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Abiword: Support Expectations

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

bockman writes "Abiword developers have put up a letter, explaining what they expect from their user community and what the community should (and should not) expect from a volunteer-based open source software project like theirs. A much needed reality-check in these times when a large number of non-developers have joined the Linux users world." This is a must read for anyone who uses any open source software.

20 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. I have ony one request for all developers by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Please oh please update the webpage and test rpm builds.

    If a person were to want to get abiword and downloaded their redhat 7.1 rpm, they'd be instantly ranting on the mailing list as it does not work for any possible install of redhat 7.1.

    In fact they need to remove all rpms except for the gtk version as that is the only rpm that actually works.

    also, add a list of all libs that are needed in order to use the product.

    I am glad they make abiword, but having rpm's or packages that dont work for anyone except the deveopler that made it causes most of the grief I see on the mailing list. 90% of all pissed users are users that cant get it to work because of the bad rpm's and packages.

    hey, if you guys dont have time for keeping the website up-to date, I volunteer to do it.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. RPM Doesn't work? FIX IT.... by TechnoVooDooDaddy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    don't go flaming the programmers, FIX IT! the source is all there ready to be tweaked. You got what you paid for, and that's nothing.. The good part is with a MINOR amount of tweaking, fiddling, etc. (compared to writing something like AmiWord yourself) you can have a FANTASTIC word processor for FREE! Behold the wonders of open-source.

    Then you can post your fixed version and get flamed too..

    joy

  3. Re:Expect to see this linked from Microsoft.com by ethereal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's funny, because it appears to me that the "you get what you pay for" ratio is still in favor of Open Source projects, as opposed to Microsoft. I guess it depends on how happy you are with your last Microsoft purchase versus your last use of software downloaded for free. I know which one I'm happier with.

    See, if AbiSource was like Microsoft, they would be promising a completely secure and easy-to-use product in a couple months, miss their date by almost a year, and have recurring security issues (all of them completely denied, then considered "features", then patched quickly so as to break other parts of the product) up until it was time to release their next bloated version, and then repeat the whole cycle. So I don't really see where AbiSource has anything to be ashamed of, unless complete honesty with your user base is some sort of black mark against you.

    --

    Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

  4. Can't have it both ways... by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I can sympathize with the AbiWord guys. Given the volume of stupid emails I get, and that they must get orders of magnitude more, I can see why they're frustrated and it's commendable that they're as courteous as they are.

    Still, it's also easy to see why users have expectations. After all, they've been told by journalists that Linux is Ready For The Desktop. They've read spewing by zealots about how fantastically superior Linux applications are and how there's limitless free, quick support available from The Community. They've read the stuff on the Red Hat or Mandrake box and spent money for it. They've invested time in installing Linux and in creating work on it. I can understand why they're annoyed to be told, "It's free and it's my spare-time hobby so deal with it."

    I accept that dealing with a desktop Linux installation is a hobby in its own right and that you have to spend time to make it work and deal with some things that justa aren't there. But it's easy to see why a lot of users don't realize that.

    Then there are the free software whackos who think that they're owed the world on a silver platter. But that's a whole other issue...

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Can't have it both ways... by sheldon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Now wait a minute. Based off your User # you've obviously been reading slashdot for a while.

      Don't you realize you are speaking heresy?

      I think you've hit upon the fundamental problem with Open Source. It's not that Open Source is a bad thing, it can actually be quite good. But it's ridiculous to assume it will ever completely replace the commercial software market. Or even have a signifigant impact upon it because of consumer expectations.

      I've never used AbiWord and don't know what it's like. But imagine what these guys could do if instead of giving it away for free, they sold it for $15 off their website.

      It may not make them rich, but I'll bet that could provide a steady income for a handful of people who could work full time to continuously improve the product.

      Furthermore, by charging $15 for a product, they limit their user base to only those people who feel the product is worth something. But they also will realize that it's substantially cheaper than Word and won't expect quite all the same features.

      I think one of the problems with catering to just the whackos who think everything should be free, is that these people think stuff should be free because they identify no value with the product or really the developers time.

      It's the old complaint about Welfare. When people receive $500/week from the government for not working, they don't see any value in actually working. Now not everybody thinks that way, but there is a substantial sub-culture of the world that does.

