Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:30 am Post subject: OpenOffice.org removes Neo from Mac downloads page
Unilaterally, Eric Bachard and OpenOffice.org have removed the references to NeoOffice on the Mac downloads page, ending an agreement between our communities that was even commended by those within Sun Microsystems. OOo ended this collaboration without any discussion with Patrick, myself, or any other Neo contributor. No information was provided besides a brief e-mail notifying myself that I no longer had commit access to the OOo website (which I hadn't used anyway).
My reply and original message appear below. In the meantime, all OOo X11 forums here are locked and will be removed if they start to consume too many server resources and bandwidth.
ed
Code:
That's because you unilaterally removed the references to NeoOffice from
the Mac downloads page without even bothering to discuss it with us. As
you may or may not recall, it was there by agreement with both the OOo
community and members of Sun Microsystems.
So instead of discussing it, you just remove it and revoke my commit
access lest I try to undo any modifications without consulting you first.
Very professional.
ed
On Wed, April 19, 2006 7:02 am, eric b wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> Sorry, you probably didn't receive a complete mail.
>
>
> Your developer rights have been removed from OpenOffice.org porting
> project.
>
>
> Regards,
> Eric Bachard
>
>
(edit: added link to fora, made a sticky topic instead of an announcement)
Last edited by OPENSTEP on Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:01 am; edited 4 times in total
I definitely agree with Ed's action here. Revoking a valid committer's commit access is not cool. I have been a committer in the Apache Tomcat project since 2002. I earned that commit access by a vote of existing developers. Revoking my access would require a formal vote of Apache's committers.
In contrast, it seems that anyone will "pull" at OpenOffice.org (even if you are not a developer) can yank your commit access for no good reason. This ain't how open source projects work and is one more reason why I don't work with the OOo process.
Indeed, that is not the way civilized projects behave. I think that is reprehensible.
I'm not fond of retaliation, but in this case I think Ed's response was both warranted and proportional (especially since they continue to link to trinity for the majority of their support links; I'd actually post a message in each one of those fora "Why is this forum locked?" pointing here, or just duplicating the explanation).
I'm almost mad enough to suggest this should be a front-page story on trinity.
What should the new tagline for the trinity logo be?
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Joined: Feb 12, 2005 Posts: 607 Location: Australia
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:11 pm Post subject: War or..?
IMHO, there is a real danger here, of people doing things they may regret later. We have a stand-off currently, with two bizarre things happening: NeoOffice is not available for download from OpenOffice.org Mac download page - and it is as if it didn't exist. Given that that was how I first found NeoOffice, I find that alarming. On the other hand, if you try to get into the X11 pages here, they are locked. So anyone seeking help with or wanting to discuss the X11 port, has nowhere to go with that, apart from the X11 porting pages. That in itself takes them away from the connection they had with trinity. If you use both programs, as I do, you are caught between two stools.
Hmm...
We need to get from that situation to a point where the OpenOffice.org community takes NeoOffice back into the fold, and vice-versa. How are we going to do that? And no, it's not going to be by escalation of the current situation, believe it or not. Without getting too political, that makes about as much sense as a superpower nuking a volatile nuclear-would-be. It is in neither side's best interests.
With all due respect, I'm interested in hearing what strategies people on this "side" have, for resolving the current situation [no, not the superpower situation ].
No, I don't have the history behind all this. Frankly, I'm not sure I want to. Histories of bad feeling are what keep the pot boiling in civil disputes, and nobody "wins" while the old combatants continue to slug it out, and re-live old feuds and old insults. From what I have observed online, there are good people in both "camps", working hard in their own time to make the OpenOffice.org-on-mac experience the best it can be for users around the world. How can we get them working, if not together, at least in some sort of harmony or acceptance?
