Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Article on Datamation website: "How Microsoft Office Tops LibreOffice: 11 Features"

Interesting article.  With regard to the bibliography tool -- what is
he talking about?  The professional writers I deal with all use
something like Endnotes.  The bibliography issue isn't all that hard
to fix.

All of those things mentioned are arguably outside the scope of office
productivity software, and responsible for the bloat people complain
about.  They could be available as *paid* extensions for those who
need them.

I'm switching topic here a bit, but this needs to be discussed.  From
a marketing POV, I'm a bit concerned that this concept of "free"
software is having the opposite effect of conditioning people into not
having to pay for things.

I like free things too, but the developers have to eat.  I can't see a
scenario where a developer will make more revenue via donations than
via a straight up trade of cash for functionality, so it seems to me
that some functionality must be released *after* payment is made.
Likewise,  software with source code is more valuable than software
without it.  But unless there are opportunities for add on services,
simply releasing the source code reduces the profit potential for
developers.  I'm sure there is a happy medium somewhere.

Free and Open Source software will explode when people actually value
freedom enough to *pay* for it.

The true LO selling point should be unlimitted ability to customize to
individual and industry.  The free portion of the LO codebase should
focus on the most essential and frequently used features, while
experts develop and sell extensions for particular user groups. Of
course, the free application should be usable by the vast majority of
people, as it is now.

For example, I'm a member of the American Medical Writers'
Association.  I've helped someone use LO yesterday to edit a PDF.
Specialized extensions for this would include a medical/bioinformatics
dictionary or style sheets for formatting for professional journals.
This is something that people are willing to pay for.  But simply
releasing it freely is not a viable option from a business POV, unless
enough money is raised to make such an act attractive from a profit
perspective.

This makes LO unattractive to many in this field, as they don't see
how to get support.  They don't understand how to function in an open
source world, and it will require time, money, and effort to teach
them.

> I suggested that he say things like "MS Office is sexily vulnerable to malware and stable enough 
> that it doesn't fix such issues
> too  fast.".
> Regards from
> Tom :)

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