Re: T-Bird with calendar

Simon Paquet

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Jan 18, 2006, 3:55:48 AM1/18/06

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Andrew DeFaria wrote on 17. Jan 2006:

>> Because you try to give false impressions. And I don't like that.
>
> I cannot give an impression - it is the reader who is in charge of
> that! I cannot control your impressions - that's up to you!

Go to your local college and visit the beginners course in communication
skills. Then come back again. Thank you!

>>> Where did I say that you said that? Perhaps you should look up the
>>> definition of the word "perhaps". ;-)
>>
>> Well, your statement certainly implied that I'm satisfied with the
>> product right now.
>
> No it didn't. I can't help it if you don't own a dictionary, are too
> lazy to use the Internet to look up a word and take the time to
> understand it.

Again, read your own statements after visiting the course mentioned
above and then come back again.

>> But I'm certainly satified with the progress we're making and with
>> what we have already accomplished so far with the few resources
>> that we have.
>
> Fine. I'm not.

That may be the case because certainly have expectations that are way
to high for the project to achieve right now. That's fine, really.

But don't blame the project because of your false and unrealistic
expectations. Nobody in the project is telling people that Sunbird or
Lightning are ready for the use-cases that you talk about.

So why then are you blaming the developers for something that they
never promised nor even talked about?

Check your attitude, dude!

> You might have the opinion that the progress made is satisfactory
> - to you -

Yes, because I know the resource situation. Because I know where the
project is coming from and what the state of the code was 6, 12, 18
or 24 months ago.

That's how you measure progress, you know. You look back and compare
the accomplishments of the project with the resources that you had.
That's Project Management lesson 1. Something you obviously have no
clue of but talk about as if you were an expert.

> an obviously biases opinion of a person on the project.

Prove me wrong!
Take a look at the state of the project 24 months ago, where we only
had one part-time developer an ugly and mostly unmaintained project
website, no regular builds, no regular communication about our status,
no clear vision for the project, a backend that was hard to extend and
a frontend that was much more bug-ridden and much less usable than
it is right now.

And now look at what we have accomplished. We have recruited more
developers. Right now 4-6 people are working part-time on Calendar/
Sunbird/Lightning. We have a website that is regularly maintained
with much more content where it is much easier to find information.
We have regular builds for Sunbird and Lightning. We communicate
much better to our users about our status through the website, the
wiki and the Calendar weblog. We have a vision for the project. Our
backend has been greatly improved and our frontend is much more
usable, much nicer and less bug-ridden than two years ago.

That's progress! We're certainly not where we want to be. But that's
exactly the reason (as I've told you before) why Sunbird is at
0.3alpha1 status and why Lightning has not even been released yet.

If you're not happy with the current state, then you have two options:
1. You do something about it. I've told you already what you can do.
2. You wait until our first 1.0 release and then try it again.

It's that simple.

> Get your head out of the sand and listen to your users

It might totally ruin your view of the world, but we do that all the
time. That's why we read this newsgroup. That's why we take a look
at all the incoming bugreports. That's why we follow the discussions
in the mozillazine forum. That's why I answer about 10-20 mails a week
from users that mail me directly as I'm in charge of the website.

> they are not satisfied and when your really get down to brass
> tacks - that's what really matters!

Most of our users are satisfied with our products. They understand the
limitations of the project and they know that they can't ask for more
in a product that is completely free of charge.

Some users are different. They want the power of a program worth a
100$ or more for free and they want it yesterday. You are this type of
a user. And I'm sorry but we cannot help you right now. We'll have to
improve our communication in this regard.

Right now I can only give you one advice. If you want the power of
Outlook right now, then go to your local computer shop and buy it.

But if you're satisfied with less and you don't want to pay money
for you calendar application, then we'll might help you.

End of discussion from my side.

--
Simon Paquet
Sunbird/Calendar website maintainer
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 18, 2006, 12:02:13 PM1/18/06

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Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> ...insane people such as yourself....

I can help wondering what you think you accomplish by calling people
insane. Do you think they will suddenly start working for you? Do you
think it helps the calender project? Does it help users? does it do any
good?

Peter Lairo

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Jan 18, 2006, 1:05:58 PM1/18/06

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Nor does ignoring important deficiencies (lack of user-noticeable
progress) and instead diverging into an illogical argument (the meaning
of the word "perhaps").

So you infuriate someone ad-nauseum, and when they finally lose their
temper, you focus only on that - all to avoid the original issue. How
reprehensible.

--
Regards,

Peter Lairo

Lame attempt to get rich: http://www.lairo.com/donations.html

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:04:52 PM1/18/06

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Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> ...insane people such as yourself....
> I can help wondering what you think you accomplish by calling people
> insane.

It accomplishes the task of ruffling feathers, which was not my original
intent, but my original intent had been thrown out the window by others
long ago.

> Do you think they will suddenly start working for you?

Never thought that they were working for me before nor that they will
work for me in the future.

> Do you think it helps the calender project?

If it gets the guy to give up and go back to coding well then yes I do
think it helps. It may also help to those astute people to realized that
the users are getting angry waiting. YMMV.
> Does it help users?
Yes I think it can, if it motivates the developers. There's also a
certain entertainment value...

> does it do any good?

Already stated. (BTW: Do you think it does any good for the calendar
project or users or whatever to nitpick about the definition of the word
"perhaps" and to try to inject a fight by wrongly accusing me of putting
words in his mouth? I think not)

Jeff Beal

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:40:37 PM1/18/06

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For some reason, I'm getting really fed up with the entire 'perhaps'
argument on this thread. I don't know why it gets to me so much, but it
does. You said: "Perhaps your (sic) satisfied with the project, but I'm
not." Perhaps you're an idiot, but I'm not. See how that works? I
never called you an idiot! The implication is pretty clear, though. ;)

Quit quibbling.

Furthermore, there's more to progress than meets the eye. Just because
there are no user features or visible changes to the GUI doesn't mean
that a project is "going nowhere," which you _clearly_ stated as your
opinion in your initial email. If you're not happy with the Sunbird
project and cousins, you have a few choices:

- Try a different product. You have commercial options, and there
may be other free options available, too. There is a project called
Chandler, but last time I tried it, it was less usable than Sunbird and
had less features.
- Pitch in and help. Even if all you do is file bugs, that's something.
- Shut up and wait.

--
Jeff Beal

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:51:48 PM1/18/06

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Jeff Beal wrote:

For some reason, I'm getting really fed up with the entire 'perhaps' argument on this thread. I don't know why it gets to me so much, but it does. You said: "Perhaps your (sic) satisfied with the project, but I'm not." Perhaps you're an idiot, but I'm not. See how that works? I never called you an idiot! The implication is pretty clear, though. ;)

You might be surprised but this doesn't bother me. Perhaps (ugh) that's because I know I'm not an idiot and I take your statement to mean you are uncertain. I, however, am certain I'm no idiot so no offense is taken by me. See it's not really that difficult! Hmmm.... Perhaps you're insecure? ;-)

Quit quibbling.

Yes I wish he would stop.

Furthermore, there's more to progress than meets the eye. Just because there are no user features or visible changes to the GUI doesn't mean that a project is "going nowhere," which you _clearly_ stated as your opinion in your initial email.

Context my boy! It's another one of those conditional type statements (that one would think a developer would be used to and understand). I said "my assumption has been that it's going nowhere". Understand the conditional?

If you're not happy with the Sunbird project and cousins, you have a few choices:

- Try a different product. You have commercial options, and there may be other free options available, too. There is a project called Chandler, but last time I tried it, it was less usable than Sunbird and had less features.

Sign me up!

- Pitch in and help. Even if all you do is file bugs, that's something.

I've already stated that I'm not quite sure I'd want to work with such people.

- Shut up and wait.

You missed one:

Voice your opinion

Which I have done and will continue to do, despite your protestations to the contrary.

Ricardo Palomares Martinez

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Jan 18, 2006, 3:03:13 PM1/18/06

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Andrew DeFaria escribió:
> Just out of curiosity is there an easy way to export and import (or
> better yet sync) with say an Exchange server? I, like many people, often
> work at companies that use Outlook/Exchange and many people use it to
> schedule meetings. Not being an Outlook user I don't have that calendar.
> But if I could export/import or again better yet sync with their system
> into my Sunbird or Lightning then I'd say you guys have made good
> progress...

AFAIK, MS Exchange uses a propietary protocol. Yet, when Ximian was
bought by Novell, Evolution was made open-sourced, and it includes a
plug-in to communicate with Exchange. I don't know how well it
performs, though.

OTOH, I've compared a couple of times ICS files (or maybe vCalendar? I
can't remember right now) generated from Calendar XPI (20050111
version) with the generated from MS Outlook 2000, and the format is
slightly different, mainly in the character coding, that mess with
some non-ASCII characters. I didn't manage to find out which of both
(if any) was correct and which was wrong, as I couldn't spend too much
working time in a task non-related to my job. Anyway, the appointment
was exported from MS Outlook and imported in Calendar without major
problems.

Regards.

--
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?

Ricardo Palomares Martinez

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Jan 18, 2006, 3:52:54 PM1/18/06

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Andrew DeFaria escribió:
> If you hadn't noticed by now this is a support group! As such I expect
> users to be here. As such a statement that not very much progress seems
> to have been made when even you concede that *from a users perspective*
> little progress has been made, is not uncalled for nor unexpected. In
> short it should be of no surprise to you! Why then am I being castrated
> for stating this?!?

Maybe you haven't been reading netscape.public.mozilla.calendar in the
old hierarchy, but this topic (work being done on the backend,
resulting in no apparent progress for more than six months from a
end-user perspective) has been brought a lot of times, and it's
expected to be of public knowledge by now. When it arises again, a
short comment may be made to refresh memory, but your insistence is
out of context.

>
> So internal progress has been made. So what! Users care about user
> visible progress. Granted, some has been made, but a lot hasn't. And we,
> users, want to know such things in a support oriented newsgroup, don't we?
>

Information about progress in this project is fairly precise, to be
honest. What you can't expect is they telling you "Hi, we've done
amazing changes in UI" if that's not what they're coding. They say
"Hi, we've done substantial changes in backend code", and that's all.
Maybe that's not what you want to hear/read, but that's your problem,
not developer's one (nor, by the way, the problem of none of the
subscribers of this newsgroup).

> You guys are taking this way too personally precisely because you are on
> the project and you know that you've made progress, albeit internal
> progress, that yes, as a developer myself I understand needs to be made
> and will help to make a lot user visible in the future. But for now and
> *from a users perspective* little progress has become of it - and that's
> a fact jack!

