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One deal breaker for me regarding OnlyOffice is that they have absolutely no support for RTL https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19 https://gith

by crowf 6y ago

One deal breaker for me regarding OnlyOffice is that they have absolutely no support for RTL https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19 . From what it looks like there is a 5 year opened issue requesting RTL support. Until they support RTL, I can't use them. Softmaker on the other had does support RTL. They still have a long way to go to be at the level of Microsoft office, but they are the best Linux office suite that I found

xeromal 6y ago
That was a fun read. Thanks for sharing!
- gugagore 6y ago
  Your comment encouraged me to read it, so thanks for that. I thought a bit about the phrase "planned for future versions" and I felt like I could see where there was a sort of miscommunication. If someone said: "Future versions of this product", I think it could be reasonably understood to mean: "any/all future versions" which could mean: "the (next and all subsequent) version" The most natural meaning to me, and the one that I believe was intended is that they want it in a/some future version. And then I thought it this was simply because languages can vary in how they specify noun definiteness and indefiniteness? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_nouns_and_adjectives#State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_nouns_and_adjectives#St...
esquire_900 6y ago
It's a great read and an educative insight into the working behind onlyoffice. The issue (RTL support) is dodged, promises are made ("It's on our roadmap") but none are kept. When gh user ramezrafla starts doing the heavy lifting and started coding, he is basically met with... silence? He codes for free, helps them implements an important feature, and the onlyoffice response is that it will cost him $100k for them to make time for the issue.
- watwut 6y ago
  I do not see promisses in that thread, it is always vague "yeah sometimes". Also most open soirce projects I have seen do not help with unfineshed PRs unless it is priority for them, so expecting calls and support was quite optimistic.
  - esquire_900 6y ago
    Most of them are indeed, though they specifically mention adding the issue to the roadmap, which would be some kind of acknowledgment, but didn't. (https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19#issuecomment-296669657 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19#issue...) I get that, and they have every right to handle it the way they see fit. If they don't want to invest into it, that's perfectly fine. It would just have been such a different experience if someone would have said "thanks for the effort, looks great, unfortunately we don't have the resources at this point". Would have been a 20 second investment. Instead they keep whimping people off, and the 100k thing just makes it completely ridiculous. It clearly shows where their priorities are, and where they aren't.
    - nemetroid 6y ago
      A comment claims that they didn't include RTL in the roadmap, but it has been there since early 2017[1]. In the current state of the document, it's not tied to a specific version, though. 1: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/commit/3dc18d95a360b3f18ef8aaed610321fa9b8dd795 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/commit/3dc18d95...
- oefrha 6y ago
  Someone claims to have started to implement a big feature (no code shared AFAICT, only a screenshot; there's a dead link though so maybe at some point some code was shared), and asked devs to video conference with them to help them understand the code base. Devs refused and gave them a quote for paid feature development. Seems entire appropriate. IMO unsolicited contributions and contributor entitlement (not to be confused with user entitlement) is a major issue in open source. Don't start working on a huge feature unless you've gotten the green light to do so, or prepare to be rejected. In fact, prepare to be rejected even if you've gotten the green light. Doubly so if you can't even write the code without help. It doesn't matter if you're doing work for free; unwanted work just waste both parties' time, and it's emotionally draining on both sides when the work is eventually rejected. Also, if you're just a random guy without a track record of solid contributions to the project, your chances of implementing an important feature "right" is not good. Ramp up your involvement with small features first. Build trust. Personally, I'm no stranger to huge unsolicited contributions throughout my open source career. PRs that made changes everywhere, made the wrong architectural decisions, included tons of irrelevant commits and sometimes even changed existing coding style just for the hell of it. What should I say to the contributors? Often times it would cost me less time to rewrite the feature than guide them to fix their contributions. Often times it's not even a feature I would include. A reminder that open source maintainers don't owe you anything, not even time to review your PR. Video conferencing to help you write your unsolicited PR is a huge stretch by any standard. (As for "promises", it is indeed on the roadmap, under "planned for future versions": https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/19e3a5d/Roadmap.md#common-tasks-for-all-editors-1 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/19e3a5d/Ro... Projects should totally have their own pace and priorities rather than blindly "listen to the community", and I've seen my own feature requests implemented after being on the roadmap for five years in software I use, so again, nothing inappropriate here.)
rmtech 6y ago
?⅃TЯ ƨi tɒʜW .bɘƨυʇnoɔ mɒ I ,γɿɿoƧ
Stierlitz 6y ago
“How to change Direction for Hebrew/English” https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/166141/how-to-change-direction-for-hebrewenglish/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/166141/how-to-change...
sireat 6y ago
Only Office parent company is a bit weird. They started in Latvia in 2009 yet it is a fully Russian company. https://github.com/orgs/ONLYOFFICE/people https://github.com/orgs/ONLYOFFICE/people are all Russian yet they are based in Latvia(Russians nationality is about 25% in Latvia). https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/ru/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/ru/ their blog does not offer Latvian language. This homogeneity would be normal if they were working toward Russian market but even then you'd expect to see a token Latvian or some other nationality. Normal 25 person IT company in Latvia working with west would have perhaps 10 Latvians, 8 Russians, an Estonian, a Lithuanian and someone from the west and perhaps someone from east (India or Pakistan) - all speaking English. Ascensio only job offerings for sales managers (towards Western market no less!) were in Russian (which is borderline illegal in Latvia) The only rational explanation is that OnlyOffice owners have set a comfortable culture for their workplace and see no need to change it.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
But it is closed source...

