But that wasn't what I replied to. A WYSIWYG GUI for TeX would be a word processor. The AC denigrated word processors even as he said people should be using TeX. Thus, it's pretty obvious that his intent wasn't a word processor with TeX output.
I haven't got a problem with that (and have wished for it in the past; I do use TeX on occasion), but that's obviously not what the post I was referring to meant.
I've installed OOo on Windows. I've installed many other applications on Windows. I don't see what makes OOo complicated to deploy. Please elaborate.
As for group policy, yes, I can see where such organization level configuration of options could be helpful.
Lack of group policy is a big reason why it's hard to deploy.
As for traditional MS Office extensions, the IT people of many of my clients would actually like to be rid of those extensions. True, they can block such extensions, but users demand them even when not needed. To be able to say, "Sorry, that's not available" is easier than saying "Sorry, that's against policy." Nontechnical management is very good at getting the executives (who are also non-technical) to approve exceptions to policy based on technical concerns.
And when those extensions are needed, you're up the creek without a paddle.
Seriously, the guys from Neo Office [neooffice.org] don't have near the funding or man power of the core OpenOffice.org team, look what they've accomplished on "Macing it" (Macking it?).
You do know that the NeoOffice guys were soundly rebuffed whenever they tried to work with Sun, right?
.NET apps can now implement the ribbon itself using built-in components. (If you aren't writing a Windows GUI app in.NET these days, you are probably doing it wrong..NET frontend, C/C++ backend, or all in.NET--but MFC et al are way old.)
I'm no fan of the FSF, but their requirement of copyright assignation is a different deal. They promise, quite strongly, to ensure that the code remains free (under their stupid definition of free--go MPL/BSD!--but whatever). Sun wants developers to sign away rights so that they can include the code in their commercial offerings--when I tangled with Sun a little the agreement was called the JCA, it may not be now.
The FSF does a lot of things wrong when it comes to the social aspect of things, but they're pretty good about their code. Sun...isn't.
That said, I've not used Impress, but I do use Calc. My impression is that formulas act weird (in Calc) in comparison because they're not exactly the same as Excel formulas (for example, if I recall correctly, they use semicolons to separate values instead of commas). If that impression is correct, one you learn the way the new formulas work, they should be just as easy as the old ones.
Makes it hard to collaborate with Excel users, though, which is a game-breaker for a lot of people, myself included.
Disagree on the ribbon, but that's mostly my hating-change codgeriness coming through.
iWork might be decent for college students--though I pity the kid in an accounting class who's trying to use it--but compared to Word/Excel/PowerPoint (or, indeed, even OO.o Writer/Calc/Impress), it's sadly lacking.
Something like it: SQL Server with Access as the frontend.:P
Honestly, I used Base about the same as I used Access and I didn't see any significant issues with using it. I didn't spend a lot of time with it, mostly just poking around to learn about it, but it seemed more intuitive to me than dealing with Access. (And I didn't try to import an MDB, so no idea there.)
When you say "diagram editor", I think "Visio", and Draw sure as hell isn't stepping to that.
In that case, there would be no Publisher equivalent (and while I'd love to use InDesign for everything, there are times when I can't). That's not a lot better, is it?
OpenOffice 3 simply feels clunky and is slow. That's enough to make me say that Office 2003's far superior. I responded to the next post down from yours with specifics, but to sum it up: Calc sucks compared to Excel (formulas act weird in comparison, poor macro support for Office files--and yes, that's a requirement), Impress sucks (while PowerPoint presentations suck in principle, it's a really good program when compared to Impress, and that should shame the Impress developers), and Draw sucks if it's supposed to be an alternative to Publisher (it's not necessarily, but it's the closest thing in the suite).
Oh, and what I forgot below--it doesn't play with SharePoint. Not their fault, but I use SharePoint because it's a very useful piece of software, and the integration with Office is very handy.
Multiplatform: doesn't matter to me, I use a Windows machine for word processing.
PDF: I own a legal copy of Adobe Acrobat through my university. If I didn't, there's still CutePDF, etc., and they all work just fine.
OpenOffice's interface sucks (and yes, sir, I do define "sucks" as "not being what I'm used to"; tough shit). It's painfully slow even on a fast computer. This is not 2000; my word processor should not stop when I tell it to do something like print preview. OpenOffice Calc is simply not up to Excel's standards in formulas, macros, or anything else that you actually use a spreadsheet for. OpenOffice Impress (that's the name of the PowerPoint mockery, right?) is likewise just not up to par with PowerPoint. There is no Publisher equivalent (don't you dare say Draw, and don't recommend Scribus either because Scribus sucks too).
I'll admit that OpenOffice Base is pretty cool, and arguably better than Access (but Access should never be used anyway, except maybe as a frontend for a SQL server). And PDF import was useful when I lost the original of a PDF from 2002 or so. But...er...that's about it.
So does Office 2007, but at least it sucks in a commonly used and consistent manner. Me, I have a legal copy of Office 2003 (which kicks OpenOffice up and down the road so hard it's not funny) and I'm content.
Slashdot Mirror
But Rails, that's great stuff!
You'll note that Linux.com content isn't released under the GFDL...
Trivially easy to override group policy defaults? I'm guessing you don't work with Active Directory...
I don't use a thesaurus, so I wouldn't know. :p
But that wasn't what I replied to. A WYSIWYG GUI for TeX would be a word processor. The AC denigrated word processors even as he said people should be using TeX. Thus, it's pretty obvious that his intent wasn't a word processor with TeX output.
If you're using TeX and not using a word processor (which he specifically denigrated), then what are you doing but editing it by hand?