Seriously, it's good to bring out this topic from time to time, to let
newcomers be aware of it, but five times a day it's way too much.

John Wentworth

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Jan 18, 2006, 8:03:51 PM1/18/06

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It's pretty amazing; coming up on 100 posts and the meaningful content
is close to zero. A couple people feel the Sunbird developers are
slackers, and a couple people feel under appreciated. I read the caveats
when I downloaded the product, and they were very clear on the
limitations. The product is free; to the guy with the zero software
budget: life is hard. Anyone trying to earn a living from free software
has chosen a difficult path; I'm not sure even the force will save you.

BTW: In a past life in technical sales support it was an absolute,
iron-clad rule to never let a developer anywhere near a prospect or
customer. I think this thread confirms the wisdom of that rule.

Christopher Jahn

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Jan 19, 2006, 9:21:51 AM1/19/06

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John Wentworth <jhwen...@comcast.net> wrote in
news:koydnYj17fj...@mozilla.org:

> BTW: In a past life in technical sales support it was an
> absolute, iron-clad rule to never let a developer anywhere
> near a prospect or customer. I think this thread confirms the
> wisdom of that rule.

Amen.

--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

Facts are stupid things. (Ronald Reagan, 1988 Republican
Convention)

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 15, 2006, 10:50:42 AM1/15/06

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gwtc wrote:
> Leonidas Jones wrote:
>
>> TS Mathews wrote:
>>
>>> Just testing my wings now that I'm back in the Thunderbird fold.
>>> Wanna make sure my address is acceptable. I'd always used
>>> nos...@nospam.ca as every other group on every other server I've
>>> seen makes it sound like there's nothing on the planet dumber than
>>> using one's real e-mail address. So, a little paranoid, I'm
>>> trusting what I do on this is acceptable for news.mozilla.org?
>>>
>>> And, while I'm at it, did I miss something or has work stopped on
>>> integrating a calendar into Thunderbird? I may have missed it when
>>> I setup my subscriptions so if it's still a go, would someone kindly
>>> pass along the name?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Tim
>>
>>
>> Sorry, I neglected to answer your primary question. The project for
>> an integrated calendar is still active, and is called Lightning.
>>
>> Lee
>>
> to add, there is a calendar support group:
>
> news://news.mozilla.org:119/mozilla.support.calendar
I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything, connect
to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new event or task.
Essentially it's useless.

I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not much
talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's going nowhere -
pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at calendaring have had very
little progress for years!

Good luck and let me and others in mozilla.support.calendar know of your
progress.
--
The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.

Chris Ilias

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Jan 15, 2006, 3:05:31 PM1/15/06

to

_Andrew DeFaria_ spoke thusly on 15/01/2006 10:50 AM:

> I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
> tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything, connect
> to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new event or task.
> Essentially it's useless.
>
> I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not much
> talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's going nowhere -
> pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at calendaring have had very
> little progress for years!

Lightning isn't very popular, because it is so early in development.
There are still quite a few blockers for Lightning 0.1.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=lightning-0.1
--
Chris Ilias - Mozilla Champion
(Please do not email me tech support questions)
Mozilla Help <http://mozillahelp.com>
Netscape 7 Help <http://ilias.ca/netscape/>

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 15, 2006, 3:22:48 PM1/15/06

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Chris Ilias wrote:
> _Andrew DeFaria_ spoke thusly on 15/01/2006 10:50 AM:
>> I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
>> tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything,
>> connect to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new
>> event or task. Essentially it's useless.
>>
>> I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not much
>> talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's going
>> nowhere - pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at calendaring
>> have had very little progress for years!
> Lightning isn't very popular, because it is so early in development.
> There are still quite a few blockers for Lightning 0.1.
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=lightning-0.1

Understood and I know this is Alpha code. Still, if I cannot actually
add an existing calendar nor create a new one nor add events or tasks
tell me... What's their to even test?!?

--
If you think that there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 15, 2006, 3:28:29 PM1/15/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
> tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything, connect
> to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new event or task.
> Essentially it's useless.

Which versions of the xpi and of thunderbird are you using?

> I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not much
> talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's going nowhere -
> pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at calendaring have had very
> little progress for years!

Whee, nothing is as good as random assumptions, oneliners and insults!
sunbird is far from dead, just check bonsai.

Michiel

Chris Ilias

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Jan 15, 2006, 3:48:12 PM1/15/06

to

_Andrew DeFaria_ spoke thusly on 15/01/2006 3:22 PM:

> Still, if I cannot actually add an existing calendar nor create a new one nor add events or tasks
> tell me... What's their to even test?!?

Basic functions, like..."add an existing calendar," "create a new one,"
"add events or tasks." :-)

I'm able to create a local calendar (I don't have a remote one
available), and add events and tasks here. Which Lightning build are you
testing?

gwtc

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Jan 15, 2006, 5:44:32 PM1/15/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

then try the "developers" NG of netscape.public.mozilla.calendar. The
only problem is I don't know if you can access it on this server or
the oldnews.mozilla.org server. Maybe both.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 15, 2006, 9:48:45 PM1/15/06

to

Chris Ilias wrote:
> _Andrew DeFaria_ spoke thusly on 15/01/2006 3:22 PM:
>> Still, if I cannot actually add an existing calendar nor create a new
>> one nor add events or tasks tell me... What's their to even test?!?
> Basic functions, like..."add an existing calendar," "create a new
> one," "add events or tasks." :-)

All failed! I forget the exact failure but I recall that after clicking
OK I had no calendar or clicking add event no dialog box popped up. Was
it wrong for me to assume it simply was not ready for prime time yet?
Perhaps....

> I'm able to create a local calendar (I don't have a remote one
> available), and add events and tasks here. Which Lightning build are
> you testing?

As I just posted, I don't remember. I might have it at work. I deleted
the .xpi because I thought it worthless. I think I had and xpi hanging
around at work and decided to try it with my newly installed TB 1.5...
No that wasn't it. When I installed 1.5 it semi magically found the old
Lightning xpi I had installed. I think I did a TB 1.5 RC1 or RC2 install
just to see what Lightning was all about. I believe I also hunted for
any new lightning.xpi I could find.

Perhaps a pointer to the proper lightning.xpi is in order...
--
Why do people ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me
a choice there, did ya sunshine?

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 15, 2006, 9:45:20 PM1/15/06

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Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
>> tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything,
>> connect to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new
>> event or task. Essentially it's useless.
> Which versions of the xpi and of thunderbird are you using?

TB 1.5. As for the XPI I've long since uninstalled it. I might have it
at work - I'll let you know. Of course you could point me to the XPI
that I should be using...

>> I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not much
>> talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's going
>> nowhere - pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at calendaring
>> have had very little progress for years!
> Whee, nothing is as good as random assumptions, oneliners and insults!
> sunbird is far from dead, just check bonsai.

My assumptions are not random. I use Sunbird pretty actively! I have
0.3a running at home and 0.2<something> running at work. I have multiple
calendars and have added many events and the like. Functionalitywise
it's far from a robust calendar if you ask me. I'm not sure where you
see oneliners and insults. Both FF and TB are functioning products and
many people use them. Sunbird is still not at 1.0 and doesn't look
close. Activity in the newsgroups is light. It's been years - literally
years. Netscape used to have a Calendar server and a client. Never sold
really well. This is back in the last century! It's not 2006 and there
still is not a product that I could point a client to to even jokingly
replace what Outlock (and yes I do not like nor even use Outlock) does.
That's at least 6 years!

So again, what random assumptions do you speak of? Show me a working
masterpiece or even a working semi serious threat to the current
calendaring products out there! What oneliners do you see (AKA is this
enough lines for ya?). What insults do you see here? I like where
Calendar's going. I seriously use it myself! I don't use Outlock or
Exchange. I'm rooting for you guys - but man give me something to root for!

As for Bonsai stop speaking in code! What is Bonsai? A link or
something! Throw me a frigging bone! Is it a done product or just some
plan. I can't run plans - I can run products...
--
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Chris Ilias

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Jan 16, 2006, 2:27:52 AM1/16/06

to

_Andrew DeFaria_ spoke thusly on 15/01/2006 9:48 PM:

> Chris Ilias wrote:
>
>> I'm able to create a local calendar (I don't have a remote one
>> available), and add events and tasks here. Which Lightning build are
>> you testing?
> As I just posted, I don't remember. I might have it at work. I deleted
> the .xpi because I thought it worthless. I think I had and xpi hanging
> around at work and decided to try it with my newly installed TB 1.5...
> No that wasn't it. When I installed 1.5 it semi magically found the old
> Lightning xpi I had installed. I think I did a TB 1.5 RC1 or RC2 install
> just to see what Lightning was all about. I believe I also hunted for
> any new lightning.xpi I could find.
>
> Perhaps a pointer to the proper lightning.xpi is in order...

I'm using this:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/2006-01-10-07-mozilla1.8/windows-xpi/

but it looks like they've been updating it:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/2006-01-15-08-mozilla1.8/windows-xpi/

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Jan 16, 2006, 9:10:47 AM1/16/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

>>> I run Sunbird and host my calendars on my server using WebDAV. I've
>>> tried Lightning but have never managed to get it to do anything,
>>> connect to my current calendars nor even be able to create a new
>>> event or task. Essentially it's useless.
>>
>> Which versions of the xpi and of thunderbird are you using?
>
> TB 1.5. As for the XPI I've long since uninstalled it. I might have
> it at work - I'll let you know. Of course you could point me to the
> XPI that I should be using...

Lightning did not work on Thunderbird 1.5 and its release candidates
until very recently (two weeks ago). This was stated everywhere, where
Lightning test builds were announced. So it's pretty obvious why you're
tests of Lightning failed.

>>> I read mozilla.support.calendar pretty regularly and there's not
>>> much talk about Lightning so my assumption has been that it's
>>> going nowhere - pretty much like Sunbird and other attempts at
>>> calendaring have had very little progress for years!
>>
>> Whee, nothing is as good as random assumptions, oneliners and
>> insults! sunbird is far from dead, just check bonsai.
>
> My assumptions are not random. I use Sunbird pretty actively! I have
> 0.3a running at home and 0.2<something> running at work.

So there is progress, which you stated to be very little, which is
very far from the truth when I look at all the changes that have
gone into 0.3alpha1.

