Comments on RC1

l10n
#1

Hi all,

Like some other members of the L10n project, I'm not very happy with the RC1 we provided:
- the Windows multilanguage installer is really a pain when you are on a slow connexion
- once you're done with the version, you realize that you do not get the help files,
- no spellchecker is available when a inexistent grammar checker extension is provided, so a poor quality shown and again a new download to get.

I think that we shall consider again the package we are providing and its availability/quality.

Kind regards
Sophie

#2

S, Sophie Gautier piše:

Hi all,

Like some other members of the L10n project, I'm not very happy with the RC1 we provided:
- the Windows multilanguage installer is really a pain when you are on a slow connexion
- once you're done with the version, you realize that you do not get the help files,
- no spellchecker is available when a inexistent grammar checker extension is provided, so a poor quality shown and again a new download to get.

I think that we shall consider again the package we are providing and its availability/quality.

Kind regards
Sophie

I totally agree. This is a bad commercial. Although sometimes bad commercial aids more than a good one, this is not the case.
If I remember correctly, Italo said in one of the podcasts that LO will be ready for production usage in spring 2011.
"Release Early, Release Often" should not be used for product, that will replace one quality product (OOo in this case).
Regards
Robert

#3

Hi Sophie & Wols,

Like some other members of the L10n project, I'm not very happy with the
RC1 we provided:

  :-)

- the Windows multilanguage installer is really a pain when you are on a
slow connexion

  It took under five minutes for me to download; 8Mbit, I can imagine it
taking ten times longer on a 1Mbit link, from Madagascar - perhaps you
don't have a mirrorbrain mirror topologically close to you ?

- once you're done with the version, you realize that you do not get the
help files,

  As Rene says, on-line help is coming, and help packs too.

- no spellchecker is available when a inexistent grammar checker
extension is provided, so a poor quality shown and again a new download
to get.

  This sounds like a real bug; can you file it in bugzilla and expand on
the problem ? Best to suggest it as a child of the release blocker too
(https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31865) I'm having problems
parsing the problem though - we bundle a grammar checker that doesn't
exist ? :slight_smile: perhaps this is why the download is so big.

I think that we shall consider again the package we are providing and
its availability/quality.

  Well - we are looking again at how best to re-package it. The 'obvious'
solutions are not very pleasant ones though. So - with only ten
languages (all of my Catalan, Hungarian, .... friends start screaming) -
we can cover some huge proportion of our users, and then it is only the
minority languages that have either a huge download, or separate / split
language-packs.

  On the other hand - now is not a wonderful time to be discovering
this :slight_smile: The outline of what was suggested wrt. multi-language installs
has been on the table for several months, and was there in Beta3; RC1 is
not an ideal time to notice these issues.

  And Wols' comments:

What about those people who *C*an't use broadband?

  They have all sorts of pain, that can't be fixed. It takes them about
twice as long to download LO as it does to download OO.o (as of now).

Okay, I wouldn't call 2Mb slow

  2Mbit ~= 10 Mb per minute, ~= 35 minutes for 350mb - right ?

I'm not in favour of us restricting ourselves "for the sake of those
without broadband", but if we *consider* them, we are likely to end up
with a better product. You know, bloat bloat bloat ... being efficient
for the sake of efficiency really *does* have something going for
it :slight_smile:

  You appear to suggest that we delight in adding bloat for its own sake.
While that most certainly may -seem- to be the case based on the result,
it is somewhat offensive to suggest it :slight_smile:

  One of the benefits of the combined installer is that we do not require
many gigabytes of duplicated pointlessness on -every- mirror site: as we
duplicate all of the code again and again and again for windows, 90%+ of
which is identical, but each time with ~10Mb of translation / help :slight_smile:
That is a nightare to build, copy, sign, up-load and manage.

  Of course, we want to reduce the ultimate download size; and I'm
working on analysing where the extra space came from in the latest
build: we should be sub 300Mb. And yes, there are a -load- of dumb
design decisions (eg. the template translation[1]) that makes us far too
large, but working on the underlying causes to shrink this seems a far
more worthy goal than hacking around it.

  HTH,

    Michael.

[1] - we have ~20Mb of nearly exactly duplicated templates in there
still that requires code fixing ... if you're interested :slight_smile:

#4

Well - we are looking again at how best to re-package it. The 'obvious'
solutions are not very pleasant ones though. So - with only ten
languages (all of my Catalan, Hungarian, .... friends start screaming) -
we can cover some huge proportion of our users, and then it is only the
minority languages that have either a huge download, or separate / split
language-packs.

On the other hand - now is not a wonderful time to be discovering
this :slight_smile: The outline of what was suggested wrt. multi-language installs
has been on the table for several months, and was there in Beta3; RC1 is
not an ideal time to notice these issues.

