Re: ambitions of Abi-word

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Custodis wrote:

> >>Uwog (one of the developers) is dutch too.

> >If he is dutch, he must be a really cool guy!

> >>>I would very much like:
> >>>- a roadmap for Abi in general, so the ambitions are Clair to everybody.

I think we would all like a roadmap but I'm not sure anyone has any
concrete longterm plans for Abiword at the moment beyond improving
things gradually. I suppose the developers will come up with a rough
timetable for 2.6 and what improvements they are planning. It hasn't
been long since 2.4 yet so there are probably lots of little details
people want to play around with and try to improve before trying to tackle
any big new tasks.

> >>Depends very much on what the developers decide to do.

> >We don't exactly know what to do with future versions, we're trying to
> >figure that out at the moment (at least I am) :)

> May suggest a brain writhing session.

Developers tend to discuss things on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) at
irc.gnome.org #abiword as well as on the Abiword Developer mailing list.

Feel free to read the Abiword Developer Mailing list archives
http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2005/
that is how I learn about what is happening with Abiword.

> Let everyone just ad features in a editable list without judging them.
> Then order them in some categories that seem to be logical.

That is what we use bugzilla for. We track feature requests as well as
crasher bugs. http://bugzilla.abisource.com

> Than vote on features

We don't do voting because we do not want to give a false impression
things will happen just becuase someone votes for them.

All the work on Abiword is done by volunteers* if they are interested in
doing it.

There are certainly ways you can encourage developers to add certain
features, for example by providing clear and detailed descriptions of how
a feature should work (including screenshots, sample documents or any
other relevant information).

> >AbiWord itself does not has ambitions. It all depends on what
> >contributers feel like adding. It's mostly an unstructured process.

> >>There are various plugins which can expand the Image support in
> >>Abiword. The ImageMagick plugin for example adds quite a large amount
> >>of image formats (might only be available on Linux, must check).

> >Note to Alan: I deleted the ImageMagick plugin about 3 months ago.

> ? Why ?

If I recall correctly:
a) it was very very big
b) it didn't work very well
c) other ...

> Thanks for the insights...

You are welcome.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

* Okay so technically not all anymore, thanks to INdT and Nokia but the
vast majority of the work on Abiword is done by volunteers.
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Received on Fri Nov 18 14:44:52 2005