Also the calendar weblog <http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar> has
been advertised at the old newsgroup and development updates are
regularly posted there. So you statement that very little progress is
made is a random assumption and an insult to all the developers who
have put their free time into improving Sunbird, the Calendar extension
and Lightning.

> As for Bonsai stop speaking in code! What is Bonsai? A link or
> something! Throw me a frigging bone! Is it a done product or just some
> plan. I can't run plans - I can run products...

Bonsai is a web-based tool, which shows all the checkins that have gone
into the Mozilla codebase. The following link shows just the changes of
the last month in code specific to the calendar-related projects:

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?dir=mozilla%2Fcalendar&sortby=Date&date=month&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot

So you see, there's a lot of progress.

--
Newsoffice.de - Die Onlinesoftware zum Lesen und Schreiben im Usenet
Die Signatur lنكt sich nach Belieben anpassen ;-)

(Actually I have no 1986 Vette restoration project but I think you get
the picture).

>> masterpiece or even a working semi serious threat to the current
> Ah, you are looking for something perfect! That's something different
> from just progress. We are making a lot of progress, it's just not
> perfect. But feel free to jump in, and help.

I never said I wanted perfection. Let's start with functionally complete
and work from there.

>> What insults do you see here?
> The one that says that no progress is made. It's simply not true, and
> an insult to everybody who contributed to the progress.

If you wish to be insulted then I cannot stop you, however there's a big
difference from "no progress" to "not much progress". Seems to me like
you're just a little too thinned skinned and want to argue instead of code.

>> As for Bonsai stop speaking in code! What is Bonsai? A link or
>> something! Throw me a frigging bone! Is it a done product or just
>> some plan. I can't run plans - I can run products...
> It's a web based tool that shows the progress. It shows what have been
> done. Not what the plans are, but actual work, that you can use right
> now.

What I want to use is a functioning calendar - not a web based tool to
see internal progress.
--
The good old days: When sex was dirty & Michael Jackson was black

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 16, 2006, 12:42:30 PM1/16/06

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Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Lots of changes does not a product make, nor does it make an application
> that people will use. Useful functionality needs to be implemented. Lots
> of changes can be made to say the shuttle but until that sucker actually
> flies the general population doesn't care! I mean we care that you are
> making progress but until it's relatively complete and relatively
> functioning most people will not use it.

But those changes are progress toward a functional product.

> Seems to me like
> you're just a little too thinned skinned and want to argue instead of code.

Yeah, i argue all the time and never write code, as shown by
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?treeid=default&module=all&branch=HEAD&branchtype=match&dir=mozilla%2Fcalendar&filetype=match&who=mvl%25exedo.nl&whotype=match&sortby=Date&hours=2&date=all&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot

> What I want to use is a functioning calendar - not a web based tool to
> see internal progress.

Bonsai shows that progress has been made. Or if you don't like code,
check bugzilla.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/reports.cgi?product=Calendar&datasets=FIXED%3A
shows a graph of fixed bugs. I call that progress to a better product.
Sure, it's not perfect yet. Nobody claims it is. We know very well that
most changes are backend changes, but they allow for a better frontend.
Which is where we are now: improving the frontend. Try 0.3a1 and a
nightly. See the difference.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 12:52:12 PM1/16/06

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Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
>>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> Lots of changes does not a product make, nor does it make an
>> application that people will use. Useful functionality needs to be
>> implemented. Lots of changes can be made to say the shuttle but until
>> that sucker actually flies the general population doesn't care! I
>> mean we care that you are making progress but until it's relatively
>> complete and relatively functioning most people will not use it.
> But those changes are progress toward a functional product.

So is progress with the Vette example, however I won't be driving it
until the brakes work!

>> Seems to me like you're just a little too thinned skinned and want to
>> argue instead of code.
> Yeah, i argue all the time and never write code, as shown by
> http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?treeid=default&module=all&branch=HEAD&branchtype=match&dir=mozilla%2Fcalendar&filetype=match&who=mvl%25exedo.nl&whotype=match&sortby=Date&hours=2&date=all&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot

Toot, toot! You're arguing here over silly semantics (i.e. difference
between "no progress" and "not much progress") - that's all the proof I
need.

>> What I want to use is a functioning calendar - not a web based tool
>> to see internal progress.
> Bonsai shows that progress has been made. Or if you don't like code,
> check bugzilla.
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/reports.cgi?product=Calendar&datasets=FIXED%3A
> shows a graph of fixed bugs. I call that progress to a better product.
> Sure, it's not perfect yet. Nobody claims it is. We know very well
> that most changes are backend changes, but they allow for a better
> frontend. Which is where we are now: improving the frontend. Try 0.3a1
> and a nightly. See the difference.

Again, get back to me when you're functionally complete, not perfect.
Key functionality (i.e. functionality that users feel are critical for
adoption) is not in the product yet.
--
What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way.

Simon Paquet

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Jan 16, 2006, 12:57:08 PM1/16/06

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Andrew DeFaria wrote:

>> Lightning did not work on Thunderbird 1.5 and its release candidates
>> until very recently (two weeks ago). This was stated everywhere,
>> where Lightning test builds were announced. So it's pretty obvious
>> why you're tests of Lightning failed.
>
> I wouldn't call something that didn't even work 2 weeks ago advanced
> or progressed.

Well, your original statement was, that Lightning didn't work on your
TB installation and my answer was, that if you had read the accompanying
statements regarding Lightning then you could have avoided some
frustration on your side.

My statement didn't relate to the progress discussion later on, so
don't try make that impression.

>>> My assumptions are not random. I use Sunbird pretty actively! I
>>> have 0.3a running at home and 0.2<something> running at work.
>>
>> So there is progress, which you stated to be very little, which is
>> very far from the truth when I look at all the changes that have
>> gone into 0.3alpha1.
>
> Perhaps your satisfied with the product as is but I'm not. Let's
> change the wording to be a little more clear - there's not even
> progress for the product to be viable IMHO. OK?

Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say.
Where did I state that I'm satisfied with the product? The developers
are not satisfied with the current state. If they were they would stop
the development right now.

So could you please rant only about statement I made and not about
statements that you only seem to imagine in your head?

>> Also the calendar weblog <http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar>
>> has been advertised at the old newsgroup and development updates
>> are regularly posted there. So you statement that very little
>> progress is made is a random assumption and an insult to all the
>> developers who have put their free time into improving Sunbird,
>> the Calendar extension and Lightning.
>
> There are a ton of things which it just doesn't do yet as the code
> has not be written.

So? How does that relate to my statement above that there is progress
and that development is happening?

> As such it's not a viable replacement for many people

Please try to tell me something I don't know.
That's exactly the reason why Sunbird is at 0.3alpha1 and Lightning is
not even at 0.1. This is pre-release software and nobody is telling
otherwise. We don't recommend either to people for productive use,
because it just isn't there yet.

> as evidenced by the fact that so few run it.

How do you know how many people run it? I don't know how many people
run it and I run the website and write some patches. So how come
you're so much better informed than me? What's your source?

> It's been this way for a long, long time.

Development takes time, especially with the few resources that we have.
If you want to change that, you can either start developing Sunbird or
Lightning yourself or you can pay someone to do development on these
apps. Some of our developers are certainly interested in getting
funded.

> I'm not insulting anybody unless that's the way they wish to take
> it.

Stating the obvious and making it look otherwise to make people feel
bad about their product is insulting in my book. YMMV.

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Jan 16, 2006, 3:28:42 PM1/16/06

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Christopher Jahn wrote:
> Because he IS a user, you moron. And if you'd listen instead of

Whoo, calling names! really the best way to try to get met to work for
you (for free, no less)!

And just because he is a user, he know what all the other users want?

> defend, you'd know what we users want:
> - the ability to print the views we can see on the screen

see my other post

> - the ability to subcribe to and update our existing remote
> calendars

subscribing should work, and you can manually refresh.

> - the knowledge that all changes will be updated correctly, and
> not dissappear the next time we refresh the remote view

Need auto-reload. Work is going on.

> - the ability to synchronize with a PIM.

0.2 didn't do that, and a lot of people used that. Not everybody has a
handheld devide, you know. But just so that you know it, syncing is hte
reason i got involved in sunbird. And it turned out to be a very, very,
very hard problem to solve. I'm still working on it.

> - the ability to import and export from a wide variety of
> platforms, and not simply the ones the developers "like".

Which platform doesn't work?
And again, this is now pluggable. You can write an extension. for 0.2,
this wasn't possible.

> - the ability to take a single instance of a repeating event and
> edit it and without altering all the other events on other days.
> And don't talk to me about the current method of creating an
> exception and then creating a new event; that's a clumsy work-
> around AT BEST, and a damn nuisance for the user.

Almost works. Patch is in the review process.

> THIS is the list that progress is measured against. If it can't
> do this, it's not ready for use.
>

Not ready for your use. Don't generalize please.

Michiel

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 3:52:41 PM1/16/06

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Simple. I'm a user. I know what I want. Also I see what others have
asked for in the newsgroup and I agree with them. Thirdly, I can see
what other products have to offer and/or what other people like in the
other products and what they consider show stoppers for them to switch.

As for a list of them I will not take the time to do that. They've
already been listed by others in the past and I'm sure you guys are
aware of them.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 3:49:29 PM1/16/06

to

Simon Paquet wrote:
> My statement didn't relate to the progress discussion later on, so
> don't try make that impression.

So why do you keep talking about it?

>> Perhaps your satisfied with the product as is but I'm not. Let's
>> change the wording to be a little more clear - there's not even
>> progress for the product to be viable IMHO. OK?
> Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say. Where did I state that
> I'm satisfied with the product?

Where did I say that you said that? Perhaps you should look up the
definition of the word "perhaps". ;-)

(IOW you just want to argue)

> So could you please rant only about statement I made and not about
> statements that you only seem to imagine in your head?

I did no such thing. I said perhaps.

>>> Also the calendar weblog <http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar>
>>> has been advertised at the old newsgroup and development updates are
>>> regularly posted there. So you statement that very little progress
>>> is made is a random assumption and an insult to all the developers
>>> who have put their free time into improving Sunbird, the Calendar
>>> extension and Lightning.
>> There are a ton of things which it just doesn't do yet as the code
>> has not be written.
> So? How does that relate to my statement above that there is progress
> and that development is happening?

I thought you weren't talking about progress. Now you are again.

While you're busy looking up the definition of the word "perhaps" you
might research what the phrase "have had very little progress" really
means. Hint: It doesn't mean no progress...