Your release notes pointed to this as a known issue, not an
architectural "advance" as you are trying to sell it to the
multu-culti community now. If you said at Beta1 that there will be no
localized or English help included with LO - almost none of the
original langteam members would jump on the LO-wagon. You might not
understand this but the localization teams lost their souls localizing
the help of OOo and that help is probably the only help available for
the package in those languages (no manuals published, no companies
offering telephone support in these languages). So give us our
translated help back, please. Or do you think governments deciding for
open-source will vote for solutions that need installing help on every
single computer, or no help available at all? What a poor decision!

You appear to suggest that we delight in adding bloat for its own sake.
While that most certainly may -seem- to be the case based on the result,
it is somewhat offensive to suggest it :slight_smile:

One of the benefits of the combined installer is that we do not require
many gigabytes of duplicated pointlessness on -every- mirror site: as we
duplicate all of the code again and again and again for windows, 90%+ of
which is identical, but each time with ~10Mb of translation / help :slight_smile:
That is a nightare to build, copy, sign, up-load and manage.

Of course, we want to reduce the ultimate download size; and I'm
working on analysing where the extra space came from in the latest
build: we should be sub 300Mb. And yes, there are a -load- of dumb
design decisions (eg. the template translation[1]) that makes us far too
large, but working on the underlying causes to shrink this seems a far
more worthy goal than hacking around it.

If LO is all about Mb, then it is not ripe enough to be localized and
offered in localized flavours. If that is so, please state it now, so
we can go on with our business elsewhere.

Thanks,
m.

#5

Actually, IMO, this may be an unfortunate time to discover this, but still better than to have our product released when we know that it could be improved still before release. There is nothing wrong with taking a step back. We are a new distro and still ironing out bugs within our organisation.

I, for one, would not be upset if the release is put back if it means delivering a better product. I don't believe that there will be much public backlash either.

Lack of help file and spellchecker is not going to be a great selling point.

Marc

#6

Hi,

El dl 06 de 12 de 2010 a les 22:10 +0000, en/na Michael Meeks va
escriure:

> - no spellchecker is available when a inexistent grammar checker
> extension is provided, so a poor quality shown and again a new download
> to get.

  This sounds like a real bug; can you file it in bugzilla and expand on
the problem ? Best to suggest it as a child of the release blocker too
(https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31865) I'm having problems
parsing the problem though - we bundle a grammar checker that doesn't
exist ? :slight_smile: perhaps this is why the download is so big.

I've installed the Catalan version (on Windows, the «multi» one) and
there is no grammar checker... I guess the package is missing and I
think it's completely necessary to have grammar checker installed by
default...

Pau

#7

Hi Michael, all,

sorry for stepping in so late - my previous subscription to the libreoffice@freedesktop list didn't work (and I didn't have the time to search the archives) so I don't know if this has already been discussed...

Michael Meeks schrieb:
> [...] The rational here was to ensure that everyone's language is
> treated equally. Incidentally, as an aside - the problem space is not
> restricted only to single-locale users: many corporate users (for
> example) want to deploy it worldwide, and have a single image that has
> localizations for ~everywhere.

I don't know if the rationale of not preferring English (as international communication language) in our builds is too important to provide the two-files-download version (English main package plus lang-pack) as an alternative aside the multi-package.

If we have enough server space for:
- multi-installer
- EN-installer (better would be "no-language"-installer, but this will probably not work)
- language packs in all languages

I'd propose to go this way for LibO 3.3.0.

I can't imagine that anybody here has so much time to discuss this topic now - and at least for our first release we should provide something people can handle:

The multi-installer for people in need for one single package download in their language

The EN-installer and lang-pack for others with main focus on the download size willing to download and install two packages one after another.

This would have to be supported by the download script (or at least mentioned on the download page), but I think the website team can cope with it...

Of course there is much room for improvement - but I think this can wait until the release of LibO 3.3.0.
>
Best regards

Bernhard

#8

2010.12.07 00:10, Michael Meeks rašė:

One of the benefits of the combined installer is that we do not require many gigabytes of duplicated pointlessness on -every- mirror site: as we duplicate all of the code again and again and again for windows, 90%+ of which is identical, but each time with ~10Mb of translation / help :slight_smile: That is a nightare to build, copy, sign, up-load and manage.

I think this works pretty well for OOo, no?

Then also, since we're using msp's for localized content, this means you only have to build once, no? In that case, only signing off and uploading remains. It's probably not so comfortable, but certainly scriptable and managable.

