Let's have a pleasant and constructive argument.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Jul 23, 2013 11:01 PM EDT |
I haven't been a dedicated user of LO since it began and I prefered to stay with the last Sun release of OO. But, I did recognise that LO seemed to be better at opening .docx files than ApacheOO......However, last night I downloaded and installed ApacheOO 4.0 and began to use it. Fast, elegant, and the new side panels are rather nice. You can chose to keep them open or keep them closed as you wish and it doesn't affect your total active work space. As for fast, do a first startup and click on the icon, count 1 second, 2 seconds, 3.........and the software is open, running and waiting for you to write or open a file. Once it has been opened once in a session and closed, it then takes just over a second to be fully open again. Very nice. Finally, ApacheOO 4.0 is now opening .docx files very nicely and as for .doc files....beautiful. Personally, I prefer ApacheOO to LO and to be honest, I very much do hope ApacheOO gets back to the repositories of the various distros as soon as possible. It's too good not to miss I think. But, of course, each to his (or her) own. What does everyone else think ? PS......I may have missed it, but as yet, the installation of ApacheOO, even in this latest version seems to be still command line, rpm oriented. And that's a shame,.....but I guess you can't have everything. Also, this latest version doesn't do a "remove earlier version and install"......you have to remove the earlier version manually.....Still, those are minor hiccups in my book. PPS........the article suggests conflicts between ApacheOO and LO if you have the latter installed. I'm running openSUSE 11.4 and LO 3.5 When I moved to the RPMS directory in root and gave the command: rpm -Uih *.rpm it all just went like clockwork. The only whimper was with the desktop rpm specifically for openSUSE where the command line reported a conflict......however, I then backed out of command line, and just clicked on the file in the Dolphin file manager to open the Package Installer, and away it went.....no trouble. To be honest, given that ApacheOO now has virtually leapfrogged LO, I am considering removing LO. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 24, 2013 2:08 AM EDT |
My shop is using ApacheOO. It works well enough. |
| jdixon Jul 24, 2013 9:53 AM EDT |
Seriously, they're both free software, they both work, and Oracle is no longer running the show wrt OpenOffice. I'd say it's pretty much entirely a matter of personal preference which you use. |
| keithcu Jul 24, 2013 10:10 AM EDT |
Almost all of these changes came from IBM's Symphony, with the sidebar ported from Java to C++. There is no volunteer dev community around AOO, only paid IBM employees. If you think it is a matter of personal preference, please read this: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=3163 |
| jdixon Jul 24, 2013 10:45 AM EDT |
> There is no volunteer dev community around AOO, only paid IBM employees. And the vast majority of dev's working on Fedora are Red Hat employees. That makes little to no difference in the usability of the product. Preferences for the community/license involved are every bit as valid a reason for preferring one project over another as any other reason, But they're still personal preference. They're both free software. There's room for both. |
| keithcu Jul 24, 2013 5:15 PM EDT |
Actually, it is incorrect that the vast majority of the devs are Red Hat / Suse employees: http://documentfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/develo... If you saw a graph for the AOO, you'd find that >90% of the changes are paid for by IBM. There is a big difference in the health of the communities. Spend some time following the OpenOffice mailing lists or their VCS logs and you will see you for yourself. It is really a mess when one team has the community and the other team has the trademark. |
| jdixon Jul 25, 2013 6:46 AM EDT |
> Actually, it is incorrect ... I've examined the arguments on both sides of that discussion before. I stand by my interpretation of them. Others are free to disagree. > Spend some time following the OpenOffice mailing lists or their VCS logs and you will see you for yourself. Why should I do that? It's not like I use OpenOffice. I made the decision to use LibreOffice at the time of the split, and I'm not a developer. All of your arguments are still personal preferences for one type of development and one developer base over another. What if the OpenOffice developers are largely paid for by IBM? If they produce good code and it's open source, why should the end user care? |
| Ridcully Jul 25, 2013 8:38 AM EDT |
@jdixon......Couldn't agree more. I threw this thread out in the hopes I might get some serious differences, but so far, it's purely a personal thing. Each user likes the office software that they feel most comfortable with, and that really is what Linux is all about. My only wish is that OO gets back on the repository lists for all distributions; OO is now too darn good to be left out in the cold in my humble opinion. The absorption of the IBM codes into OO is also a huge tick for OO. Certainly, there are differences in the licencing, but to the end user, this makes little difference as far as I am aware. And the final thing as far as I am concered ? It's great to have a choice and that's what makes FOSS and similar software so different from "AppleSoft". |
| jdixon Jul 25, 2013 10:22 AM EDT |
> My only wish is that OO gets back on the repository lists for all distributions; OO is now too darn good to be left out in the cold in my humble opinion. Now that Oracle is no longer in the picture that could happen. A lot of the distrust of OpenOffice was actually (justified, IMO) distrust of Oracle. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jul 25, 2013 1:15 PM EDT |
I'd like to see both OO and LO in the repos. Choice is king. |
| keithcu Jul 25, 2013 3:19 PM EDT |
@jdixon: The reason why you'd follow the OpenOffice mailing lists or VCS logs is that you'd see there is no community around OpenOffice. The community has joined LibreOffice and has been around for longer, and improved the codebase and tools much more than what OpenOffice has. So what you have is one team with money by IBM and the OpenOffice trademark, and the other team with a better codebase and community. Try to consider how a merger of those resources could create something great. The OpenOffice trademark is being squandered because they are legally unable to accept the changes from LibreOffice. It isn't a problem that IBM is funding development, but it is a problem if they are building a fake community with their money, trying to confuse people into joining them rather than helping out LibreOffice. Two people rowing in one boat together will go faster than two people in two boats rowing separately. Wikipedia took off because millions of people joined it rather than creating their own specialized encyclopedia. Unnecessary forks are the enemy of progress. Here is an article by a guy who has written papers about forks in software: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=2962. All of the interesting features of AOO 4 will soon be incorporated into LibreOffice, yet all of the advancements of LibreOffice will not make it back into AOO. Therefore AOO will be behind LibreOffice. It is a bad thing when the logo and brand people recognize is not the better product! The OpenOffice brand was built by many of the same people as who are working in LibreOffice. @ridcully: It is great that the IBM code from Symphony is being ported over. But this could also have been done to LibreOffice directly. You can have choice. No one is suggesting Abiword or Calligra go away, but it doesn't make sense for codebases that are 99.9% the same to be in separate teams. Your Linux distro already has many word processors. Don't get confused by a one-time gift from IBM, it changes nothing. Most of these changes in AOO 4 were written many years ago. Why should the fact that they finally did the right thing and gave it away change your opinion of OO / LO? @Steven_Rosenberg: Choice is not always a good thing. In addition to the analogies I made above, consider if everyone who wanted to improve the Linux kernel created their own and didn't push their changes back into the core? What about users who want to use some of the features of LibreOffice, and some of OpenOffice? Don't you really want a product with the best of everyone's ideas? Each new feature makes the product better and gives you more choice. Just put all the new features in one place in one team and you will work efficiently and beat Microsoft more quickly. Microsoft would love to have two teams fighting for programmers and unable to fully share code. Microsoft would love OpenOffice and LibreOffice to go on forever. They don't have to defeat the free software community when it shoots itself in the foot. You are welcome to your opinion, but if you are on the same side as your enemy, then you should reconsider your position. |
