OpenOffice Illustrates Open Source's Limitations?

Cardbox writes "In his latest article in The Guardian, Andrew Brown asks 'If this suite's a success, why is it so buggy?'. OpenOffice, he says, shows the limitations of the open source development model. Brown is not your usual ignorant Microsoft-bribed hack. He has himself contributed macros for OpenOffice users. Brown lists the problems and assigns causes. He adds: 'If OpenOffice3.1 becomes a blockbuster... it will be because large companies such as Sun, Google, and IBM have decided that open source is the cheapest way to gang up on Microsoft, because it means they need spend nothing on support.'"

Comments

Office suites ought to be irrelevant

[Richard_J_N]

It occurs to me that, except for writing letters, "Office" applications are not as useful as people think. In particular:

  - Word processors are an uncomfortable hybrid of document formatting (better done in latex), content production (better done in html; layout independent) and desktop publishing. I've lost count of the number of times I get Word attachments which ought to be part of the plaintext in the email!

  - Spreadsheets are used mainly by people who don't understand databases! [Corollary: Access is a toy used by people who can't use Excel]

  - Presentation software is almost invariably abused to hide substance with style.

It is buggy so stop saying it isn't

[technoextreme]

I remember last year I was using Microsoft excel to record data for a physics lab. Somehow there was a major error that resulted in XP rebooting itself. Now tell me again how this stuff seems to happen to Microsoft haters. I was neutral until the dam computer rebooted itself at the most horrible moment ever.