Re: [Inkscape-devel] Joining GNOME Office

[Charles Goodwin <charlie xwt org>]

On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 23:56, Martin Sevior wrote:
> Well from an AbiWord perspective we're doing pretty much these things
> too. We're certainly exploring new ways of improving the UI and adding
> features and functionality not found in OOo or MS Word.

...which is what makes GO (or, more accurately for the moment, GO
applications) so damned good.  We're not cloning, we're innovating;
we're doing things the right way as we see it even if it differs from
the current normal.

> They're far from [a fully integrated suite that is a drop-in 
> replacement for MSO] but they do have good MS Word filters. I pity the
> poor secretary forced to use OOo after years of MS Office. To me the
> point is that with OOo it is possible to exist without MS Office.

Well, I was talking more about their philosophy and goal as opposed to
the current state of OOo.

> Charles would like us to produce a roadmap. From my perspective such
> things are really hard. I find it hard enough to know when I personally
> will complete things in my goals. Predicting what other people will do
> is even harder.

Yes, I would like to see a roadmap.  But you seem to be referring to
something as detailed as the Mozilla roadmap or the OOo roadmap.

Currently there really is nothing other than the developers' intentions
which are shared relatively privately (probably unintentionally) through
various emails and are very difficult to track down.  Which, in reality,
amounts to nothing publicly.

I'm not expecting a thorough document.  But something would be better
than nothing.  Just a list of the applications aspiring to be part of GO
and what their main goals are in order to achieve that.

A bulleted list of the overall goals is what I'm asking for.  Something
simple but something solid and easy to understand.

Eg: (and this is my hypothetical example, nothing official)

Gnumeric:
- fully foster plugin framework to libgoffice
- separate out and charting engine into library

Just like that for each application; short and simple.  I don't think
that's much to ask, do you?  Then, at a glance, everybody knows where
they stand in regards to their project and everybody else's.

Then it can be built up from there as we identify and agree on ways in
which GO can benefit from further integration between applications and
those goals can also be listed.

We are not a complex organisation like OOo or Mozilla.  But without
defining basic goals (even broad ones) then how do the projects know
what to work towards?  If we define nothing then projects will go in
their own direction on some fundamental issues, which may lead to
problems down the line.

I think that identifying basic goals and priorities early, _now_, will
be the key to making GO a suite in the near future.  Otherwise it will
be a long, long time before we can call GO a suite instead of a
collection of loosely-related applications.
-- 
- Charlie

The future of the net - www.xwt.org

Charles Goodwin <charlie xwt org>
  Member of the XWT Foundation