| notbob Jul 25, 2013 5:19 PM EDT |
> Choice is not always a good thing I'd venture to say it beats no choice at all by a damn wide margin. |
| keithcu Jul 25, 2013 5:49 PM EDT |
Of course, no choice is a bad thing. This is not about getting rid of LibreOffice and OpenOffice. Perhaps I should have said "more choice is not always a good thing." |
| Ridcully Jul 25, 2013 6:07 PM EDT |
@keithcu......Ok, you appear to be a strong LO supporter. Great. I personally prefer OO...Equally great ! And that's what FOSS is all about. There is a huge impediment now to merging LO and OO, or at least in my perception. Each software package comes under a different licence and the two are simply not compatible. I suspect there is a darn good reason for IBM's merge of Symphony code into OO code and why it could not be easily done with LO - and my bet is that it's to do with those licensing arrangements. As for a "community", my guess is simply that OO's support community will grow and probably much faster than you might think. I'd also like to make a comment about your points made to Steven Rosenberg re the Quoting:one place in one team and you will work efficiently and beat Microsoft more quicklyidea of yours. Applied seriously, what you suggest would destroy every distribution. In your world, "there can be but one". To me, the biggest strength of FOSS is its diversity, its ability to try different ways of approaching the same goal. A classic example currently is the KDE-Gnome "situation". I know why Gnome was originally put together, but that original reason no longer exists and therefore, "sensu keithcu", Gnome and KDE should be merged to a single window manager/desktop environment. As far as I am concerned, don't even think of going there. I used to say the same thing about 10 years ago.....it was much later that I began to understand the need for diversity, whether it duplicates resources or not. It's one of FOSS' strength's that I believe Microsoft envies more than we will ever know.....that diversity has now produced Android, Raspberry Pi, super computers, Firefox driven window managers, .......nope, give me diversity and duplication where necessary. They lead to enormously important future goals. |
| gus3 Jul 25, 2013 6:07 PM EDT |
@notbob: You and I may agree or disagree to varying degrees, but I couldn't agree more with that statement. @keithcu: If a child of former Communist Russia(*) can learn to shop in the United States, then more choice is just fine with me. (*)not me, but someone I knew back when |
| keithcu Jul 25, 2013 6:34 PM EDT |
@ridcully, I'm not a strong LibreOffice supporter, I just think that the Apache OpenOffice fork shouldn't have been created because it is a waste of time and will hurt the OpenOffice brand. In fact, I wrote about it years ago: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=2567. You seem to believe that more choice is always a good thing, and this is simply incorrect. You assume the OpenOffice community will grow, but that is incorrect. It is in fact shrinking. If you had been a regular following of Apache OpenOffice since the beginning, you would have noticed that. For example, Eric from OOO4Kids signed on to AOO at the beginning, but since dropped out. Almost all the volunteer developers have quit for some reason or another. The AOO community is not as healthy as it might appear. Most of the changes in AOO 4.0 came from the Symphony codebase rather than being designed and built from scratch, which is much harder. This has nothing to do with Gnome-KDE or Raspberry Pi or anything else. This is about OpenOffice and LibreOffice. So you need to consider facts specific to this situation. @gus3 Again, this is not about Communist Russia. This is about OpenOffice and LibreOffice, and the particulars of this situation. If you think merely in analogies, you will confuse yourself. |
| gus3 Jul 25, 2013 6:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:If you think merely in analogies, you will confuse yourself.Too late. |
| jdixon Jul 25, 2013 7:39 PM EDT |
> The reason why you'd follow the OpenOffice mailing lists or VCS logs is that you'd see there is no community around OpenOffice. And, as a user, why should I care? From a user perspective, it's the product that matters, not the community. > Try to consider how a merger of those resources could create something great. Given the differences in their focus, it would do nothing of the kind. In that regard, allow me to quote from father down... > Two people rowing in one boat together will go faster than two people in two boats rowing separately. Not if they're rowing in opposite directions. > ...but it is a problem if they are building a fake community with their money... IBM doesn't care about the community as such. They simply want a code base they can continue to use for their commercial products. OpenOffice allows that, LibreOffice doesn't. |
| Ridcully Jul 25, 2013 10:03 PM EDT |
@keithcu.....okay, so it's a personal opinion. Fine. In your opinion that fork was bad.....But forks are NOT by implication bad.....MariaDB from MySQL instantly springs to mind. At this stage, and this is my opinion, I don't think you can say that the OO/LO forking was good or bad; only that it occurred and that it was forced by the actions of a proprietary company whose actions I personally believe were selfish, stupid and totally ignored the principles under which FOSS software develops. That's "bad" if you like. And there is one last item you forget: Darwinian selection operates very specifically in FOSS. If a piece of software is used and used by many, it survives and is improved - the community is largely irrelevant. As an example of that, consider the shift from KDE3.5 to KDE4.0 - the community went up in flames, but the move went on and is now seen to be one of the best things that could have happened to that window manager/desktop environment and KDE is one of the most widely used window managers on Linux desktops/laptops. In this sense, I am in 100% agreement with Jdixon above who puts it even more simply: "It's the product that matters, not the community". Over time, there may or may not be a community which evolves around Apache OO, but to be honest, given what Oracle did to OO, I am not surprised that OO still wears a taint. However, I believe the "product itself" is excellent and I think in a year or so, more users will come to see that as well. As regards, Raspbery Pi, etc., you missed the point that I was trying to make: the need for diversity and that is crucial to this whole debate. Diversity gives us choice, choice to use a particular piece of software above others which may do the same thing, but the one chosen does what I want the way I want it. For instance K3b and Brasero where I use K3b in preference. Above all, I do NOT want to see choice removed. That's a mainstay of our Linux and FOSS world and looked at strictly from that single perspective, the decision to fork OO and LO is excellent in my opinion. |
| fnoss Jul 26, 2013 7:52 AM EDT |