(Again, you're just being argumentative)

>> As such it's not a viable replacement for many people
> Please try to tell me something I don't know. That's exactly the
> reason why Sunbird is at 0.3alpha1 and Lightning is not even at 0.1.
> This is pre-release software and nobody is telling otherwise. We don't
> recommend either to people for productive use, because it just isn't
> there yet.

This is true, ergo my statement "very little progress". TB and FF have
managed to have full releases. IOW: TB & FF - a lot of progress;
Sunbird/Lightning - very little progress. It's just facts. I'm not
saying it's good or bad. It could very well be that Sunbird/Lightning
lacks resources or developers, etc. Indeed you said "join the project
and help out". Fine. I'm not making a judgment call on the current
developers nor trying to dis them or whatever - I'm just stating facts.

>> as evidenced by the fact that so few run it.
> How do you know how many people run it? I don't know how many people
> run it and I run the website and write some patches. So how come
> you're so much better informed than me? What's your source?

Common sense is all one needs. Hell even the much more popular FF
doesn't have that many users when compared to all browser users.

>> It's been this way for a long, long time.
> Development takes time, especially with the few resources that we
> have. If you want to change that, you can either start developing
> Sunbird or Lightning yourself or you can pay someone to do development
> on these apps. Some of our developers are certainly interested in
> getting funded.

I don't doubt you at all. However the statement above does not negate
the fact that development of the calendar side of this has been very slow.

>> I'm not insulting anybody unless that's the way they wish to take it.
> Stating the obvious and making it look otherwise to make people feel
> bad about their product is insulting in my book. YMMV.

Where do you get the idea that I have the intent to make people feel
bad? I just stated facts. It's you who are making a leap of judgment by
ascribing mal intent to my statement of facts. That my dear sir is
something that I cannot control and quite frankly I wonder why you
interpret my words to mean that. You are reading way too much between
the lines of things that I surely didn't say. Again, if that's how you
wish to receive the information then there's nothing I can do about
that. IOW that's your problem!

>> I cannot control that. Simply put development on the calendaring side
>> is no where near FF nor TB. I don't care if people have donated free
>> time or not. It is what it is. Deal with it.
> I repeat myself: Please tell us something we don't know! Everybody is
> aware that Sunbird is nowhere near FF or TB.

So then everybody knows what I said was true (i.e. tell us something we
don't know) and the only reason you continue to respond is that for some
strange reason you wish to ascribe mal intent to my statements of fact
where no mal intent was intended. Again, that's your problem - not mine.
Deal with it!

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 3:56:40 PM1/16/06

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(Geeze me and Chris arguing on the same side might cause a rip in the space/time continuum... ;-) )

To this list I would add (for Lightning especially) the ability to be used for business use, which I would say requires that receiving a notification about an event in email (like from Outlook users) can quickly be added to one's own calendar with a click of a button and the ability to integrate with other calendar systems so that your business associates can actually schedule a meeting with 9 people who use Outlook/Exchange and you, the hold out using TB and Lightning with ease. If you can't do what's required for business use you'll never be used by business professionals - period!

Ricardo Palomares Martinez

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Jan 16, 2006, 3:13:34 PM1/16/06

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Simon Paquet escribió:

> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>
>> As such it's not a viable replacement for many people
>
> Please try to tell me something I don't know.
> That's exactly the reason why Sunbird is at 0.3alpha1 and Lightning is
> not even at 0.1. This is pre-release software and nobody is telling
> otherwise. We don't recommend either to people for productive use,
> because it just isn't there yet.

Err... Time to jump in. :-)

I really think that Sunbird is getting a solid foundation to be a nice
calendaring application. Right now we are (with Sunbird 0.3alfa1) in a
situation in which it seems to be little more than a nice notepad
formatted as a calendar, but minor fixes will greatly enhance the
scenario:

- when the "visual alarms not showing" bug gets fixed, it will (again)
inform the user working in the same workstation

- when the XPIs for Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite and/or SeaMonkey get
built again on a regular basis, the "send e-mail to" works again, it
will (again) inform the user even if he/she is temporarily out of
his workdesk (but still able to read his e-mail)

- reinstauring the XPIs will also allow to decrease a lot the memory
usage footprint, since at least a Gecko instance will be shared
(with Mozilla Suite and/or SeaMonkey, even more if we take into
account the browser component)

- other suggestions have been proposed and shouldn't be too dificult
to implement: sharing the address book with the mail component, for
instance.

- maybe a difficult task to fix is the printing issue; I've heard from
reliable sources that the whole Mozilla project lacks a true expert
in printing code. Probably Sunbird also gets affected by that.

- source localization will allow to ship localized builds in a very
automatic way, sharing strings with other components and reducing
the work for translators and the download size, since it will be
no further needed to ship all languages in a single XPI.

So, there is a lot to improve, that's true and nobody denies it, and
Sunbird is not ready for prime time yet. But work is being done on it
and, since this an open source project, standard disclaimer applies:
if you're not happy with it the way it is, help to change it, or fork
it and do it your way, or otherwise look for another solution.

The main problem is that a big task has been undergoing at a slow
pace, and it has resulted in newer versions of mainstream products
that has rendered the old XPIs unusable, with no current alternative
way to replace it (truth is, switching from 20050111 Calendar XPI to
Sunbird 0.3alfa1 means losing a lot of features). There is nothing we
can do about it, though, except help if we are technically competent,
or else sit, wait and cheer up the development team for every step in
the right direction. :-)

Now, a comment for developers and team leaders: since this topic arise
from time to time, shouldn't it be convenient to let calendar
supporters of this group to take care of them and just concentrate on
fixing bugs and asking for help when needed? IOW, don't waste your
time in rows like this, they don't deserve so much of you time.

Regards.

--
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 4:03:12 PM1/16/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
> Christopher Jahn wrote:
>> Because he IS a user, you moron. And if you'd listen instead of
> Whoo, calling names! really the best way to try to get met to work for
> you (for free, no less)!

I'd just like to note, Michiel, that it was Christopher calling you
names - not I!

> And just because he is a user, he know what all the other users want?

Is it a requirement that I pole all of the known and otherwise potential
users of this product before a requirement or suggestion be given? I'm
sorry but I wasn't aware of that requirement.

Truth be told I never say I know what everybody else wants, and anybody
who does say that can't be trusted because there is no such agreement
ever. I know what a lot of people want and I'll bet so do you. This
isn't rocket science here!

>> defend, you'd know what we users want:
>> - the ability to print the views we can see on the screen
> see my other post
>
>> - the ability to subcribe to and update our existing remote calendars
> subscribing should work, and you can manually refresh.
>
>> - the knowledge that all changes will be updated correctly, and not
>> dissappear the next time we refresh the remote view
> Need auto-reload. Work is going on.
>
>> - the ability to synchronize with a PIM.
> 0.2 didn't do that, and a lot of people used that. Not everybody has a
> handheld devide, you know. But just so that you know it, syncing is
> hte reason i got involved in sunbird. And it turned out to be a very,
> very, very hard problem to solve. I'm still working on it.
>
>> - the ability to import and export from a wide variety of platforms,
>> and not simply the ones the developers "like".
> Which platform doesn't work?

Just out of curiosity is there an easy way to export and import (or
better yet sync) with say an Exchange server? I, like many people, often
work at companies that use Outlook/Exchange and many people use it to
schedule meetings. Not being an Outlook user I don't have that calendar.
But if I could export/import or again better yet sync with their system
into my Sunbird or Lightning then I'd say you guys have made good
progress...

> And again, this is now pluggable. You can write an extension. for 0.2,
> this wasn't possible.

Newsflash: Many (most?) users are not coders. Hell I'm a coder and I'm
not even sure I could write an extension that easily...

>> - the ability to take a single instance of a repeating event and edit
>> it and without altering all the other events on other days. And
>> don't talk to me about the current method of creating an exception
>> and then creating a new event; that's a clumsy work-
>> around AT BEST, and a damn nuisance for the user.
> Almost works. Patch is in the review process.
>> THIS is the list that progress is measured against. If it can't do
>> this, it's not ready for use.
>>
> Not ready for your use. Don't generalize please.

Generalizations are generally true! ;-)

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 16, 2006, 4:40:01 PM1/16/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Just out of curiosity is there an easy way to export and import (or
> better yet sync) with say an Exchange server? I, like many people, often

No, not yet. But the rewrite of the last year in theory allows an
extension to be written that gives exchange connection. The big problem
here is that it's hard to talk to an exchange server, except when you
are outlook.

Before (with 0.2) it would be impossible to write such an extension.

>> And again, this is now pluggable. You can write an extension. for 0.2,
>> this wasn't possible.
> Newsflash: Many (most?) users are not coders. Hell I'm a coder and I'm
> not even sure I could write an extension that easily...

Oh, i know that. Just showing what we did: in 0.2, it wouldn't have been
possible to write this support. Now, it is possible. We just need
somebody to do the work. And there is the problem. Few developers with
little time, lots and lots of work.

Michiel

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 16, 2006, 6:28:45 PM1/16/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> Just out of curiosity is there an easy way to export and import (or
>> better yet sync) with say an Exchange server? I, like many people, often
> No, not yet. But the rewrite of the last year in theory allows an
> extension to be written that gives exchange connection. The big
> problem here is that it's hard to talk to an exchange server, except
> when you are outlook.
>
> Before (with 0.2) it would be impossible to write such an extension.

Personally, given the market penetration of Outlook/Exchange, I would
hope that this would be a built in.

>>> And again, this is now pluggable. You can write an extension. for
>>> 0.2, this wasn't possible.
>> Newsflash: Many (most?) users are not coders. Hell I'm a coder and
>> I'm not even sure I could write an extension that easily...
> Oh, i know that. Just showing what we did: in 0.2, it wouldn't have
> been possible to write this support. Now, it is possible. We just need
> somebody to do the work. And there is the problem. Few developers with
> little time, lots and lots of work.

Again, the external perception then is that very little it being done
WRT calendaring and that it's just a toy! Please don't misinterpret my
words - it's the perception that your average user or potential user has
just looking at the thing. I understand what a re-write of a product
entails and how such things can enable functionality that would be
otherwise difficult or impossible. But normal users are not coders and
are not tolerate of what they see as excuses - all they see is that it
doesn't work.

