Advice on giving constructive criticism.

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

Hi, all.  As you've noted, I recently kicked the tires on a bunch of
videoconferencing solutions.  The one that was the biggest disappointment was
Openmeetings; it seemed to have a lot going for it, an incredibly active
developer community, and that it was going places.  But...

- Its documentation was scattered, incomplete, or missing; that which was there
was difficult to make use of (e.g., pasting from the PDF, across page breaks,
hopelessly broke script files to the point where I gave up and made my own --
clearly, it should be in HTML, or with links to Pastebin, or *something*).

- I was unsure which web site even was the right one -- there's one in Germany,
and two domestic ones.

- Likewise, downloads; the Sourceforge points to the Apache Incubator (which I
think is hosted on Google Code, IIRC).  But the files there aren't the ones
they talk about downloading in the docs; THOSE are hosted on a different Google
Docs page.

-Etc.

Honestly, there's even a decent chance it was the better choice, but every step
felt like slogging through molasses, and when I couldn't figure out the GUI,
and there was no (apparent) documentation on a bunch of that stuff, I threw in
the towel.  Which, what with the resources and momentum they have, is a shame.

I have a strong suspicion, though, that the developers are suffering from
can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees-ism.  They're so used to what they're used
to (if you will) that they don't realize just how hard it is to break in as a
newbie.  I'd like to bring their attention to some of these issues, but when I
started drafting the e-mail in my mind, it began to sound an awful lot like
"Your product sucks so I went with something better," which might, shall we
say, be counter productive.

Suggestions on how to approach this?

Thanks,

-Ken