    2. Re:Can't have it both ways... by chihowa · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, by charging $15 for their product, it ceases to be a free-time/hobby contribution and starts to be a product.

      If they are only making $15 per copy, they can't quit their day jobs, but now they need to cater to the people who want a $15 MS Word replacement. If people are actually shelling out money for a product, they can feel better about demanding support or immediate bug fixes or the like. Small business doesn't get the same benefits of large business (being able to say, "Screw off, we don't want to add those features. They are plenty of other customers, you're no loss.")

      At least until AbiWord get to 1.0, anyways, they really shouldn't charge anything for it. Maybe they could sell support, but I feel that involving money is a bad idea here and will only make things more hairy.

      People really should learn what to expect from things that cost them nothing. When I get something for nothing, I appreciate when it helps me at all, I don't bitch when it doesn't constantly impress me.

      Just my 2c, anyway

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  5. Users that make an effort are rewarded by bunnyman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In my experience, there is a significant number of users that expect open source software developers to provide free product support. Product support is something from the commerical world. You paid for the software, so you are entitled to get help making it work for you. But open source software does not work that way. The users are expected to make an effort to read the documentation, to try to solve their own problems, and whenever possible, provide patches to fix bugs. You are not paying for the software with your money, so you, as a user, are not entitled to free support, or even software that works right. But when the software is good, and you make an effort to read documentation and solve your own problems, you will be rewarded with the knowledge and experience to solve your own problems again in the future.

  6. Tell users what they expect from them? by Xunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't say I got that from the letter, but it is nice to see developers standing up from themselves. Especially in this day of "Free Software can compete with Pay software" it's great seeing someone telling it like it is. My favourite sentement:


    Microsoft ... can spend a fortune on getting good documentation written, new features, debugging, installation process made smooth and generally polish the thing till it shines. In comparison, AbiWord development is driven solely by a small group's volunteer effort. We work on AbiWord after work and in the weekends when "life" doesn't demand our attention elsewhere. We do it for fun. (emphesis mine)

    The problem here is expecting too much all the time. Many of the more visible free software projects have made huge leaps in the past, and to many users that then makes them expect that sort of delivery to be the norm. If you deliver the best most of the time, it's expected all of the time. And as a developer, I'm flattered that users belive in a product and like it so much that the want to be able use it better. But as much as we love code, we also love just relaxing after work sometimes. The Abiword dev's want the software to get as good as it can be, but they also need to have time to work at their day jobs, cut the grass and walk the dog.

    Perhaps in the future people will start paying for "free" software. That day, my friends, will be a glorious day.

    --
    Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
  7. Hurray for Abiword by blkros · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These guys make a great product, and put it out for free (beer and speech). They work hard for no money, and this letter is right on the money. If I don't pay for something, I'm not gonna expect tech support, or changes on my schedule. No one else should, either. It's like someone cooking up a meal for you, and serving it for free, and you picking it apart. This ain't Burger King, baby. If you want to have it your way, you need to help out and be patient. Hurray for Abisource making sure that people know where they stand

    --
    Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
  8. In Other Words by quakeaddict · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ....you get what you pay for.

    Guess what, the general public doesn't want excuses. Corporate IT folks dont want excuses.

    They just want to get their work done.

    The general public simply does not care that a small group of developers spends an amazing amount of time developing Abiword.

    They just want it to work, and they want to call someone when it breaks. They want some hope that someone will fix it or can tell them how to fix it, or more likely, how to do the same thing in a slightly different way.

    If Linux wants to be on alot of desktops then this type of memo isn't going to get it too far.

    --
    I'm still working on a clever footer.
  9. low expectations by jodonn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    We seem to have the opposite problem--expectations that are too low. I work as a software consultant doing J2EE applications. Often when we find ourselves dealing with a client who needs a small-scale web application done, we lay out their options for servers and pre-built solutions and they automatically reject all the free ones.

    For some reason they have concerns about reliability. They'd rather pay $30K per CPU for BEA WebLogic then download JBoss for nothing, even if they only plan on supporting 100 users. I don't claim to understand it myself, but in corporate circles open source software has this stigma attached to it.

