On 05/30/2011 08:16 PM, Steve Edmonds wrote:
Part of the issue with Windows users, that is not for Linux users, is the fact that Windows users are "brainwashed" to think that anything not put out by MS is not something you should use for an OS or an office suite. As for Linux users, we do not have the option to use MSO. So we are not filled with the mush that tells us that you must have MSO and all the related mush, or you are not doing it properly. IF MSO was ported to Linux, then we would have a different story. Since we dropped MS for our OS, we do not have our eyes blinded by all their mush they try to feed us with.On 31/05/11 1:45 AM, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote:On 05/30/2011 08:38 AM, Gianluca Turconi wrote:Hello Alex, In data 30 maggio 2011 alle ore 11:41:51, Alexander Thurgood <alex.thurgood@gmail.com> ha scritto:Ultimately, it is not merely the remarks that Michael made, that I may, or may not, have misinterpreted. As I mentioned, it transpires from other mailing lists, the dev irc channel, the bug reports, the decisions to consider any given bug as a stopper or not.I've lurked this specific argument in the dev/steering discuss/French mailing lists when you were commenting Meeks's statement. Now, I'm working with other people on this project: http://www.mail-archive.com/projects@libreoffice.org/msg00241.html During a lengthy and indeed very interesting discussion with Italo Vignoli, Andrea Pescetti and others in the Italian discuss mailing list (for people who knows Italian: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss@it.libreoffice.org/msg00104.html ) , I finally wondered: will the relashionship between the Community LibO *product* and the commercially supported ones (Novell/Canonical/Red Hat/put-here-your-preferred-corporation) be like the relationship between Fedora Project Linux, a cutting edge and less stable version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a very solid and corporate oriented linux distribution based on Fedora? I haven't a sure answer yet, but Andrea Pescetti pointed me to these Meeks messages: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/011424.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011153.html and to the extremely important "Breathing Master" discussion here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-May/thread.html Those comments and discussions + yours + the relatively scarce news I know about the LibO/TDF new business model based on paid certification for support corporation, let me think that a Community Libo "cutting edge" product is here to stay and may be a part of that business model. Well, *if* it's so, I'm simply not happy of such solution. It creates a viable open ecosystem around LibO, for sure, but undermines the proverbial rock solid stability I always experienced in OOo. Just my 2 eurocents, of course. ;-) Regards, GianlucaI am no longer a programmer, but as a former business programmer: Make ALL functions work as advertised! I had to make every option work properly and "exactly" like it was wanted, or I get "bad news" from my bosses. I even had to do such exact validation of input, I had to figure out every possible value that would be used as input for the entered fields. That is easy for things like date and time but not so easy with number values. But I was expected to have it completely working the first time it is use and every time it is used. So we need to have a very stable package, and then need to have a cutting edge package off that, for those users who want to choose. The issues with Impress that have been reported in the lists make me wonder about what is in the package that makes it work sometimes and not on others. Those type of on/off issues are hard to predict and test for. I know that there are people out there scratching their heads trying to figure out what is the problem area of the code that need to be fixed. But it will be fixed in due course. I have not tried RC2, but I am told there are a lot of fixes and new stuff in that version. As a "cutting edge" product, we keep adding new and better features the product. As a "stable" product, people keep fixing the issues till everything that can be fixed is fixed "before" the new options are added. Most business models, that do not deal with money or critical data, tend to be somewhere in the middle between those two product development "styles". As an Open Source software package, any business development team can do their own work to fix issues that come up with their use of the package. What I would like to see is a dialog between those business people and the people who are working on LibreOffice for TDF/LO. This would need to be a two way dialog that lets TDF know what issues are out there and what they have done [or want done], and then have TDF people respond about what is being done on their end. That way if there is a fix already made, the business people could get the revised code or maybe a compiled package with those issues fixed. TDF/LO needs to be a part of the process so no matter how fixes the code, all users will benefit from those fixes. Also, with the constructive dialog between business development teams and TDF/LO development teams, it would be better in the long run for keeping good opinions about LibreOffice by the corporate/ business users.We have been a business user of open source software and especially OOO, LO from way back before