Christopher Jahn

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Jan 16, 2006, 9:21:12 PM1/16/06

to

Ricardo Palomares Martinez <rpm....@iespana.es> wrote in
news:fcbt93-...@Father.family:

> Now, a comment for developers and team leaders: since this
> topic arise from time to time, shouldn't it be convenient to
> let calendar supporters of this group to take care of them and
> just concentrate on fixing bugs and asking for help when
> needed? IOW, don't waste your time in rows like this, they
> don't deserve so much of you time.

Well said.

I know I get critical, but it's more because someone notes that
<fitb> no longer works, and someone gets defensive, and it's that
defensiveness I criticize.

It ain't there yet. That's ok. Accept that it's not there yet,
and go finish it. But don't tell anyone that their solution lies
in using software that isn't finished yet, and then bite their
heads off when they complain that not only does <fitb> not work,
neither do other key features.

--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

What poor gods we do make.

Christopher Jahn

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Jan 16, 2006, 9:27:29 PM1/16/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen <m...@exedo.nl> wrote in

news:B46dnf_QqNxhnFHe...@mozilla.org:

>> THIS is the list that progress is measured against. If it
>> can't do this, it's not ready for use.
>>
> Not ready for your use. Don't generalize please.

I am User, hear me roar. I speak for me and the 20 users on my
network and the 30 affiliates who need to view calendars for my
projects.

I do know what users need, and apparently, you don't, given that
none of your responses deal with what the users say they need.
All you do is snipe at every user who complains that their needs
are not being addressed.

Ricardo said it very well: quit sniping at us and go fix the
damend thing. We'll tell you when it's done.

--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

She's a virgin child with deviant dreams.

Simon Paquet

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:34:34 AM1/17/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16. Jan 2006:

>> My statement didn't relate to the progress discussion later on, so
>> don't try make that impression.
>
> So why do you keep talking about it?

Because you try to give false impressions. And I don't like that.

>>> Perhaps your satisfied with the product as is but I'm not. Let's
>>> change the wording to be a little more clear - there's not even
>>> progress for the product to be viable IMHO. OK?
>>
>> Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say. Where did I state
>> that I'm satisfied with the product?
>
> Where did I say that you said that? Perhaps you should look up the
> definition of the word "perhaps". ;-)

Well, your statement certainly implied that I'm satisfied with the
product right now. And I'm not. But I'm certainly satified with the
progress we're making and with what we have already accomplished so
far with the few resources that we have.

> (IOW you just want to argue)

No, I want have an objective discussion about this topic. You seem
to have difficulties with that. I find that rather sad.

>> So could you please rant only about statement I made and not about
>> statements that you only seem to imagine in your head?
>
> I did no such thing. I said perhaps.

I won't discuss the finer points of the meaning of the word "perhaps"
with you. Just try to see this discussion from a perspective that is
not your own and "perhaps" you might come to the same conclusions that
I have come to.

>>> as evidenced by the fact that so few run it.
>>
>> How do you know how many people run it? I don't know how many people
>> run it and I run the website and write some patches. So how come
>> you're so much better informed than me? What's your source?
>
> Common sense is all one needs. Hell even the much more popular FF
> doesn't have that many users when compared to all browser users.

Ah, I thought you had some hard facts.

>>> It's been this way for a long, long time.
>>
>> Development takes time, especially with the few resources that we
>> have. If you want to change that, you can either start developing
>> Sunbird or Lightning yourself or you can pay someone to do
>> development on these apps. Some of our developers are certainly
>> interested in getting funded.
>
> I don't doubt you at all. However the statement above does not negate
> the fact that development of the calendar side of this has been very
> slow.

Slow != Slow

Slow in the aspects that you're interested in? Certainly!

Slow in the aspects of setting the ground for the aspects that you're
interested in, improving the User Interface and fixing a lot of bugs
that have plagued the calendar extension for ages? Certainly not!

It's simply a matter of perspective. My perspective might be different
from yours.

Simon Paquet

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:38:58 AM1/17/06

to

Christopher Jahn wrote on 16. Jan 2006:

>>> Again, get back to me when you're functionally complete, not
>>> perfect. Key functionality (i.e. functionality that users feel are
>>> critical for adoption) is not in the product yet.
>>
>> And what functionality is that? And how do you know what 'users'
>> want?
>
> Because he IS a user, you moron.

^^^^^^^^^
Unfortunately even in the new groups you keep on calling people names
and refuse to discuss in a objective and sensible manner. So it seems
that again I will have refrain from reading your posts from now on
and I will recommend to others to do the same.

If you feel that you want start acting like an adult instead of a
6-year old, send me an e-mail and I'll re-evaluate my decision.

Simon Paquet

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:47:34 AM1/17/06

to

Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote on 16. Jan 2006:

> I really think that Sunbird is getting a solid foundation to be a
> nice calendaring application. Right now we are (with Sunbird

> 0.3alpha1) in a situation in which it seems to be little more than

> a nice notepad formatted as a calendar, but minor fixes will
> greatly enhance the scenario:
>
> - when the "visual alarms not showing" bug gets fixed, it will
> (again) inform the user working in the same workstation

This is definitely being worked on.

> - when the XPIs for Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite and/or SeaMonkey get
> built again on a regular basis, the "send e-mail to" works again,
> it will (again) inform the user even if he/she is temporarily out
> of his workdesk (but still able to read his e-mail)

As we have said in the old group and in the blog, the extension is
still in a sort of limbo until someone steps up and maintains it.

*BUT* we're aiming for Lightning to be available on TB and Seamonkey
(and maybe even Firefox), which should greatly enhance the
mail/calendar-integration.

> - reinstauring the XPIs will also allow to decrease a lot the memory
> usage footprint, since at least a Gecko instance will be shared
> (with Mozilla Suite and/or SeaMonkey, even more if we take into
> account the browser component)

See above.

> - other suggestions have been proposed and shouldn't be too dificult
> to implement: sharing the address book with the mail component, for
> instance.

This is definitely planned for Lightning. The extension might also get
it.

> - maybe a difficult task to fix is the printing issue; I've heard
> from reliable sources that the whole Mozilla project lacks a true
> expert in printing code. Probably Sunbird also gets affected by
> that.

Printing on Mozilla apps sucks in General. There is some stuff that
we can do about it and some stuff that requires a deep knowledge of
the Gecko code, which none of the current Calendar developers has.

> - source localization will allow to ship localized builds in a very
> automatic way, sharing strings with other components and reducing
> the work for translators and the download size, since it will be
> no further needed to ship all languages in a single XPI.

This is currently being worked on and shouldn't be that far away.

> So, there is a lot to improve, that's true and nobody denies it,
> and Sunbird is not ready for prime time yet. But work is being
> done on it and, since this an open source project, standard
> disclaimer applies: if you're not happy with it the way it is,
> help to change it, or fork it and do it your way, or otherwise
> look for another solution.

I couldn't have said it better.

> The main problem is that a big task has been undergoing at a slow
> pace, and it has resulted in newer versions of mainstream products
> that has rendered the old XPIs unusable, with no current
> alternative way to replace it (truth is, switching from 20050111

> Calendar XPI to Sunbird 0.3alpha1 means losing a lot of features).

> There is nothing we can do about it, though, except help if we are
> technically competent, or else sit, wait and cheer up the development
> team for every step in the right direction. :-)

There are new XPIs available based on the current code and Mostafah
has also produced XPIs based on the old 0.2 code which should be
a little bit better than the 20050111 extension version.

> Now, a comment for developers and team leaders: since this topic
> arise from time to time, shouldn't it be convenient to let calendar
> supporters of this group to take care of them and just concentrate
> on fixing bugs and asking for help when needed? IOW, don't waste
> your time in rows like this, they don't deserve so much of you time.

Right.

Peter Lairo

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Jan 17, 2006, 8:43:22 AM1/17/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16.01.2006 10:14:
> Peter Lairo wrote:
>> Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16.01.2006 03:45:
>>> Show me a working masterpiece or even a working semi serious threat
>>> to the current calendaring products out there!
>> *Lotus Organizer*
>> After all these years, still better than than *any* PIM out there!
>> http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product2.nsf/wdocs/orgfact
>>

> First of all Lotus sucks!

That's a overgeneralizations IMO. I would agree that Lotus *Notes*
sucks, but Lotus *Organizer* is excellent, and by far the best PIM.

> Secondly, and I think you knew this, I was talking about TB and Lightning!

I suspected it, but wasn't *entirely* sure. So, just in case, I
suggested an *awesome* alternative (even if only for the interim, until
MozCal is ready - which at the current pace could be a very long time). ;-)

--
Regards,

Peter Lairo

Lame attempt to get rich: http://www.lairo.com/donations.html

Johannes Kastl

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Jan 17, 2006, 12:35:30 PM1/17/06

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On 01/16/2006 08:39 PM Christopher Jahn wrote:

> No one in the real world gives a shit about Bonsai reports. We
> want to access and update our calendars, and print out a meaningful
> hardcopy in our choice of formats.

I must say, even if I find your arguments quite good, your way to
express them (in german it would be "Umgangston") is a bit harsh. Too
harsh for a normal discussion IMHO.

OJ
--
A bunch of security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the
corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size
of their clubs.
(Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 17, 2006, 12:46:49 PM1/17/06

to

Christopher Jahn wrote:
> Michiel van Leeuwen <m...@exedo.nl> wrote in
> news:B46dnf_QqNxhnFHe...@mozilla.org:
>

> I do know what users need, and apparently, you don't, given that
> none of your responses deal with what the users say they need.
> All you do is snipe at every user who complains that their needs
> are not being addressed.

No, I really have no clue. Sure....
That's why I'm working on pda sync, on sharing calendars, on printing,
on exporting. All things that no single user wants!

> Ricardo said it very well: quit sniping at us and go fix the
> damend thing. We'll tell you when it's done.

No, i will tell you when i'm done working for free on this project. And
you bing that point closer and closer... congratulations.

Simon Paquet

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Jan 17, 2006, 1:00:57 PM1/17/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote on 17. Jan 2006:

>> Ricardo said it very well: quit sniping at us and go fix the
>> damend thing. We'll tell you when it's done.
>
> No, i will tell you when i'm done working for free on this project.
> And you bing that point closer and closer... congratulations.

Killfiles exist, Michiel. They make life so much more enjoyable :-)

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 17, 2006, 1:52:23 PM1/17/06

to

Simon Paquet wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16. Jan 2006:
>>> My statement didn't relate to the progress discussion later on, so
>>> don't try make that impression.
>> So why do you keep talking about it?
> Because you try to give false impressions. And I don't like that.