    1. Re:low expectations by Chuck+Milam · · Score: 5, Insightful
      People don't trust free because on the whole (outside the computer world) free is equivalent to "crap". If you pay real money, then you have the expectation of real service and at the very least, when things go to hell, you can sue someone.

      The funny thing is, people think that paying for software gives them the right to "sue someone." Um, nope. Does the following look familiar? It should. It's attached to just about every commercial software package license agreeement:

      "...PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE."
      We've all see this verbiage before--Microsoft uses it, even. But, what's really interesting is where I got this legal verbage from: The GPL. At least the Open-Source community is up-front and honest about what you can expect. Sue someone. Hrumph.
  10. Right on! by burtonator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wish more Open Source projects would do this.

    I mean it is great that Open Source projects exist, and they really help out a lot of people but it is important that those who are benefited reciprocate.

    It is really a tragedy of the commons.

    With successful Open Source projects like Linux, you have TONS of companies which base billions of dollars of business on these products.

    Yet at the same time the Engineers have NO way of making money just by writing code.

    The only way they can pay the bills is by joining a larger company like IBM that can act as a patron so that they can continue their work.

    There are many examples of this:

    - Linus works for Transmeta
    - Alan Cox works for RedHat

    ... etc

    What we really need to see happen is the users directly supporting the developers of these products.

    Instead of downloading AbiWord for free. Why not donate $2-$5 through PayPal.

    This would provide the ability for a few developers to work FULL TIME on AbiWord (or whatever) without having to worry about corporate bias.

    They would be directly working for the client instead of for an intermediary (like IBM or Transmeta).

    Freenet is doing this

    I just wish it would catch on...

  11. Not at all. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not that you get what you pay for. That's a lie told us by those selling the more expensive products. It isn't (necessarily) true in general, and more often not in free software.

    It's that if you -do- get what you pay for, you can't complain.

    AbiWord is much more useful than it's cost, but some people take that to mean they can just then start making demands. And people also don't know how to ask for the support that _is_ readily available.

    And seriously, who the hell are these people calling when their software breaks? I've never even heard of someone having Word break and then picking up the phone to dial Microsoft. And if they did and started being beligerent to the person on the line, how much help do you think they'd get?

    Reading this memo as an excuse of any kind is just wrong, because you don't need an "excuse" to not be able to hand the world to people who are irrationaly demanding it of you.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  12. Re:There Must Be Higher Excpectations by dominator · · Score: 5, Informative

    Huh?

    Ok, I'm the author/maintainer of wvWare - another MSWord parsing thing (www.wvware.com) and lead developer/maintainer of AbiWord. What are you talking about?

    AbiWord isn't trying to build a word processor around any particular format. We have an extremely generic import/export mechanism that I co-authored, so that input and output can be trivially done to/from any format. We actually support more unique formats on the market than most common commercial word processors...

    But import/export is a very boring and uniteresting part of a Word Processor. All of the interesting stuff goes on down in our formatting and rendering classes. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

    And by the way, the MSWord document format is insanely difficult for mere mortals to understand. If you are indeed serious about this, come help out Werner and myself on wv or wv2 instead of re-duplicating our efforts.

    Please mod this troll down.

    Dom Lachowicz
    cinamod@hotmail.com
    AbiWord and wvWare Maintainer/Lead Developer

  13. Re:Expect to see this linked from Microsoft.com by sphealey · · Score: 4, Insightful
    As a business user, I'd be sore pressed to consider anything but Commercial software after reading this.
    As a business user and manager, I approve deployment of all kinds of software. Some commercial, some free. Some with support contracts, some without. Some with huge userbases, some with 5 other known users. This page describes pretty much what you will get from any software vendor, free or commercial, with or without a support contract. Calling a commercial tech support line, for which you have paid big bucks, is not much different than spinning a roulette wheel. That's the facts of life in the software industry, paid or otherwise. At least with this product, if I were really deperate I could hire a programmer to take a look at the source code and see if a fix is possible, which isn't the case with closed source products.

    sPh

  14. Overestimating commercial effort by Proud+Geek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of people don't have a clue what goes into a commercial software project. For example, Red Hat has only about 600 people. That is spread out through management, sales, marketing and support, as well as development. Now, Red Hat developers may be more productive than volunteers, since they are able to work on projects full time, but the vast majority of the work that goes into a new release of Red Hat Linux is in software written by the community.