@ Ridcully I'm a little confused with your reply to keithcu. You say he is expressing personal opinion yet I've only read factual, logical arguments. For instance. You have stated your preference for AOO by saying the following ".However, last night I downloaded and installed ApacheOO 4.0 and began to use it. Fast, elegant, and the new side panels are rather nice. You can chose to keep them open or keep them closed as you wish and it doesn't affect your total active work space. As for fast, do a first startup and click on the icon, count 1 second, 2 seconds, 3.........and the software is open, running and waiting for you to write or open a file. Once it has been opened once in a session and closed, it then takes just over a second to be fully open again. Very nice. Finally, ApacheOO 4.0 is now opening .docx files very nicely and as for .doc files....beautiful. " However, you seem to be ignoring the obvious "All of the interested features of AOO 4 will soon be incorporated into LibreOffice, yet all of the advancements of LibreOffice will not make it back into AOO. Therefore AOO will be behind LibreOffice." Which means of course that everything you like about AOO is in LO. So your preference for AOO can only be in the branding right? LO 4.1 starts very quickly, now has much less dependency on another oracle owned technology (java) and has seen a massive code cleanup which AOO's "community" couldn't possibly keep up with. As for the main thrust of keithcu argument. In this situation, where AOO and LO are very much the same codebase (unlike the very different gnome, KDE technologies) there is absolutely no reason as to why they should not be merged. Unless of course you are an entity looking to divide and conqur. Just to be clear... AOO = AOO LO = AOO + LO The LO codebase *IS* the two projects merged. Its only the brand that devides the communities, what stupidity! With regard to your darwinian point. The only reason people would continue to use AOO is because they recognise the branding. |
| Ridcully Jul 26, 2013 9:09 AM EDT |
@fnoss......I note that LO4.1 has just played "catchup" (but only in a test mode) with respect to the side panels. In LO4.1, they can be turned on or off using a set of menus, rather than the very simple and elegant expand/collapse mode in AOO4.0. As regards the merging of the two code bases, to my knowledge, the situation now is that they cannot be merged. The Apache licence for the AOO code base conflicts completely with the GPL under which LO is released. Moreover, I'd be very surprised if the IBM Symphony code (now merged into AOO) can be lifted into LO "as is". My impressions are that the very different licences make merging virtually impossible. I'd guess that the two code bases will slowly but surely differ so that lifts from one to the other will become steadily impossible. My reference to an "opinion" for keithcu is with respect to his statement/opinion that the fork should not have taken place; I strongly support the fact that he's entitled to that opinion and to state it. I have no idea as to whether its ultimate effects will be good or bad, but the basic fact is that it has occurred and for quite valid reasons. Whether either or both AOO and LO survive is for the future. The Darwinian situation I have postulated remains totally intact: Linux based software survives if a user base wants that survival. I cannot see how your comment/opinion refutes that situation. We can but wait and see. In the meantime, we have two choices for an office suite and I think both are well worth considering. I prefer AOO and that's personal. Your final opinion "The only reason people would continue to use AOO is because they recognise the branding" may or may not be correct but if it is, then those people still get a very good office suite. As for your "divide and conquer" suggestion, nothing could be further from my mind. All I see are two different ways of approaching the same word-processing goal. Even Microsoft Office has that same goal although with the additional horrible aim of vendor lock-in. Duplication is very common in the FOSS world. For instance, KWord is an excellent word processor, it competes with both LO and AOO and there is no way that I would ever suggest we combine KWord with either or both LO and AOO to get rid of KWord. I haven't yet tested the speed at which LO4.1 operates, however I do know that LO4.0 takes much, much longer than AOO4.0 to load at least 3-4 seconds. My preference for AOO stems from Sun's OO3.2 and LO when that latter first came out. My recollections were that LO was quite "clunky" in comparison to Sun's OO which ran much more smoothly and so I stayed with that version of OO as a preference and finally transfered to AOO when it was considerably updated. Again, this is personal preference just as you have personal preferences as well. |
| jdixon Jul 26, 2013 9:29 AM EDT |
> Which means of course that everything you like about AOO is in LO. No. It means that everything *will* be in LO *if they choose to accept it*. The two groups have entirely different visions of what they want their product to be. It's extremely likely that OO will eventually diverge enough from LO that changes won't get incorporated. > The only reason people would continue to use AOO is because they recognise the branding. The reason people would continue to use OO is because they choose to. Their reasons are immaterial. It's their choice to make, not yours. |
| fnoss Jul 26, 2013 2:20 PM EDT |
@Ridcully
That was a very well thought out post. I wouldn't say I agree with all of it though you've made some fine points. Thank you for taking the time to respond. @jdixon > No. It means that everything *will* be in LO *if they choose to accept it*. The two groups have entirely different visions of what they want their product to be. It's extremely likely that OO will eventually diverge enough from LO that changes won't get incorporated. Yes they will diverge. However, the core features of an office suite are very well established and will very likely remain the same in both variations. The interface is a different matter, so I agree. Its just I don't quite understand why people would pick the weakest evolutionary path? Its clear that the vast majority of mind share is with LO and thus bug squashing and development. > The reason people would continue to use OO is because they choose to. Their reasons are immaterial. It's their choice to make, not yours. Sure, I was not trying to make decisions for others. I'm not that arrogant. Though I do like discussion, especially in a forum and I'm aware that people make irrational decisions that they otherwise wouldn't if they were in possession of all the facts. Its all a learning process. |
| jdixon Jul 26, 2013 2:33 PM EDT |
> ...and I'm aware that people make irrational decisions that they otherwise wouldn't if they were in possession of all the facts. People make what you and I might consider "irrational" decisions even when they are in possession of all the facts. :) |
| Fettoosh Jul 26, 2013 2:55 PM EDT |
This is really a good debate and I like to inject my opinion. Like always, I believe the major reason for the strength of FOSS is its rapid fast evolution driven by its openness. Openness creates duplication and consequently multiple choices are made available. There is nothing wrong with that because users of software, whether open or closed, want choices to select what fits their needs and preferences. That is not a drawback and doesn't harm FOSS just like it doesn't harm closed software in its user's perspective. On the contrary, it creates more competition, which results in better quality and less expensive software. I am for keeping both AOO, LO and Calligra (KOffice). By the ways, Side Panels were first implemented by Calligra and happens to be a good move since many people like it. I just tried installing AOO on Kubuntu (they do have .deb files). Installation failed due to dependencies. I am not sure what they are but that is not good for AOO. I also updated to LO 4.1 and seems pretty good. In terms of being test version, I don't believe that is the case. The only problem I had was icons created automatically in the classical menu were not launching. I disabled "Launch Feedback" and now they work without a problem. By the way @Ridcully, you can disable showing Side Panel for different elements individually by going to View => Toolbars and deselect any element type you don't want Side Panel to be displayed. In terms of speed of launching, I couldn't test AOO but I can say LO4.1 is about the same like LO 4.0, which is faster than AOO 3.x. Any ways, speed is relative and depends on the hardware resources available, DE, OS, and other software. besides, what is so important about cutting few seconds at launch time, I personally don't care as long as it is fast when working with the application. If that is so important to some, no harm in keeping it open all the time. Edited: About divergence, it is not a problem as long as both stick to and fully comply with the ODF. |
