Sorry, maybe that last post was harsh. What gets my goat isn't people reporting they have problems, but people saying they have problems and not going on to specify what those problems are. It seems that every time there's an OpenOffice article, there's at least 50 such comments. I totally believe you have unresolved issues, not trying to say otherwise.
I did say I don't use Powerpoint, so yeah, I don't know about compatibility there. To speak to your point about large reports with graphics and other such goodies: I work for an architectural firm, so our graphics are all line-drawn, CAD stuff, they convert very well. Other graphics, I don't know, maybe not so good.
Anyway, just wanted to clarify myself. Not trying to be a troll here or invalidate your experiences.
Well, I didn't mod the comment, but here's my take.
Parent came across as saying "oh me oh my, it's not what we're used to, whatever shall we do?" Reactions like that are the only reason Microsoft maintains a dominant market share. (Oh, come on, like they get by on the strength of their products...)
I wouldn't have downmodded it myself, it's not really worth wasting a point. If I had, I would have tagged it "flamebait."
Nitpicky point: There are approximately zero unpaid developers working on OpenOffice. It's pretty much Sun's show.
I do agree with the main thrust of your post, however. I personally think they're focusing on compatibility way too much, at the expense of adding features that MSOffice doesn't have, which is the real way to win an application war. Ask the Gmail team how much they worry about Hotmail.
What documents? What kind of marginal esoteric functions are you trying to convert?
I'm sorry, but I'm sick to death of this. I have used OOo from 1.14, and have never once run into a problem converting.doc files. Spreadsheets used to be a pain, but since 1.98, I've had no problems. Granted, I don't user PowerPoint, so I can't speak to problems you may run into there.
Oh sweet jeebus do I ever hate that. For instance, I was using craigslist to search for an apartment, so I sent out many many emails with the same title. And all the replies came back in the same thread. Confused the shit out of me.
Adding a delete button for me was totally key. (Yeah, a delete button on a webmail client, what a radical concept! It's a good thing we can count on users to come up with such innovative ideas!)
I use gmail because of the conversation feature, but I agree. It's not very intuitive, and once you've got more than ten messages in your inbox, the whole thing just looks like overcluttered crap. Haven't seen Yahoo Mail, so I can't comment on that.
GoogleTalk? Please... a Windows only jabber client with about 1/10th of the features of a normal client hardly qualifies as new or exciting.
Well, actually, I would call that exciting. Looking at bloatware like ICQ and MSN Messenger, an IM client that only does, well, instant messaging...I mean, who comes up with this stuff? Genius!
However, had the Nader-ites voted Dem (their closest allies), the last 5 years would have been markedly different, even if not idyllic.
Put more simply, had the Nader voters in 2000 voted for Gore, they would be happier today than they are now. Why would you vote for a "perfect" that you can't have, when you could make a difference and vote for a "better" that you actually can have? (yes, in your case, you're sorta screwed either way)
What a load of horseshit. All the "Nader-ites" did vote Democratic last year, including me. And those were wasted votes.
It's not like software engineers are reinventing fire or the wheel or something. It's (for the vast majority of cases, including Wal-Mart and Amazon) novel combinations of known programming commands, which can, in most cases, be reverse engineered anyway. You might not write exactly the lines of code that Amazon's people did, but you could make a program that fills essentially the same need.
Most of what we call "innovation" is, in fact, not. Innovation is creating something wholly new (I would say that Java is a good example of this). 99.999% of new software is combining old parts in new ways.
Ah, I misunderstood. In a way, that's already the case. Also from the wiki:
We currently make some money offering certification related services (certifying developers, administrators, applications, and hardware) as well as customisation services (you want your own distro, based on Ubuntu, let's talk). Demand for those services is growing. I'm pretty confident that I can get Canonical to break even on that basis...It's also important to distinguish between Canonical, which is a for-profit services operation, and the Ubuntu Foundation, which has capital from me, on a non-profit basis, to continue Ubuntu's work. With the announcement of the Ubuntu Foundation, I was basically saying "OK, this project has legs, I'll commit enough capital to keep the core going for a long time no matter what happens to me or Canonical". So we have plenty of time to grow sustainability around the project. If you want to help on that front, send work to Canonical next time you need something done with Ubuntu.
Ubuntu looks like it is aiming to be a for profit distro.
I'm amazed how often that rumor comes up. From the Ubuntu Wiki:
Canonical has signed public undertakings with government offices to the extent that it will never introduce a "commercial" version of Ubuntu. There will never be a difference between the "commercial" product and the "free" product, as there is with Red Hat (RHEL and Fedora). Ubuntu releases will always be free.
I'm pretty sure most people will agree, this is a straw man. Learning my Xbox controller did not make me turn into a retarded puppy when it came to my GameCube controller.
Vehemently disagree. Going to my brother's place and playing on his GameCube for a weekend does indeed turn me into a Playstation retard for at least the first few hours after I come home, and vice versa.
Lots of charities are funded by independently wealthy billionaires. See also: Bill Gates, George H.W. Bush.
