- Site menu:
- Latest Discussions
- Latest Newswire
- Archives
- Submit Story
- Story HOWTO
- Syndicate
- E-mail Alerts
Apache OpenOffice 4 is here
|
|
|
Comments (59)
39 earlier comments in the full thread.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 ?
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 ?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
@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
Read the whole comment@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
@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.
Read the whole commentYou 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.
> 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.
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.
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: ...
From the article: Forking occurs when one set of parties in a development project develops serious objections to the direction the project is going. Once the fork occurs, usually the vast majority of the community choose one tine of the fork, and the other one withers.
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.
@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!
Read the whole commentThe 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!
> 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.
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.
@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.
Read the whole comment------
"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.
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.
@Ridcully:
I think she dropped a letter. Basically, AOO is more faithful than LO to the original MS doc.
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.
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.
Gah, I missed it.
Maybe AOO works best in the Northern Hemisphere, and LO best in the Southern?
Maybe AOO works best in the Northern Hemisphere, and LO best in the Southern?
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 ?
Post a comment
A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.
Your message:Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help
Sign up and post (it is free) or Log in and post
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.