I cannot give an impression - it is the reader who is in charge of that!
I cannot control your impressions - that's up to you!

>>>> Perhaps your satisfied with the product as is but I'm not. Let's
>>>> change the wording to be a little more clear - there's not even
>>>> progress for the product to be viable IMHO. OK?
>>> Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say. Where did I state
>>> that I'm satisfied with the product?
>> Where did I say that you said that? Perhaps you should look up the
>> definition of the word "perhaps". ;-)
> Well, your statement certainly implied that I'm satisfied with the
> product right now.

No it didn't. I can't help it if you don't own a dictionary, are too
lazy to use the Internet to look up a word and take the time to
understand it.
> And I'm not.
Great!

> But I'm certainly satified with the progress we're making and with
> what we have already accomplished so far with the few resources that
> we have.

Fine. I'm not.

>> (IOW you just want to argue)
> No, I want have an objective discussion about this topic. You seem to
> have difficulties with that. I find that rather sad.

I am being objective and I'm using English and the words contained
therein as described by dictionaries. I'm sorry that you are having
difficulty with that. That, IMHO, is what's sad. You might have the
opinion that the progress made is satisfactory - to you - an obviously
biases opinion of a person on the project. Get your head out of the sand
and listen to your users - they are not satisfied and when your really
get down to brass tacks - that's what really matters!

>>> So could you please rant only about statement I made and not about
>>> statements that you only seem to imagine in your head?
>> I did no such thing. I said perhaps.
> I won't discuss the finer points of the meaning of the word "perhaps"
> with you. Just try to see this discussion from a perspective that is
> not your own and "perhaps" you might come to the same conclusions that
> I have come to.

Huh? I've come to the conclusions that I've come to. Why would I come to
your conclusions? I don't agree with them. I don't have to agree with
them either - IOW I can have my own opinions on the matter regardless of
your apparent desire to nullify it. I will post shortly a real world,
just happened to me, example of exactly why TB/Lightning/Sunbird is
truly "not ready for prime time" or "only a notepad with a calendar
format" as another user posted.

As for the word perhaps, it has a commonly accepted meaning that for
some reason you're trying to twist. My guess at the reason is that
you're angered at me because you work on the project and you took my
words in the wrong way. I mean you can't even seem to get the word
"perhaps" correct you surely must be having problems with the rest of
the words in my previous posts.

>>>> as evidenced by the fact that so few run it.
>>> How do you know how many people run it? I don't know how many people
>>> run it and I run the website and write some patches. So how come
>>> you're so much better informed than me? What's your source?
>> Common sense is all one needs. Hell even the much more popular FF
>> doesn't have that many users when compared to all browser users.
> Ah, I thought you had some hard facts.

I thought you did. I know a boatload of people using Outlook and OE. I
know a handful of people brave enough to try TB. I believe I can count
on one hand the people who use TB instead of another mailer. I know of
only one person, me, who uses Sunbird or Lightning. Those are facts jack!

>>>> It's been this way for a long, long time.
>>> Development takes time, especially with the few resources that we
>>> have. If you want to change that, you can either start developing
>>> Sunbird or Lightning yourself or you can pay someone to do
>>> development on these apps. Some of our developers are certainly
>>> interested in getting funded.
>> I don't doubt you at all. However the statement above does not negate
>> the fact that development of the calendar side of this has been very
>> slow.
> Slow != Slow

It is in my world, he world where "perhaps" is equated to "maybe"
instead of "definitely". Your world seems interesting but I'm glad I
don't live there.

> Slow in the aspects that you're interested in? Certainly!

Slow or non existent in aspects that users are interested - fast in
aspects that developers are interested in.

> Slow in the aspects of setting the ground for the aspects that you're
> interested in, improving the User Interface and fixing a lot of bugs
> that have plagued the calendar extension for ages? Certainly not!

Who cares! Again, I care little if the engine of a car has been
completely rebuilt if I'm going to take a spin on a mountain road and
the brakes haven't even been installed yet!

> It's simply a matter of perspective. My perspective might be different
> from yours.

Yes it is, as my perspective is different from yours right? From a
user's perspective there's been little progress. This is a user support
group - not a developer group.
--
Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 17, 2006, 1:57:01 PM1/17/06

to

Peter Lairo wrote:
> Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16.01.2006 10:14:
>> Peter Lairo wrote:
>>> Andrew DeFaria wrote on 16.01.2006 03:45:
>>>> Show me a working masterpiece or even a working semi serious threat
>>>> to the current calendaring products out there!
>>> *Lotus Organizer*
>>> After all these years, still better than than *any* PIM out there!
>>> http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product2.nsf/wdocs/orgfact
>>>
>> First of all Lotus sucks!
> That's a overgeneralizations IMO. I would agree that Lotus *Notes*
> sucks, but Lotus *Organizer* is excellent, and by far the best PIM.
>> Secondly, and I think you knew this, I was talking about TB and
>> Lightning!
> I suspected it, but wasn't *entirely* sure. So, just in case, I
> suggested an *awesome* alternative (even if only for the interim,
> until MozCal is ready - which at the current pace could be a very long
> time). ;-)

After experiencing Lotus Notes I highly doubt I would like Organizer at
all. Besides I believe it would need support from the backend in order
to serve in a group calendaring situation no? My personal needs for a
personal calendar are not that great however I, like many others, are
searching for a calendar that "plays well with others".

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 17, 2006, 2:31:24 PM1/17/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> OK, here's a real life example that just happened to me. This
> demonstrates how Lightning and even Sunbird are not ready for prime
> time, doesn't play well with others and effectively useless in real
> world situations that users face everyday. If these products cannot

And who told you that lightning is ready? We didn't even release 0.1
yet, and you accuse us of telling users that it's ready?

> Now I ask you, how long do you think potential calendar/Sunbird/whatever
> users have been waiting for such functionality? How long has it been
> since they've requested such functionality? And what makes you think
> that anybody who uses a calendar for anything other than just a personal
> (meaning not interacting with others) calendar notepad would be
> interested with either Sunbird or Lightning?

And why do you thing the lightning project was started?

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 17, 2006, 2:23:39 PM1/17/06

to

OK, here's a real life example that just happened to me. This demonstrates how Lightning and even Sunbird are not ready for prime time, doesn't play well with others and effectively useless in real world situations that users face everyday. If these products cannot address these issues or needs then they will never garner any critical acceptance by the masses and ultimately they will fail.

I just received an invitation from a colleague of mine to attend a meeting this Thursday. My client is a Windows/Linux/Unix shop and 98% of the people use Outlook and Exchange. This colleague naturally scheduled the meeting in Outlook on her calendar and invited me and another associate. I received an email which showed me only

Invitation from	Jean (Mingjean) Fan
Topic:	ClearQuest Schema Discussion
Start:	10:00:00 AM
End:	12:00:00 PM

Note the lack of a date in the above. TB displayed that and an Accept/Decline button. Additionally there was a "meeting.ics" attachment. Selecting either Accept or Decline puts up a dialog box that stated:

An external application must be launched to handle moz-cal-handle-itip: links. Requested link:

moz-cal-handle-itip:///?preferredCalendar=&data=BEGIN <blah, blah, blah>
Application: moz-cal-handle-itip

If you were not expecting this require it may be an attempt to exploit a weakness in that other program. Cancel this request unless you are sure it is not malicious

[ ] Remember my choice for all links of this type

There are no buttons on this dialog to do anything! I cannot say "Yes" nor "No" or anything else - I can only close the dialog box and nothing happens.

WRT the meeting.ics there is no application associated with ics file types. I can save the attachment but there's no way to import it into Lightning that I can find. Having to fire up Sunbird just to import it (and it seems to mess up the description while importing) is a real bother. There's no way to say drag and drop this appointment into Lightning in TB nor any other way to simply, conveniently and quickly signal that I plan on attending and have the invitation get put into my calendar. Is there any wonder why business people don't use Sunbird nor Lightning?

Similarly I cannot really schedule a meeting myself, I cannot schedule it for other people, nor check their free time nor in any way interact with their calenders or perform any other normal and expect functions WRT creating meetings, inviting others and/or accepting or otherwise using the calendar in a business sense.

Now I ask you, how long do you think potential calendar/Sunbird/whatever users have been waiting for such functionality? How long has it been since they've requested such functionality? And what makes you think that anybody who uses a calendar for anything other than just a personal (meaning not interacting with others) calendar notepad would be interested with either Sunbird or Lightning?

Finally, TB and it's integration or not with this meeting invitation...

Looking at the raw source of the message I see a MIME multi part message with a plain text part that does not display. Hell TB didn't display the HTML part either. Why didn't TB display either of these - which would have answering my initial question and confusion of what day was this meeting on?

The third part was listed as:

Content-class: urn:content-classes:calendarmessage
Content-Type: text/calendar;
	name="meeting.ics";
	method=REQUEST
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

and was for the meeting.ics attachment. Was it this part that TB rendered as the above with the addition of buttons? How was this helpful to me considering that the buttons didn't really work?

I think I have shown that 1) TB/Lightning and Sunbird is not ready for prime time and pretty much useless from a real calendar users (read "including using calendars for business purposes of scheduling and being alerted for meetings") perspective (as I had stated earlier) and 2) that I've really, really tried to use TB/Lightning/Sunbird here in a real life situation, going above and beyond the normal user's call of duty by examining the raw message source, for example, and quite simply the "system" is horribly broken and not useful at all - at this time (developer's progress excluded and really - who cares!)

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 17, 2006, 4:51:18 PM1/17/06

to

So then my contention that very little progress has been made
(especially considering it's be how long since the last calendaring
project/product that we'd have to dig deep into Netscape history for) in
calendaring. As you said - it ain't even ready yet - and I would add nor
mildly functional... (MHO if you want but I'm far from alone!).
--
Fear has its use but cowardice has none. - Mohandas Gandhi

Rod Whiteley

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Jan 17, 2006, 4:56:18 PM1/17/06

to Andrew DeFaria

Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Peter Lairo wrote:
>> ...Lotus *Notes* sucks, but Lotus *Organizer* is excellent...

> After experiencing Lotus Notes I highly doubt I would like Organizer at

> all...

I think Peter was trying to say that experiencing Lotus Notes tells you
nothing about Organizer. In fact, Organizer is the real Lotus product.
Notes was developed quite separately by Iris, only becoming a Lotus
(and then an IBM) product later.

