LO Community ex Vanilla and user expectations, impact and other points.

[Michael Meeks]

Hi Alex,

On 22/04/2021 10:10, Alexander Thurgood wrote:
> Apologies if this has already been debated somewhere and I've missed it
> (probably), but I have just received an update for LO Vanilla through
> the Apple AppStore

	Hey - I'm sorry this upset you! there is clearly no intention to do that.

> and I noticed that the StartCenter now carries a
> banner/sticker inscribed "LibreOffice Community" in the bottom lefthand
> corner, which is an active link pointing to
> 
> https://www.libreoffice.org/)

	Right - we want to give credit there, and this is a 'vanilla' (the
sense is no added flavours) community build.

> As a QA triager, I am somewhat confused as to the message being sent out
> here.

	So - how can we improve that ! =)

> As we know, the "community" version provided by Collabora doesn't have
> the same functionality as the TDF download (e.g. no Java support,
> therefore no hsqldb support, no reportbuilder, etc).

	This is a fairly fundamental limitation of the app-store I'm afraid;
and it is regrettable indeed.
> However, this version now points directly to the LibreOffice website,
> and I feel that user expectations are being somewhat misled, due to the
> missing functionality.

	Is there somewhere better we can point ? for example, if you could
control that landing page (which is easy) where would you have it land?
Can we make a better page that doesn't confuse people and explains how
they can download the TDF version and an OpenJDK to get better 'Base'
support?

> concern is that once a user realizes that a deliberate confusion has
> been entertained, it will probably be too late
...
> I also feel somewhat uncomfortable with providing help for
> a product that maintains this duplicity.

	I don't think this is a deliberate confusion or anything duplicitous.

> Unfortunately, I don't really have any better suggestions on how to
> manage this, but for me, willingly confusing users is not the way forward.

	So - lets brainstorm on making it better. Ultimately bundling a whole
Java / OpenJDK into the sandboxed app is not something we can easily do;
we've been looking at improving the Firebird stuff to try to get at
least a reasonable database there.

	We make this clear on our download description:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/libreoffice-vanilla/id921923693?mt=12

[snip]
	"LibreOffice Vanilla is based directly on the LibreOffice source code
from The Document Foundation. It is recommended for users who want the
convenience of installing from the App Store and getting automatic
updates, compared to manually downloading and installing from The
Document Foundation.

	"(Note that features implemented in Java are not present, like the
HSQLDB embedded database engine.)
[/snip]

	So - anyhow; it's important to me that we don't do something confusing
or annoying. I'd really like to better understand your concern - and
work out how can we improve? suggestions much appreciated.

	Would a different landing page work for you? or?

	All the best,

		Michael.

-- 
michael.meeks at collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity
Hangout: mejmeeks at gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks
(M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe