Including OO templates in fc4

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:41:09 +1100, Rodd Clarkson <rodd at clarkson.id.au> wrote:
> So lets not argue that because OOo doesn't ship templates, Fedora
> shouldn't because history speaks otherwise.  If you don't want templates
> included then just say it.

I want templates included in a way that actually makes sense for OOo.
OOo's best feature is cross-platform development focus. If everyone
things its a good idea to include a few default templates... those
default templates should be available by default on ANY OOo install on
ANY OS that OOo works on.  This discussion is about user expectation
compared to default functionality in applicions found in other
operating system. Both MS and Apple products have been mentioned as a
justification for the expectation that templates be available. I argue
that the biggest expectation is that OOo operate in a cross-platform
way.   If you really care about users expactations for users who have
experience using MS or Apple products.. you will move this discussion
upstream to OOo so that users of OOo on MS and Apple systems can take
advantage of the outcome of the discussion.

This is not a fedora specific issue.. this is an upstream OOo project
issue... one important enough to take upstream and discuss with
upstream developers FIRST.  The user expectations as described in
arguments in this thread impact OOo on ALL operating systems that OOo
supports. The first few default templates should be selected by OOo to
set the baseline expectation as to what functionality OOo includes by
default. This should not be something fedora users dictate to the rest
of the OOo userbase simply because fedora was the first distro to
include templates. OOo upstream needs a chance to select the default
set of templates ALL OOo should expect to be installed.  I do not
believe that distributions should be including new default
functionality into an application until after a discussion of that
functionality has occured as part of upstream development, so that the
project developers get a chance to describe what the new default
functionality should look like. This is doubly critical for
applications that have signficant cross-platform penetration like OOo.

If you want to package templates in extras... fine... but if you want
to start defining new default functionality inside OOo... go upstream
and have the discussion there first... so OOo can have consistent
default templates across all operating systems that OOo runs on.. so
all users can expect the same OOo functionality no matter what
underlying system OOo runs on.
 
-jef