Letters to the editor

Andrew Brown's article on OpenOffice

Dear Sirs

I have just read Andrew Brown's musings on OpenOffice* in this week's
technology supplement, and I'm compelled to disagree with his conclusions.

I'm been an OpenOffice user for some years myself, and I agree that it
has its major flaws, and that its development pace is more glacial than
many would like.  However, it is well known that the open source model
doesn't always work well for certain classes of software, this being one
of them.  That conclusion is nothing new.

But to generalise it into a sweeping slur on the open source development
model is completely wrong.  Open source has more than proved itself in
the arena of infrastructure software; after all, vast portions of the
Internet's servers have run on it for years.  There are countless
examples of open source projects powered by a healthy and active
community of participants, which produce rapidly-maturing, stable and
remarkably bug-free products.

OpenOffice is a unique project, with lofty challenges and daunting
goals; but to paint its shortcomings onto the entire, vast open source
movement is deeply misleading.

Yours etc
Alastair Stevens
Cambridge, UK

* http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,16376,166...


-- 
                                       o
Alastair Stevens : fruit of 1976      /-'_              LPI (Level 1)
 >>  www.altrux.me.uk                |\/(*)   /\__     Linux Certified
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