[plug] explanation of free software, OOo in particular

[Kev]

Greg,

I became  disgruntled with OOo back with v1.0.x (ish) I think.  I gave 
StarOffice (v7 at the time) a go and haven't changed back.  I now use SO 
v8 and probably won't budge until it's no longer useful in the real 
world.  I found/find it a _much_ smoother,more polished,  more robust 
and more compatible product.  The last time I installed OOo for a look 
was (I think) v 2.0.3 - I still use SO v8!

Cheers
Kev

ps  please pay your 2c as you leave.



Paul Antoine wrote:
> Greg,
>
> How about this one:
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org
>
> One word of caution with OOo, while the word processor and spreadsheet 
> programs are ok, I am ashamed to say that they are not as nice as Word 
> and Excel in their functionality and UI's.  Sacrilege I know, but as a 
> long-time user of both since the orginal Mac versions I have to say 
> OOo annoys me despite my desire to support them.
>
> Unfortunately the presentation app in OOo is shocking... truly 
> shocking. So much so that I use Crossover to run an old and very 
> stable version of the M$ Office suite (Office XP.)
>
> For simple word processing and spreadsheet tasks OOo is fine and I do 
> use them that way for simple documents.
>
> How do others on the list find OOo??  Am I expecting too much?  Are 
> there simply too few contributors to OOo?  I know Sun has been an M$ 
> software-free zone for a long time (McNealy would shoot anyone who 
> tried to use them), so maybe Sun's biases are driving things?
>
> Paul
>
> BTW: I was using an Unix-based office suite back when the company I 
> ran used a MIPS server with X terminals... the name of which escapes 
> me now but was excellent for the time (1995?)
>
>
>
> Gregory Orange wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> My father-in-law is interested in quality software. He can't quite 
>> cope with the change to a Linux install just yet (altho I'll be 
>> putting Ubuntu[1] on his second computer relatively soon), but he 
>> sees the value in considering alternative software to what came 
>> prebundled with his machine. Specifically he's using Thunderbird and 
>> Firefox.
>> Now, with the grief that various versions of MS Office have caused 
>> him, I think OpenOffice would be a big step forward for him. He's 
>> interested, and now I just need to sell him on it. Ok, on to my point...
>>
>> He's asking questions about free software, freeware, open source 
>> software, "Who Writes this Open Office?", etc - all quite valid 
>> questions which I can answer usefully, but not succinctly. Can anyone 
>> point me in the direction of a nicely written article or page on the 
>> topic?
>> I've found heaps, but they're white papers, full definitions, 
>> discussion papers about the various types of licences, etc. How about 
>> one simply on who writes Open Office (some description of 'the 
>> community') and how it relates to Star Office and Sun and the rest. 
>> Even a touch of history. I'm not asking much, am I (: Altho I reckon 
>> something's buried in the OOo website or metasites somewhere... just 
>> finding it.
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html was helpful, but really 
>> just for the picture at the top!
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is good too - I'll send 
>> that to him.
>> http://about.openoffice.org/index.html - ugh, where to begin?! 
>> There's so much there.





-- 
=======================================================================
Kev Downes
kdownes at tpg.com.au  ph 0404 7 0808 2
We used to use and recommend Xandros but they went to the dark side
So we'll soon be using and recommending Debian Etch
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There are 10 types of people ...
   ... those who understand binary, and those who don't!
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They say a marble sized object collided with some gasses, and had
a massive explosion and the universe was born.
   - to believe this takes more faith than I have.
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