Do we really need LibreOffice installed by default?

[Máirín Duffy]

On 09/17/2014 10:29 AM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
> Searching for "word" lists mostly unrelevant stuff at the top of the
> list, but that's an easy fix - LibreOffice just needs to add "word" as a
> keyword in the desktop file or appdata.

Ok. Fixing this should probably be a prerequisite for dropping LO.

> No. But targeting developers does not mean we need to provide subpar
> experience to non-developers. If we want to encourage more people (even
> people who are not professional developers right now) to become
> developers, we need to create a platform accessible for everyone - the
> first step to developing is to be able to use the platform properly.

If you want to support non-developers / less technical folks who are 
heavy office document users, removing LO from the default install is a 
no-go. I support these folks using LO as part of my job. They get it 
pre-installed on their RHEL CSBs and I am really not sure they'd be 
super comfortable installing it on their own if they tried out Fedora at 
home. If we are concerned about this audience we should definitely run a 
few (quick, easy, doesn't have to be a huge investment) tests on them to 
see what the experience without LO installed by default is for them and 
how they cope so we know what we have to do to make it easier.

>     - Do app developers need an office suite? Do they create content
>     using one? Do they consume content that requires having one? (Say a
>     requirements doc from a product manager?)
>
> Some do, some don't. I get requirement docs on email or intranet sites,
> and sometimes on PDFs, so I don't need an office suite.

I'm not a developer but involved in the development process and I have 
definitely gotten .doc files from customers and PMs (reqs documents), 
slide decks from developers for conference presos, etc.  But I don't 
know how universal this is. Maybe worth doing a quick survey?
>
>     - If they need it, they have to download it at some point. Either
>     before install, or after install. Is the payload the same whether or
>     not it ships in the image or if it's pull down via yum, right? So if
>     they need the tool, how does pulling it from the image save them
>     bandwidth? (would keeping it in the image save them bandwidth since
>     if they obtained the image via local means / repositories / etc
>     typically available to developers they'd only use internal network
>     and not have to go external?)
>
>
> No, there shouldn't be much difference.
>
>
>     - Would an app developer prefer to have the software included in the
>     install image or would they prefer to download it when it was needed?
>
>
> I assume this would vary from person to person. Not all developers are
> the same person.
> People testing their apps on VMs will have it easier if our default
> install would be smaller, for example, because they'll need to allocate
> less disk space for the VM.

Oh geez thats a really good point. But are the devs going to use the 
workstation in a vm? Or are they going to use server or cloud in a vm? I 
mean, the majority of devs we're targeting are web app devs right? Not 
Linux desktop devs... so they'd be doing cloud/server VMs I would think?

~m