Anger aside, and doubting that it will do any good, I still sent the following message to Louis, the "head" of OOo:
Quote:
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:55:51 -0400
To: louis@OOo
From: Smokey Ardisson
Subject: De-listing of NeoOffice and removal of Ed Peterlin's cvs access
As a member of the OpenOffice.org community (sardisson@OOo) and a supporter of open formats, open standards, and open-source software on the Mac (as well as a member of the NeoOffice community), I am writing to protest the recent unilateral, unannounced termination of the NeoOffice "co-listing" agreement and of Ed Peterlin's cvs access and developer status within the OpenOffice.org Porting project.
While the tensions between the NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org Mac Porting developer communities have increased since the release of NeoOffice/J 1.1 last summer, Ed has done nothing inappropriate with his OpenOffice.org cvs access or developer privileges; he has merely used them to update the former NeoOffice listing on <http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html> as new NeoOffice versions became available and the facts in the listing became out-of-date. In addition, though he has not actively contributed code fixes to OpenOffice.org (except as part of last year's NeoOffice code donation to OpenOffice.org), Ed has maintained, at his own expense, the Trinity forums, which included several active forums for OpenOffice.org/X11 Mac issues, and which are still linked to by the OpenOffice.org Mac Porting project for the majority of their support resources <http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/support.html> (these forums have been locked to prevent further posts, however, as a result of OpenOffice.org's recent unilateral actions).
In the larger sense, the termination of the "co-listing" agreement hurts end-users and the growth of open-source software and open formats on the Macintosh (as well as OpenOffice.org in particular). Mac users, particularly the "average Mac user", want software that just works, out-of-the-box, no fussing or additional installation or configuration needed. Even though the X11 port is a useable product, many Mac users pass up OpenOffice.org because they don't want to install X11 (or worse, they install the X11 port without X11, note that it doesn't work, and write off OpenOffice.org, and perhaps open-source software in general). Others will stop using the program because it lives in an "X11 sandbox" and does not conveniently or extensively integrate with Mac OS X. If these users could easily discover NeoOffice, they still become a part of the OpenOffice.org community, use open formats and become exposed to the open-source ethos; many even help OpenOffice.org improve directly by reporting bugs in shared code and features so that these issues can be fixed for users of OpenOffice.org and OpenOffice.org-derived products on all platforms. Because of all of this, until there is a working, polished, end-user-quality Aqua port from OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice.org is doing a severe disservice to its Mac users (and potential Mac users) by not listing NeoOffice as an alternative on the Mac downloads page.
Finally, the manner in which Ed's developer status and cvs rights were revoked and in which the "co-listing" agreement was terminated, without any prior notification, explanation, or chance for discussion, indicates a severe lack of professionalism and civility within the OpenOffice.org community and project. These are not the hallmarks of a quality open-source project.
I urge, in the strongest possible terms, OpenOffice.org to reconsider these recent unilateral actions before the rift between the two communities becomes irreparable and the before the development of fallout that will harm all of us for years to come.
Sincerely,
Smokey Ardisson
_________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Anger aside, and doubting that it will do any good, I still sent the following message to Louis, the "head" of OOo:
Quote:
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:55:51 -0400
To: louis@OOo
From: Smokey Ardisson
Subject: De-listing of NeoOffice and removal of Ed Peterlin's cvs access
Very well put. Good message, Smokey. _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Joined: Nov 21, 2005 Posts: 1285 Location: Witless Protection Program
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject:
I'm so angry I could just .... spit!
Here what I sent
Quote:
TO: webmasters@OOo
CC: louis@OOo
Good folks,
It is with GREAT concern that I'm writing about recent changes to the OpenOffice.org web pages.
Without discussion, comments or reason, the version of OOo without X11 (NeoOffice) has been removed.
This is bad enough, but links to Macintosh OOo X11 user support still point to the user forums at "http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums".
These forums are hosted by, paid for, and staffed by the NeoOffice developers and end users.
As these forums provide a great deal of help to ALL users of OOo using Mac computers this action is criminal.
