[libreoffice-users] Re: LibreOffice VS MS Office

The OP here sounds like no more than sour grapes to me based on his mostly 
wanting a free copy of MSO. LiberOffice is new and is NOT meant to simply 
replace MS Office. There also seems to be a lot of pressure albeit indirect, 
to dispense with OO and LO meaning a myopic view of the world of office 
suites, or a very staunch of MS. All those are fine but his stated views are 
pretty mixed up meaning he should take a step back and get a look at the 
forests instead of a few individual trees.  MSOffice # OOo or LO. MSO is 
simply a large target area for LO/OO.

In news:BANLkTi=o7YGpy03DyY8b+7K1sh_ao3A=3A@mail.gmail.com,
e-letter <inpost@gmail.com> typed:
> > > A business that receives profits from customers that
> > > demand to use M$
> > software should simply pay the licences to meet their
> > customers' demands and consider it a cost of doing
> > business.

Software does not "pay the license" in any way you could look at it. 
Licenses are for users to know what can/cannot be done with the software. 
Those are choices the OP must live with as they won't be written to 
accomodate only him.

> > I can't tell which of the following statements you mean:

...
> > position, and use Microsoft products;
>
> None, the example scenario is a customer (in any
> business, not necessarily IT) sends a document in m$ word
> and the recipient decides
> to use LO but finds that there is (minor?) loss of
> formatting (e.g. a table width greater than the body text
> margin), then writes to LO mailing list to complain that
> LO writer is not good enough for their needs. In this
> scenario, the business using LO should pay for an m$
> licence to use m$ software in their business and not use
> LO at all.

Yes. It's a matter of using what fits one's own specific needs and wants. If 
the OP is in a position where he must make such decisions, he needs to be 
asking for a transfer from the sound of it.

> LO should concentrate on the scenario that both a
> business customer
> and supplier are _both_ using LO software and when
> documents are exchanged, the documents produced and
> received using LO software are found to be of good
> quality (i.e. no bugs).

LO should concentrate on whatever path appears to be the most lucrative 
based on what is viewed as the desired future for the product. As in, read 
their Mission Statement for such information; it'll clarify better than can 
be done here.

> It is not fair for LO to be expected to be an exact clone
> of m$ products.

Exactly! Nor is it expected to be an exact clone of any other product such 
as the WordPerfect capabilities, PDF, and a host of others. The expectation 
is to meet or exceed the needs of the largest set of users as is possible. 
Being a clone of MSO would not accomplish that.

> > > Any business using open source software to generate a
> > > private profit should put their money where their mouth
> > > is;

That's a senseless and meaningless paragraph that only the OP is likely 
aware of what it means.

> > a) Do you know how many employees the "average" business
> > in the united states has?

That's irrelevant.

> Don't understand the significance.
>
> > b) Do you have any idea how difficult it was for non-Sun
> > clients to get features and functions added to OOo?

Well, if you were contributing to the development and marketing of OOo or LO 
in any meaningful way, you would understand that better. YOUR wants & needs 
are not necessarily even close to what the majority needs/wants. You seem to 
have taken a completely personal, egotistical approach to things here and 
it's not helping whatever point it is you wish to make.

> No, but presumably this justifies the creation of LO.
>
> > c) Do you have any idea what the learning curve involved
> > in knowing how to code for OOo was/is?

I have a smattering of a feeling for it. Some parts are trivial, some are 
complex, and some are buggy. I would assume that anyone taking on a coder 
would mean that coder already has the needed background on his own or he's 
not going to be taken very seriously. LO is not a learn-to-code project, 
it's something entirely different. This is one of the advantages of open 
source; the many can contrubute and the best chosen as the way to go.

> >
>
> No, not qualified to comment.
>
> > Those three factors mitigated against organizations that
> > were not in the IT industry from even considering
> > customizations of OOo, much less paying for them.

This is irrelevant to the development of OOo/LO and those three factors have 
so little to do with it that it almost makes me laugh. I certainly had to 
smile smugly at this post when I first read the misinformative little rage.

> >
>
> Is it not true that organisations are not able to get
> customisations
> of m$o unless they pay m$ and/or m$ partners to make such
> changes?

I believe that is true, and it takes deep pockets for the most part to 
create such unique and specialized ware. Usually changes are going to be 
made by third parties as the originators aren't much interested in 
specialization but in the future market share and their own futures with any 
company/entity.
> > Once two or three organizations offer Level 4 Support
> > for LibO, you'll see organizations that are willing to
> > pay for the features that they want/need/desire. That is
> > also when you'll start seeing non-IT organizations
> > sending their customizations back upstream.
>
> Sounds good; time will tell...

That's a possibility, I agree, as there are already several of them offering 
to modify OOo for money. LO will follow suit, and it makes a good will 
customer base. With the code in the open like it is, it's going to be 
entirely possible. But the other question is: How much need for it will 
there be? Will there be enough business to go around and support the new 
guys entering the market? IME you get a lot of people in those areas that 
only "think" they know what they're doing. It's a get what you pay for world 
out there too.

> > > LO programmers should concentrate on making a good
> > > software product;
> > that should be the priority.

Yes. And they are well on their way to it. LO was a good, looking-ahead fork 
when it started and has made progress by leaps and bounds IMO. Versioin 4 
should show some excellent progress.

> > One of the major criteria that businesses use in
> > selecting software, is compatibility with their existing
> > work-product. In terms of office suites, that usually
> > means the ability to read, write, and edit documents in
> > a Microsoft file format as well as, if not better than
> > MSO can read, write, and edit those documents.

I have to agree with the response written below:

> >
>
> True, as well as the cost of training personnel to use
> either new software or the latest version (the ribbon!)
> of existing software. Businesses demanding LO (and all
> others) to be better than m$, without having paying a
> penny towards development of these alternatives are
> asking for too much. There must have been a time when
> people kept
> copies of documents on floppy disks, but then new
> hardware became available. How many businesses have
> demanded that the new computers
> they buy must have a floppy drive in order to be
> compatible with existing procedure to keep copies on
> floppy disks? Instead, new procedures (e.g. use CD-ROM)
> were developed.
>
> > Different organizations define the compatibility line
> > differently.

Software functionality defines compatibility, not the organization. It is up 
to the organization to decide whether any application meets its needs.
> > Personally, I consider microsoft file formats to be
> > "never twice same output" formats, and hence best
> > discarded.

I can't agree with that. What already exists as .doc is fine. The only 
comment I have in this area is a lack of communications: the receiver of say 
LO .doc files should be made aware of that fact beforehand. Then if a 
problem should crop up, it can be intelligently discussed and perhaps a 
better communication format would be, say, .rtf.
   A lot of people bitch that files on one computer don't look the same on 
another computer but that's never going to happen unless both computers are 
using the same printer drivers and screen resolutions, for a started.
   So far I have not experienced ANY data loss in sending an LO created .doc 
file to others who have only MSO. They have different drivers, screen 
resolution, dpi settings, etc., but the files are all perfectly readable and 
look fine on the screen and printout/s. You'll get the same exact results if 
you send an MSO .doc to another MSO user.
   The only way around those differences is to use PDF as your file format - 
things will look very, very similar from machine to machine with PDF, but 
not with .doc, .odt, etc. etc..

> > jonathon

I wonder if the OP might like to rewrite his original post based on a lot of 
the information here and what he's learned or not learned and possibly with 
a lot more clarity and much less vaguery.

HTH,

Twayne`




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