Return-Path: X-Original-To: apmail-incubator-ooo-dev-archive@minotaur.apache.org Delivered-To: apmail-incubator-ooo-dev-archive@minotaur.apache.org Received: from mail.apache.org (hermes.apache.org [140.211.11.3]) by minotaur.apache.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 082E39BE0 for ; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:28:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 96195 invoked by uid 500); 13 Mar 2012 22:28:41 -0000 Delivered-To: apmail-incubator-ooo-dev-archive@incubator.apache.org Received: (qmail 96096 invoked by uid 500); 13 Mar 2012 22:28:41 -0000 Mailing-List: contact ooo-dev-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Post: List-Id: Reply-To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Delivered-To: mailing list ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Received: (qmail 96088 invoked by uid 99); 13 Mar 2012 22:28:41 -0000 Received: from minotaur.apache.org (HELO minotaur.apache.org) (140.211.11.9) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:28:41 +0000 Received: from localhost (HELO mail-yx0-f175.google.com) (127.0.0.1) (smtp-auth username robweir, mechanism plain) by minotaur.apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:28:41 +0000 Received: by yenm3 with SMTP id m3so1150438yen.6 for ; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:28:39 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.35.12 with SMTP id d12mr163960vdj.99.1331677719686; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.199.67 with HTTP; Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:28:39 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Competition (was: Clarifying facts) From: Rob Weir To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Joe Schaefer wrot= e: > > At Apache we aren't in competition with other projects, > we provide our work for the public benefit and leave > discretion about adoption to the public.=C2=A0 Please keep > that in mind, and stick to providing resources that > benefit general members of the public. > > I disagree. Or at least I think that there is more nuance to what you mean than what you wrote. Competition is the natural outcome of offering choice. It is impossible for us to offer a word processor and not to compete against every other word processor, open source or proprietary, that is available for users to choose from. If we offer choice, we are in competition. When we implement features that users want, or bugs that users report, then we are competing against every other market player who is also trying to satisfy those customers. So competition is not evil, and I don't see how we avoid it unless we write software that no one wants or uses. But what we should not be doing, as a project, is undertaking competitive marketing campaigns against specific competitors. For example, it would be improper for us to publish under the project's imprimatur a whitepaper listing "10 reasons to ditch AbiWord and use OpenOffice" or a blog post that says "KOffice has not had a new release in months, their users should urgently move to OpenOffice". In fact, we could look at almost any of the LibreOffice marketing campaigns against OpenOffice and almost all of them would be inappropriate for this Apache project to engage in, IMHO. We should, of course, tell the story of Apache OpenOffice, what its benefits are and why it is good for users. Every project has the right to its own messaging on its benefits. That is a basic part of community development. It would be very odd if git developers came over and decided to write a new project FAQ for Subversion. -Rob