Developer hiring proposals

Hello Andreas,
Thank you!

could programming Android and iOS app using Kotlin instead of (or next to) Java and Swift?

The development path written in the proposal is based on the current implementation of Android Viewer, which is a classic approach to create native Android applications using Java programming language. The source code can be found in android/ folder, and the suggestion is to continue this path, and add more editing capabilities within the same software architecture and using the same programming language, Java.

On the other hand, I know that mixing Kotlin and Java in an Android project is possible, although I haven’t tried this approach:

Also for iOS, it seems that mixing Kotlin and Swift/Objective-C is possible, but I haven’t tried it:

In other words, the suggested approach in the proposal is based on the existing applications and proof of concepts. I think the best would be to try Kotlin and create a proof of concept first. If it can be used on both Android and iOS to minimize code duplication, then it may be useful in practice.

Some notes and feedback on the proposal:

  1. Biggest gripe: Web development is one thing; mobile phone development is another thing. There is some overlap between them, but that’s also true for desktop and mobile. So, it’s not clear whether a developer who applies needs to be a developer for either of them, or both of them (or - a partition of the 4 FTE’s among the categories). The problem is even deeper: The rest of the document continues referring to ā€œweb/mobileā€, ā€œweb/mobileā€, ā€œweb/cloud mobileā€ without distinguishing between these two, or three, categories - so that many statements and claims become vague and inspecific, and perhaps partially incorrect (see also below).
  2. In fact, are we hiring a developer in order to offer LibreOffice ā€œon the cloudā€? i.e. have we decided to set up servers, offer storage, manage people’s documents etc.? As opposed to offering a client-side web-based app which deals with a user’s files locally?
  3. Grammar could use some polish, there are numoerus errors and failure to conclude sentences with all
  4. (Pg. 1) Software is not a commodity, and the space of office productivity suites is not a market. We don’t sell LibreOffice nor sell the service of using it. So please don’t use those terms.
  5. (Pg. 1 par. 3) What’s the basis for the far-reaching claim that ā€œusers demand their office productivity [missing word here?] remains accesible in [sic] … web and mobileā€? That is, is this a quote from an authoritative source? If so, please reference it; otherwise, explain that to be a belief or opinion or make an argument in favor of this statement.
  6. My experience is that people don’t want to use office productivity apps on their mobile. Viewing files? Sure; creating & editing them? Nooo, not at all. I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of people I’ve seen - ever, in my entire life - editing a spreadsheet, presentation or even a formatting-heavy document, on their mobile phones.
  7. (Pg. 1) The document suggests that we are trying to copycat Microsoft in various way; specifically, adopt their business tactics - tactics which are often underhanded. They want to cripple desktop software by making it half-cloud-based; we should not adopt such an approach or assume its validity and usefulness.
  8. (Pg. 1) The analysis completely ignores our intention to allow for P2P collaboration in document authoring. This is something which other office app suites do not offer - and is rather anathematic to their business strategy and attempts to centralize contol over the use of office apps. If people had that possibility, how many of them would really want/need a central server?
  9. (Pg. 1, par. -2) it says ā€œWhile TDF provides… it provides almost nothing in the area of web and mobileā€ ; this should probably refer to LibreOffice as a project rather than the TDF as an entity.
  10. (Pg 1. par. -2) What is the basis for the claim that a desktop office productivity app suite would become irrelevant within a decade? )
  11. (Pg. 1 par -1) In another statement only considering the commercially-offered office suites, the analysis neglects a description of what non-commercially-commoditized office suites offer w.r.t. web-based clients, fully-in-cloud services, and mobile versions of office apps.
  12. (Pg. 1 par -1) ā€œnearly all of the companies who [sic] provide office software for desktop [sic],
    provide their version of web/cloud and mobileā€ - which companies? and which companies are an exception to this rule?
  13. (Pg. 1 par -1) Even for the commercially-commoditized office suite - it is not listed nor elaborated which companies offer what - a web-based client, fully-in-cloud services, and mobile versions of the office apps. There is also no information regarding the extent of functionality offered via a web-based client, in a cloud version, or via a mobile app. It is also not stated whether the mobile app is entirely standalone, or whether it is a client for use of the cloud version of the office suite.
  14. (Pg. 1, par. -1) A claim is made that availability of each of, or all of, a web client, a mobile app version, and an in-cloud version, are ā€œkey factor for adoption of the office softwareā€: Which office software? Generally? Some specific office productivity suites? Which ones? Are you claiming that these aspects have been key to the adoption of Microsoft Office? OTOH, if you mean office suites like Google Docs/Workspace, they have never been desktop applications, so this claim is vacuous regarding those suites.
  15. (Pp. 1-2) Generally, the analysis of the office suite space fails to distinguish the consideration of office suites which have originally been developed and offered as dektop apps; those developed as cloud-based web apps; and those developed as mobile (non-cloud or not-cloud-only) applications.
  16. (Pg. par. 1) ā€œThe strong and steady growth in the marketā€ - another example of the wrong focus of consideration. A growth in the amount of money which organizations or individuals pay for office productivity suites or apps does not in itself mean a growth in the number of users making those payments, and more importantly, does not mean a growth of the number of users of commercially-offered office suites.
  17. (Pg. 2 par. 1) ā€œThe strong and steady growth in the marketā€ missing clarification that this is a projection for cloud-based office productivity application services. But, according to statista (the validity of whose data or whose methodology I can’t vouch for, I’ll admit) - the global revenue from office productivity software in 2025 is over 80 Billion USD, while the link mentioned in the hiring proposal talks about a market with a revenue of ~12.6 Billion USD. So, less than 1/6’th of the ā€œmarketā€, and see also my point (4.) above.
  18. (Pg. 2 par. 2) The reference here is to a brief blog post on LinkedIn. Have we actually read the research document in question? Why is SmartShift Insight a credible source on these matters?
  19. (Pg. 2 par. 2) How much of the stated revenue, now and over the next decade, is due to Microsoft forcing people to use a semi-cloud-based MS Office?
  20. (Pg. 2 par. 2) ā€œthe effect of platform convergenceā€ - what effect? How does it manifest with various office suites? I again worry you are basing your description of reality and of where things need to go on the Microsoft decision to force people to use a semi-cloud-based subscription service.
  21. (Pg. 2 par. 2) ā€œThe … growth in the market … alongside the effect of platform convergence shows the necessity that TDF provides web and mobile versions of LibreOffice.ā€ That is a huge logical leap over many steps of inference; and the analysis has not established any of them.

