RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: user forums ?

I'm one of the Forum-invited Apache Observers.  I worked with the OOo Forum Administrators and 
other Apache Observers to arrive at an acceptable accommodation of the Forum governance with 
requirements that Apache has for web properties in its custody.

I am not aware of *any* statements from AOOo or Forum operators that suggested TDF antipathy for 
forums or anything like that.  If there were any such remarks, I believe they were simply ignored 
as irrelevant to the problem at hand.

I am also not aware of any discussion that was antagonistic to TDF whatsoever among those involved 
with finding a resolution for the migration of the OOo Forums to a reliable hosting. The key 
objection was to preserve and continue that valuable activity with as little disruption as possible 
for the coummunity of users and for the operators themselves.  

There are the usual highly-speculative misgivings from the usual parties about the direction of one 
group or the other (even both), but that seems to be invariable and unrelated to the problems of 
user forums operation.  My experience is that whatever those cynical pontifications are, it works 
best to ignore them and keep moving forward.

Italo's two posts on ooo-users@ incubator.apache.org each have statements to the effect that "as 
you know at TDF w+e are ready to host the forums."  I believe these were in response to expressions 
of angst by some that Apache custody raised unacceptable obstacles for the current Forum operators 
and that the possible demise of the Oracle-hosted service would happen before that was all worked 
out.  There was also concern for the incivility experienced in various settings.  The dates of 
Italo's posts are 30 September and 11 October. 

Fortunately, the forum migration has been successful and the forums are now operating pretty much 
the same as before.  I don't know what the outlook of the forum administrators now is.  It is 
unreasonable to expect that they are all of one mind any more than are the TDF and ASF communities.

The key objective has been achieved: 

 * the forums continue to be available where they have already been, 
 * all of the operations, content, and integration into other portions of the OpenOffice.org site 
are preserved, 
 * logins were preserved, etc.  

I.e., the least destabilizing migration possible has been accomplished.  

Now use and support of the OOo User Forums can proceed in a more deliberate and straightforward 
way.  This was probably the most important factor in the course chosen, and other options would 
have been important had this effort failed.  

Having the offer from TDF was certainly valuable in knowing that a contingency course was 
available.  Some found reassurance in the TDF offer as providing an important safety net.  It 
wasn't needed.  

All of this is without prejudice to other forums that exist and might come into existence, wherever 
hosted, in the future.  The communities and products will evolve and the forums that support the 
communities will as well.

For now, and the forseeable near-term future, there is significant value in the OpenOffice.org 
Forums to users of OO.o releases and LO releases.  I am confident that any divergence of products 
will be accommodated in ways that serve the mutual community of interest.  There is now the 
opportunity to deal with that in non-disruptive ways whenever the time comes.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: charles.h.schulz@gmail.com [mailto:charles.h.schulz@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Charles-H. Schulz
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 02:54
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: user forums ?

Le 29/10/2011 11:37, Olivier R. a écrit :
> Hello Charles,
>
> > providing mailing lists seems to mean that we don't
> > respect forums
>
> No. You are twisting what I said.


Perhaps, but  I actually heard a similar argument about "the lack of
respect" to the forums (but apparently you make a different point) from
several people over the last months, hence my reaction.

> Apache offered to host forums. There have been a lot of discussions, and it
> was not easy to find a common ground.
> Did TDF offer to host forums ?

Yes. To be perfectly fair we have not offered it in public as some of us
thought it was not right to let " the mustard go up" as you and I say in
French, and so we were very (too?) cautious, approaching one or two
persons off list. Clearly if the story that goes out now is that TDF did
not offer that, then it will seem and look accurate, but the forum
admins certainly know we have been very polite, very understanding and
we did propose them to host the forums, so in any case, it's really
unfortunate.

Best,

Charles.




-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted


-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted