Stefan Taxhet's Weblog

Data sent for Online Update Notification

OpenOffice.org 2.0.4. Release Candidates are available for download. Online Update Notification is coming up with this release. Martin showed us the dialogs where the user can influence the behaviour.

There were some concerns about the data OpenOffice.org sends to the update server.
Let me cite from the Online Update Specification (linked from the page with specifications which affect all OpenOffice.org modules):

"StarOffice/OpenOffice.org sends via http post request the following data to the server:

• ProductKey
• Buildid
• ProductPatch
• ProductSource
• AllLanguages
• Operating System
• Platform

The first four items are contained in the version.(ini|rc), ProductKey is contained in the bootstrap.(ini|rc), and operating system and platform are provided by the internal bootstrap variables _OS and _ARCH."

Here is the data as sent by an English OpenOffice.org 2.0 Solaris SPARC version:

ProductKey=OpenOffice.org 2.0
 &buildid=680m181(Build:9057)
 &ProductPatch=
 &ProductSource=SRC680
 &AllLanguages=en-US
 &_OS=Solaris
 &_ARCH=SPARC

There is no personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") sent over the net.

In my opinion this step from the manual to the automatic check for updates (on our way to an automated update) has significant advantages for the user and the project. While I think we should enable this feature by default I agree that we could improve the way it is presented to our users to avoid confusion.

For those connected people that don't want to benefit from the functionality there are three ways to disable it. Let's not trade apprehension of superficial press articles for the ability to improve the product.

Posted at 05:17PM Sep 18, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |  Kommentare[1]

Hallway talks

Monday started with the Community Council meeting.
We spent a major portion of the time on the topics decision making and raising the voice - especially in case of controversy. I took the action item to review the existing descriptions (project guidelines, Community Council charter, Engineering Steering Committee page, ...) and make responsibilities and escalation paths more clear.

One of the most interesting part of the conference is spontaneous talks on the hallway. It's fun to see the long-term contributors again. And it is always interesting to chat face-to-face for the first time with people you know only from mailing lists or IRC.

The nearby bistro should install wireless access to the internet. It would definitely be even more inviting for conference attendees. Extempore dragging people aside for a serious conversation might not be successful - even if all are participant joined with a good intent.
But it's a prefect place to relax and have easygoing conversations.

In the evening a ship tour showed us the beauty of Lyon experienced from Rhône and Savone. The dinner could have been a bit more palatable, but people couldn't escape. We had some fun over a wine and enjoyed the boat trip.

Posted at 04:22PM Sep 12, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

The day before

Sunday afternoon Cedric guided us on a trip through the city.

And we heard that the team Kiberpipa is taking care of the media coverage again.

During a stop in a cafe I continued to ask OpenOffice.org contributors for the most important obstacles to enter our project as a developer. I first run this quiz with Kai. Kai happily picked this up and interviewed Jürgen

and several other developers later during dinner.

Feel free to contact us, if you would like to let raise your top inhibitor with us.

Posted at 11:29AM Sep 12, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

Gulls everywhere

If want to see gulls you see them everywhere:

For me the train station at the airport Lyon-Saint Exupéry was a perfect welcome to OOoCon 2006.

After a half hour bus ride we changed to the tram T1 going to our hotel.
We spent Saturday evening in the old town of Lyon to recover from the walk.

Posted at 09:32AM Sep 12, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

It's OOoCon Time

In these days before OOoCon we every year experience a certain kind of activty and eagerness.

It's interesting to see people collecting all the information for the talk, publishing drafts for review in the Wiki, motivating people to finalize the preparations for a competition, ...

The first release candidate for OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 has been published some days ago. It's a tough decision whether these issues under consideration justify another RC. Fortunately we can continue the discussion in Lyon.

And as always some last minute decision makers have a hard time to find a room. Do you know about an accommodation for Christian? If you are in a similar situation or just would like to chat with other attendees join ooocondiscuss_2006@marketing.openoffice.org.

I'm looking forward to see many of you in Lyon!

Tags: OpenOffice.org, openoffice, OOoCon

Posted at 04:51PM Sep 08, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |  Kommentare[1]

Developer Survey - Last call

Some days ago we invited you to take part in the Code Contributor Survey. It was intended that the survey can be answered anonymously. So it doesn't ask for a name or an email address. In the last minute we decided to reward some participants with a T-Shirt. A few clever OpenOffice.org developers found a simple way to show their interest in the T-Shirt – see the comments on the blog.

Please leave a comment on the blog if you would like to be the owner of one of 5 T-Shirts.

And be sure to take the survey first :-)

Note that we would like to analyze the results next week. So forward the URL to developers involved with OpenOffice.org now and send the answers until Sunday.

Posted at 03:41PM Jul 05, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

Survey - Developer Feedback Needed

We invite code contributors to fill out a short survey that will help to identify the needs and issues of developers working on OpenOffice.org.