--
Rod Whiteley

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:04:24 PM1/17/06

to

Perhaps, however I ain't willing to risk it. I don't want yet another
calendaring/PIM application. I've tried many. Many suck. Besides how
much does that cost there buddy? I have mentioned that my software
budget for this year is again $0? :-(
--
You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day
when she was 60. She's 97 now and we have no idea where she is.

Peter Lairo

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:22:34 PM1/17/06

to

Andrew DeFaria said on 17.1.2006 23:04:

> Rod Whiteley wrote:
>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>>> Peter Lairo wrote:
>>>> ...Lotus *Notes* sucks, but Lotus *Organizer* is excellent...
>>> After experiencing Lotus Notes I highly doubt I would like Organizer
>>> at all...
>> I think Peter was trying to say that experiencing Lotus Notes tells
>> you nothing about Organizer. In fact, Organizer is the real Lotus
>> product. Notes was developed quite separately by Iris, only becoming
>> a Lotus (and then an IBM) product later.
> Perhaps, however I ain't willing to risk it. I don't want yet another
> calendaring/PIM application. I've tried many. Many suck.

d00d, Lotus Organizer is the *mother* of all PIMs. :-)

Here are a bunch of screenshots:
http://lairo.com/files/Lotus-Organizer_Screenshots/

> Besides how
> much does that cost there buddy? I have mentioned that my software
> budget for this year is again $0? :-(

Well, that's a problem. It does cost about $100.

--
Regards,

Peter Lairo

The browser you can trust: www.GetFirefox.com
Reclaim Your Inbox: www.GetThunderbird.com

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:35:32 PM1/17/06

to

Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> and I would add nor
> mildly functional... (MHO if you want but I'm far from alone!).

And that's a pretty ignorant statement. It's pretty functional for some
cases. And you are completely ignoring the backend. You need a
foundation, before you can build the rest of the building...

Peter Lairo

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:47:23 PM1/17/06

to

Peter Lairo said on 17.1.2006 23:22:

> Andrew DeFaria said on 17.1.2006 23:04:
>> Rod Whiteley wrote:
>>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>>>> Peter Lairo wrote:
>>>>> ...Lotus *Notes* sucks, but Lotus *Organizer* is excellent...
>>>> After experiencing Lotus Notes I highly doubt I would like Organizer
>>>> at all...
>>> I think Peter was trying to say that experiencing Lotus Notes tells
>>> you nothing about Organizer. In fact, Organizer is the real Lotus
>>> product. Notes was developed quite separately by Iris, only becoming
>>> a Lotus (and then an IBM) product later.
>> Perhaps, however I ain't willing to risk it. I don't want yet another
>> calendaring/PIM application. I've tried many. Many suck.
>
> d00d, Lotus Organizer is the *mother* of all PIMs. :-)
>
> Here are a bunch of screenshots:
> http://lairo.com/files/Lotus-Organizer_Screenshots/
>
>> Besides how much does that cost there buddy? I have mentioned that my
>> software budget for this year is again $0? :-(
>
> Well, that's a problem. It does cost about $100.

I forgot to mention: The money is *well* worth it. Organizer is *that*
good! ;-)

Steve

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Jan 17, 2006, 5:54:12 PM1/17/06

to

Rod Whiteley wrote:

<trivia>
Organizer was also a bought-in product. The first version was created in
1991 by a small company in Slough, England called Threadz. Lotus
acquired Organizer from Threadz in 1992 and IBM later acquired Lotus. I
currently use the Lotus version as the original version "ran out of
days" in late 2001. I seem to recall that the "tabbed interface" was
also a first in a Windows app. Whatever happened to tabbed interfaces?
They'll never catch on :-)

FWIW, the first entry marks the day I bought it: 4pm Friday December
20th 1991 and the Threadz staff were in the middle of their Xmas office
party when I turned up to collect it.
</trivia>

--
Steve

Moz Champion (Dan)

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Jan 17, 2006, 7:53:29 PM1/17/06

to

Christopher Jahn wrote:
> Michiel van Leeuwen <m...@exedo.nl> wrote in
> news:B46dnf_QqNxhnFHe...@mozilla.org:
>
>
>>>THIS is the list that progress is measured against. If it
>>>can't do this, it's not ready for use.
>>>
>>
>>Not ready for your use. Don't generalize please.
>
>
> I am User, hear me roar. I speak for me and the 20 users on my
> network and the 30 affiliates who need to view calendars for my
> projects.
>
> I do know what users need, and apparently, you don't, given that
> none of your responses deal with what the users say they need.
> All you do is snipe at every user who complains that their needs
> are not being addressed.
>
> Ricardo said it very well: quit sniping at us and go fix the
> damend thing. We'll tell you when it's done.
>
>
>

... well, that was a waste, I just spent 15 minutes typing a reply to
your missive, and then I noted it was crossposted to multiple groups. I
dont respond to crossposts, so if you want feedback, perhaps you would
consider sending to just one group.

Christopher Jahn

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Jan 17, 2006, 8:41:28 PM1/17/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen <m...@exedo.nl> wrote in

news:892dnVnC36i...@mozilla.org:

> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> OK, here's a real life example that just happened to me.
>> This
>> demonstrates how Lightning and even Sunbird are not ready for
>> prime time, doesn't play well with others and effectively
>> useless in real world situations that users face everyday. If
>> these products cannot
>
> And who told you that lightning is ready? We didn't even
> release 0.1 yet, and you accuse us of telling users that it's
> ready?

I have seen Simon recommend it to users; in fact, his
recommending it to me is the source of the bad blood between us.

And I've seen others recommend it on the old calendar group.

Andrew is not lying about this; it happens fairly frequently.

--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

Sleep is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.

Christopher Jahn

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Jan 17, 2006, 8:43:16 PM1/17/06

to

Peter Lairo <Pe...@NOXXXSPAMLairo.com> wrote in
news:e9OdnZ9jlfM...@mozilla.org:

I am reasonably certain that I paid about $60 dollars for it at
the IBM website.

And yes, I bought it too, and use it daily.

If only I could subscribe to iCal with it....

--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

So close, no matter how far... couldn't be much more from the
heart. Forever trusting who we are, and nothing else matters.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 12:46:38 AM1/18/06

to

Christopher Jahn wrote:

I didn't realize it was cross-posted either. Follow up set to the calendar group.

Well dang it is, after all, about TB and Calendar!
--
A dyslexic man walks into a bra...

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 12:42:57 AM1/18/06

to

Peter Lairo wrote:
--
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. - Niels Bohr

You're just not hearing me. My software budget is $0 - not $100. It
looks way too complicated to me. That's the problem with Lotus Notes too
- way to complext! I'm looking for things to simplify - not complicate -
my life.

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 11:27:37 AM1/18/06

to

Simon Paquet wrote:

Andrew DeFaria wrote on 17. Jan 2006:

Because you try to give false impressions. And I don't like that.

I cannot give an impression - it is the reader who is in charge of that! I cannot control your impressions - that's up to you!

Go to your local college and visit the beginners course in communication skills. Then come back again. Thank you!

How's this for communication - NO!

I can try whatever I can to attempt to give an impression however when talking to insane people such as yourself, one cannot guarantee that any impression given will be similarly received. OK, maybe you're not insane but surely we need not argue over the common meaning of a word such as "perhaps". IOW you really can't give an impression and be assured that it will be interpreted in the manner intended, and a low paid college professor is not really gonna change my mind.

Where did I say that you said that? Perhaps you should look up the definition of the word "perhaps". ;-)

Well, your statement certainly implied that I'm satisfied with the product right now.

No it didn't. I can't help it if you don't own a dictionary, are too lazy to use the Internet to look up a word and take the time to understand it.

Again, read your own statements after visiting the course mentioned above and then come back again.

Perhaps you are frigging insane! You'd rather debate what I meant by using the word "perhaps" - brother what a pinhead. You know what perhaps means - it means maybe - not definitely. You were free to correct my assumption, my statement saying perhaps easily and we could move along in the process of communication. But instead you're a stupid pinhead who apparently has his ego bruised or something like that so he continues to spend time and effort arguing silly semantic arguments that he has no point on nor a leg to stand on really. No wonder why Sunbird/Lightning has gotten really nowhere - how could it with idiots like this who rather spend their time in such silly arguments (all the while having really no logic behind them).

But I'm certainly satified with the progress we're making and with what we have already accomplished so far with the few resources that we have.

Fine. I'm not.

That may be the case because certainly have expectations that are way to high for the project to achieve right now. That's fine, really.

Shit I could achieve that myself in the amount of time alloted to you guys but I see you are too busy on the net debating the finer points of "perhaps" and ignoring what the users what to be bothered with really coding. Oh, and by the way, that's the impression you've given me by your attitude and waisted time arguing non-essential things right here. Perhaps you need that famed Communications 101 class brother but I know I don't.

But don't blame the project because of your false and unrealistic expectations. Nobody in the project is telling people that Sunbird or Lightning are ready for the use-cases that you talk about.

It's a toy and will remain that way as long as developers like you would rather argue about stupid stuff instead of doing the work.

So why then are you blaming the developers for something that they never promised nor even talked about?

Because moron, there is a certain expectation level that is set by the marketplace of what a similar product needs to do to garner acceptance. If you guys don't care about that and wish to remain a play toy of some tiny subset of geeks then you should state so up front. Otherwise people will get the misconception that you are serious. I'm sorry I made that misconception.

Check your attitude, dude!

Right, you should check yours brother.

You might have the opinion that the progress made is satisfactory - to you -

Yes, because I know the resource situation. Because I know where the project is coming from and what the state of the code was 6, 12, 18 or 24 months ago.

Truth be told it's because you are part of the project and you got your feelings hurt.

That's how you measure progress, you know.

Correction - that's how you measure progress! The rest of the world (i.e. you customer base) measures progress based on results that they can see and experience. That is measured up against other alternatives that are already out there with various other factors such as price, support (and honestly attitude of the support people - which is one thing most Mozilla products and Open Source products fail miserably at BTW), etc. Then then pick the best option for them. Hint: The best option is surely not some experimental toy that's been that way for years (your estimate at 24 months remember). This is all Marketing 101. Perhaps you should pick up that at that community college with the other course, cause you surely need them.

You look back and compare the accomplishments of the project with the resources that you had. That's Project Management lesson 1. Something you obviously have no clue of but talk about as if you were an expert.

Sorry, I don't buy the "well we really screwed up before but we're doing much better now" arguments. You're only as good as your last record and it's been over 2 years now and you guys are still arguing in the studio with nothing to show for it but rough recordings. Here's another clue - customers do not know nor care about your project and it's management. They care only about the results. Results speak to them and everything else it really immaterial.

an obviously biases opinion of a person on the project.

