And it's goodnight from him
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Jan 18, 2011 9:07 PM EDT |
Those who loved the "Two Ronnies" will know the phrase, but in any event, you get the idea. Currently, I am running the last Sun build of OO. Once LO hits the streets, it will (sadly in some ways) be "Goodnight to OO" and assuming what I am seeing is the case, my copy of OO3.2 will be archived and probably will never return. There was also an earlier article on LO mockups which I found fascinating: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/01/libreoffice-user-interface-mo... One can theorise that if LO proceeds down this path of development, it will become increasingly difficult for OO to take material from LO. Anyhow, I'm cheering on LO from the sidelines and can't wait to get my sticky little paws on their final release. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jan 18, 2011 9:18 PM EDT |
I wonder if most distributions will offer only OO, only LO, or both ... |
| tracyanne Jan 18, 2011 11:11 PM EDT |
the release candidate works fine |
| viator Jan 19, 2011 7:13 AM EDT |
I have been using OO for a long time and have set most of my family members up with it. 3.2 will be the last time i deploy it. As soon as the stable of LO is released i will be switching everyone over to it. Its sad that oracle couldnt work with the community but im glad oo was free and open or we woud be stuck. |
| alc Jan 19, 2011 12:15 PM EDT |
According to the article,new features won't be going in LO until 3.4. Is there any difference in "feel" right now? |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 19, 2011 12:26 PM EDT |
My only concern is file compatibility. If both save and read "ODF", I'm fine with it. I'll also move to LO when possible, for one of the same reasons I use Linux: Community Driven. |
| gus3 Jan 19, 2011 1:14 PM EDT |
I remember "The Two Ronnies". They were on right after "Dave Allen At Large" and right before "The Outer Limits". Ah, to be young and ignorant once again... |
| Ridcully Jan 19, 2011 5:13 PM EDT |
I strongly suspect, Gus3, that you and I would thoroughly enjoy an evening around a suitable bottle and a couple of dvds of "The Two Ronnies" and Dave Allen.......To digress, even more, my favourite Dave Allen is the progressive comedy sequence involving a cardinal being carried by four (?) attendants at shoulder level in his chair of state somewhere (you're supposed to think it's the Vatican) and the hilarious events that follow as he tries to get from one place to another, culminating in a jousting tournament. As you say........oh, to be young again - but I'd like to keep some of my experience and not make the same mistakes again. PS.....there y'go tuxchick....does that pass for a reasonable attempt to derail the procedings ? But do Gus3 and I qualify for beer at breakfast ? |
| gus3 Jan 19, 2011 5:42 PM EDT |
The funeral processions racing to the cemetery... It made me laugh hard, not good at 10:15pm on a school night. |
| skelband Jan 19, 2011 7:51 PM EDT |
@gus + @RidCully: ah yes: Dave Allen's utter contempt for the Catholic church and especially I remember a scene purported to be from Tom Jones where he and a woman are stuffing their faces with food. Glorious stuff. |
| skelband Jan 19, 2011 7:52 PM EDT |
Lest I be accused to being off-topic, may I say that I am using LO (on Ubuntu 10.04) and I find it great. Not found any issues so far. Looks nice compared to the standadrd 3.2 OO I was using. |
| Koriel Jan 19, 2011 9:10 PM EDT |
Have also switched the family to LO from OO, and also love Dave Allen the guy is up there with some of the comic greats. I'm an atheist, thank God! (Dave Allen) |
| helios Jan 19, 2011 9:23 PM EDT |
Someone enlighten me as I am to a software coder what a litter of puppies is to a Van Diesel movie. We have all experienced various levels of problems when collaborating an excel or word document between Windows and Linux. There have been times I've been requested to make changes in excel or word, saved them back to those formats and when the originator opened them, they looked like a bomb went off in the fields. What will the LO people be able to do to fix this that the OO folks could not... If anything at all? |
| tracyanne Jan 19, 2011 10:04 PM EDT |
Quoting:What will the LO people be able to do to fix this that the OO folks could not... They have access to Novell's Go-oo code base, which due to copyright issues (of Sun and Oracles making) the Oracle does not. And... the most of the main developers behind LO, if not all, are the Go-oo developers. |
| helios Jan 19, 2011 11:59 PM EDT |
If I understand it correctly, they had that when they were actively developing OO under Sun.... |
| tracyanne Jan 20, 2011 2:09 AM EDT |
@Ken, no, same copyright issues (the developers being unwilling or unable to assign copyright to Sun). Many of the Linux Distros included Go-oo code, which is why a lot of the time the Linux version of of OO.o had better OOXML support than the Windows and Mac version. |
| helios Jan 20, 2011 10:56 AM EDT |
Assign me the correct contacts and I will go and deliver the appropriate "talking-to". Never mind...Microsoft insists on presenting a moving target for all things Linux....maybe someday. All I am saying is that these core issues will seemingly never be fixed on our end. |
| jdixon Jan 20, 2011 11:57 AM EDT |
> All I am saying is that these core issues will seemingly never be fixed on our end. And if they were, Microsoft would do be certain to make sure they were quickly broken again. Interoperability is not in their interest. |