We would like to make our project as attractive to developers as possible. Therefore, it is important to understand why developers want to work on the project and what can make life easy or difficult. For those who hesitated to work on OpenOffice.org, this is a chance to let us know why.
What motivates you to contribute code to an open source project like OpenOffice.org? Please tell us and take part in our Open Source Project Code Contributor Survey which is being run in conjunction with Netbeans.

If you are an OpenOffice.org developer, please take 5 minutes of your time to complete the short survey. Choose OpenOffice.org from the pop-up where it asks for which project you want to answer and proceed with the
code contributor survey.

For participants there is a chance to win one of 5 T-Shirts we are able to give away.

Thanks for your help and feel free to point people working on OpenOffice.org development related things around the globe to the link:

http://survey.services.openoffice.org/survey/public/survey.php?name=osscontrib

Posted at 01:51PM Jun 26, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |  Kommentare[6]

2.0.3 RC6 available

Just before the site upgrade started OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 RC6 was available on an adequate number of mirrors.

Let's give the download system bouncer a try and see how it works for OpenOffice.org. Unfortunately this project didn't make it into Summer of Code. But of course your help is still welcome. Thanks go to Corey, Mike, and Lars from OSU Open Source Lab for setting this up.

The links use bouncer for the English installation sets of

2.0.3 RC6 Linux
2.0.3 RC6 Solaris SPARC
2.0.3 RC6 Solaris x86
2.0.3 RC6 Windows

Posted at 02:54PM Jun 21, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |  Kommentare[4]

Feedback on the Announcement of Site Upgrade

A little error in the announcement mail for the site upgrade triggered some feedback. In minutes after the notification was sent we received messages pointing out that the month should have been June - not March but 20th of June at 19:00 UTC (Btw that is today!). A quickly issued correction brought another interesting view to our attention:

You'd be surprised to know that the common man's faculty to read is not like a computer i.e. we don't take each word in. So when you wrote 20 March, most brains would analyse only 20 and the next word would simply be interpreted as 'month' and brain would take it for granted that the month would be the current one. Consequently, most people would have 'interpreted ' it as 20 June but for your second mail when we went back to check the first mail to see that yes it was 'March' written there while we'd thought it June only.

Incidentally, dates would be interpreted correctly. Had you intended 11 July and wrote 11 Mar by error, the mind would pick up the error instantaneously knowing fully well that 11 of this month is already past.

Basically, thanks for drawing OUR attention to YOUR folly which had otherwise been gracefully unnoticed :-)

With Regards
Dr Saurabh Bhatia
MBBS(AFMC), MS(Psy)
Clinical Psychotherapist and Behavioral counsellor
TS MINDBEND PSYCHOTHERAPY & PSYCHO-ASSESSMENT CENTER
http://www.DoctorAtYourDoorstep.com

Posted at 11:15AM Jun 20, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

OpenOffice.org Site Upgrade

Next Tuesday, 2006-06-20 at 17:00 UTC, the OpenOffice.org main site will be upgraded. Mail lists, CVS, IssueZilla), ... will not be available for about 48 hours. A placeholder will guide users to the 2.0.2 download. The OpenOffice.org Wiki and anoncvs are not affected. But you won't be able to login to EIS.

After preparation and serious testing with members across all the functional groups contributing to OpenOffice.org we are confident that the migration to the new improved infrastructure will go smoothly. Sorry for the inconvenience the outage might produce. If you stumble over serious issues after the caution banner has been removed, please send a message to cee351 at website.ooo or file an issue against www/upgrade.

Thanks go to Bernd, Christian, CollabNet, Frank, Frank, Heiner, Karl-Heinz, Joerg, Louis, Martin, Sophie and team for your help with the staging site. Let's keep the fingers crossed that this will be the easiest upgrade ever...

Posted at 03:59PM Jun 16, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

Macro Curiosity as Firedrill

In the last few days we saw a blog that became news, subject of irony, serious technical investigation, background stories and a final burial of the case.

This firedrill was a helpful training for a security issue. It helped to practise the collaboration of developers including the ESC and security team with our marketing group.

So, are we prepared for a real case of emergency?

Posted at 02:44PM Jun 07, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |  Kommentare[1]

SoC application period ended

The application period for students ended last week on Tuesday. Before the weekend we were a bit worried. We received as few as 25 applications up to Friday (1/3 ineligible). And this time we advertised the program even more than last year. But as with the OOoCon 2006 Call for Papers (closing end of this month) people took their time and submitted just before the deadline.

During the initial review 20 applications were marked as ineligible due to insufficient information, extensive cut&paste work, a new revision, ... 2 applications were out of scope for OpenOffice.org and have been given to other organizations. Now we are reviewing in more detail a respectable number of applications for 35 SoC project ideas backed by 20 mentors and tied to 15 OpenOffice.org projects.

You wouldn't guess which idea most students would like to work on: guessing the language of a text. We are now gathering all the necessary information needed for the ranking of applications. The final ranked list of application is due May 22.

During the review period the overall good experience from last years SoC came to mind. Summaries from Miguel and Gervase describe remarkable different outcomes we can certainly learn from. Besides the diligent examination of applications we will work on some guidelines. These should help participants so that students find their way into the project and code its way into the product.