False equivalencies suck. Users already know English to communicate via those documents they're typing. Get! Out! Of! The! Basement!
I haven't got a problem with that (and have wished for it in the past; I do use TeX on occasion), but that's obviously not what the post I was referring to meant.
Interesting. Source?
I've installed OOo on Windows. I've installed many other applications on Windows. I don't see what makes OOo complicated to deploy. Please elaborate.
As for group policy, yes, I can see where such organization level configuration of options could be helpful.
Lack of group policy is a big reason why it's hard to deploy.
As for traditional MS Office extensions, the IT people of many of my clients would actually like to be rid of those extensions. True, they can block such extensions, but users demand them even when not needed. To be able to say, "Sorry, that's not available" is easier than saying "Sorry, that's against policy." Nontechnical management is very good at getting the executives (who are also non-technical) to approve exceptions to policy based on technical concerns.
And when those extensions are needed, you're up the creek without a paddle.
Seriously, the guys from Neo Office [neooffice.org] don't have near the funding or man power of the core OpenOffice.org team, look what they've accomplished on "Macing it" (Macking it?).
You do know that the NeoOffice guys were soundly rebuffed whenever they tried to work with Sun, right?
You almost certainly want Business Premium rather than Home Premium. The packaged extras are generally a lot more useful for most nerdly types.
.NET apps can now implement the ribbon itself using built-in components. (If you aren't writing a Windows GUI app in .NET these days, you are probably doing it wrong. .NET frontend, C/C++ backend, or all in .NET--but MFC et al are way old.)
Why GNU? There's a lot of code out there and a lot of projects that aren't under the GPL.
Yes, because users should learn a programming language to typeset a document.
Leave the basement for a while and take a look around the real world.
I'm no fan of the FSF, but their requirement of copyright assignation is a different deal. They promise, quite strongly, to ensure that the code remains free (under their stupid definition of free--go MPL/BSD!--but whatever). Sun wants developers to sign away rights so that they can include the code in their commercial offerings--when I tangled with Sun a little the agreement was called the JCA, it may not be now.
The FSF does a lot of things wrong when it comes to the social aspect of things, but they're pretty good about their code. Sun...isn't.
That said, I've not used Impress, but I do use Calc. My impression is that formulas act weird (in Calc) in comparison because they're not exactly the same as Excel formulas (for example, if I recall correctly, they use semicolons to separate values instead of commas). If that impression is correct, one you learn the way the new formulas work, they should be just as easy as the old ones.
Makes it hard to collaborate with Excel users, though, which is a game-breaker for a lot of people, myself included.
Disagree on the ribbon, but that's mostly my hating-change codgeriness coming through.
KOffice? Really? ROFL.
KOffice's usefulness is about the same as OpenOffice: good if you don't have Microsoft Office, but lacking otherwise.
AbiWord would be nice if it didn't crash incessantly on my machine.
I didn't say that OpenOffice should support it, I said it's a reason I don't use it.
But integration with a similar open-source software stack would be nice. If there was one.
iWork might be decent for college students--though I pity the kid in an accounting class who's trying to use it--but compared to Word/Excel/PowerPoint (or, indeed, even OO.o Writer/Calc/Impress), it's sadly lacking.
Something like it: SQL Server with Access as the frontend. :P
Honestly, I used Base about the same as I used Access and I didn't see any significant issues with using it. I didn't spend a lot of time with it, mostly just poking around to learn about it, but it seemed more intuitive to me than dealing with Access. (And I didn't try to import an MDB, so no idea there.)
When you say "diagram editor", I think "Visio", and Draw sure as hell isn't stepping to that.
In that case, there would be no Publisher equivalent (and while I'd love to use InDesign for everything, there are times when I can't). That's not a lot better, is it?
OpenOffice 3 simply feels clunky and is slow. That's enough to make me say that Office 2003's far superior. I responded to the next post down from yours with specifics, but to sum it up: Calc sucks compared to Excel (formulas act weird in comparison, poor macro support for Office files--and yes, that's a requirement), Impress sucks (while PowerPoint presentations suck in principle, it's a really good program when compared to Impress, and that should shame the Impress developers), and Draw sucks if it's supposed to be an alternative to Publisher (it's not necessarily, but it's the closest thing in the suite).
Oh, and what I forgot below--it doesn't play with SharePoint. Not their fault, but I use SharePoint because it's a very useful piece of software, and the integration with Office is very handy.
Multiplatform: doesn't matter to me, I use a Windows machine for word processing.
PDF: I own a legal copy of Adobe Acrobat through my university. If I didn't, there's still CutePDF, etc., and they all work just fine.
OpenOffice's interface sucks (and yes, sir, I do define "sucks" as "not being what I'm used to"; tough shit). It's painfully slow even on a fast computer. This is not 2000; my word processor should not stop when I tell it to do something like print preview. OpenOffice Calc is simply not up to Excel's standards in formulas, macros, or anything else that you actually use a spreadsheet for. OpenOffice Impress (that's the name of the PowerPoint mockery, right?) is likewise just not up to par with PowerPoint. There is no Publisher equivalent (don't you dare say Draw, and don't recommend Scribus either because Scribus sucks too).
I'll admit that OpenOffice Base is pretty cool, and arguably better than Access (but Access should never be used anyway, except maybe as a frontend for a SQL server). And PDF import was useful when I lost the original of a PDF from 2002 or so. But...er...that's about it.
The problem with that is that OpenOffice sucks.
So does Office 2007, but at least it sucks in a commonly used and consistent manner. Me, I have a legal copy of Office 2003 (which kicks OpenOffice up and down the road so hard it's not funny) and I'm content.
"Enjoy the choice?" Are you joking?