And, being a mirror admin myself, I don't quite remember any of us admins being complaining about the amount of gigabytes LibO would use. As a user of "minority" language, I would certainly prefer a fully working localized installer that installs fully working localized office package to the one that pretends to cover everything, but indeed (apparently) covers only en-US fully.

However, it would surely be nice to also provide a relatively huge download for those who want or need LibO installer featuring all languages (e.g. for a CD). Perhaps it could contain not just interface translations, but also help files, dictionaries and everything else? Maybe it would even make sense to distribute it as a CD image?

There's also another option that I haven't seen mentioned (sorry if it's actually been brought up already): an installer that downloads required components at install time. This seems to work pretty well for Microsoft, so I don't see why it wouldn't work for LibO. Maybe it could even come with en-US locale built-in, to ensure that the user can have a working LibO installation even without Internet.

Rimas

#9

I propose another way - smaller localization communities try to find
server space for hosting their builds. Those builds wouldn't have to
be hosted on all the mirrors, just on the continent ones of that
country (I guess there are exemptions to that rule, like English,
Spanish, French etc.). For Slovenian LO I guess that would be
feasible.

And having a fully localized, single package for 4 or five OS's really
is the only way currently to adopt LO into government sector and
larger enterprises.

Lp, m.

#10

Hi Martin,

please don't mess up the quoting order at least where it already exists. :stuck_out_tongue:

2010.12.08 22:07, Martin Srebotnjak rašė:

2010.12.07 00:10, Michael Meeks rašė:

One of the benefits of the combined installer is that we do not require
many gigabytes of duplicated pointlessness on -every- mirror site: as we
duplicate all of the code again and again and again for windows, 90%+ of
which is identical, but each time with ~10Mb of translation / help :slight_smile: That
is a nightare to build, copy, sign, up-load and manage.

I think this works pretty well for OOo, no?

Then also, since we're using msp's for localized content, this means you
only have to build once, no? In that case, only signing off and uploading
remains. It's probably not so comfortable, but certainly scriptable and
managable.

And, being a mirror admin myself, I don't quite remember any of us admins
being complaining about the amount of gigabytes LibO would use. As a user of
"minority" language, I would certainly prefer a fully working localized
installer that installs fully working localized office package to the one
that pretends to cover everything, but indeed (apparently) covers only en-US
fully.

However, it would surely be nice to also provide a relatively huge download
for those who want or need LibO installer featuring all languages (e.g. for
a CD). Perhaps it could contain not just interface translations, but also
help files, dictionaries and everything else? Maybe it would even make sense
to distribute it as a CD image?

There's also another option that I haven't seen mentioned (sorry if it's
actually been brought up already): an installer that downloads required
components at install time. This seems to work pretty well for Microsoft, so
I don't see why it wouldn't work for LibO. Maybe it could even come with
en-US locale built-in, to ensure that the user can have a working LibO
installation even without Internet.

I propose another way - smaller localization communities try to find
server space for hosting their builds. Those builds wouldn't have to
be hosted on all the mirrors, just on the continent ones of that
country (I guess there are exemptions to that rule, like English,
Spanish, French etc.). For Slovenian LO I guess that would be
feasible.

I don't mind that, though i don't think it's dependent on the exact packaging approach. A mirror in your country would make downloading faster in any case.

And having a fully localized, single package for 4 or five OS's really
is the only way currently to adopt LO into government sector and
larger enterprises.

I don't quite get what you mean by "localized, single package" for all OS's.
First of all, I tend to think that Windows and Mac should be somewhat prioritized (because Linux and all other Free OS's already come with OOo/LibO).
Then also, if you plan a big corporate deployment, downloading a single big ISO (even if it's a huge DVD image with all languages/all OS's) wouldn't really hurt you, would it?

My idea was that it should perhaps be possible to use the same installer for both online and offline installations, I think IE's installer used to do that: the installer could check its own folder for required cabinets, and only if it wouldn't find them, it would downloads them from the server. This way, there would be only one installer, but it would be prety much universal (as in, you could simply download the online installer and all cabinets, burn all that to a CD, and you'd have an offline installer). Though i'm only talking about Windows, of course.

Rimas

#11

Sorry, I meant a single installation file for every platform, thus 5-6
install sets for every language. I emphasised the single file concept
and not a basic file + language file or even worse basic file +
language file + help language file etc.

Lp, m.

#12

2010.12.08 23:34, Martin Srebotnjak rašė:

I don't quite get what you mean by "localized, single package" for all OS's.
First of all, I tend to think that Windows and Mac should be somewhat
prioritized (because Linux and all other Free OS's already come with
OOo/LibO).
Then also, if you plan a big corporate deployment, downloading a single big
ISO (even if it's a huge DVD image with all languages/all OS's) wouldn't
really hurt you, would it?

