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Subject: Re: questions about the "porting" project
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Louis_R_Su=E1rez-Potts?= <louis@apache.org>
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Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 14:48:13 -0400
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To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org

Dear Confused,

My reply is long; short answer: Porting evolved, and there were those =
builds maintained by Sun for its clients and then there were those =
initiated and maintained by the community. Over time, the roster of =
Sun-maintained ports changed. I can give a bigger history of this=97it's =
kind of interesting, if you are really bored=97:-)

On 2012-05-16, at 13:50 , Kay Schenk wrote:

> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Louis Su=E1rez-Potts =
<luispo@gmail.com>wrote:
>=20
>> Hi
>>=20
>> On 2012-05-15, at 17:37 , Kay Schenk wrote:
>>=20
>>> Hi all--
>>>=20
>>> I was just taking a look at the porting project site:
>>>=20
>>> http://www.openoffice.org/porting/
>>>=20
>>> could someone who is familiar with this project, and hopefully =
currently
>>> involved with it, fill us in on what the affiliation of the porters
>> listed
>>> --
>>>=20
>>> http://www.openoffice.org/porting/porting_overview.html
>>>=20
>>> were to the OpenOffice.org project? Were they committers, etc?
>>>=20
>>> And, if you could provide some idea of the usage numbers for each, =
if
>> they
>>> were kept somewhere,  that would be great.
>>> Thanks.
>>=20
>> I think I can probably answer most of the questions, as we did track =
those
>> data, but not sure: much of what was there is a) gone, b) old, really =
old.
>>=20
>> That said, regarding the committers: See,
>> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/DomainDeveloper
>>=20
>> "Domain Developer," as you know, meant that one had access as a =
committer
>> globally.
>>=20
>> As to general ports, from memory:
>>=20
>> 1. Windows. > 95%
>> And then Mac OS X
>> And then, in the single digits, the rest.
>> (Linux distros., of course, included OOo and its variants.)
>>=20
>> The old spreadsheets from the first few years are probably not quite
>> accurate--they never were--but suggestive of the breakdown then of
>> "everything else". However, now, things are quite a lot different, =
and past
>> data ought not to prescribe present, let alone future behaviour.
>>=20
>> Louis
>>=20
>=20
> Hi Louis--
>=20
> OK, I'm already confused. The porting page above has no Windows info =
on it
> at all...what I see are mostly *nix derivatives, along with a few =
others --
> VMS, OS/2,  etc.
>=20

Yes. The Porting Project, led by Martin H., and originally at =
porting.openoffice.org/, now www.oo.org/porting/ I think, focused on =
community builds.  The old wiki (I mean *old*) Roadmap that sheds some =
ancient light is at =
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Porting_Roadmap. (One could =
also just ask Martin, of course.) I couldn't find a project wiki for =
Porting=97perhaps Eric or Maho or Joost might know=97but I also think =
that there was never one. As you know, many projects did not have =
evolved doubles living in the wikis=97Website, for instance, didn't, =
afaik.=20

The standard builds were Windows, Solaris, LInux; community builds were =
everything else, including Mac OS X, but this was then established as =
something Sun was officially interested in working on sometime in =
2006-2007, I think, though Eric B can correct me. (The OOo Milestone =
page would have that datum.)

> My question, more specifically, is why weren't these included with the
> other releases -- i.e. Windows, Solaris, MacIntel -- and shuttled to =
the
> mirrors instead of a separate area like this?

Eric Bachard, Maho NAKATA, could probably answer better, as could Joost =
or Juergen, I'm sure. But it has to do, to a degree, with the cleaving =
elements of OOo: that some ports were substantially QA'd and maintained =
by the contributing company as well as the interested community and =
others pretty much only by the interested community, which nevertheless =
followed the strictest QA protocols. Another way of thinking of it, is =
that it had to do with resources available-and able to be coordinated.=20=


The overall issue was very difficult to resolve, and probably wasn't =
(continuance relied more on personality than structure). We are =
encountering a version of it here. Some builds=97say the most desired =
and popular, both platform and language-wise=97are ready before other, =
less popular ones. Do we issue the ready ones immediately? Or do we =
wait? And if you are dealing with, say, a dozen ports and over 100 =
languages, many of which are not regularly maintained but you don't =
always know which, the logistics become even more fun. So, in =
coordination with the community and centring a lot of this on QA, =
compromises were made. They were unstable, as became evident. But, =
really, this is a perennial problem in open source projects: what to =
release, how to release, when to release, and so on. Fwiw, my friend =
Martin Michlmayr, of Debian fame and now with HP leading the best of =
that company's open source window, wrote his dissertation on the problem =
of releases in open source projects. The conclusion: You need a release =
programme.=20


>=20
> They seem to be considered "official" from OpenOffice.org and yet, not
> quite.
>=20
> Can you tell me why?

Without being dangerously cynical? No. :-) But more directly=97and I =
have difficulty in being cynical--I probably framed the scenario above. =
The bigger issue, which is less obvious, and characteristic of some few =
corporate engagements with open source, is that large company Z. =
responds to market pressures, and though open source projects, which =
include participants generally part of the same market environment, may =
nevertheless look to satisfy insistent user demands that significantly =
diverge from those the sponsoring company is working on and thus =
allocating its resources to resolving. In the case of OOo, as well as =
other projects, where we had "project leads" and where the route to =
becoming one was as obvious as the route to heaven and more difficult, =
it put into question the governance model, especially as we proclaimed =
democratic and meritocratic virtues like any other open source project.

Sorry for length.=20

Cheers
Louis


>=20
>=20
>>=20
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> --
>>>=20
>> =
--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--------------
>>> MzK
>>>=20
>>> "Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
>>> And life has a funny way of helping you out
>>> Helping you out."
>>>                           -- "Ironic", Alanis Morissette
>>=20
>>=20
>=20
>=20
> --=20
> =
--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--------------
> MzK
>=20
> "Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
> And life has a funny way of helping you out
> Helping you out."
>                            -- "Ironic", Alanis Morissette