Posted at 01:20AM Mai 17, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

Does a PATCH implement a FEATURE or a DEFECT and do we care ?

The preferred way to receive code contributions from developers starting to work on OpenOffice.org is the submission of patches. A dedicated section of the entry form helps to file an issue of type PATCH to our issue tracking system. Many issues of the types DEFECT, FEATURE, ENHANCEMENT and PATCH are filed every day. There are too many to resolve all of them. Besides a bunch of other unworked issues this led to a backlog of lingering PATCHes.

Some months ago we started an effort to improve the patch handling as one step to remove roadblocks for developers on their way to become a valuable contributor.
We introduced two metrics for patch handling

• Initial Response Time (IRT):
  Time in days between submission and first comment or status change.
• Issue Inactivity Time (IIT):
  Time in days since the last comment has been made.

Average issue inactivity for patches is now at 40 days. This is a big improvement compared to the 120 days we started with. But there is still room for improvement and the issue owners are welcome to look at the statistics and take care of the patches - especially the outliers. Please keep the communication with the submitter going. The goal is to drive the issue to a solution. This means that the code is committed or it is not applicable or that it need some more work based on comments of reviewers.

A value of PATCH for the field issue type is the handle all these queries, statistics, ... are based on.

Unfortunately this value does not allow the distinction of patches implementing a bugfix (DEFECT) from those implementing a new feature (ENHANCEMENT/FEATURE). The workflow for features is not the same as for defects. There is an underlying assumption that most features but only a few defects need additional documentation like a specification and a feature mail. These notifications contain a short description, the link to the specification and a check mark to indicate whether UI, documentation, API, ... are affected. As a side effect a section of the release notes is created from feature mail data.

Here PATCH issues break ranks. It's hard to ensure that groups like localization, release engineering, documentation are informed about the impact of changes, if the nature of the issue is unclear. At least you can't enforce it with the technical means of the involved tools.

There are several ways to tackle the problem.
The most radical approach would be to refrain from usage of the type PATCH and mark issues with a keyword patch. This would be a major change in our workflow and needs significant work to achieve the same level of tool support we have today.
Or one could change the type from PATCH to DEFECT or FEATURE/ENHANCEMENT during hand-over to QA. Obviously there is no easy mean to recognize patches after the chance. One would have to take the consequences for the metrics supporting our improvement of the patch handling into account.
One could appeal for the discipline of committers to let a PATCH follow the necessary steps according to its nature. Peer review, incentives and pillories come to mind.

As a side note it should be mentioned that feature mails are not used very often. To me it seems that this mechanism is a bit outdated and not well integrated in the workflow. The helpful information it should carry might better be tied to issue handling or CWS handling.

So do we have to care about the type of a PATCH issue or is improper handling the exception?
Do you care?

Posted at 05:20PM Mai 09, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

Summer of Code 2006

OpenOffice.org is happy to participate again in the Summer of Code initiative sponsored by Google.

We have some suggestions we find suitable for the program. If you have ideas for other tasks please send a note to the developer list of the related OpenOffice.org project or contact the project lead.

We would be glad to support a few projects. Please understand that mentoring capacities are limited. So we depend on your dedication during the preparation of the detailed specification and description of the outcome. Many mentoring organisations recommend to read the well-written hints from Drupal.

The timeframe for applications is May 1 - May 8. But keep in mind that it may need some prearrangement before you are ready to sign up and apply.

These comments from SoC 2005 Mentors may help this year's participants.

• We should put student's responsiveness to the test before an application is accepted.
• The decision about an application was difficult without a dialog with the student.
• The time for the preparation of the projects was too short.
• Active communication between student and mentor (and community members) is fundamental to define and meet milestones and deliverables.
• Weekly review of the status helps to make a project successful.
• It was fun to work with self-dependent students.
• The student should be aware that his SoC project is a full-time job.
• The program was helpful for both - the mentor and the student - to investigate new technical and personal areas
• We are happy that successful students from SoC 2005 still continue to work on OOo.

We look forward to read your detailed project description and will do our best to make Summer of Code 2006 even more successful than last year's.

Posted at 12:42AM Mai 03, 2006 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  | 

2.0.1 RC1 and Showstoppers

While the mail system is still not fully functional Martin's message made it to releases@ooo and it's archive and Andre prepared an announcement for the QA project: 2.0.1 RC1 is available for download.

By now we know that some serious issues force us to prepare an RC2. Localizations got lost (#i58577#), testtool doesn't work (#i58564#) and users should not be confused by a wrong version number (#i58540#). The release plan will be adjusted soon.

Outbound mail notifications from IssueTracker and CVS have only some minutes delay. But the mail exchanger seems to be throttled somehow so that many messages to the lists are still queued and need hours if not days to be delivered.

In the meantime we continue to use issues and the wiki pages plus blogs to synchronize the efforts...

Posted at 09:57PM Nov 28, 2005 by Stefan Taxhet in OpenOffice.org  |