Watching from Redmond

Story: LibreOffice: Is Open Source Software Suite Here to Stay?Total Replies: 2
Author Content
djohnston

Jan 04, 2012
6:33 PM EDT
So, let me get this straight. OpenOffice has not had a new release in over a year while LibreOffice is plodding along, adding new features. The author contends that if, mind you, IF, OpenOffice should one day have a compelling release ...

Quoting:So now, because of a complicated — and pretty unpredictable — series of historical events, the open source channel faces the possibility that, should OpenOffice reemerge as an major office suite, users may face too many choices. And in this case, too much choice would be a bad thing, because it would spread finite resources in a critical niche too thinly.


It's the nasty ol' "too much choice" gambit again. He goes on to say,

Quoting:Bad, that is, unless you’re watching from Redmond, Wash. Microsoft, for which Office has been a huge cash cow for years, has nothing to lose and everything to gain from competition between open source office products.


[sarcasm] I'm afraid to go to the grocery store. There are too many breakfast cereals to choose from. It taxes my thought processes and consumes too much of my day. So much choice can't be good for competition. I'll bet the grocery store stockers are overworked to the point of exhaustion. [/sarcasm]

Sheesh.
gus3

Jan 04, 2012
7:01 PM EDT
I haven't told this one in a while...

In '93 I dated a Russian woman for a couple months. She was born in 1970, so she had spent the first 20 years of her life under Soviet Communism, and the following 3 years living in a society trying to figure out what to do next. I heard a story from a friend of hers, about the first time she went grocery shopping in the USA. It was supposed to be a quick trip to pick up a few vegetables, but three hours later she hadn't returned.

Someone found her, wandering the aisles, not knowing what to pick. She was overwhelmed by so many options, choices she had never had in Russia.
kenjennings

Jan 04, 2012
8:22 PM EDT
If it wasn't for the "It's been a year" declaration I would have thought the author wrote this nine months ago and has not been exposed to LibreOffice developments since then. If anything is stagnant, questionably viable, or has a dubious future it is OpenOffice.

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!