| Ridcully Jul 26, 2013 6:07 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh.....I'm responding to just one of the important points you make above in this response: "I am for keeping both AOO, LO ...". Me too. I was contemplating removing LO and then thought: Nope ! Each of these programs is already differing so much in some of their software, especially their filters for Microsoft's corrupted (in the sense of altered to give vendor lock-in) file formats that it is worth having both to check sometimes on whether or not an Office file can be opened better in OO or LO. And of course, if I don't have both and use them, how can I ever speak confidently about this entire thread and it's findings. I also agree 1000% with your last "edited" comment, although I cannot see either OO or LO ever diverging from that particular basic requirement. Thankyou fnoss, this has been a very rewarding and enjoyable thread as far as I am concerned. |
| keithcu Jul 26, 2013 6:10 PM EDT |
@jdixon: You say it is the product that matters, not the community but that is incorrect as both are important. Community is especially important in free software. It is who is making the product better! Where do you think these bits come from? LO will take every patch from AOO worth grabbing, which is probably 80%. In many cases, they are way ahead of AOO and so the patch isn't useful to them. The amount of user-visible functionality that AOO will have that LO will not will be extremely tiny. So how can you say there is a real difference in focus? Therefore, they are not rowing in different directions. @ridcully: It is true that the side-panel in LibreOffice 4.1 is only experimental, but that is okay, the next LO version is in 6 months, and LibreOffice 4.2 will have a more polished version, the rest of the AOO 4 features, and a bunch more new ones as well. The community is quite good already, and can easily absorb the small ongoing AOO changes. It is important to realize that this version of AOO has so many improvement because it is the first release with bits of the Symphony code. But this is a one-time gift, there are no other big amounts of worthwhile patches out there. But the fact that the sidebar is already partially integrated, and a bunch more features of AOO 4 should tell you a lot about the long-term trends. I think the previous release of LibreOffice had a bunch of features just now shipping in AOO 4. Of course AOO and LO could merge. You'd combine the money and brand of AOO and the code and community of LO. The Symphony features are being integrated into LO. Most of AOO 4 is Symphony features, and a bunch are in there already. It is true that there is a Darwinian effect: a codebase survives if the community wants it, but that isn't really what is going on here. IBM is funding this effort, there is only a very weak community. You just assume there is a good one because a bunch of paid IBM employees just shipped a bunch of features from an old OpenOffice fork of an IBM codebase. |
| Ridcully Jul 26, 2013 6:27 PM EDT |
@keithcu.......Just a quick one. Actually, as far as I am concerned with respect to your comment: "assumption that there is a good community"......I have no thoughts whatsoever on the matter. I have little or no interaction with the communities of either LO or AOO, nor have I ever had the need to search just how big or small either group is. As noted above, the community to me is irrelevant, what matters is the software package that comes out the end, whether it is developer only or developer plus community. To me, the only item of importance is the software package itself and whether it does what I want......and satisfies my personal tastes which can even include whether I like the display icons in some cases. What I mean here is that an item may be able to do what you want, but you don't like its presentation. For instance, Dr Fate's incredible Hannibal 16 car in the film "The Great Race" is certainly a vehicle in which you could do your daily shopping - but you wouldn't. (And yes, I'd almost give my backteeth to be able to drive that beastie down the main streets of Brisbane - just once, and record the looks of stunned astonishment.) As regards merging, personally I'd put more money on the concept that they will not. I've already made the point that their differing licences now make that increasingly unlikely. The other aspect too is IBM which is supporting AOO.....You have to ask yourself what IBM wants and will get out of this. Does a separate AOO somehow benefit IBM's future goals ? I don't know and as far as I know, IBM ain't sayin' ? Two years ago, I'd have said OO was dead in the water and about to vanish.....it hasn't. It all boils down to "watch this space" and it could be very interesting indeed. |
| jdixon Jul 26, 2013 6:46 PM EDT |
> You say it is the product that matters, not the community but that is incorrect as both are important To you? Obviously. To most users? Not so much so. > LO will take every patch from AOO worth grabbing, Have you ever heard the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure"? What is and is not worth grabbing is extremely subjective. |
| keithcu Jul 26, 2013 7:25 PM EDT |
@Ridcully: The community might feel irrelevant to you, but that is a mistake, they are the ones producing the bits, triaging the bugs, creating the bitmaps and documentation, doing the marketing, arranging the conferences, maintaining the wiki, etc. Even if you don't personally interact with it, they are very important. As for the software package itself, in general, you should find the LO 4.1 product to have many more features than AOO 4. If you go through the release notes for 4.1, 4.0. 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.3, you will see how massive it is. You might not bet that they would merge, but I don't worry about what is likely, only what should happen. Part of the reason you think they won't merge is because too many believe like you that these two products are a good idea. If a lot more people believed that AOO was hurting the OO brand, and it is only paid IBM employees, then the merge would happen. It is incorrect that the license prevents the merge. They would have to resolve it, but that is just one of many things to resolve. They could figure it out. I wouldn't worry about "what IBM wants." They are too big of a company to have any coherent vision about a free office suite. What matters is what Rob Weir wants, as he is the main guy at IBM who is running the AOO project. What he wants is to get everyone to join his project. Whether his project should even have been created is a topic he hasn't given enough thought to. He also hasn't thought much about how he would merge with LibreOffice. The reason why OO hasn't vanished is because IBM is propping it up. Only two years ago AOO started, you thought it was going to vanish immediately? IBM doesn't fund a project for just two years. I suspect once the LibreOffice brand has been built up bigger than OpenOffice will they finally merge (i.e. when it no longer matters anymore.) Of course we watch this space, we are all only bystanders. However, I prefer to not so casually be willing to sit back and watch as the free software community shoots itself in the foot and wastes time rebuilding brands from scratch and wasting tons of resources by working separately and inefficiently. @jdixon: I know most people don't care about the community, but they should, and people who care about Linux should also. Everyone on this website should care a lot about community! Yes, I've heard of that phrase about how one man's trash is another's treasure. Unfortunately, it doesn't really apply to here. In general, most of the features listed in the AOO 4 page are clearly valuable to LO, and so most of them will be integrated, many already. For example, find a feature you'd think AOO 4 has but LO wouldn't want. Can you find even one example? |
