How can you help the OpenOffice.org project?

I've come across the question of: I'm not a programmer, or use OpenOffice.org on my Mac as a normal course of business (though do use OpenOffice.org on other platforms); How can I help the OpenOffice.org Mac Porting Project?

As a non programmer, and someone who doesn't use OpenOffice.org on the Mac as a normal course of work, there is still something that you can do to help.

The three main areas that come to mind and documentation, marketing, and donating processor time.

In terms of documentation, simply checking the documentation that is available, and making sure that it is easy to understand, and up to date. We don't always get everything right, so need others, like you, to suggest improvements. This areas covers user support too.

In terms of marketing, writing blog posts, that comment on OpenOffice.org on the Mac, increases the awareness of the project, it doesn't need to be done often. Every blog post or news article, that portrays accurate information increases the possibility of an extra user, and more importantly a developer too.
Now that we have a variety of screenshots out there of the current status, we have seen an increase in people coming to the project both as users and developers (or I'm just getting more involved with the project).
Even just using the OpenDocument file format can help, as it means that others need to install OpenOffice.org (or another application that supports the OpenDocument file format).

A third way of supporting the Mac project, especially if you have large chunks of time when your Mac isn't being used, is to build OpenOffice.org. There is a special system that the OpenOffice.org project has that automates the whole procedure of building OpenOffice.org, but you need to manage to compile OpenOffice.org locally first. This is slowly becoming easier, though there is support all the way from the Mac Porters.

More information about the buildbot system is available:

• Buildbot
• Setting up a Buildbot
• Summary mail message (some people are interesting in doing this to help the project)
  
• My buildbot blog posts
• Buildbot status page

If you don't have a stable internet connection, you may be interested in the tinderbox setup.

What is the point of copy protection?

I've been pointed an interesting article title "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". It shows many of the weaknesses of the copy protection in Windows Vista, right through to the additional costs to the rest of the computer industry. Why does it not just affect Windows Vista machines, but every new computer out there? Quite simply all the extra research and development that has to go into producing the new hardware, that will do encryption between each component in the operating system. This will push up energy costs too, as each component in the computer has to do considerably more processing. On the fly compression and encryption is computationally taxing on the computer.
I really don't like the vendor lock in, and the fact that legally purchased media, can end up not playing on your legally purchased equipment. Ahh well, I suppose that is even more excuse to avoid Micro$oft.

My First CWS

I have now created my first CWS (Child Workspace) macosxdmgapplink. It only affect the Mac packaging. It is basically the patches that I created earlier at the Mac Port Meeting in Hamburg. I have updated the DS_Store file for OpenOffice.org 2.2.

The extra functionality that you will get with this new CWS is an updated background in the disk image that Mac Users of OpenOffice.org use for installing OpenOffice.org. More importantly, inside the disk image, you will get a link to the Applications folder. This will make it easier for users to drag and drop install OpenOffice.org.

Now all that needs to be done, is for it to be passed by the QA representative maho, and then integrated.

Record Number of Locales Passed QA for OpenOffice.org 2.1 on the Mac

At this writing there are currently 3 locales passed QA and available to download, for OpenOffice.org 2.1 Mac OS X Intel and 5 for the PPC Macs. That gives a total of 6 unique locales that have been passed QA on both the PPC and Intel Mac platforms for OpenOffice.org 2.1. This is a record. Previously only English, German and French were put through their paces to check their functionality and links posted on the Mac Download pages. With the help of QATrack I'm able to find out which locales are being tested, and if they have been distributed to the mirrors.
There are still more currently being tested.
Download OpenOffice for the Mac

Change your Mac OS X password from the Command Line

Use the command
passwd
to change your password from the command line under Mac OS X.

Cycling from Sighthill to Linlithgow

Yesterday I took a cycle along the union canal. I set out, without deciding exactly where I would turn back. The sun had already set, so it pretty dark going along most of the canal.
It's starting to get colder as the puddles on the tow path were starting to freeze in a few places.
By the time I was 6 miles away from Linlithgow, my bike light was become rather dull, with the warning light on. As I wouldn't have enough light to get all the way back home from there, I decided to take the train from Linlithgow to Edinburgh Park station for £3.30. At Edinburgh Park I was the only one to get off the train. It was only about 5 minutes from there home.
Acording to Google Earth, I cycled about 19 miles in around 2 hours.

2nd Mac Porters Meeting

I made the whirlwind trip to Hamburg for the 2nd Mac Porters Meeting at the Google offices there. I seem to have survived my first flying trip (in both senses). It was great to meet the porters in person again or for the first time.

I really liked the Eurostar on my Lyon trip, far smoother in parts, though longer. You can also move around a lot more on the Eurostar and have no seat belts too. Now all we need is for a high speed rail link between Edinburgh and London that make the Eurostar even better.

It was great being able to play with a Mac Pro! Even without ccache installed, a build of OpenOffice.org takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes. This is dramatically less than the current build times that I'm getting on my MacBook, of around 8 hours. Now I really want one, but simply cannot afford it. :-(

It is also quite nice to have a shot of working with 2 monitors with my MacBook. It is a lot better to be able to work with different part of a project on different screens. For example, the source code on one and the result on the other screen. However I'm trying to put off getting a monitor until I have a job or can afford it.

With the help of Oliver Braun, I managed to get the link to the Applications folder inside the disk image working properly. I was very close to getting the line of make file in the correct place. We're looking at possibly increasing the size of the background image to make it look a bit better. Follow issue 72008 to track the integration and testing of my patches.

Minutes of the events on Saturday are available on Eric Bachard's blog. Sunday's events should be coming soon. EDIT: The events from Sunday are available.

I have to thank Martin Kretzschmar for his sofa, otherwise I would never have gone.

Row span in Writer's Tables

In one of my not so common moments of using OpenOffice.org Writer as a user, I recently came across an issue with the table layout. I did not have the flexibility to have table cells run over many rows in the way I wanted them to. To my delight, it would appear that this is going to be fixed. Unfortunately the fixes won't come in time for this report that I'm writing.

For more information about this please see the GullFOSS blog.

Buildbot has moved

The Mac buildbots have moved to a new build master, which should prevent the build master running out of space as has happened on a few occasions on the old build master. They are now located on the build master http://termite.go-oo.org/.

Am I a nerd?