Re: Abi2.4.0: Maintaining Windows 9x

On Tue, 4 Oct 2005, r coyne wrote:

> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 17:14:47 -0700 (PDT)
> From: r coyne <duckingsnofair@yahoo.com>
> To: abiword-user@abisource.com
> Subject: Re: Abi2.4.0: Maintaining Windows 9x
>
>
>
> >
> > Next: In a recent heated discussion on Planet
> > Abisource, someone (Hubert
> > Figuiere or Martin Sevior?) defended continuing to
> > maintain Abiword for
> > Windows 9x. The context was some glitches surviving
> > in Abi 2.4. I for one
> > want to thank the developers for spending great time
> > and effort to
> > continue supporting the older operating systems.
> > There are lots of reasons
> > for maintaining the support, practical but also
> > philosophical: it helps in
> > some small way to reduce Microsoft's power to coerce
> > upgrades. If
> > maintaning the older systems is a burden on the
> > developers, resulting in
> > some imperfections in the latest Abi release (though
> > I've found it to be
> > very solid so far), I want them to know that the
> > effort is much
> > appreciated, at least by me.
> >
>

> I second the motion.

The best way you can help make sure Abiword continues to be available for
older versions of Windows is to help out with regular testing and bug
reports and follow up information, so the Abiword developer are left in no
doubt of your commitment.

> I still use NT, and am ever more annoyed at the way people don't even
> mention it any more, so that I have no idea what will or won't work on
> it except by trying.

The developers do the best they can but until someone tries it out
they cannot be sure either.

> Some of the problem is herd mentality:

The developers test and develop on what they have available.
Maintaining copies of older versions of Windows for testing alongside
newer versions requires quite a bit of effort and far as I can tell we are
very lucky to have developers interested enough to work so hard on the
windows version.

http://www.advogato.org/person/RyanPavlik/
"From Ryan Pavlik, the AbiWord Windows developers (Sum1, Tomas, Marc, and
more),"

It takes a lot of work to keep the Windows version going so if you can
help it will make a difference.

> People are simply following MS's lead, partly to make things easier for
> themselves,

The developers are all volunteers working on Abiword in their spare time.
Anyone who has not read the "support expectations" document should check
it out. http://www.abisource.com/support/expectations.phtml
The developers do the best they can with limited resources.

It is good though that users have let it be known there is still a lot of
interest in having abiword for older versions of windows and when
developers are faced with new challenges I am sure they will take that
into consideration and do the best they can.

> partly because it seems "standard" and therefore acceptable.

It is not that complicated really, the developers are doign the best they
can with limited time and resources. I hope one of the windows developers
can spare time to respond and outline some of the problems which make
older versions of windows more difficult to support. It might also be
possible to ship additional libraries to make it a little less difficult
to support older versions of Windows but I am not familiar enough with the
problems to say for sure (of course that approach has downsides too).

> Bucking the trend makes it harder for other developers to play follow
> the leader so casually.

Let me assure you the developers do not make these decisions casually and
put a lot of thought into the best way to spend their time and
energy. There are difficult problems to solve, especially without
adequate feedback and followup, and if the developers cannot get help from
users and testers they are left wondering if people are really still using
these old versions of windows with the latest versions of abiword. It is
good that you have spoken up and let developers know you are still
interested but they need you to help them to help you.

I'm sure the abiword windows developers will respond soon and explain
things better than I could.

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/

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Received on Wed Oct 5 14:50:48 2005