Sorry, I meant a single installation file for every platform, thus 5-6
install sets for every language. I emphasised the single file concept
and not a basic file + language file or even worse basic file +
language file + help language file etc.

Well, that would be annoying to download, for sure. But it's easy to solve by simply compressing all the files in a self-extracting archive (the way it's currently done).

Then again, with online installation, you wouldn't have to download anything but setup.exe, which would download all needed components itself.

Rimas

#13

How would that look in a government or corporate environment? How
would installing Lithuanian or Slovenian LO with included help look
like on 1000 computers (if the sets do not include help at all and
need downloading those parts)? With no Internet access or limited
access due to security precautions? Will it include options to
download a full installation or all necessary parts and then make the
installation offline? Shouldn't this be already discussed and set into
stone by now?

Or does LO not want to take OOo in its most promising territory - the
government/corporate environment and is solely meant for
English-speaking non-Windows users, mostly nerds not using
productivity suites more than 2 hours a week but enjoying telling
stories how they liberated an office suite from the evil corporation?

BTW, isn't Google one of the official supporters of LO? Can't they
offer some hosting love to the LO full lang-packs?

Lp, m.

#14

Hi Martin,

2010.12.09 00:24, Martin Srebotnjak rašė:

Well, that would be annoying to download, for sure. But it's easy to solve
by simply compressing all the files in a self-extracting archive (the way
it's currently done).

Then again, with online installation, you wouldn't have to download anything
but setup.exe, which would download all needed components itself.

How would that look in a government or corporate environment? How
would installing Lithuanian or Slovenian LO with included help look
like on 1000 computers (if the sets do not include help at all and
need downloading those parts)? With no Internet access or limited
access due to security precautions? Will it include options to
download a full installation or all necessary parts and then make the
installation offline? Shouldn't this be already discussed and set into
stone by now?

It should be, but I don't know if it is. I'm not subscribed to the discuss list where I guess this discussion indeed belongs... :slight_smile:

Regarding corporate installations: like I said, you would probably download a CD/DVD image and install directly from it, or perhaps use the active directory to deploy LibO (I'm not saying that it already works though, I don't know if it does). Downloading the installer to each and every computer from Internet isn't the best idea here anyway, regardless of whether or not the installer is one file or five files.

Again, I don't really have experience with corporate software installation, but I would guess that downloading the installer is not the biggest issue there. However, your suggestion to allow telling the installer to just download files for offline installation is a good one, and it should be considered by LibO people.

Or does LO not want to take OOo in its most promising territory - the
government/corporate environment and is solely meant for
English-speaking non-Windows users, mostly nerds not using
productivity suites more than 2 hours a week but enjoying telling
stories how they liberated an office suite from the evil corporation?

I don't know, I'm just a community member like you. And I must confess, that I myself am a nerd using productivity suites less than 2 hours a week... :slight_smile: Well, at least I'm a Windows (as well as OS X and Linux) user, what a relief! :smiley:

BTW, isn't Google one of the official supporters of LO? Can't they
offer some hosting love to the LO full lang-packs?

Again, I don't know. That's definately a good idea. On the other hand, even without Google's hosting, gigabytes are cheap nowadays. I don't think it would be a big problem for LibO mirror to use more space. I vote for quality and positive user experience.

Rimas

#15

Also, Rimas et. al. (since you are the only one responding to my mails
:slight_smile: ), two more things I would like to point out:

1) the help size cannot be the reason to lose the help from packages -
it is mostly text that should be nicely squeezable/zippable, and only
10-15 pictures in all help content are localizable, all of the rest
are the same for all languages (!), so they would not need to be
duplicated in full all-languages build;

2) Multi-lang installer should offer multi-lang installation interface
- the first page should be a page to select installer language that
could be changed at runtime, IMHO

Lp, m.

#16

2010.12.10 00:54, Martin Srebotnjak rašė:

Again, I don't really have experience with corporate software installation,
but I would guess that downloading the installer is not the biggest issue
there. However, your suggestion to allow telling the installer to just
download files for offline installation is a good one, and it should be
considered by LibO people.

Also, Rimas et. al. (since you are the only one responding to my mails
:slight_smile: ), two more things I would like to point out:

1) the help size cannot be the reason to lose the help from packages -
it is mostly text that should be nicely squeezable/zippable, and only
10-15 pictures in all help content are localizable, all of the rest
are the same for all languages (!), so they would not need to be
duplicated in full all-languages build;

2) Multi-lang installer should offer multi-lang installation interface
- the first page should be a page to select installer language that
could be changed at runtime, IMHO

Agreed.

Is this all being documented in the wiki/Bugzilla anywhere? If not, it should.

Rimas