by crowf 6y ago

xeromal 6y ago

That was a fun read. Thanks for sharing!

gugagore 6y ago
Your comment encouraged me to read it, so thanks for that. I thought a bit about the phrase "planned for future versions" and I felt like I could see where there was a sort of miscommunication. If someone said: "Future versions of this product", I think it could be reasonably understood to mean: "any/all future versions" which could mean: "the (next and all subsequent) version" The most natural meaning to me, and the one that I believe was intended is that they want it in a/some future version. And then I thought it this was simply because languages can vary in how they specify noun definiteness and indefiniteness? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_nouns_and_adjectives#State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_nouns_and_adjectives#St...

esquire_900 6y ago

It's a great read and an educative insight into the working behind onlyoffice. The issue (RTL support) is dodged, promises are made ("It's on our roadmap") but none are kept. When gh user ramezrafla starts doing the heavy lifting and started coding, he is basically met with... silence? He codes for free, helps them implements an important feature, and the onlyoffice response is that it will cost him $100k for them to make time for the issue.

watwut 6y ago
I do not see promisses in that thread, it is always vague "yeah sometimes". Also most open soirce projects I have seen do not help with unfineshed PRs unless it is priority for them, so expecting calls and support was quite optimistic.
- esquire_900 6y ago
  Most of them are indeed, though they specifically mention adding the issue to the roadmap, which would be some kind of acknowledgment, but didn't. (https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19#issuecomment-296669657 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19#issue...) I get that, and they have every right to handle it the way they see fit. If they don't want to invest into it, that's perfectly fine. It would just have been such a different experience if someone would have said "thanks for the effort, looks great, unfortunately we don't have the resources at this point". Would have been a 20 second investment. Instead they keep whimping people off, and the 100k thing just makes it completely ridiculous. It clearly shows where their priorities are, and where they aren't.
  - nemetroid 6y ago
    A comment claims that they didn't include RTL in the roadmap, but it has been there since early 2017[1]. In the current state of the document, it's not tied to a specific version, though. 1: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/commit/3dc18d95a360b3f18ef8aaed610321fa9b8dd795 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/commit/3dc18d95...
oefrha 6y ago
Someone claims to have started to implement a big feature (no code shared AFAICT, only a screenshot; there's a dead link though so maybe at some point some code was shared), and asked devs to video conference with them to help them understand the code base. Devs refused and gave them a quote for paid feature development. Seems entire appropriate. IMO unsolicited contributions and contributor entitlement (not to be confused with user entitlement) is a major issue in open source. Don't start working on a huge feature unless you've gotten the green light to do so, or prepare to be rejected. In fact, prepare to be rejected even if you've gotten the green light. Doubly so if you can't even write the code without help. It doesn't matter if you're doing work for free; unwanted work just waste both parties' time, and it's emotionally draining on both sides when the work is eventually rejected. Also, if you're just a random guy without a track record of solid contributions to the project, your chances of implementing an important feature "right" is not good. Ramp up your involvement with small features first. Build trust. Personally, I'm no stranger to huge unsolicited contributions throughout my open source career. PRs that made changes everywhere, made the wrong architectural decisions, included tons of irrelevant commits and sometimes even changed existing coding style just for the hell of it. What should I say to the contributors? Often times it would cost me less time to rewrite the feature than guide them to fix their contributions. Often times it's not even a feature I would include. A reminder that open source maintainers don't owe you anything, not even time to review your PR. Video conferencing to help you write your unsolicited PR is a huge stretch by any standard. (As for "promises", it is indeed on the roadmap, under "planned for future versions": https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/19e3a5d/Roadmap.md#common-tasks-for-all-editors-1 https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/19e3a5d/Ro... Projects should totally have their own pace and priorities rather than blindly "listen to the community", and I've seen my own feature requests implemented after being on the roadmap for five years in software I use, so again, nothing inappropriate here.)

rmtech 6y ago

?⅃TЯ ƨi tɒʜW .bɘƨυʇnoɔ mɒ I ,γɿɿoƧ

Stierlitz 6y ago

“How to change Direction for Hebrew/English” https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/166141/how-to-change-direction-for-hebrewenglish/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/166141/how-to-change...

sireat 6y ago

Only Office parent company is a bit weird. They started in Latvia in 2009 yet it is a fully Russian company. https://github.com/orgs/ONLYOFFICE/people https://github.com/orgs/ONLYOFFICE/people are all Russian yet they are based in Latvia(Russians nationality is about 25% in Latvia). https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/ru/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/ru/ their blog does not offer Latvian language. This homogeneity would be normal if they were working toward Russian market but even then you'd expect to see a token Latvian or some other nationality. Normal 25 person IT company in Latvia working with west would have perhaps 10 Latvians, 8 Russians, an Estonian, a Lithuanian and someone from the west and perhaps someone from east (India or Pakistan) - all speaking English. Ascensio only job offerings for sales managers (towards Western market no less!) were in Russian (which is borderline illegal in Latvia) The only rational explanation is that OnlyOffice owners have set a comfortable culture for their workplace and see no need to change it.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

But it is closed source...