Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Posted Sep 4, 2016 20:42 UTC (Sun) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)In reply to: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice by SukSuk
Parent article: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
> Usually, the first one in the market rules the world: MS-DOS August 1981, Linux October 1991...
I don't think that's true and even if it were, it doesn't seem particularly relevant.
> Bugzilla has many great enhancements and feature requests yet to be implemented, some can not coexist due to the conflicting nature of the requests.
Bugzilla has nothing to do with this. In order to justify the existence of a fork with that sort of argument you show some feature that
- cannot be implemented in LibreOffice because of technical reasons, or the direction the project is meant to take, or maintainability concerns etc.
- can be implemented in AOO in principle as the reason doesn't apply there
- can be implemented in practice, i. e. there's somebody willing to do the work
Sometimes that is the case, see for instance the fork of DragonFlyBSD from FreeBSD. But for AOO I haven't seen any such reason. Please name one if you can or just admit that your argument doesn't apply.
> "Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor." - William Cowper
Again, just because some variety is nicer than none doesn't mean that more variety is better still. There's a sweet spot. Please argue why you think we haven't exceeded it yet.
Posted Sep 6, 2016 13:57 UTC (Tue)
by SukSuk (guest, #110996)
[Link] (3 responses)
Sweet spot?
Posted Sep 7, 2016 22:54 UTC (Wed)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link] (2 responses)
> There are a lot of open issues to be implemented in the future. Issue A may request a certain GUI, issue B a different GUI...
> Look at the current M$ office market share...
Posted Sep 8, 2016 10:02 UTC (Thu)
by SukSuk (guest, #110996)
[Link] (1 responses)
The Sidebar IMHO is a bad feature that should have stayed in Lotus Symphony. It is a shame that LO also chose to implement it. There is no point in having two similar office suites. Each suite should aim to be unique instead of being yet another clone.
I agree, no chance for OOo and LO to break the glass ceiling as long as M$ is a platinum sponsor to ASF and Google is advisory board member in TDF.
Posted Sep 8, 2016 20:43 UTC (Thu)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link]
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Look at the current M$ office market share... plenty of growth potential for AOO *and* LO *and* Calligra *and* Gnome *and* even more new office suits.
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Simply asserting that doesn't make it true.
Yes, so what? Again, here's the list of criteria for some feature F that would justify a fork:
- it must be impossible to implement in LibreOffice, be it for technical or social or some other reason. Otherwise, it's clearly best to simply implement it there and be done with it, since you'll otherwise end up with dozens of office suites, each of which implements a different subset of the features any given user needs
- it must be implementable in Apache OpenOffice in theory as well as practice. Otherwise both alternatives won't have it, making neither product better in that respect
If you cannot name such a feature, you failed to apply your argument to the situation at hand. And in fact, the only feature meaningful feature that AOO ever brought to the table, the sidebar, was rapidly ported to LO, making AOO redundant. That alone proves your argument doesn't fly *at all*.
The numbers alone don't mean *anything at all* as long as they're not accompanied by a theory as to why they are the way they are. In fact, it's easy to argue the other way around: MS's market share clearly indicates that interoperability issues, thin spreading of developer resources etc. have left the open source office suites unable to compete, thus resulting in a monopoly of MS Office. Now I'm not saying that's actually the case, but you'll have to provide some sort of argument as to why this assessment of the situation is so much more likely to be wrong than your's if you want to be taken seriously.
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
I'm not asking for an example in Bugzilla, your argument may well apply there. Or maybe not, but either way, it's beside the point, I'm asking for an example in LibreOffice. And notice that lack of a sidebar is *not* a feature. If you don't like it, turn it off in the View menu. It's that simple.