Interesting critique of Open Office

[Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Next on my list is OpenOffice.org. I'm glad we have a
Free office suite, I really am. But being dependent on
OO.o can be a real drag--especially if you're running
it under Linux, where it takes half the morning to
start up, and the only noise the suite can make (to
remind you to save your document, for instance) is a
beep through your PC's internal speaker.

Yes, most Microsoft Office documents import
splendidly, but the sort that don't do so haven't for
years, with no improvement. The OO.o project itself
provides no easy means for users to submit feedback;
just try to find a way to file a bug about how OO.o
Writer completely hoses a .doc file's layout. And
don't even get me started about the program's
labyrinthine Options dialog box. That thing might have
been excusable back when Microsoft's Office 97 was the
main competition, but no longer.

Recently a big hue and cry arose over at Slashdot when
Groklaw (a site that covers the intersection of Free
Software and the law) declared that Novell's latest
contribution to OO.o--a set of libraries for
interoperability with the new, craptacular XML-based
file format used by Office 2007--amounts to a fork, a
new product built from an existing, Free code base.
It's no such thing, but I sometimes wonder if it isn't
high time that we got an honest-to-goodness OO.o fork.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128287-page,1-c,linux/article.html

User Interface design blog
http://user-advocacy.blogspot.com/
Code::Design::UI::Consulting
http://www.dionysius.com/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or 
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

Now shipping: Help & Manual 4 with RoboHelp(r) import! New editor,
full Unicode support. Create help files, web-based help and PDF in up
to 106 languages with Help & Manual: http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.