it was open sourced. Possibly there is a difference in expectations. Managing use of products such as LO is different from commercial software. With commercial software you pay the vendor to manage your updates, you rely on check for new software - update. With LO and other open source software it is the responsibility of the IT manager to decide which snapshot of the rapidly changing and improving software to implement in their business. We use a mix of Suse linux and Windows, Suse seem relatively reserved in their updating and their package management tends to produce fairly stable results, not leading edge. I also stay a couple of versions behind so I can research potential advantages/disadvantages before updating. For business I would use package and update management of LO from Suse to ease my job. For most recent home use where I can tolerate some more faults I might use the installations from the LO site for the most recent advances and to test benefits against cost of updating. So as a business user I would expect to pay a little more for the managed packages and receive a little more, and am quite happy with what I receive. I believe the branded versions of LO are advantageous to the advancement of LO, adding credibility and stability. I think the Fedora, Suse, Ubuntus a doing a valuable service to LO. The difficulty comes with the Windows users of LO. There doesn't seem to be a commercial enterprise championing a windows version of LO and so the windows users need to asses each community release of LO as to its being fit for their purposes. For businesses that comes down to the IT manager checking each release, monitoring bug reporting, trying the release, before rolling it out. This is my approach for our Windows PC's not using Suse. I recollect the saying "free as in beer or free as in speech" A beer you didn't pay for was not free, it cost something to make and someone else paid for it. steve
We Linux users have long ago looked beyond what everyone else tells us what we MUST use and have found out that there are alternatives out there that we feel could be better for us than what MS tries to feed us.
For Windows users, if there is a crash then their who system could crash and burn. That has happened to me before. With Linux, if a package crashes, the system does not crash. When running Windows, I had to search and test so much software that would work for me but would not cause issues with the other packages running in that Windows environment. I had too many problems with software not wanting to "play nice" with the other software.
So, that is one reason I agree with you. If you use Windows, you need to do much more work to make sure the package will not mess up your system. With Linux, there are less chances for that to happen. The idea that if you have to pay big bucks to receive a copy of the software, then it much have been worked on, tested and de-bugged, and made to work the way you need it to. Then you get the other extreme of if it is free, it must not have been worked on, tested and de-bugged, and may to work the way you need it to. We are taught that from the time we could handle our on money. "You get what you paid for" is the lesson we are taught.
Now as the open source market grows and grows, we are coming to realize that there are free packages that are just as good, or even better, than the high priced paid packages. Now we have to decide for ourselves what works for our needs and the needs of the people we work for.
You decide that you want the best package and the most stable one to be the same package. That is what we are all looking for when we have people above us to tell us that we are responsible for the software to work and not cause their businesses any problems. It does not matter that someone is using it totally wrong and try to make it so something it cannot. We are always to blame. I was fired from a job for spilling coffee all over a keyboard and the tower of someone office computer. The fact that I cannot stand coffee, so I would not have a cup of it, let alone spill it, does not matter. It was not the idiot who had fresh coffee stains on her blouse and skirt. No it was the IT guy's fault. It has to be his fault. Everything that is wrong with the computers is his fault.
So we all must make sure everything we tell our bosses that they need to use, must work 120% of the time and work in ways it was not advertised to work. We need it to work, or we do not work.
That said. . . . .What we use for Windows business systems have to be tested out 5 to 10 times more than what is used for Linux business systems. That is the nature of the systems. Windows have more things that could go wrong, and more ways to crash your systems. Linux systems are safer for crashes and from the nasties that were designed to mess with Windows systems.
Business systems need the most stable packages and cannot be on the "cutting edge" for software packages. You just cannot risk it in you business systems. Since most of these systems are using Windows, you have to be more careful as well, over the Linux business system software. Linux tends to be safer and work better than the "exact same package" does using Windows OS.
ramble, ramble, ramble. to tired to think straight. maybe tomorrow I will be able to say it better. my head hurts too much right now to thing straightly on this subject.
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