Furthermore, the money that Shuttleworth has put into Ubuntu, AFAIK, consisted of $10 million in startup capital. (Yeah, it's a Wikipedia number, I don't know about the accuracy, but there it is.) A significant chunk of money to be sure, but if the number is to be trusted, he's not exactly pouring his financial resources into Ubuntu.
Further-furthermore, the man's not making a dime off it. Which is, of course, the definition of the word 'charity.'
This award was once given to the person who most affected the news in a given year. Since at least 2001, this has certainly not been the case.
This is not an anti-Gates tirade. It's common sense. Yes, the man does some great things with his money, for which he should rightly be commended. But exactly how has the affected the news in 2005? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Whether it's your cup of tea or not, at this moment, no one but no one is building the Linux user base like these guys. The inroads they've been making into what is historically a Microsoft market of end-users are phenominal, and that helps everyone.
And don't get me wrong, they'll take your money with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts, but what they'd really love for Christmas is a little of your time and talent.
I never thought of that, but now that you put it like that, I agree.
I'm a n00b to Linux (I've had Breezy for a month and a half), and that was indeed the first thing I ran into. Was it a pain in the ass that first time I had to figure out how apt-get works, and what a sources.list was? Sure it was.
But only for half an hour or so, and I walked away from it, Immortal Technique blasting from my speakers, thinking "Hey, that wasn't so hard, and damn, but there's a lot of stuff in that Universe thingy!"
Man, you've really got to read the paper more often. Saying China's still communist is kind of like saying America supports free markets. They're more capitalist than we are, for god's sake.
there needs to be the ease of use that even Ubuntu still has yet to deliver - click and it's done.
Ubuntu has it, it's called Automatix. I don't use it myself, but everyone seems to rave over it. Besides, if Synaptic is too complex for you, then you're illiterate.
And no, I don't think multiple desktop environments = Joe Sixpack turnoff. I have been a Linux user for the whopping total of one month, and I have to say that I'm not intimidated at all.
there's loads of incompatibility across the environments.
What does this even mean? Are you unable to use Konqueror or Kaffiene in GNOME? Are you unable to use Nautilus in KDE (whether you'd want to notwithstanding)?
Okay, everyone's already hacked the "not exactly open source" point to ribbons, so taking that as a gimme, let's move on.
Gaim vs. ICQ. I started using ICQ in '96 or '97, and it was a pretty good little program. There is no longer anything pretty, good, or little about it, nor has there been for many years.
Gaim is svelte as hell. Faster than greased duck shit. Leaves zero footprint. Does it all. And, from all indications, has not peaked.
You can download and use the individual suite components independently. I only have Writer installed at the office, because it's all I use. It's fast fast fast, because it's not loading up all the other components.
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed that too. I had to actually go back and check my path to make sure I was installing it in the right place.
Sorry, maybe that last post was harsh. What gets my goat isn't people reporting they have problems, but people saying they have problems and not going on to specify what those problems are. It seems that every time there's an OpenOffice article, there's at least 50 such comments. I totally believe you have unresolved issues, not trying to say otherwise.
I did say I don't use Powerpoint, so yeah, I don't know about compatibility there. To speak to your point about large reports with graphics and other such goodies: I work for an architectural firm, so our graphics are all line-drawn, CAD stuff, they convert very well. Other graphics, I don't know, maybe not so good.
Anyway, just wanted to clarify myself. Not trying to be a troll here or invalidate your experiences.
Well, I didn't mod the comment, but here's my take.
Parent came across as saying "oh me oh my, it's not what we're used to, whatever shall we do?" Reactions like that are the only reason Microsoft maintains a dominant market share. (Oh, come on, like they get by on the strength of their products...)
I wouldn't have downmodded it myself, it's not really worth wasting a point. If I had, I would have tagged it "flamebait."
Nitpicky point: There are approximately zero unpaid developers working on OpenOffice. It's pretty much Sun's show.
I do agree with the main thrust of your post, however. I personally think they're focusing on compatibility way too much, at the expense of adding features that MSOffice doesn't have, which is the real way to win an application war. Ask the Gmail team how much they worry about Hotmail.
What documents? What kind of marginal esoteric functions are you trying to convert?
.doc files. Spreadsheets used to be a pain, but since 1.98, I've had no problems. Granted, I don't user PowerPoint, so I can't speak to problems you may run into there.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick to death of this. I have used OOo from 1.14, and have never once run into a problem converting
Like "conversations" that can't be separated
Oh sweet jeebus do I ever hate that. For instance, I was using craigslist to search for an apartment, so I sent out many many emails with the same title. And all the replies came back in the same thread. Confused the shit out of me.
Adding a delete button for me was totally key. (Yeah, a delete button on a webmail client, what a radical concept! It's a good thing we can count on users to come up with such innovative ideas!)
I use gmail because of the conversation feature, but I agree. It's not very intuitive, and once you've got more than ten messages in your inbox, the whole thing just looks like overcluttered crap. Haven't seen Yahoo Mail, so I can't comment on that.