| tracyanne Jan 20, 2011 5:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:Never mind...Microsoft insists on presenting a moving target for all things Linux....maybe someday. True but there is no reason not to try. Changing the playing field has always been part of Microsoft's business model, I can't see it changing in the near future. The difference is that with OOMXL Microsoft is somewhat more constrained, not a lot (because they don't even implement it properly in MS Office), but sufficient to make it a little easier to play catch up. I think LO does, and Go-oo before did, a very good job of making Microsoft documents interoperable. I've never had any problems with any DOCX and XMLX documents I've received from Businesses, and I would suspect it's only very complex documents containing VB Script that are going to be troublesome in the main.. that means more work in making the basic interpreter in LO better able to deal with MS VB Script and work on complex layouts. OOXML and even what passes for it in MS Office are all stored in XML format, even with the base 64 stuff, which encapsulate a bunch of binary crap, that has got to be a whole lot easier to reverse engineer than the older binary only documents. |
| helios Jan 20, 2011 8:38 PM EDT |
And as if on cue: "Just before the end of the year, Larry Gusaas called on the LibreOffice community to refuse to support the writing of OOXML files. Standard OpenOffice.org is able to read such files, but will not write them; that is, according to Larry, how things should be." http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2011012002535OSCYSD |
| skelband Jan 21, 2011 6:49 PM EDT |
I am divided on this. Open Source projects have always been great for the openness of their compatibility. That is why linux supports so many filesystem types including NTFS and FAT. It seems to me that the motivations of the people calling for OOXML to be not supported is driven primarily by spite rather than a belief that the format is unsatisfactory. OpenOffice writes many formats in addition to ODF. Why single out OOXML for special treatment? |
| helios Jan 21, 2011 8:03 PM EDT |
It's the Freedom Politics at work here. And I don't want to start any fuss here...that's not my intention but excluding OOXML in LO would be just another bullet in the badly bullet-ridden foot of Linux and FOSS. LO will be a toolset. If the toolset doesn't work, I am not going to use it and I'm not alone. If I am collaborating with you on a document and I can read it but cannot write to it in a manner that doesn't destroy the document, then my input is destructive. Crossing one's arms and stomping one's foot in a snit isn't going to produce an application that will compete in the world. So yea!!!!! Go TEAM!!! You've "stuck to your principles..." And produced an office suite that won't do the work it's expected to do. Like it or not, OOXML is "a standard now" Good job. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 21, 2011 8:40 PM EDT |
> "a standard now" I think that would more properly be, a "standard" now |
| jdixon Jan 21, 2011 9:24 PM EDT |
> Why single out OOXML for special treatment? Seriously, because no one implements it. Even the company responsible for it doesn't use it. But I agree that's no a good enough reason. |
| tracyanne Jan 22, 2011 1:51 AM EDT |
Quoting:"Just before the end of the year, Larry Gusaas called on the LibreOffice community to refuse to support the writing of OOXML files. Standard OpenOffice.org is able to read such files, but will not write them; that is, according to Larry, how things should be." Well unfortunately I need thatfunctionality. My only other choice is to stop using LO and OO.o and install MS Office on the Window VM I have. Larry Gusaas, the best your solution will achieve is less use of LO and more use of MS Office. A things stand I have no need to use M Office and I'd like to keep that money (for the MSO license) out of Microoft's greedy little hands if I posibly can. |
| helios Jan 22, 2011 1:01 PM EDT |
Gosh Bob....the next thing is spellign correction... sheesh Yeah, you're right...that was quoted clumsily. You should see me on the dance floor. Something about bulls and china shops come to mind. "Even the company responsible for it doesn't use it". It was obviously the pre-meditated flinging of a monkey wrench...TA is right. This is a forced channeling into MS Office. Like that hasn't been ongoing since time bagan. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 22, 2011 1:37 PM EDT |
Ken, I wasn't correcting you. I was taking a cheap shot at OOXML. |
| helios Jan 22, 2011 6:32 PM EDT |
@ Bob...I know...forgot the winky thingy after I said that. I kinda figured... |
| helios Jan 23, 2011 1:07 PM EDT |
TA...did you see this? Man...it's like a never-ending nightmare. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/21/0145251/Australian-Go... |
| helios Jan 23, 2011 1:45 PM EDT |
oops...just hit LXer. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/245276,australia-mandates-micr... |
| Ridcully Jan 23, 2011 9:31 PM EDT |
