Reply to post: Re: Wish LO would give credit due to the OOo contributors

Is it time to unplug frail OpenOffice's life support? Apache Project asked to mull it over

Justin Clift

Re: Wish LO would give credit due to the OOo contributors

Your question is fine. :)

The contributions I (and many others) made, weren't direct code contributions to the OOo codebase. Instead, we spent a lot of time fixing/improving other areas. Some fairly critical from a project perspective, some less so. ;)

A couple of things spring to mind which should help illustrate:

  • Problem - OpenOffice.org used to be distributed on Windows as a zip file

Users had to download the .zip file, unzip it (prior to Windows built-in .zip support), run the installer. Huge pain point for users, and probably the #1 thing needing fixing from a project perspective at the time. The Sun engineers flatly stated there was nothing that could be done about it, and wouldn't put time into fixing it.

The solution I developed (at the time) was to use NSIS to repackage the .zip into an .exe, which automatically unzipped then launched the installer. The Sun guys then took the NSIS script I wrote (freely given), plus some ideas about improving the compression approach (from Daniel Carrera I think), and produced the official .exe installer. Result: much better install experience for end users, more professional looking results (easier to pitch to people's bosses as a MS Office replacement), and less hassles about installation on the mailing lists.

  • Flash (yeah laugh :>) intro for OpenOffice.org 1.0 launch

Created the Flash intro for the OOo 1.0 launch.

Not as important as the .exe fix, but it was a good "polish" thing for the marketing launch, and took quite a lot of effort to make.

  • Initial online Flash intro's/training for OOo

Created initial Flash intro's for the main OOo apps, so people could see the UI, basic concepts, etc easily. The one for writer still seems to be online, though there were others too.

The above is a just an off-the-top-of-my-head list. Also countless hours helping out the marketing/advocacy side of things, assisting with the Community Management side of things (not as a Sun/Collab employee), etc.

Etiquette wise, giving credit to the people who helped the project get where it is, is always done for Open Source projects. It - reciprocation - is literally one of the pillars which Communities are built on. It not being done here is... very bad form really.

It's not like it's a hard thing to copy-n-paste the old OOo credits across. :( But they didn't even reach out to people to ask "Hey, would you like to be included?", which would have taken more effort. That would likely have had other positive results too (eg some % of old contributors getting involved again).

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