GoogleTalk? Please... a Windows only jabber client with about 1/10th of the features of a normal client hardly qualifies as new or exciting.
Well, actually, I would call that exciting. Looking at bloatware like ICQ and MSN Messenger, an IM client that only does, well, instant messaging...I mean, who comes up with this stuff? Genius!
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However, had the Nader-ites voted Dem (their closest allies), the last 5 years would have been markedly different, even if not idyllic.
Put more simply, had the Nader voters in 2000 voted for Gore, they would be happier today than they are now. Why would you vote for a "perfect" that you can't have, when you could make a difference and vote for a "better" that you actually can have? (yes, in your case, you're sorta screwed either way)
What a load of horseshit. All the "Nader-ites" did vote Democratic last year, including me. And those were wasted votes.
It's Z Magazine's website, and I'm pretty sure it predates CNet.
It's not like software engineers are reinventing fire or the wheel or something. It's (for the vast majority of cases, including Wal-Mart and Amazon) novel combinations of known programming commands, which can, in most cases, be reverse engineered anyway. You might not write exactly the lines of code that Amazon's people did, but you could make a program that fills essentially the same need.
Most of what we call "innovation" is, in fact, not. Innovation is creating something wholly new (I would say that Java is a good example of this). 99.999% of new software is combining old parts in new ways.
Ubuntu looks like it is aiming to be a for profit distro.
I'm amazed how often that rumor comes up. From the Ubuntu Wiki:
Canonical has signed public undertakings with government offices to the extent that it will never introduce a "commercial" version of Ubuntu. There will never be a difference between the "commercial" product and the "free" product, as there is with Red Hat (RHEL and Fedora). Ubuntu releases will always be free.
I'm pretty sure most people will agree, this is a straw man. Learning my Xbox controller did not make me turn into a retarded puppy when it came to my GameCube controller.
Vehemently disagree. Going to my brother's place and playing on his GameCube for a weekend does indeed turn me into a Playstation retard for at least the first few hours after I come home, and vice versa.
Lots of charities are funded by independently wealthy billionaires. See also: Bill Gates, George H.W. Bush.
Furthermore, the money that Shuttleworth has put into Ubuntu, AFAIK, consisted of $10 million in startup capital. (Yeah, it's a Wikipedia number, I don't know about the accuracy, but there it is.) A significant chunk of money to be sure, but if the number is to be trusted, he's not exactly pouring his financial resources into Ubuntu.
Further-furthermore, the man's not making a dime off it. Which is, of course, the definition of the word 'charity.'
This award was once given to the person who most affected the news in a given year. Since at least 2001, this has certainly not been the case.
This is not an anti-Gates tirade. It's common sense. Yes, the man does some great things with his money, for which he should rightly be commended. But exactly how has the affected the news in 2005? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
My nomination: Cindy Sheehan.
Whether it's your cup of tea or not, at this moment, no one but no one is building the Linux user base like these guys. The inroads they've been making into what is historically a Microsoft market of end-users are phenominal, and that helps everyone.
And don't get me wrong, they'll take your money with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts, but what they'd really love for Christmas is a little of your time and talent.
I never thought of that, but now that you put it like that, I agree.
I'm a n00b to Linux (I've had Breezy for a month and a half), and that was indeed the first thing I ran into. Was it a pain in the ass that first time I had to figure out how apt-get works, and what a sources.list was? Sure it was.
But only for half an hour or so, and I walked away from it, Immortal Technique blasting from my speakers, thinking "Hey, that wasn't so hard, and damn, but there's a lot of stuff in that Universe thingy!"
Man, you've really got to read the paper more often. Saying China's still communist is kind of like saying America supports free markets. They're more capitalist than we are, for god's sake.
-1 Factually Incorrect
there needs to be the ease of use that even Ubuntu still has yet to deliver - click and it's done.
Ubuntu has it, it's called Automatix. I don't use it myself, but everyone seems to rave over it. Besides, if Synaptic is too complex for you, then you're illiterate.
And no, I don't think multiple desktop environments = Joe Sixpack turnoff. I have been a Linux user for the whopping total of one month, and I have to say that I'm not intimidated at all.
there's loads of incompatibility across the environments.
What does this even mean? Are you unable to use Konqueror or Kaffiene in GNOME? Are you unable to use Nautilus in KDE (whether you'd want to notwithstanding)?
Okay, everyone's already hacked the "not exactly open source" point to ribbons, so taking that as a gimme, let's move on.
Gaim vs. ICQ. I started using ICQ in '96 or '97, and it was a pretty good little program. There is no longer anything pretty, good, or little about it, nor has there been for many years.
Gaim is svelte as hell. Faster than greased duck shit. Leaves zero footprint. Does it all. And, from all indications, has not peaked.
Really? Wow. I use OOo 2.0 (Writer and Calc) not-quite-daily, and it has never once crashed on me, on Linux or XP. Report a bug.
You can download and use the individual suite components independently. I only have Writer installed at the office, because it's all I use. It's fast fast fast, because it's not loading up all the other components.