Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging Users in the LibreOffice Project

Hi Ken,

> Let's start with some general points to start with.  First, the user. 
> For most home users,  who probably are not as experienced or 
> knowledgeable of Word and LO as you and I,  the advanced features are 
> not needed.  So something simpler to use, like Kingsoft Office Free,
> are more suited to those users.
Granted, but then Kingsoft Office Free *is* serious competition to MS
Office.

There's also Google Docs, which has a fair amount of business interest,
so I think that also qualifies.

> If you want to entice people to switch from Product X to LO, you not 
> only have to be as good as Product X, you have to be a Helluva lot 
> better.
Sure, if you want to convince a large portion of the user base to
switch, but just to offer a viable alternative that's not true. To be
serious competition, you just have to be roughly as good.

> Pricing is not that important anymore.
I think it is still one consideration. As are moral issues, and trust
issues, and vendor lock-in issues. In my opinion, MS has repeatedly
shown that they are willing to take steps that are actively detrimental
to their users, so I no longer trust their products. This won't be
everyone's concern, but there are some good reasons to seek
alternatives.

> And you aren't competing with just MS Office, you're also competing
> with every other document program out there.
No, I don't think you are at all.
Firstly, your statement was about competition to MS Office, but
I think we've determined that there *is* serious competition to MS
Office. Now we're discussing how relevant LO is. And, like MS Office,
LO has its place, and that place isn't in head-to-head competition with
the likes of Lyx, Tex, Inkscape and Scribus. MS Office isn't trying to
compete with those products either.

> For something more specific:
>
>       https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44871
>       https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46986
>
> Working around these issues creates more work for the user than doing 
> the same things in Word.  Would you switch to a program that causes
> more work for you?
I'm sure there are people on this list that can site bugs in MS Office
that make certain things easier to do in LO. That's just bugs, all
software has those; the question is how many affect any given individual
person, and that will determine which product he/she finds
easiest/nicest to use. Personally I don't find that many bugs with LO,
definitely not enough to make me want to switch to MS Office.

> Then, there is this thread I started 10/29/13:
>
>       news://news.gmane.org:119/l4pbem$2ud$1@ger.gmane.org
>
>       In case the link doesn't work in your reader/email/whatever,
> the subject is "Picture size
>       controls".
>
> People who've used Word will expect that feature to work similarly, 
> since the text in the dialogue box has a very similar meaning.
Well, yes, but again, this is a difference of expectation. You can't
judge LO's ability to be a viable alternative purely based on how
exactly it mirrors MS Office. Then you're not talking about serious
competition, but about a serious *clone*.


> But it *is* important to me.  If features I use do not work or work
> correctly, why would I stay? That's why I'm looking for new
> alternatives to to LO.
This is basically saying "LO doesn't work for me, so it doesn't work
for anybody". This may be why you don't personally like it, but I don't
think it would be correct to say it isn't competition to MS Office just
because you don't like it. Plenty of people don't have the issues you
seem to have with it.

Remember, I didn't ask why you had issues with LO. I am perfectly fine
with you having a different experience to mine, and mine isn't perfect
by any means (just better than MS Office's, or at least good enough
that I prefer to use LO). I asked why you said that there wasn't any
"serious competition" to MS Office. I don't see that as a fair
statement of LO and the other good products out there.

I think we've established that LO *is* serious competition to MS
Office, as well as at least Kingsoft Office Free, and possibly Google
Docs. That said, you have enough issues with LO that you don't like
using it. Fair enough. YMMV, but plenty of people prefer it. Out of
interest, how many issues do you have with MS Office? If you started
looking at MS Office with as critical an eye as you have been looking
at LO, wouldn't you also find enough issues that you would be
frustrated and looking elsewhere?

Just a thought.

Paul

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