The problem with F/OSS office suites is that their audience tends to be uncritical, so much as in the fairy tale "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" (but in inverse), professionals have stopped listening.
I remember at least three incidents where I was instructed to evaluate Open Office, Libre Office or other F/OSS word processing or layout packages. In each instance, the F/OSS products fell short in fundamental ways, and were a total disaster for larger documents. Their main strength was that it was often easier to ex
This. I have done similar comparisons for myself many times. I used OOo way back in the beginning and have contributed bug reports to both OOo and LibreOffice. I upgraded from OOo to NeoOffice to LibreOffice Mac version. But, Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac is STILL superior so I need both! It kills me! The reason why is "LibreOffice will wreck this layout" and "which means I would not be able to share the document with other people", and also "And even simple things like bulleted or numbered outlines get scr
The reason why is "LibreOffice will wreck this layout" and "which means I would not be able to share the document with other people", and also "And even simple things like bulleted or numbered outlines get screwed up and wrongly numbered when sending from LO to MSO"!! How utterly braindead. And wasn't there a thing where "passwords are not secure so we won't implement them"? Anyway you just have to have MS Office if you want to do work in the real world, unless you can live in a
Hi, and thanks for a great comment. What have found is that there is a clear road to follow in development. Over the years a number of the issues I have submitted, mostly user experience related, are treated as enhancements, even if they are pretty important. Sometimes these get handled much later I think.
The most recent issue I mentioned about RTF and RTFD (LO can't open them but should) was picked up and treated seriously by more than one person and I am excited about that. At least, it is silly if you are
Many good points, but these two hit me as particularly relevant:
Over the years a number of the issues I have submitted, mostly user experience related, are treated as enhancements, even if they are pretty important.
Steve Jobs left us a hell of a legacy, even for Apple haters. His legacy is the idea that the complete experience is the measure of a product. That includes everything from ordering it, to unboxing, to whether it "just works" when it starts up, to customer service and its ability to stand up to daily real-world use.
I don't think this is necessarily in opposition to what we conventionally think of as good engineering, which is making the back-end of the product work efficiently and elegantly. In fact, I think these two are different facets of the same goal, but are often seen by developers as oppositional.
The real problem seems to be a lack of interest or role in the open source project development for a person or team that steers development to real business world issues and pounds on all aspects of user experience including UI, functionality, expectations, interoperability, etc. to ensure that something of high quality will be the answer.
Great summary. And yet, "real business world issues" and "all aspects of user experience including UI, functionality, expectations, interoperability, etc." are how users pick software. They want it to Just Work. When FOSS accommodates that, it succeeds. Same as for commercial software.
I remember in the early 1980s how some of the early software firms lost users. They were accustomed to getting calls from harried secretaries and businesspeople who were hopelessly ignorant of basic computing principles. They didn't like taking these calls, and so they started to retaliate by telling users to RTFM.
The problem was that then, "RTFM n00b!" (or "m0e") became the default response to all user questions or complaints. As a result, people switched to software companies with professional documentation and/or gentler tech support lines. The same thing is true for FOSS: if MSFT (or APPL) seems to care about the user more, people will pay for that.
The problem with FOSS office suites (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with F/OSS office suites is that their audience tends to be uncritical, so much as in the fairy tale "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" (but in inverse), professionals have stopped listening.
I remember at least three incidents where I was instructed to evaluate Open Office, Libre Office or other F/OSS word processing or layout packages. In each instance, the F/OSS products fell short in fundamental ways, and were a total disaster for larger documents. Their main strength was that it was often easier to ex
Re: (Score:2)
This. I have done similar comparisons for myself many times.
I used OOo way back in the beginning and have contributed bug reports to both OOo and LibreOffice.
I upgraded from OOo to NeoOffice to LibreOffice Mac version.
But, Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac is STILL superior so I need both! It kills me!
The reason why is "LibreOffice will wreck this layout" and "which means I would not be able to share the document with other people", and also "And even simple things like bulleted or numbered outlines get scr
FOSS shoots itself in foot with false claims (Score:2)
You make a really good point:
Re: (Score:2)
Hi, and thanks for a great comment.
What have found is that there is a clear road to follow in development. Over the years a number of the issues I have submitted, mostly user experience related, are treated as enhancements, even if they are pretty important. Sometimes these get handled much later I think.
The most recent issue I mentioned about RTF and RTFD (LO can't open them but should) was picked up and treated seriously by more than one person and I am excited about that. At least, it is silly if you are
FOSS needs to focus on quality of user experience (Score:2)
Many good points, but these two hit me as particularly relevant:
Steve Jobs left us a hell of a legacy, even for Apple haters. His legacy is the idea that the complete experience is the measure of a product. That includes everything from ordering it, to unboxing, to whether it "just works" when it starts up, to customer service and its ability to stand up to daily real-world use.
I don't think this is necessarily in opposition to what we conventionally think of as good engineering, which is making the back-end of the product work efficiently and elegantly. In fact, I think these two are different facets of the same goal, but are often seen by developers as oppositional.
Great summary. And yet, "real business world issues" and "all aspects of user experience including UI, functionality, expectations, interoperability, etc." are how users pick software. They want it to Just Work. When FOSS accommodates that, it succeeds. Same as for commercial software.
I remember in the early 1980s how some of the early software firms lost users. They were accustomed to getting calls from harried secretaries and businesspeople who were hopelessly ignorant of basic computing principles. They didn't like taking these calls, and so they started to retaliate by telling users to RTFM.
The problem was that then, "RTFM n00b!" (or "m0e") became the default response to all user questions or complaints. As a result, people switched to software companies with professional documentation and/or gentler tech support lines. The same thing is true for FOSS: if MSFT (or APPL) seems to care about the user more, people will pay for that.