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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: koffice mission statement etc.
From:       Jos van den Oever <Jos.van.den.Oever () kogmbh ! com>
Date:       2009-08-31 7:22:22
Message-ID: 200908310922.22441.Jos.van.den.Oever () kogmbh ! com
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On Sunday 30 August 2009 10:08:28 am Andrew Dorrell wrote:
> I've been snooping the existing documentation on koffice recently and have
> not found anything that really motivates koffice development.  As I'm
> trying to get a good handle on this myself I thought I'd ask if any of
> these sounded correct, and which might be the most accurate...

Hello Andrew,

This is a good initiative. I agree with you that it would be good to make a 
description of what we want people to be able to do with KOffice.
If such a list is accurate it can be used to determine the development 
direction in a way that is more concise than just coding. Nevertheless, I 
think your list is a bit 'managerese' in the sense that it is not very 
concrete. For each of the points we state is goals it should be possible to 
say: 'have we achieved this goal?' without much effort. In this area you list 
comes short at the moment.

> 1.  To produce a comprehensive and integrated suit of tools for open
> document production that fix rather than emulate the presentation and
> usability mistakes of popular commercial software.
'comprehensive': this means it should include everything required. But what is 
that? This is stating the obvious.
'integrated': also rather vague. What does integrated mean?
'fix rather than emulate the presentation and usability mistakes of popular 
commercial software': What are these usability mistakes? When we do not know 
what they are how can we fix them? Also, this is a negative requirement. 
Negative requirements are not needed in such a list, they are true by their 
absence.
How about: "To produce a collection of software tools for the creating,viewing 
and editing office documents."
We should then go on to specify which office document formats we support and to 
what extent. Such a detailed list would rendered the initial statement 
redundant though it may make sense as in a summary.

> 2.  To provide a powerful and extensible suit of tools for office and
> creative document production.
This is repetition except for the vague words 'powerful' and 'extensible'. 
What do they mean? When is something powerful? When is it not extensible?

> 3.  To create a compelling suit of office and creative applications that
> users will find it hard to live without.
Again, you cannot measure this or reason about whether the goals has been 
achieved.

> 4.  To create the tools that allow document production to once again be a
> creative process.
How do you make it so? When is this process creative and when is it not?

> 5.  To provide a better open office suit than OpenOffice.
When is it better? KOffice should be better in every regard?

> 6.  To provide a native office suit for the KDE desktop that fills the gaps
> left by other office suits and creative applications.
What are those gaps?

> 7. To provide a viable alternative to commercial office and creativity
> applications for the KDE desktop.
This one is the best measurable one yet, albeit indirectly. If we get market 
uptake, we have achieved this goal. It also gives guidance for the direction 
we should take: listen to the people that want to use the office suite.

Requirements that are more specific could be:
- KOffice should render ODF documents according to the ODF specification.
- Users should be able to edit all aspects of ODF documents with KOffice.

Ideally, we'd make a hierarchical list of requirements that we'd be able to 
link to automated tests.

Cheers,
Jos



-- 
Jos van den Oever, software architect
+49 391 25 19 15 53
http://kogmbh.com/legal/
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