| Ridcully Jul 26, 2013 8:42 PM EDT |
@keithcu.....I hear you loud and clear on the community and I'll accept your position, but in strictly practical terms, it makes little or no difference to me as an end user. I can't resist this though:Quoting:wastes time rebuilding brands from scratch and wasting tons of resources by working separately and inefficiently. Ummm.....Gnome/KDE/Trinity.......MySQL/MariaDB.........K3b/Brasero........Dolphin/Konqueror......Evolution/KMail.....Firefox/Chrome........Frankly, it's what we do in FOSS.....and it creates diversity, health, innovation and progress. Like I said above, I suspect Microsoft sits back in envy over how all these duplicated cells produce so much true progress. |
| jdixon Jul 26, 2013 11:00 PM EDT |
> I know most people don't care about the community, but they should... Should they? They don't seem to think so. And I don't think your case is good enough to prove them wrong. Which puts us right back to where I started, personal opinion. > For example, find a feature you'd think AOO 4 has but LO wouldn't want. Can you find even one example?Simply put, you're wrong about that. How many times do I have to say that I use LO and not OO? I have no interest in OO. And my only interest in LO is that I do need to open Word documents and Excel Spreadsheets on occasion. Just because I think other people should be free to use what they want doesn't mean I prefer OO or think it's better. |
| keithcu Jul 26, 2013 11:33 PM EDT |
@ridcully: The community makes a massive difference to you as a free software end-user, you just don't think about where the product come from. It isn't from a stork! Most of those examples you list are not brands that people care about. No one installs Gnome, only a Linux desktop. K3b / Brasero all have tiny brand recognition. The OpenOffice brand was very valuable. It would be even more valuable today if the LibreOffice team was the steward of it. Diversity is a good thing, but not with this fork. Forks are great sometimes, but not this time. Sometimes it is okay to shoot someone (if there is an intruder in the house with a gun pointed at your family) but that doesn't mean it is always okay. @jdixon: People should care about the community, especially in the realm of free software, because they are the people building it. It is not my personal opinion that the community builds free software, this is a fact. You say one man's trash is another man's treasure, so I was wondering what are some examples of this analogy in the context of AOO vs LO. If there aren't any, then your analogy doesn't apply here. |
| fnoss Jul 27, 2013 7:14 AM EDT |
@Ridcully, jdixon Maybe defining a difference between community and no community might help in this case. Control of the AOO project ls directed and enforced by paid peers with one goal - to implement their employers wishes. This is not an entirely bad thing however, it does bring about some fundamental insecurities. 1. Due to the Licence, IBM can decide at a whim to close source their development efforts. Suddenly, anyone who was using AOO as their go to "FOSS" office suite find themselves forced into an ecosystem not much better then MS Office. The lack of community in this instance is the only reason why this scenario can come about. I'm not saying it *will* happen however, we know that with community driven ecosystems, this problem cannot possibly happen. 2. IBM can just decide to drop development of the software and leave it to rot. Again, if AOO was your go to FOSS office suite, this could cause you huge problems. Imagine if LO and AOO had significantly diverged. How much relearning would you need to do in order to use LO effectively? Again, this scenario could not possibly come about in a community driven situation. Considering LO is 95 - 99% the same as AOO, wouldn't it be better to back the technology, and thus your future sanity on the technology and community which you *KNOW* cannot suffer from the problems listed above? To me, choosing AOO over LO is like choosing A slightly more comfortable car over a *far* more reliable one for a very long journey. |
| Ridcully Jul 27, 2013 7:53 AM EDT |
@fnoss (and keithcu looking on). When in doubt, go to the horse and check the mouth directly. So I did and went straight to Apache's site for OO: http://www.openoffice.org/ Now.....on the side news bits is this: Quoting:Volunteers, not Amateurs 8 January 2013: Apache OpenOffice is developed 100% by volunteers. Apache does not pay for developers, for translators, for QA, for marketing, for UI, for support, etc. Of course, we're happy to accept donations to the Apache Software Foundation, to keep our servers runnings and for similar overhead expenses. But our products are developed entirely by volunteers. and the above in turn leads you to this link: http://www.openoffice.org/why/why_volunteers.html This sounds awfully like a community of volunteers to me......There's other links as well to mailing lists etc., but all of this strongly suggests that the Apache OO community is running nicely, thankyou, whether they lose some members and then gain others etc. I'll say it once more: If there is a need for OO, it will survive......if there isn't, it won't. And the same applies to LO. And as always in the world of FOSS, you have the freedom of choice and your own opinion on the matter. And that includes freedom to use whichever word processing office suite you prefer. Your reasons for doing so may be yours alone, but that's freedom - as well as freedom to take the consequences, isn't it ? PS......I nearly forgot. I tried to install LO4.1 this evening and found that the download is defective. The relevant rpm package for installing the menu links is absent. So I returned to LO4.0 which installs and runs nicely. And for a .docx file recently sent, it made a better fist of rendering it than AOO4.0......all of which shows you really should have BOTH of these software packages. I've found this with other "duplicates" like VLC and Xine......sometimes a dvd cannot be opened in VLC, but Xine can handle it........and vice versa. So as far as I am concerned, there is always a place for LO, it's simply that it is not my choice for normal workspace activities. |
| notbob Jul 27, 2013 8:07 AM EDT |
I choose LO! One reason is, there's an astonishingly good tutorial website for it. http://www.thefrugalcomputerguy.com/vtOfcSpreadsheet.php I usta be pretty good with M$ Office, but have forgotten all that stuff, having retired 15 yrs ago and moved to Linux. Recently needed to re-learn spreadsheets, installed LO, and found this guy. Most tut vids are indecipherable, but this guy is clear, concise, and provides necessary info. Highly recommended. |
| Ridcully Jul 27, 2013 8:21 AM EDT |
@notbob.......That's a remarkable tutorial set for all aspects of LO......one assumes that they would flow pretty well to OO as well. I haven't had a good look at it, but if the titles are anything to go on, I can see I'd better take a peek in detail. Thanks notbob. |
| fnoss Jul 27, 2013 10:57 AM EDT |
