[libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging users: initial results of the survey

On 11/11/13 1:18 PM, Paul wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:33:43 -0700
> Ken Springer <snowshed1@q.com> wrote:
>
> > What I didn't like was being told my issues were not important.  BS!
> > It's important to me.
> If it's important to you, you can fund a developer to work on it for
> you, or work on it yourself. If not, then unfortunately the developer is
> doing this for his own reasons, and gets to choose what he wants to
> work on. Obviously it makes sense for developers to listen to the users
> and work on what the majority of users think is important, but a) they
> are not actually obligated to do so, and b) don't assume your issues are
> everybody's issues.

True, but it also goes back to the question of "What do you want LO to 
be?"  You'll read where people want LO to be a "viable alternative to 
MSO".  From the dictionary program that comes with OS X 10.8 Mountain 
Lion...

viable |ˈvīəbəl|
adjective
capable of working successfully; feasible:

"capable of working successfully"...  Does that not mean things work, 
and work correctly?  I'm not speaking of more complicated and 
sophisticated features, such as master documents with 500 pages.  For 
that, IMO you should use a DTP program, that's what they are for.

But, basic things should work right.  In my list I have here, but have 
not tested in 4.x.x, PNG graphics did not print correctly, label 
printing was messed up, graphics resizing didn't seem to make logical 
sense (related to but not the same as the aspect ratio question I posted 
about in another thread).  Sometimes, just simple useability issues, 
boiling down to having to redo things over and over when you 
reorganized/reformatted.  I've got a note here about the "mailto: 
subject line" that I honestly don't remember what that note is about.

One note about table borders not behaving properly.  After you start out 
with a table of X by Y cells, and you then added, deleted, merged, split 
cells, borders no longer were aligned.  You could end up, as I did, with 
a border that looked something like this"

|_____________|----------|=========|_____________|    <------  The "=" 
signs should be sitting on the baseline for a better idea, but I hope 
you get the idea.  In the equals example, border thickness was not the 
same, even though the dialog reported the thickness was the same.  I 
never had Word give me that border result in a table.

15 years ago, those would be cutting edge features.  Today, they are 
standard features that should work.

True, it's open source, developers can do what they want.  But, if that 
is the desired perspective, then drop the word viable and any hint you 
are "equal".  Simply say LO is an option that "may" work for you.

> > Let's say you have a car, and every 4th time you go to use it, it
> > won't start.  You take it to your mechanic, and each time you do, he
> > tells you "it's not important, he's got bigger problems to solve".
> > Are you going to continue to take it to that mechanic, or are you
> > going to find a different mechanic?
> What if the mechanic has too much work just dealing with peoples cars
> that won't start at all? Should he drop all that and deal with your
> issue? Why?

No, but the quality mechanic says "I'm booked up for a month, if you can 
wait that long."  Then he'll fix it, he won't ignore you.  That gives 
you the option of waiting or finding a new mechanic.  In LO's case, you 
wait for the bug(s) to be squashed, or you go elsewhere.

I really do like the idea of open source software, but things have to 
work.  I have things I want/need to do with the computer, as do others. 
 As I said, I only expected to be put in the queue, like the quality 
mechanic, and have the bugs fixed.  But going on two years?  I don't 
think so.  :-)  I'm only still here because I've not found a complete 
replacement.  And LO has lost a supporter, as you can tell.

> This depends on the severity of the issues you are bringing up, and as
> I don't know the issues you have raised, I cannot speak to that, I'm
> just pointing out that so far you are not making a strong case for why
> your issues were important, only that you don't like being told your
> issues are not pressing. Nobody likes that, but sometimes it's true.

I think the hard question to answer from the developer side is, what are 
the ramifications of taking that view?  How many possible users have you 
lost/do you possibly lose because the issue the developers think is 
minimal results in that user telling others to not use/consider LO?

If they aren't asking that question, they should be.

> > Regardless of product, if the vendor/supplier/developer tells you
> > that your issue is not important, will you use that product in the
> > future?
> I would just like to point out here that people love to complain about
> open source not solving their pet issues promptly, but few of them have
> actually tried to get issues solved in commercial products. I have. And
> just because I paid for the software is absolutely *no* guarantee that
> my issue will be attended to. Commercial software is just as likely to
> tell you your issues are not important. It depends on the product, for
> sure, but this is not always about open source vs. commercial, or even
> necessarily about any particular product. More often than not it is
> users thinking that because it is open source, and they actually have
> access to the developers to post bugs to, that this means their bugs
> automatically must get attended to, and if the developers respond with
> "Sorry, we're too busy working on things lots of users want. Your
> issues just aren't important right now" then they are being personally
> insulted. They assume that for all commercial software any issue they
> post will immediately get seen to, and because open source doesn't work
> that way, it is not good enough. Unfortunately this just isn't true of
> commercial software.

I've actually had better results, in the commercial software realm, with 
smaller vendors.  They seem to be more interested in problems you find 
and seem to be more willing to fix them.  To some extent, the same with 
small freeware/open source products.

But with the issues above, most of those were never an issue with Word. 
 A couple I didn't have a need for in Word, such as printing PNG 
graphics.  The PNG format may not have even been available.  :-)

> Not saying you are saying this, I just wanted to point this out because
> I see it a lot, and your email didn't actually say that this wasn't the
> case for you.

If we're on the same page here, I did say I didn't expect to be at the 
front of the problems list somewhere.   :-)

Contributing by reporting issues is all I can do for any software, but 
eventually you hope to see things you find fixed.  You find theses 
problems because they are features of a software package that you use. 
After some period of time, when things don't get fixed, you begin to 
think, "Why bother?"  It's not just LO, I use another open source 
program where a lot of users have expressed the same opinions about that 
program.  I'm on the lookout for another program there, too.  :-)

RE: my comment about smaller vendors, I've a commercial file management 
program, that I discovered had a problem.  Their primary official 
support is a volunteer, possibly a few I honestly don't remember.  After 
a few emails, and testing as requested, the volunteer forwarded the 
issue as a bug/problem.  Then I got an email from one of the developers, 
saying he could not replicate the program.  After more emails requesting 
I do this and that to see if the problem existed, the developer was 
stumped.  I finally figured out what triggered the problem, reported it, 
and the conversation ended.

Now...  Is it fixed?  I don't know, but I suspect it is, it was just a 
dialogue box not showing up where it should.  There has been a program 
update, but the primary purpose of the update was to ensure the program 
is OS X 10.9 Mavericks compatible.  I've no plans to go to Mavericks, 
I've not seen anything in the newest OS X than entices me, but I have 
seen a lot that I don't want.   :-)  Since I'm not going to Mavericks, 
no reason to update the file management software.  That being said, 
there is one feature request I would like to see added, and it's the 2nd 
most requested feature on their site.  The minute that feature is added, 
I'm upgrading!     LOL

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3


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