Prove me wrong!

The prove is in the defensive crap that your dishing out.

Take a look at the state of the project 24 months ago, where we only had one part-time developer an ugly and mostly unmaintained project website, no regular builds, no regular communication about our status, no clear vision for the project, a backend that was hard to extend and a frontend that was much more bug-ridden and much less usable than it is right now.

Irrelevant to your users. Just a bunch of execuses. It took you 24 months to do just that?

And now look at what we have accomplished. We have recruited more developers. Right now 4-6 people are working part-time on Calendar/Sunbird/Lightning. We have a website that is regularly maintained with much more content where it is much easier to find information. We have regular builds for Sunbird and Lightning. We communicate much better to our users about our status through the website, the wiki and the Calendar weblog. We have a vision for the project. Our backend has been greatly improved and our frontend is much more usable, much nicer and less bug-ridden than two years ago.

It's great that you are making some internal progress but external progress on the actual product you are producing is still way too slow. Perhaps you should take less time developing wiki's and weblogs and the like until after you have a real product!

That's progress! We're certainly not where we want to be. But that's exactly the reason (as I've told you before) why Sunbird is at 0.3alpha1 status and why Lightning has not even been released yet.

Yeah can't wait for the Wiki 2.1 page to come out!

If you're not happy with the current state, then you have two options:
1. You do something about it. I've told you already what you can do.

I am doing something about it - just not exactly what you tell me to do. I had thought about helping out with coding too however based on the attitudes of the people involved (in no small manner your very attitude) I'd rather be wrestling grizzly bears!

2. You wait until our first 1.0 release and then try it again.

It's that simple.

Get your head out of the sand and listen to your users

It might totally ruin your view of the world, but we do that all the time. That's why we read this newsgroup. That's why we take a look at all the incoming bugreports. That's why we follow the discussions in the mozillazine forum. That's why I answer about 10-20 mails a week from users that mail me directly as I'm in charge of the website.

If that were the case then surely you'd have no problems with somebody like me saying that there are many expected features that just are there yet. You'd simply agree because that is the truth. Instead you spend valuable time arguing that "is" is or what "perhaps" means because your ego was bruised because of assumptions that you made that "perhaps" didn't mean "perhaps"...

they are not satisfied and when your really get down to brass tacks - that's what really matters!

Most of our users are satisfied with our products.

Yes, all two of them. It doesn't matter that they happen to also be on the development time. Oh no....

They understand the limitations of the project and they know that they can't ask for more in a product that is completely free of charge.

Some users are different. They want the power of a program worth a 100$ or more for free and they want it yesterday. You are this type of a user. And I'm sorry but we cannot help you right now. We'll have to improve our communication in this regard.

Yes communication is the key. We need to convince people that "perhaps" has a different meaning! We don't need coding. Brother, give me a break.

Right now I can only give you one advice. If you want the power of Outlook right now, then go to your local computer shop and buy it.

Actually I don't want Outlook. But you'd be a fool to not know that that's one of your primary competitors.

But if you're satisfied with less and you don't want to pay money for you calendar application, then we'll might help you.

Yes with a broken toy of a calendar...

End of discussion from my side.

Good. Same here.

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Jan 18, 2006, 1:13:45 PM1/18/06

to

Peter Lairo wrote:
> Michiel van Leeuwen wrote on 18.01.2006 18:02:
>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>>> ...insane people such as yourself....
>>
>> I can help wondering what you think you accomplish by calling people
>> insane. Do you think they will suddenly start working for you? Do you
>> think it helps the calender project? Does it help users? does it do
>> any good?
>
> Nor does ignoring important deficiencies (lack of user-noticeable
> progress) and instead diverging into an illogical argument (the meaning
> of the word "perhaps").

I never discussed the meaning of 'perhaps'. And i don't ignore the UI
feedback problem. I send an entire weekend fighting with threads from
javascript...

> So you infuriate someone ad-nauseum, and when they finally lose their
> temper, you focus only on that - all to avoid the original issue. How
> reprehensible.

I don't ignore anything. I know sunbird isn't finished. I know that most
progress is made on the backend, the part that the users never sees. I'm
just saying that there has been progress, and saying that there wasn't
any won't do the project any good (nor does name-calling)

Michiel

Chris Ilias

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:13:37 PM1/18/06

to

_Peter Lairo_ spoke thusly on 18/01/2006 1:05 PM:

> So you infuriate someone ad-nauseum, and when they finally lose their
> temper, you focus only on that - all to avoid the original issue. How
> reprehensible.

Come on, Peter, look who Michiel was debating with: Andrew DeFaria.
Andrew has a rep for having no regard for anyone else. Debating anything
with him is a lost cause. Anyone from secnews knows it.
--
Chris Ilias - Mozilla Champion
(Please do not email me tech support questions)
Mozilla Help <http://mozillahelp.com>
Netscape 7 Help <http://ilias.ca/netscape/>

Andrew DeFaria

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:41:40 PM1/18/06

to

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:

Peter Lairo wrote:

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote on 18.01.2006 18:02:

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

...insane people such as yourself....

I can help wondering what you think you accomplish by calling people insane. Do you think they will suddenly start working for you? Do you think it helps the calender project? Does it help users? does it do any good?

Nor does ignoring important deficiencies (lack of user-noticeable progress) and instead diverging into an illogical argument (the meaning of the word "perhaps").

Exactly!

I never discussed the meaning of 'perhaps'. And i don't ignore the UI feedback problem. I send an entire weekend fighting with threads from javascript...

Perhaps (Oh no! Not that word! :-) ) you didn't but Simon, your colleague on the project, did.

So you infuriate someone ad-nauseum, and when they finally lose their temper, you focus only on that - all to avoid the original issue. How reprehensible.

I don't ignore anything. I know sunbird isn't finished. I know that most progress is made on the backend, the part that the users never sees. I'm just saying that there has been progress, and saying that there wasn't any won't do the project any good (nor does name-calling)

If you hadn't noticed by now this is a support group! As such I expect users to be here. As such a statement that not very much progress seems to have been made when even you concede that from a users perspective little progress has been made, is not uncalled for nor unexpected. In short it should be of no surprise to you! Why then am I being castrated for stating this?!?

So internal progress has been made. So what! Users care about user visible progress. Granted, some has been made, but a lot hasn't. And we, users, want to know such things in a support oriented newsgroup, don't we?

You guys are taking this way too personally precisely because you are on the project and you know that you've made progress, albeit internal progress, that yes, as a developer myself I understand needs to be made and will help to make a lot user visible in the future. But for now and from a users perspective little progress has become of it - and that's a fact jack! I was speaking to users or potential users here in a support newsgroup. Truth be told you guys appear to be acting in an unprofessional and immature manner because your feelings got hurt. So be it. However I will not stand down from my statement because it is accurate from a users perspective, as it was intended and if that hurts your feelings then you're just gonna have to deal with it. The wise, professional and mature developer would recognize this difference and pay particular heed to what users outside of their close nit development circle are saying, perceiving and wanting and not get into pissing matches about the definitions of words as your colleague did nor try to justify internal progress as something that should be meaningful to outside users (i.e. the brakes example).

Ricardo Palomares Martinez

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Jan 18, 2006, 2:52:02 PM1/18/06

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Feb 13, 2006, 7:35:11 AM2/13/06

to

Matt Silberstein said on 9.2.2006 18:44:

> On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:43:22 +0100, in mozilla.support.calendar ,
> Peter Lairo <ImTire...@NoSpam.net> in
> <O_2dnRvllf_...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>
>>> First of all Lotus sucks!
>> That's a overgeneralizations IMO. I would agree that Lotus *Notes*
>> sucks,
>
> I wouldn't. Notes was way ahead of its time.

The operative word here is *was*.

Today, there is little that Notes offers that other programs don't do
(much) better: e-mail: Thunderbird, calendar: Organizer. All the other
database'y type stuff is useless because few need it and the UI is a
nightmare.

Rod Whiteley

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Feb 13, 2006, 1:19:09 PM2/13/06

to Peter Lairo

Peter Lairo wrote:
> ...Today, there is little that Notes offers...

When more than one person shares write-access to a calendar (or any set
of documents), Notes and other groupware products *detect* editing
conflicts and preserve both versions of the data. This allows people to
work offline, then connect back into a shared working environment when
they need to. Although it is not a perfect solution, it has huge
benefits for busy people who cannot stay connected all the time. This
is what Notes offers.

To bring this thread back to Mozilla, I'm looking forward to the day
when Sunbird/Calendar supports groupware servers, whether CalDAV or
something else. People are already trying to use Sunbird/Calendar with
shared write-access, and losing their data.

--
Rod Whiteley

Michiel van Leeuwen

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Feb 13, 2006, 1:36:51 PM2/13/06

to

Rod Whiteley wrote:
> To bring this thread back to Mozilla, I'm looking forward to the day
> when Sunbird/Calendar supports groupware servers, whether CalDAV or
> something else. People are already trying to use Sunbird/Calendar with
> shared write-access, and losing their data.
>

CalDav already should work.
For webdav calendars, recent nightlies detect if the remote calendar
file has changed. It can't really sync the changes yet, so it put the
calendar in read-only mode. Not good, but prevents dataloss. Work is
still going on to handle this better and more flexible.

Michiel

Peter Lairo

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Feb 13, 2006, 2:29:17 PM2/13/06

to

Rod Whiteley said on 13.2.2006 19:19:

> Peter Lairo wrote:
>> ...Today, there is little that Notes offers...
>
> When more than one person shares write-access to a calendar (or any set
> of documents), Notes and other groupware products *detect* editing
> conflicts and preserve both versions of the data. This allows people to
> work offline, then connect back into a shared working environment when
> they need to. Although it is not a perfect solution, it has huge
> benefits for busy people who cannot stay connected all the time. This
> is what Notes offers.

Like I said: "few need it". Even in corporate environments the sharing
of calendars is seldom used. (I mainly see clueless managers swoon over
Note's feature list without even understanding it. One of my managers
has been trying to get everyone to use Note's calendar, but nobody does.
It's like Linux: lots of features on paper, but they're too complicated
for users to use.) IMO, of course.

> To bring this thread back to Mozilla, I'm looking forward to the day
> when Sunbird/Calendar supports groupware servers, whether CalDAV or
> something else.

Nevertheless, me too. :-)