@Ridcully Forgive me for trying to drive this point home relentlessly. I have not suggested that Apache funds the developers, only IBM. Please see the original incubator project proposal below. mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/201106.mbox/raw/%3C4DE65D8F.8060002@oracle.com%3E/2 It states: >Reliance on Salaried Developers The initial group of developers will be employed by IBM, Linux distribution companies, and likely public sector agencies. Localization resources are expected to gravitate to the new project, as well. Ensuring the long term stability of OpenOffice.org is a major reason for establishing the project at Apache. Seemingly, as it stands now (i could well be wrong) there are no Linux distributions companies or public sector agencies funding development. The vast majority of developers still contributing are paid IBM employees and some (few) Apache members. This does not appear to be a community driven effort and therefore is subject to the fundamental insecurities I listed previously. Anyway, time for me to leave this one alone else I might rightly be labelled a very annoying git ;). |
| Fettoosh Jul 27, 2013 12:21 PM EDT |
Quoting:Diversity is a good thing, but not with this fork. Forks are great sometimes, but not this time. Sorry but I have to disagree, especially in this case. If it wasn't for the fork by LO, Oracle wouldn't have passed on OOo to Apache group and make a better AOO. Quoting:Apache OpenOffice is developed 100% by volunteers. Apache does not pay for developers, for translators,...This sounds awfully like a community of volunteers to me... Of course Apache group isn't paying them, but the possibility of these volunteers being IBM paid employees is highly possible. So the possibility of IBM closing AOO code or letting it rot mentioned by @fnoss is also very possible. Quoting:I nearly forgot. I tried to install LO4.1 this evening and found that the download is defective. @Ridcully, I downloaded LO4.1 deb packages the other day and worked flawlessly. The only hiccup was the link in the menu used to launch LO didn't work but launching from console terminal did. That led me to investigate the icons in the menu. I had to deselect "Enable Launch Back" . If you are interested I could send you details on how to create menu links for LO in KDE. You can run LO from Konsole using libreoffice4.1 --writer %U libreoffice4.1 --impress %U libreoffice4.1 --calc %U |
| keithcu Jul 27, 2013 2:30 PM EDT |
@ridcully: Yes, the OO website says it is built 100% by volunteers. But guess what -- that is not the case! Don't trust everything you read on the Internet. LibreOffice has a great community and so AOO pretends they have a real one too to convince naive new people to join. Most of the people doing development right now are paid by IBM. So not only is the 100% not true, it is far from true. I agree that the website and the wiki make it look like the AOO community is running nicely, but that is only when you take a quick glance. Most of the wiki came from Sun / Oracle. Setting up mailing lists is easy, getting lots of people to contribute is another. Reading the mailing lists tells you a lot more about the health of a community than simply that they have them. I'll say it again: AOO could also survive for years because of IBM money and propaganda, not because there is a real community behind it and there was interest in LibreOffice for the community to create another fork. The fact that you think you found bugs doesn't mean you should have both software packages installed: 1. LO 4.1 has many improvements beyond what AOO has 4. AOO 4 is almost like using LO 3.3. Go and read the list of features for LO 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and 4.0 to see what you are missing. 2. When you use a feature in LO 4.1 that doesn't exist in AOO 4, what happens when you try to load a document depending on it in the other product? What you'd need to do is only use the features that work in both. Having two products might seem to help you, but it actually limits you. 3. If one team is improving a codebase 10x faster than another, do you really need the slow one, especially if the faster can also copy any of the slower's improvements? @fettoosh: I never said the LO fork was a bad idea. I am talking about the AOO fork being a bad idea. Not only is it possible that many people are paid by IBM, it is also true. Note that no one officially mentions their affiliation on the Apache OO mailing lists because if people saw how many were IBM employees, they'd realize how much of a lie it is that they are built 100% by volunteers. Their lies beget more lies. |
| jdixon Jul 27, 2013 4:03 PM EDT |
> People should care about the community, especially in the realm of free software,... Whether they should or not, most people don't. > so I was wondering what are some examples of this analogy in the context of AOO vs LO. If there aren't any, then your analogy doesn't apply here. The analogy applies anywhere there are subjective values. Are you arguing that the comparisons of LO and OO aren't subjective? > Maybe defining a difference between community and no community might help in this case. Only if it matters to the end user. I believe it's been historically established that it doesn't. > Sorry but I have to disagree, especially in this case. If it wasn't for the fork by LO, Oracle wouldn't have passed on OOo to Apache group and make a better AOO. Pretty much, yes. That downplays the involvement of IBM in the matter though. |
| Fettoosh Jul 27, 2013 5:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:I never said the LO fork was a bad idea. I am talking about the AOO fork being a bad idea. Sorry, It wasn't clear to me what you meant, but the fact is, LO is a fork of OOo and AOO is just the continuation of OOo not a fork of. The only reason that would make sense to any one or entity to fork AOO is to make a closed source version. In regards to compatibility of new features in LO but not in AOO, I don't see any reason why AOO developers can't add the same features in AOO but using their own code without infringing on LO code. And vice versa. As long as both are fully compliant with the ODF specification, there shouldn't be a problem. |
| Ridcully Jul 27, 2013 6:42 PM EDT |
May I sincerely recommend to all the interested parties who have commented on this thread that they check out this link: http://blogs.apache.org/ooo/ It is very recent.......July 23, 2013. It covers almost anything you want to know about AOO. Fans, community, plans, upgrades, downloads, open standards......etc. etc. There was simply too much for me to take in at one go. @Fettoosh....thanks for the clarification on forking. Loose application of the term can result in mistakes in understanding what another person meant to convey, but not according to what he wrote. One last thing.....given some of the comments above, my impressions are now that AOO has a large and thriving community. I realise that anything on the net cannot be held to be "absolute truth" (hence, I must be lying right ? LOL), but there would be little profit for AOO to exaggerate this aspect of community given that sooner or later the truth would come out and AOO would be tainted by its own actions. I almost begin to wonder if the best way ahead might be for LO to return to AOO......just a thought. Largely because AOO has that marvellous brand name that is so recognised. Looking back, it seems to me that the reason LO was forked from OOo, was purely a matter of rejection of Oracle's hands on the project. Those hands have been removed and there seems little impediment other than licence compatibility (and one of the writers above seems to think that can be overcome) for the two to rejoin. Why not ? |
| caitlyn Jul 27, 2013 8:00 PM EDT |
AOO is, from what I can tell, community built and has a large developer community around it. Calling out the AOO website for lying, as keithcu has done here, would need some pretty substantial evidence for me to believe it. I don't see any. I've actually had the opposite experience from Ridcully: AOO seems better at not turning MS docs to has than LO. Neither is as good as I'd like. I had to go with AOO at a gig I did recently for six months because that was the standard there. I had AOO at work, LO at home, and got to use both extensively. My personal choice now is AOO. With that and $3 you can buy a cup of burned coffee at Starbucks. |