    Microsoft's practices are harder to determine for an outsider, but they don't put in the huge amount of effort that the Abiword people think. For example, the Internet Explorer team is much smaller than the number of people working on Mozilla (in fact, it is smaller than the team working on Mozilla/ Netscape full time). The MS Word team is probably larger than the Abiword team, and support comes from a different group of people. However, if you email them and say, "Get this feature by tomorrow or I'm switching to something else!" they will have the exact same response as Abiword.

    The days of 200 people working on a shell script to change directories using a web page went away with the end of the .com era. They are not missed, either by OSS or Free software developers, or by profitable companies.

    --

    Even Slashdot wants to hide some things

  15. If I had a $ for every time I had this argument by skrowl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    at 3 AM at Perkins or Dennys... I'd be rich.

    This is THE major problem with Open Source software. Since you can't make money with it, you can't commit yourself to it full time. Therefore you get a whole bunch of people who sorta work on it rather than a real programming team.

    What does this get you? Products like Abiword that, while nice, admit publically that they can't compete.

    What you linux kids need is a micropayment system or SOME kind of way to support your "Forget capitalism, I must give away the product of hours and hour of my work" attitude. If you could make $40K/year while working on your open project, you could do it full time! THEN we'd see some nice word processors, web browsers, etc. for Linux and *BSD. Please don't moderate this down to troll or flaimbait as it raises very real points.

    --

    Prevent linux based DDOS's!
    http://linux.denialofservice.org/
  16. Re:Huh? by dvdeug · · Score: 4, Flamebait

    > Sure. Much of the so-called "functionality" of modren commerical word processors is, for most users, nothing but bloat.

    Like what? The equation editor - I know engineering students who find that very useful for school work. Full Unicode functionality - aka support for 1/5 of the world's population's native languages? Multilingual spellchecking? What?

    >And if you need more, you don't want a word processor, you want a document preparation system

    Most people want a simple, WYSWIG, omnipurpose tool, so that's what they use, regardless of what computer geeks think is right.

  17. Please note: development != distributor by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I keep seeing the same thing:
    • Linux kernel version 2.4.mumble has problems and people ask "how can this be releasable". It's not stable!
    • gcc 3.0 is unstable for the first few releases and folks start whining about how this isn't a production-quality compiler
    • AbiWord says that they're not providing commercial-grade support services and everyone gets honked off and claims that open source software can't work
    Can you all just take a step back, breathe deeply and remind yourselves that in any software organization with more than 10 developers there are two versions of the software (at least):
    • The development snapshot (or mainline, depending one your local terminology). This is a stable release from the developers to inernal customers such as Q/A, release engineering and perhaps alpha testers for integration testing and embeded product testing.
    • The release. This is the ready-for-prime-time code that will be supported and maintained by the company.
    Are you seeing the parallel here? When Linus releases kernel 2.4.57, he's releaseing a snapshot that lets Q/A (made up of Q/A groups in numerous companies that sell Linux-based products) release engineering (the distribution vendors) and alpha integration testers (embedded systems customers) begin their test and release cycle. Same for AbiWord. Ximian, Red Hat and many others release AbiWord, but I doubt that they ever release it absolutely as shipped. Their Q/A process only begins when AbiSource creates a new version.

    So, here's the question of the day: why are people shocked when the developers start acting like developers and say "we're not going to hand-hold you"? Well, there's a few reasons. Obviously there are the folks who just wait for an opportunity to slam OSS. Then there are the people who have become confused and don't realize that the Mozilla developers or the AbiWord developers are just that: developers. Then there are the folks who get their priorities confused. They say that they don't want to deal with "big business software", so they go it alone. This is all well and good, but when you do this, you have to expect the other shoe to drop.

    If you're downloading gcc 3.0 the day it comes out because you want the new features fast, great! But, don't be shocked when your code fails to work correctly because you have a hardware combination that was not well tested. If you'd waited for Red Hat 7.2, you would have found the optional gcc 3.0.x binaries with a big old wad of patches. Why? Because they tested it, patched it, and released it.

    Get over it. Software support is hard, and there are people in the OSS world that do it well. But, to expect every project to come out the gate with good Q/A and support is just silly.