content/editorial/thebuild.html - openoffice-org - Git at Google

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 <p>
 <h2>Editor's Column</h2>
 <p>9 January 2001</p>
 <p><b>The 613 build:  problems and opportunities</b></p>
 <p>On 13 December 2000, Sun’s engineers released the 613 installation set (the
   latest build) to the OpenOffice.org community.  As with all of previous builds,
   Sun’s engineer’s had thoroughly tested the software on the standard assortment
   of boxes and under the usual circumstances.  The release performed as designed,
   and there was no reason to suspect that any problem would be worse than the
   usual for a pre-alpha release.</p>
 <p>For these reasons, then, the bugs that were immediately discovered by community
   members who attempted to install and run the software were all the more surprising.
   The bugs rendered the software by and large inoperable and unusable. These community
   members were not, it should be stressed, using strange boxes; their setups were
   perfectly ordinary. What is more, all previous builds installed as expected
   and were stable. </p>
 <p>The traffic in the &quot;discuss&quot; mailing list was far greater than average,
   and members were busy offering warnings and advice.  But it seemed that many
   community members could not successfully install the build, let alone run the
   software.</p>
 <p>Once the extent of the problem became clear, pulling the installation set became
   a plausible response. From this perspective, the 613 build reflected an inexplicable
   and slightly embarrassing slip-up in quality assurance that should not be inflicted
   on the community at large. Indeed, barely twenty-four hours after the release,
   Sander Vesik initiated a <a href="//servlets/BrowseList?list=discuss&by=thread&from=1693">new
   thread</a> in the &quot;discuss&quot; list that asked the community members
   whether the installation sets should be pulled. At the heart of the query lay
   the concern that community members were both wasting their time with 50-plus
   megabyte downloads and that the OpenOffice.org project was revealing itself
   to be an unprofessional effort.</p>
 <p>The response to Sander’s poll was immediate and at first seemed to lean toward
   the idea of pulling the installation set, with one correspondent arguing that
   removing it would &quot;save face.&quot; But then OpenOffice.org Community Manager
   Adam &quot;Goolie&quot; Gould persuasively <a href="//www-discuss/current/msg01070.html">argued</a><span class=MsoHyperlink><span style='color:blue'><a
 href="//www-discuss/current/msg01070.html"> </a></span></span>that
   saving face was not the point of an open-source project:  </p>
 <p>&quot;If this were a proprietary beta release,&quot; Goolie pointed out, &quot;then
   yes, we all wouldn't want to 'look bad' in front of our customers, and would
   be worried about damaging our reputation in the market.&quot;  But the build
   was not a proprietary beta release, and OpenOffice.org is not a proprietary
   project. In fact, OpenOffice.org is an important leader in the open-source movement
   and, rather than illustrating a failure of QA, the problems surrounding the
   release and the community response indicate the <i>strength</i> of the open
   source model for finding and addressing development problems.</p>
 <p>That’s because, &quot;As far as Sun could tell, they released a perfectly fine
   build; it worked on all their test cases.  We only discovered problems when
   you, the larger OpenOffice.org community, discovered some issues on your unique
   &quot;test cases&quot;.  This is exactly when we need your help.&quot; The great
   advantage, in short, of an open-source community lies precisely in its ability
   to spot (and even fix) bugs of this sort.  Pulling the build would thus defeat
   the purpose of OpenOffice.org, which does not pretend to release bug-free builds
   and relies on the dialectic relation with the community members to create better
   software.</p>
 <p>The installation set was not pulled. But, prospective downloaders were warned
   that the build was problematic.  Has the project suffered as a result of the
   problematic build? There’s no easy way to tell. But, judging from the level
   of developer engagement, measured by mailing-list posts and downloads, the answer
   is, no.  In fact, for the week of 17 December to 23 December, there were a very
   impressive 4,310 downloads. The numbers suggest, in short, a community hardly
   scared by the problems of the build and instead even more engaged, even more
   interested in the future of OpenOffice.org.  </p>
 <p>My next column addresses a point recently raised in the discuss mailing list
   and that can be summarized as, Whither OpenOffice.org? or, Where do we go from
   here? And, as always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, please,
   don't hesitate to e-mail me at the address below.</p>
 <p>--<a href="//lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a>
   (louis at collab.net)<a href="#whystar">*</a></p>
 <p><a name="whystar">*</a> By spelling out the mail address, I'm hoping to defeat
   spam crawlers.</p>
   </body>
   </html>
	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
	<html>
	<head>
	<title>The Build</title>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
	</head>
	<body>
	<p>
	<h2>Editor's Column</h2>
	<p>9 January 2001</p>
	<p><b>The 613 build: problems and opportunities</b></p>
	<p>On 13 December 2000, Sun’s engineers released the 613 installation set (the
	latest build) to the OpenOffice.org community. As with all of previous builds,
	Sun’s engineer’s had thoroughly tested the software on the standard assortment
	of boxes and under the usual circumstances. The release performed as designed,
	and there was no reason to suspect that any problem would be worse than the
	usual for a pre-alpha release.</p>
	<p>For these reasons, then, the bugs that were immediately discovered by community
	members who attempted to install and run the software were all the more surprising.
