Does anyone find this comic entertaining or amusing? Perhaps my geek cred is lacking, but when I tried to appreciate it I felt like the only sober guy in a room full of acid trippers.. I just don't get it.
Find another business model. It isn't like there is some worldwide shortage of them. Except that all the other good business models have been patented.
It's more than that. I've been using Linux since Redhat 4.something.. before that I played with FreeBSD and before that I was programming HP "minicomputers". I certainly know my way around the tech details. The thing is that's *not* what I do to earn my living. I write software..
Personally, I like not having to edit my fstab manually, or drop to a shell to mount things, or edit my cups.conf file, or edit my xorg.conf file so I can get the perfect monitor timings..
It's not just great for people who want to "dip their toes" into Linux. It's for people like me who are able to hack it, but choose to work in their environment more than on their environment.
I think you make an excellent point about the forking. In spite of what so many Slashbots say, I am never annoyed by the startup time or memory overhead of NeoOffice. Your efforts have given me ( and several other "switchers" I've influenced ) a hugely useful product that does pretty much exactly what I need and does it ver
You have my gratitude ( and my donation to back it up ). I am always amazed at how many people will try to discredit your efforts by complaining about a few extra seconds of their life "wasted" on application startup. I hope you and the other developer(s?) continue your efforts. It would be nice to someday have a native OOo OS X port, but that would really be gravy as NeoOffice has improved so much with the latest release, I don't even think about the differences anymore.
I'm a Mac user and I think iWork is a great app. But since forever OSX users have been bitching about the X11 requirement and saying "I'd use it if it were more native-like". Well, lots of developers have been working on this for YEARS and now all you can do is sputter on about how good iWork is.
iWork is still *NOT* free software. Yet, contrary to endless other threads here, the voices of OSS advocates are nowhere to be found. How odd, really..
I would like to send out a heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the OOo developers who worked so hard so that OSX geeks like me can finally share native formats with our counterparts that are locked into Windows without having to resort to OSX or other "hacks".
NeoOffice is worthy of commendation also, but I always viewed it as a stop-gap until OOo went truly cross-platform.
What if Apple introducing Safari for Windows was not about enticing people to buy a Mac? What if it was something like this...
Apple resurrects GNUStep to make truly attractive cross-platform applications using Objective-C? They release Safari as a proof of concept application. Next, they release the XCode cross-platform developer kit.
If I could develop on my Mac in something other than Java and have well-behaved non-braindead-widgeted cross-platform apps (I'm looking at you, WX), I would do it.. and I suspect a large number of us developer-types who have recently switched would do the same.
So then we have some percentage of new software written either on the Mac or portable to the Mac platform without much effort.
Yes, I know Qt can sort of already do this. But last time I checked, I had to use Visual Studio to compile a Windows port for it. That put me off a bit.
You're not going crazy.. I see the same thing on my system ( OS X ). I have to restart at least twice a day when it passes 220MB of usage. At that point it takes over a second to register a link click or respond to the scroll wheel.
So Joe is sufficiently impressed by the flashy eye candy.. Then he goes to the salesperson and say "ok.. now that I have a computer - I need Quicken ( or QuickBooks ) and... something so I can make my home movies into DVDs. Oh, and I want to play DVD movies on it too... and.. my Son wants this cool video game on the shelf here.. and my wife wants Greetings Workshop to make her own cards ( actually this one is a MUST for my wife even )"
I don't want to be the Linuxfan salesperson who has to explain that they can't do those things and instead has to steer them about 3 feet to their left and point out a flashy Windows Vista machine that can do all of those things. "oh.. and this is $60 cheaper too? Why would anyone want that Linux thing if it costs more and I can't do anything with it?"
People who are told "oh.. yeah its cool but you can't run XYZ on it (without WINE or a VM or something else that Joe would *NEVER* install)" are going to be even more turned off by GNU/Linux than if they had never heard of it to begin with.
Commercial software MUST exist before Joe Sixpack is going to buy a Linux preloaded machine. This is a chicken and egg scenario somewhat, but it's an uncrackable egg until more ISVs wake up to the cross platform revolution.
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No, and I think that's what caused the confusion. I looked back in the archives and things make more sense now.