To Quote another email that says more than I can:
Quote:
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:55:51 -0400
To: louis@OOo
From: Smokey Ardisson
Subject: De-listing of NeoOffice and removal of Ed Peterlin's cvs access
<snip>
This kind of discord is libel to cause me to reconsider my full support of the entire OOo effort.
I too urge, in the strongest possible terms, OpenOffice.org to reconsider these recent unilateral actions before the rift between the two communities becomes irreparable and the before the development of fallout that will harm all of us for years to come.
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:18 pm Post subject: So Long
Sadly, this is the straw that broke the camel's back.
I will be removing all vestigates of OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice from my system this weekend and installing the copy of Office for the Mac that I have from my college going wife.
Hopefully, Patrick will find something to occupy his time with that will ease his pain.
Ed:
Please remove my login and any and all accesses to this server.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:22 pm Post subject:
I refuse to comment on the entire situation except that the telling thing is in the way that Eric has handled the entire situation. Tevoking commit access without a reason is quite offending, especially considering the thousands of dollars of my own money I have spent developing OOo X11 in the past and evangalizing it (I paid my own way at all conferences, only ever took gifts of beer).
Not telling someone why you're revoking their commit access, or even that you're going to move things around is underhanded.
At least I try to keep my incivility in the ranting forum (even if I don't always succeed ).
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject: Re: War or..?
aussie149 wrote:
On the other hand, if you try to get into the X11 pages here, they are locked. So anyone seeking help with or wanting to discuss the X11 port, has nowhere to go with that, apart from the X11 porting pages.
Not true, there's the mac@porting.openoffice.org mailing list which, in the new revised view of the universe, is what Eric B. and the overlords wish you to use.
Doing the forum locking serves two purposes: it allows me to express my discontent in a fashion that's easily undoable (e.g. unlocking them), and it directs users to the support reasources Eric B. and OOo have decided they want to use. And although they're locked, nothing was removed from the X11 fora so it's all there for people to search through as a reference.
If things warm over, well, they get unlocked. If things don't warm over, well, they stay present but locked. If they start to tax server resources, then they'll be removed. I doubt that last one will happen since obviously they won't increase the size of the database any longer. It's more bandwidth concerns than anything else, but if OOo fixes up their support pages that shouldn't be an issue
At least I try to keep my incivility in the ranting forum (even if I don't always succeed ).
ed
Just stay calm and avoid contact with the trouble makers and their puppetmaster. Just because they've gove bonkers, doesn't mean anyone needs to follow their example.
At least I try to keep my incivility in the ranting forum (even if I don't always succeed ).
ed
Just stay calm and avoid contact with the trouble makers and their puppetmaster. Just because they've gove bonkers, doesn't mean anyone needs to follow their example.
I have decided to go one better, I'm leaving. Sadly, I have to put up with this BULLSHIT during the day. I don't have to when I get home. This is why I have tried to calm the waters over the last few months and try to get the parties involved to come up for air. Sadly, this has not happened. I have to pull my support until the situation becomes better. Sadly, the end user is the one who suffers.
BTW, if I wanted to use X11, I'd dig out my Thinkpad, install Fedora Core 5 and then use OpenOffice.org there. It does what it is supposed to there.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:44 pm Post subject:
sardisson wrote:
(especially since they continue to link to trinity for the majority of their support links; I'd actually post a message in each one of those fora "Why is this forum locked?" pointing here, or just duplicating the explanation).
I was going to actually do that this morning but I had this thing called work that I had to get to (we were donating a system to a local biology high school teacher today for her to use in teaching physiology to her students ).
I posted a "why is this locked" message in all of the OOo fora, though didn't feel it necessary to give much background and just linked here. I tried to provide relevant links on how to contact both Eric and the mac@porting mailing list. Please let me know if you have any suggestions as to how to make it more concise or provide better links. I didn't do the research for the deep link to the mailing list subscribe or archives for mac@porting. Should I add those?
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I think that is reprehensible.
].
)
).
