing.

It will also be good for their resume, unlike many other OSS applications
(like Konqueror), there is a direct business justification for hiring
someone with Office automation and development skills to increase
productivity.
Whereas most businesses can't justify hiring someone to improve the web
browser they use to view web sites.

I'm treating KOffice more as a business productivity and workflow platform
than just a word processor, spreadsheet, and graphics applications.

But we'll see how it goes.  As Nicolas said, it's a long road ahead.  :)

-- Michael --

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