Does anyone find this comic entertaining or amusing? Perhaps my geek cred is lacking, but when I tried to appreciate it I felt like the only sober guy in a room full of acid trippers.. I just don't get it.
All this time I thought it was Miss Right Hand. Thanks for undermining confidence in my sexual orientation! I feel so dirty now.
You have your answer.
Yes! Because books are the definitive measure of a companies stability..
Google "Enron"
If you're reading this, it means you don't deserve to win this award.
It's more than that. I've been using Linux since Redhat 4.something.. before that I played with FreeBSD and before that I was programming HP "minicomputers". I certainly know my way around the tech details. The thing is that's *not* what I do to earn my living. I write software..
Personally, I like not having to edit my fstab manually, or drop to a shell to mount things, or edit my cups.conf file, or edit my xorg.conf file so I can get the perfect monitor timings..
It's not just great for people who want to "dip their toes" into Linux. It's for people like me who are able to hack it, but choose to work in their environment more than on their environment.
I think you make an excellent point about the forking. In spite of what so many Slashbots say, I am never annoyed by the startup time or memory overhead of NeoOffice. Your efforts have given me ( and several other "switchers" I've influenced ) a hugely useful product that does pretty much exactly what I need and does it ver
You have my gratitude ( and my donation to back it up ). I am always amazed at how many people will try to discredit your efforts by complaining about a few extra seconds of their life "wasted" on application startup. I hope you and the other developer(s?) continue your efforts. It would be nice to someday have a native OOo OS X port, but that would really be gravy as NeoOffice has improved so much with the latest release, I don't even think about the differences anymore.
I'm a Mac user and I think iWork is a great app. But since forever OSX users have been bitching about the X11 requirement and saying "I'd use it if it were more native-like". Well, lots of developers have been working on this for YEARS and now all you can do is sputter on about how good iWork is. iWork is still *NOT* free software. Yet, contrary to endless other threads here, the voices of OSS advocates are nowhere to be found. How odd, really.. I would like to send out a heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the OOo developers who worked so hard so that OSX geeks like me can finally share native formats with our counterparts that are locked into Windows without having to resort to OSX or other "hacks". NeoOffice is worthy of commendation also, but I always viewed it as a stop-gap until OOo went truly cross-platform.
What if Apple introducing Safari for Windows was not about enticing people to buy a Mac? What if it was something like this... Apple resurrects GNUStep to make truly attractive cross-platform applications using Objective-C? They release Safari as a proof of concept application. Next, they release the XCode cross-platform developer kit. If I could develop on my Mac in something other than Java and have well-behaved non-braindead-widgeted cross-platform apps (I'm looking at you, WX), I would do it.. and I suspect a large number of us developer-types who have recently switched would do the same. So then we have some percentage of new software written either on the Mac or portable to the Mac platform without much effort. Yes, I know Qt can sort of already do this. But last time I checked, I had to use Visual Studio to compile a Windows port for it. That put me off a bit.
You're not going crazy.. I see the same thing on my system ( OS X ). I have to restart at least twice a day when it passes 220MB of usage. At that point it takes over a second to register a link click or respond to the scroll wheel.
So Joe is sufficiently impressed by the flashy eye candy.. Then he goes to the salesperson and say "ok.. now that I have a computer - I need Quicken ( or QuickBooks ) and... something so I can make my home movies into DVDs. Oh, and I want to play DVD movies on it too... and.. my Son wants this cool video game on the shelf here.. and my wife wants Greetings Workshop to make her own cards ( actually this one is a MUST for my wife even )"
I don't want to be the Linuxfan salesperson who has to explain that they can't do those things and instead has to steer them about 3 feet to their left and point out a flashy Windows Vista machine that can do all of those things. "oh.. and this is $60 cheaper too? Why would anyone want that Linux thing if it costs more and I can't do anything with it?"
People who are told "oh.. yeah its cool but you can't run XYZ on it (without WINE or a VM or something else that Joe would *NEVER* install)" are going to be even more turned off by GNU/Linux than if they had never heard of it to begin with.
Commercial software MUST exist before Joe Sixpack is going to buy a Linux preloaded machine. This is a chicken and egg scenario somewhat, but it's an uncrackable egg until more ISVs wake up to the cross platform revolution.