[libreoffice-marketing] Development will branch off of 7.6 on Jun 5. Please communicate the next version number

[Italo Vignoli]

On 30/05/23 13:57, Justin Luth wrote:

> Italo, you have now communicated two different names for the "new"
> process. Originally you said it was "24.2", but here you have noted it
> as 2024.2. Please clarify.

> I don't see any problem whatsoever with the shorter 24.2. I'm quite sure
> the project will be able to transition to the latest versioning fad
> before 2099.

The one that fits best developemnt: 24.2 or 2024.2 are the same for 
marketing. Stephan Bergmann has expressed a concern about 24.2, and I 
answered accordingly. Marketing is meant to change perceptions, and in 
this case the change from 24.2 to 2024.2 doesn't change the perception 
of a calendar based release number.

>> By the way, I think that the distinction between "fresh" and "still"
>> is now obsolete and can be deprecated.

> Unfortunately, that is wishful marketing speak. Regressions are still a
> huge concern. The distinction is absolutely relevant, and always will be.

Of course, but relating the two versions to software stability - the 
names "fresh" and "still" were created to counteract the campaign 
against LibreOffice, supported by IBM and mostly voiced by the Italian 
AOO community (there wasn't any other AOO community apart from the one 
in Italy) - has been perceived by users as "LibreOffice has stability 
issues" which is still used by some people against LibreOffice.

Luckily, this campaign is now over, and AOO has no energy and manpower 
to restart it (nor the AOO community, which has disappeared).

The reality is that, apart from regressions, the last version of 
LibreOffice is as stable as the previous one, and as the majority of 
users doesn't know the concept of bugs and regressions (because they are 
never mentioned by Microsoft, which is the reference for the office 
suite market) we have the opportunity of repositioning the two versions 
as targeted to different clusters of users: technology savvy users for 
the newer version, and normal users for the previous version.

This means that we revert a negative perception (LibreOffice has to 
provide two versions of the software because of stability issues) into a 
positive and unique advantage: LibreOffice provides a version optimized 
for different users, based on the different level of maturity of the 
underlying LibreOffice Technology platform.

LibreOffice Technology, being a development platform and not a product, 
can have different maturity levels, according to the number of tests and 
reviews performed by development and quality assurance. For users, this 
will mean choosing between the most feature rich and the most tested 
versions of the software.

All this will be explained in a white paper, and summarized in a slide 
deck which will be presented at the LibreOffice Conference.
-- 
Italo Vignoli - italo at vignoli.org
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