Helios, it certainly has distressed me considerably, but with hindsight, I guess I personally am not surprised at all. Australian Governments (in general) still believe (despite crashes, security problems, instability, cost, etc. etc.) that the sun, moon and stars shine out of Redmond and that Windows is the only operating system available that will satisfy their requirements. Therefore a Windows advocated format must be the best there is - it really is as simple as that. Part of the problem is that massive software structures running on Windows only have been built for our Federal Government, and it would probably be enormously costly to change....For instance the enormous Pharmaceutical system links into every doctor's surgery and every pharmacist store; the ATO has taxation software, again only for Windows. You have to be grateful if a particular government website has not been designed only for IE......I struck that a couple of days ago. But to return to Microsoft Windows and Governments, I have had personal experience in trying to penetrate the "wall of death" with which Microsoft has protected its software investments in Australian Governments. The IT departments within the various state and federal governments are all run or advised by people who are absolutely dedicated to Microsoft and they ensure that nothing of the FOSS world ever penetrates the minds of the various Departmental Ministers - they don't want to confuse them with an alternative.....Documentation is carefully sanitised so that even if "Linux" as a world actually appears, it is hedged by negatives so that it simply doesn't get a look in. And these Microsoft "moles" are definitely in place, and get rewarded after making sure that the "right decisions for Microsoft" have been made by the relevant IT section in charge of future directions in computing. One of them became the state director of Microsoft for Queensland - the documentation is amazing when you see it. Microsoft is terrified that Australia might find out about Linux and this is now a no-holds barred area. Indeed, I believe our cousins across the Tasman in New Zealand are more advanced with respect to Linux than we are. Last but not least, Linux is certainly penetrating Asia and that is one of our biggest markets. We could live, as the Chinese say, in interesting times if we don't start investing in open document formats and in Linux at Government levels, but Microsoft wouldn't like that, so for the moment it certainly won't happen. |
| tracyanne Jan 24, 2011 12:17 AM EDT |
The reply from John Sheridan sounds a little contrived. Even if it's the simple truth, it demonstrates a simple fact, the Australian Government is a follower, not a leader.
Quoting: i Liam, I am the First Assistant Secretary at AGIMO responsible for this policy. Additionally it's clear that no attempt has been made to determine whether or not a Free Spftware solution can be applied, and in the process save the australian people a sum considerably greater than the $51 Million this man claims his department has saved the Australian Taxpayer (by purchasing Microsoft Licenses at a bulk rebate price) Clearly there is no attempt at leadership, nor thought for the future (Australia's Future that is). They have simply canvased current software usage, and mandated that based on current usage, that which Microsoft products support is what must be supportable, very neatly making Microsoft products mandatory, in spite of the claims that they do not mandate Microsoft products. |
| Ridcully Jan 24, 2011 4:59 AM EDT |
For Tracyanne: my apologies for jumping in "boots and all" before you responded to Helios and I hope you will accept them.....I just saw red over this one because I have been involved in a situation in Queensland where I obtained extremely strong evidence of how Microsoft works through the Government IT departments and I am afraid my anger got the better of me. Sorry. After preparing (about a year ago and at his implied interest) a huge package on Linux and FOSS for a key member of the Qld State Parliament together with excellent examples of just how much could be saved and how it would benefit our schools in particular, my colleague and I were "trainsmashed" by the "Qld Government Microsoft IT Department" so that all our work went for nothing. Bitter was not the word.....and it has left a very nasty stench in my nostrils. "Loathing" is too nice a word for my concepts of the ethics of Redmond and its sycophants......Like I said, this is a "no-holds-barred" fight to ensure Australia remains in the Microsoft shed. I think you are absolutely right when you indicate the Aust. Govt. is a follower not a leader. Perhaps if China moves to FOSS our Foreign Minister might get interested ? If he is still there, that is. |
| tracyanne Jan 24, 2011 9:01 AM EDT |
Ridcully no worries. |
| helios Jan 24, 2011 10:35 AM EDT |
So, with all of this being said, I am supposing there is a reflective sigh of relieve from Down Under that Australian government did not sign massive deployment deals with AOL. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 24, 2011 2:35 PM EDT |
"Australia On Line"? |
| gus3 Jan 24, 2011 2:46 PM EDT |
Or "Australia Overrun with Liquid". |
| tracyanne Jan 24, 2011 5:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:Australia On Line I'm pretty sure there was an "Australia On Line" actually "America On Line" but rebranded for Autralia. I'm pretty sure it no longer exits. I recall that sometime back in the late 1990s I signed up because i needed to get on line fast and they had a free 30 day introductory offer, so I used that. It was trash, and I had to work around the "gateway" (more like access filter) to get at what I wanted. Needless to say I didn't sign up for the service, because I was able to locate a proper ISP, and sign up with them on line. |
| mrider Jan 24, 2011 5:43 PM EDT |
If that were America On Line you'd still be trying to cancel your service. :) |
| tracyanne Jan 24, 2011 6:19 PM EDT |
@mrider, I had the 30 day free trial. What they did after the expiry of the free trial period is their business, and I live in Australia, some of the shenanigans companies can get up to in the US are illigal here. |
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!