| Fettoosh Jul 27, 2013 8:39 PM EDT |
Quoting: Neither is as good as I'd like. That won't happen unless MS wants to. MS would want to only when the market share of either AOO or LO exceeds MS Office share. It is hard to predict when that will happen but it will. I predict that LO will help make its market share exceed that of MS when it is running in pretty good shape on mobile devices (Tablets & Phones). |
| Ridcully Jul 27, 2013 8:46 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, could you re-translate the second last sentence in the first paragraph, especially the section after AOO: I've actually had the opposite experience from Ridcully: AOO seems better at not turning MS docs to has than LO. I'm not sure whether you are saying AOO is better or worse than LO in rendering MS .doc format. I know AOO is excellent with .doc format both reading and saving, but can be stumped by .docx And I've had cases where LO did a better job on a .docx file than AOO. Thanks. |
| caitlyn Jul 27, 2013 9:05 PM EDT |
Quoting: I know AOO is excellent with .doc format both reading and saving, but can be stumped by .docx And I've had cases where LO did a better job on a .docx file than AOO. ThanksI am saying exactly the opposite of what you are saying here. LO turns even a simple .docx document (like my resume) into gibberish. AOO doesn't. AOO does a much better job with .docx and especially .xslx documents in my experience. Of course, YMMV. |
| keithcu Jul 27, 2013 9:33 PM EDT |
@jdixon: If you can't find any good concrete examples, then your analogy probably doesn't apply. @Fettoosh: AOO is also a fork, as the team in Oracle was disbanded and AOO had to start from scratch setting everything up. Here is an article that explains more: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=2962 AOO can add their own code that duplicates LO features, but it is a waste of time. Wasting time is not a good way to beat Microsoft. @ridcully: I've spent time reading the AOO blog. It is great PR. Maybe you are unaware that people doing marketing don't always tell the truth, and because LO has a great community, AOO lies about theirs to confuse others and get naive new people to join in. You might have the impression that AOO has a large and thriving community, but you would be mistaken. For example, look at the list of recent code changes and you will see that all are paid full-time employees: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/log/?h=aoo/trun... I don't know who pays them all, but as far as I can tell nearly all are paid by IBM and none are volunteers. Here is what I've found so far: Rob Weir: http://www.robweir.com/blog/who-is-rob-weir Herbert Durr, Armin Le Grand: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/msg... Oliver Rainier - Wittman: http://bit.ly/14meAQE Jurgen Schmidt: http://www.linkedin.com/in/juergenschmidt Andre Fisher: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andre-fischer/33/516/620 Zheng Fan http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/User:Zhengfan Jian Hong Cheng: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jian-hong-cheng/6a/7ba/89b Lei Wang: http://www.openoffice.org/marketing/ooocon2008/programme/thu... With some of the independent people, it is hard to find out who they work for, but I think nearly all are paid or bribed by IBM. The volunteers all left! You can learn a lot more about the health of an organization by digging more deeply than press releases. I presume you wouldn't trust a Microsoft marketing campaign. @caitlyn: I'm not sure where you get the impression that AOO has a large developer community around it. Is it because of the large number of AOO 4 features that came from Symphony? There is plenty of evidence that the AOO website is inaccurate. If you knew more about Rob Weir, then you'd understand this better: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=3163#comment-53335 |
| Ridcully Jul 27, 2013 11:14 PM EDT |
@Caitlyn......now that's curious. Very. There is another aspect too......Based on what I know of Microsoft Office and the "tales of dread" that came straight to me from a Windows networking administrator at a Qld High School running Office throughout the school, his statement was blunt: What Office does on Tuesday is not necessarily what it will do on Wednesday. It's quite possible that the limited selection of .docx files I am getting are coming from someone's machine that has an unusual "Microsoft configuration"....I guess we'll never know. You have also taught this aged male a new acronym: YMMV........"Your mileage may vary". Would you believe I'd never met it before in acronym form but often in text form.....Shows very obviously I do NOT use a smartphone or pad to communicate. LOL. Thankyou. @keithcu.....my reaction is rapid and similar to Caitlyn's... I simply don't call an organisation such as Apache Open Office a liar. Marketing firms can and do stretch the truth, on that we both agree; but to suggest that Apache's subgroup itself is deliberately lying is a dangerous stance to take in my humble opinion. My take is that they simply would not. Why in heaven's name would the very highly respected Apache foundation allow a subgroup bearing its name to besmirch the parent Apache name ? Logically, I cannot see it at all. I'm very tempted to say "so what ?" with respect to the IBM engineers working on AOO. When Sun controlled OO, it's engineers did the same as well. And people have to eat. I strongly suspect if you look around, private enterprise is funding a lot of the Linux work in various areas. We don't normally see it, but private enterprise now sees enormous benefits in FOSS which they did not see a decade ago. Look at Novell and SuSE, that's another classic example. Besides, an IBM, Sun or Novell engineer may be working on something very different during the day and doing the voluntary work at night for the pleasure of it.....we don't know how many do that either. Finally, even if the IBM engineers are doing that work, it is Apache that now controls OO, not IBM. Remember too that a community does not just produce patches. A community also tests, gives feedback and works in other critically important ways. We simply do not know how many others are doing this, but I'd guess there are lots. I would also be reticent about accusing IBM of outright bribery. As regards a Microsoft campaign, no, I certainly would NOT trust it. But there is reason for that stance. Microsoft has now been shown both outside and inside the courts to be a completely unethical company which will use any method available to it to destroy competition. I don't think Apache is trying to destroy competition in the first place and in the second place, I have no reason as yet to distrust Apache. Finally, I begin to sense from your writing that you may have more than a strong personal interest in this matter ? I don't. It's purely interest in what two programs do, whether one does it better or faster than the other and whether personal choice (for whatever subjective or objective reasons) leads me to prefer one to the other. My disclaimer at this stage is that I have never worked for IBM, AOO or Apache......or Sun or Oracle for that matter. |
| jdixon Jul 28, 2013 12:43 AM EDT |
> If you can't find any good concrete examples, then your analogy probably doesn't apply. I could find dozens of concrete examples if I took the time to look, but it''s obvious at this point that you would find some reason not to accept them, If you honestly think your preference for LibreOffice is based on anything other than subjective opinion, then I don't see any point in trying to convince you otherwise. |
| Fettoosh Jul 28, 2013 10:08 AM EDT |