(I’ve only gotten to the top of page 2 - to be continued.)

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Are you making that statement ex officio or in a personal capacity?

  1. Biggest gripe: Web development is one thing; mobile phone development is another thing. There is some overlap between them, but that’s also true for desktop and mobile. So, it’s not clear whether we want a developer for either of them, or both of them. The problem is even deeper: The rest of the document continues referring to ā€œweb/mobileā€, ā€œweb/mobileā€, ā€œweb/cloud mobileā€ without distinguishing between these two, or three, categories - so that many statements and claims become vague and inspecific, and perhaps partially incorrect (see also below).

I agree that distinguishing between web and mobile would make sense.

  1. My experience is that people don’t want to use office productivity apps on their mobile. Viewing files? Sure; creating & editing them? Nooo, not at all. I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of people I’ve seen editing a spreadsheet, presentation or even a formatting-heavy document, on their mobile phones.

That generally matches my own approach (occasionally view files on the phone, clearly prefer doing ā€œreal workā€ on my laptop).
However, feedback for the current LibreOffice Viewer app for Android in Google Play review comments differs: Lack of proper editing support is one of the main ā€œcomplaintsā€, besides ā€œDoesn’t open PDF filesā€.

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Do we have numbers on how many people use, or have downloaded, the app? And how many people have given this feedback?

Google Play Console currently shows an install base of 544,089 devices. (Description for ā€œinstall baseā€ is: ā€œThe number of active devices on which your app is installed. An active device is one that has been turned on at least once in the previous 30 days.ā€)
Below is a graphic showing the development over the last 5 years.

Besides Google Play, there are other app stores like F-Droid, but I don’t know any numbers for those.

I don’t have systematic numbers for that, but would say there are usually around 10-20 review comments per week, with maybe 1 to 3 of them mentioning that better editing capabilities would be desirable.

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If those are the numbers, then I wouldn’t say that contradicts my anecdotal experience… and that’s before we know whether those users would actually do significant editing given the possibility, which is itself a question.

Well, I would love to do minimal editing and annotation and commendation using the smart phone while having a zigarett. Hence, I even use SSH for simple tasts on the street next to the bin…

What is missing, the app was taken down for a very long time in both(?) 1app stores… Many ā€œfakeā€ or ā€œpay forā€ or "for donation’ apps were problematic for the user base…

I think the request is also about tablets. I know that several plug-ins or applications developed in France for education, like Cartable fantastique - which provides a LibreOffice plug-in for dispraxic children - or LibreOffice des Ć©coles - which provides a dedicated UI to facilitate learning - are not used on tablets because of the lack of the application. It’s even part of their FAQ.

There are other areas where tablets are used like in small town-hall to collect data by the road workers or in refugees camp for students in Kenya, Tanzania or South Sudan, for those I know.

Also GeoPoll has done an interesting survey on phone usage in Africa and Asia, see Report: Mobile Phone and App Usage in Africa and Asia - GeoPoll. Also not everywhere there is a good internet coverage or a reliable one.

There are other examples of usage that would benefit greatly and empower some populations, but I don’t have the time to provide them now.

Fair enough, but - Tablets are rather different than mobile phones. On today’s tablet, you can probably assume you satisfy the minimum width and height requirements for the Deskotp LibreOffice. Of course, Tablets are also very different from desktops, so ā€œin the middleā€ between the extremes I guess.