	The bugs rendered the software by and large inoperable and unusable. These community
	members were not, it should be stressed, using strange boxes; their setups were
	perfectly ordinary. What is more, all previous builds installed as expected
	and were stable. </p>
	<p>The traffic in the "discuss" mailing list was far greater than average,
	and members were busy offering warnings and advice. But it seemed that many
	community members could not successfully install the build, let alone run the
	software.</p>
	<p>Once the extent of the problem became clear, pulling the installation set became
	a plausible response. From this perspective, the 613 build reflected an inexplicable
	and slightly embarrassing slip-up in quality assurance that should not be inflicted
	on the community at large. Indeed, barely twenty-four hours after the release,
	Sander Vesik initiated a <a href="//servlets/BrowseList?list=discuss&by=thread&from=1693">new
	thread</a> in the "discuss" list that asked the community members
	whether the installation sets should be pulled. At the heart of the query lay
	the concern that community members were both wasting their time with 50-plus
	megabyte downloads and that the OpenOffice.org project was revealing itself
	to be an unprofessional effort.</p>
	<p>The response to Sander’s poll was immediate and at first seemed to lean toward
	the idea of pulling the installation set, with one correspondent arguing that
	removing it would "save face." But then OpenOffice.org Community Manager
	Adam "Goolie" Gould persuasively <a href="//www-discuss/current/msg01070.html">argued</a><span class=MsoHyperlink><span style='color:blue'><a
	href="//www-discuss/current/msg01070.html"> </a></span></span>that
	saving face was not the point of an open-source project: </p>
	<p>"If this were a proprietary beta release," Goolie pointed out, "then
	yes, we all wouldn't want to 'look bad' in front of our customers, and would
	be worried about damaging our reputation in the market." But the build
	was not a proprietary beta release, and OpenOffice.org is not a proprietary
	project. In fact, OpenOffice.org is an important leader in the open-source movement
	and, rather than illustrating a failure of QA, the problems surrounding the
	release and the community response indicate the <i>strength</i> of the open
	source model for finding and addressing development problems.</p>
	<p>That’s because, "As far as Sun could tell, they released a perfectly fine
	build; it worked on all their test cases. We only discovered problems when
	you, the larger OpenOffice.org community, discovered some issues on your unique
	"test cases". This is exactly when we need your help." The great
	advantage, in short, of an open-source community lies precisely in its ability
	to spot (and even fix) bugs of this sort. Pulling the build would thus defeat
	the purpose of OpenOffice.org, which does not pretend to release bug-free builds
	and relies on the dialectic relation with the community members to create better
	software.</p>
	<p>The installation set was not pulled. But, prospective downloaders were warned
	that the build was problematic. Has the project suffered as a result of the
	problematic build? There’s no easy way to tell. But, judging from the level
	of developer engagement, measured by mailing-list posts and downloads, the answer
	is, no. In fact, for the week of 17 December to 23 December, there were a very
	impressive 4,310 downloads. The numbers suggest, in short, a community hardly
	scared by the problems of the build and instead even more engaged, even more
	interested in the future of OpenOffice.org. </p>
	<p>My next column addresses a point recently raised in the discuss mailing list
	and that can be summarized as, Whither OpenOffice.org? or, Where do we go from
	here? And, as always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, please,
	don't hesitate to e-mail me at the address below.</p>
	<p>--<a href="//lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a>
	(louis at collab.net)<a href="#whystar">*</a></p>
	<p><a name="whystar">*</a> By spelling out the mail address, I'm hoping to defeat
	spam crawlers.</p>
	</body>
	</html>