Autor(es) Louis Suarez-Potts

Macrotema Comunidade

Horário 02 de Junho - quinta, 17:15/18:15, 41A

Descrição

An examination of the community process in OpenOffice.org and its potential.

OpenOffice.org is at the forefront of the adoption of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) by developing nations. The reasons for this are multiple. Not only is the application, a productivity suite, free to download and inexpensive to deploy but it is also compatible with the corporate standard, Microsoft Office. Furthermore, because it has been localized to Brazilian Portuguese, as well as numerous other regional tongues throughout the world, OpenOffice.org is easier to adopt and use by local users than software in English. This means that local groups can more quickly gain the advantages offered by the productivity suite. More and more local groups have joined the global community embarked on developing the software, and local economies focused on the development not just of OpenOffice.org but of Linux, most obviously, have been created. Yet development on OpenOffice.org has so far mostly focused on localization of the application, though there is much more to be done. This presentation initially examines the nature of the community process characteristic to OpenOffice.org, its plusses, its minuses. That process, which I call “managed collaboration,” is further complicated (as well as enabled) by the fact that OpenOffice.org is a sponsored project. I then turn to presenting a methodology of community architecture and participation that builds upon the experience gained from four plus years of OpenOffice.org.

Currículos

Louis Suarez-Potts

Community Manager, OpenOffice.org