Quoting:AOO is also a fork, as the team in Oracle was disbanded and AOO had to start from scratch setting everything up. Here is an article that explains more: ... Disbanding the team has nothing to do with forking, would it be a fork had Oracle kept OOo and replaced the whole team? And how sure are you whether the whole team, or most of it, wasn't hired by IBM to continue developing AOO? Besides, starting from scratch is a new project not a fork. The statement from the article describes how LO is a fork of OOo not AOO. AOO is an attempt at giving OOo a chance to survive before withering away. Quoting:AOO can add their own code that duplicates LO features, but it is a waste of time. Wasting time is not a good way to beat Microsoft. The primary objective of FOSS having duplicate/multiple application is choice and not to beat Microsoft. So it is not a waste of time. Beating MS would be a pleasant bonus. |
| keithcu Jul 28, 2013 12:07 PM EDT |
@ridcully: The head of AOO is run by a liar. You might not be comfortable taking that stance, but when you learn more about a group than just scanning the PR blog posts, that is how you discover more details. I've spent many hours reading emails and such to dig beyond the surface: http://www.italovignoli.org/2012/11/thanks-mr-weir/ The reason why Apache would let this happen is because there is no one monitoring AOO. Apache is filled with many groups -- too many to watch over. Each team at Apache has its own separate culture and mailing lists and blog posts. It isn't a problem that IBM engineers are working on AOO except that they are using these features to convince unknowing new people to join in because people "assume" there must be a healthy community. The IBM employees also don't use an IBM email address, so it is hard for people to know who is paid to be there, and who is spending their time because they really believe in it. In fact, the community has mostly rejected AOO, because LibreOffice has better code and more people. So IBM hires employees to build a fake community good enough to seem convincing. You may sense "more than a strong personal interest." That is because I don't like to see brands wasted and the community waste time. If you saw people going around shooting other people in the foot, would you be so casual and just sit back and watch? @jdixon: If you could really find a few features you think that AOO 4 has that LO would never want, I would find that very interesting! I haven't found any yet, and I've been looking for them since AOO started. It matters whether they exist, because if there aren't any, then it makes the argument stronger that there shouldn't be a fork. Furthermore, the point remains that overall, LO will take all the good stuff from AOO and yet the reverse is not even possible. This is especially problematic because LO is adding features at a faster rate. @Fettoosh: Whether AOO is a fork or a new project or whatever is an old topic that I don't want to get into. If LibreOffice had been given the OO trademark, and everyone had joined their community, the brand would not have withered away. In fact it would be in better shape. Again, choice is a good thing, but not always. This has been discussed above. Forks can be bad sometimes! |
| jdixon Jul 28, 2013 1:29 PM EDT |
> The head of AOO is run by a liar. Yeah, we get that you don't like the OpenOffice team, keithcu. You've made that abundantly clear. However, like caitlyn said: "With that and $3 you can buy a cup of burned coffee at Starbucks." > If LibreOffice had been given the OO trademark Ifs and shoulds. The trademark owner made their decision. You and I may not like it, but that's what it is. The best solution is for LibreOffice to concentrate on building their own brand and outperforming the OpenOffice one. If it bothers you that much you could always start a campaign to abuse the trademark, hoping to build enough momentum to eventually cause them to lose it. I understand it's happened a couple of times. |
| keithcu Jul 28, 2013 3:23 PM EDT |
@jdixon: Don't worry about what I like, worry about what is the truth. Somebody, not me, wrote this comment on my blog: ------ "From the people at the Apache Software Foundation the most toxic appears to be Rob Weir (IBM). Read the discussion at https://lwn.net/Articles/532665/ and the comments by Rob Weir (username: rcweir). It is about a relevant issue with the code from Symphony. Instead of putting the issue to rest, Rob Weir is attacking everyone. As long as Rob Weir (IBM) is at the Apache Software Foundation, I do not see any way that the situation will get better. He is a bully and a toxic person." ------ Don't concern yourself with what I think, worry about what is going on. It is perfectly reasonable to discuss ifs and shoulds. Do you know what the situation would be like today if the teams had started from the beginning working together? Why is that not a reasonable question on a discussion board like this? The fork can end, and the teams can merge. You don't have to assume the world will be the same tomorrow as it is today. Of course, we don't have control over the fork, but if IBM were to, for example, replace Rob Weir, then a new situation could get better. You might not understand how to do the merge, but it is possible, and should happen, and may happen one day. We can change things. This is not like Microsoft where people have little control over the software. It isn't that hard to merge these teams -- the hardest part is admitting the mistake. It doesn't matter whether I "like" the current situation. What matters is how to effectively manage a brand, work efficiently, harness the community, etc. Your suggestion that I abuse the trademark doesn't sound very good to me. My goal is mostly to write things down for people who aren't following things closely and actually want to know what is going on. The best solution is not for LibreOffice to build their own brand. That is only the best one you can think of. I've been thinking about solutions for a lot longer, and there are much better ones. |
| Ridcully Jul 28, 2013 5:08 PM EDT |
This thread has become a "fight to have the last word on other people's ethics" and in my perception is no longer pleasant and constructive (subjectively and in my opinion, of course).....I'm out of here - unless of course there is a really burning, burning point I wish to make. Thankyou to all those who were able to broaden my knowledge base - I've learned quite a lot about LO, AOO and their backgrounds. |
| gus3 Jul 28, 2013 5:50 PM EDT |
@Ridcully:caitlyn wrote:I've actually had the opposite experience from Ridcully: AOO seems better at not turning MS docs to hash than LO. I think she dropped a letter. Basically, AOO is more faithful than LO to the original MS doc. |
| Ridcully Jul 28, 2013 6:12 PM EDT |
Thanks Gus3......yes. Caitlyn explained that conclusion of yours higher up in the thread. But as I also implied to her: "Hey, it's Voleware from Redmond - what it does on a Tuesday, it don't do on the Wednesday." My perception is that Microsoft has jemmied an ISO standard (hah !) of docx in such a way that ONLY Office can deal with it 100% successfully all the time.....Did you truly expect anything else ? I didn't. It then becomes a matter of luck as to whether or not the particular Office user's version is behaving one way or another. Caitlyn's AOO gets it right over there and my LO gets it right over here.....Weird......just like .docx, for which I am under the impression that there are STILL no written and complete standards. |
| gus3 Jul 28, 2013 6:44 PM EDT |
Gah, I missed it. Maybe AOO works best in the Northern Hemisphere, and LO best in the Southern? |
| Ridcully Jul 28, 2013 6:52 PM EDT |
What a novel idea Gus3.........I wonder if there's any way we could put it to the test.......My theory is that it's because there is more surface land mass in the northern hemisphere so that the southern hemisphere is unbalanced and therefore, due to the effect of the earth's wobbles in its spin, AOO drops bytes here and there in the southern hemisphere and this deteriorates .docx rendering.....while in your hemisphere, it adds bytes and this compensates for the random fluctuations induced by Redmond in the .docx format.......How's that sound ? When can we test it ? |
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