can I make Libre default to save as .rtf

users
#21

I am a TDF Director and one of the official spokespersons.

e-letter wrote

In other words, do not waste LO programmers' time to resolve your desire
to use LO as a free m$o clone.

You are assuming something completely wrong here. In the future, please
avoid such statements, and - even more important - please listen to people
on this mailing list who seem to be better informed than you are.

What exactly is being assumed? Better informed about what? The
original statement is merely a declaration of personal interest; a
preference that limited time spent resolving "compatibility" is
instead spent improving native odf.

TDF developers are working hard to improve the level of interoperability
with many file formats, because we want LibreOffice to be both the best
implementation of ODF (a format that we want to be the standard for
electronic documents) and the most interoperable office suite.

A fundamentally poor strategy; of the two objectives what do think is
higher priority: highest quality implementation of odf; or being
"interoperable"? More interestingly, how can perfect interoperability
lead to greater usage of odf?

Users are free to use LibreOffice to read and write RTF and DOC/XLS/PPT
files (and even DOCX/XLSX/PPTX files), although they should understand
that only ODF will provide the best level of document interoperability, as
it is the native LibreOffice file format and it is also supported by the
latest versions of MS Office for Windows.

If odf is the best strategic route to interoperability, this seems a
contradiction with the strategic aim to be perfect at producing m$
formats. If tdf were really serious about being sufficiently confident
to promote odf, LO would have excellent m$ format import capability
but document creation would only be in odf (as suggested by others).

Of course, users should also understand that proprietary formats like RTF
and legacy MS Office formats have been developed in order to lock them in
into using MS Office, and should avoid the formats not because they are
intrinsically bad (although they often are) but because they intentionally
reduce their freedom.

Review the bug reports and the mailing list posts; it can be seen that
users do not appreciate the strategic error in using LO to create m$
documents.

Although user habits could let many user think that MS Office legacy
formats are the most practical for interoperability, they should not
overlook the fact that by sticking to MS Office legacy format they
perpetuate their lock in into Microsoft products.

See comment above. Without forcing novice users to either pay m$ or
use a free(dom) alternative, odf usage will remain low.

TDF is actively promoting ODF, which is the format of choice for all
actual and future versions of LibreOffice. ODF is not only open and
standard, but is also easier to implement than other ISO standard formats.
For instance, OOXML has been approved as ISO standard in 2008, but after
almost four years is still implemented in the non standard "transitional"
version even by Microsoft (the company behind the original format) because
of the incredible complexity of the format (confirmed by the length of the
documentation of over 7.200 pages, i.e. almost six times as many as the
ODF documentation).

The _passive_ promotion of m$ is greater than the active promotion of
odf. To prove this point, why not create a simple poll on the web
site: users distributing LO documents is m$ formats; against users
distributing LO documents in odf?

#22

Hi :slight_smile:

There is a bit of "Which came first, the chicken or the [chicken]-egg" about the argument.

Lets say that people have only these 2 choices
1.  Keep using MS Office. 
2.  Use LibreOffice but no-one can read or communicate with you.  Any work you do is unreadable by anyone else electronically except a very tiny percentage of people.

Which choice are people likely to go for?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#23

What exactly is being assumed? Better informed about what? The
original statement is merely a declaration of personal interest; a
preference that limited time spent resolving "compatibility" is
instead spent improving native odf.

Well, if is a declaration of personal interest, please state this.

Review the bug reports and the mailing list posts; it can be seen that
users do not appreciate the strategic error in using LO to create m$
documents.

Of course, bug reports and mailing lists reflect the more vocal people,
who seems to be biased towards going face to face against Microsoft.

Unfortunately (for you and the people who share the same idea), history
shows that going face to face against Microsoft is the wrong strategy.

OOXML has been approved in his rotten version because there have been
people (and companies) going face to face against Microsoft instead of
adopting a different strategy. With Microsoft, you have to play "David
against Goliath", because in any other way Microsoft is going to
outpower any other company (including IBM), just because they have got
the IBM lesson (FUD and lobby) and made it better.

Again, history has demonstrated that guerrilla marketing strategies are
more effective than traditional ones. You are free to choose war, but we
are not going to follow you (at least until we have been elected
directors of the foundation by the members).

See comment above. Without forcing novice users to either pay m$ or
use a free(dom) alternative, odf usage will remain low.

I have written exactly the opposite of what you understand (I am not a
native English speaker, so is my fault). I have written that users who
know the advantages of ODF should become evangelists of the format and
suggest to other users to use ODF, because MS Office reads and writes
ODF (although in a limited way).

Pissing off users by sending them formats that they are not able to read
(most users do not even know the concept of file formats), will not
achieve any result other than alienating the reputation of the software
used to produce the unreadable formats.

#24

Unfortunately (for you and the people who share the same idea), history
shows that going face to face against Microsoft is the wrong strategy.

Cannot see how active promoting odf instead of passive promotion of m$
is a wrong strategy.

I have written exactly the opposite of what you understand (I am not a
native English speaker, so is my fault). I have written that users who
know the advantages of ODF should become evangelists of the format and
suggest to other users to use ODF, because MS Office reads and writes
ODF (although in a limited way).

The fact is a significant proportion of users have no interest in
promoting odf; their primary personal benefit is their ability to use
LO to send m$ formats to recipients.

Pissing off users by sending them formats that they are not able to read
(most users do not even know the concept of file formats), will not
achieve any result other than alienating the reputation of the software
used to produce the unreadable formats.

This is weak; did youtube fail because initially web browsers did not
have flash plug-in technology? No, the content was so strong, flash
became a de facto multimedia standard driven by user demand.

#25

26/11/2011 08:48, sgrìobh e-letter:

This is weak; did youtube fail because initially web browsers did not
have flash plug-in technology? No, the content was so strong, flash
became a de facto multimedia standard driven by user demand.

But YouTube was something completely new, it wasn't like it was competing against a platform which was already dominating.

Mike

#26

e-letter wrote

This is weak; did youtube fail because initially web browsers did not
have flash plug-in technology? No, the content was so strong, flash
became a de facto multimedia standard driven by user demand.

That is not weak, it's a plain lie. Flash existed well before Youtube and
browsers already had Flash plugins well before Youtube.
Has flv become the de facto internet video standard because of Youtube?
Probably. Was it Youtube's goal to promote Flash as a standard? No.
So how is this comparable?

LibreOffice's goal is to promote both the tool and the document format.
Obviously you can send a document in ODF and tell people to get LibreOffice.
But this has two big obstacles: people in companies are not free to install
a program just because they want to; in many parts of world communications
are so rare and expensive that suggesting someone to download 150 Megabytes
to read a 50k document is an insult.

To stick blindly to ODF would increase the digital divide, instead of
eliminating it.

#27

Hi :slight_smile:
We have noticed your lack of tolerance and open hostility regarding the matter which you are unable to understand. There is no need to be quite so hostile nor to flare up each time someone quietly asks for help.

Please can you take your argument to the discussion group and/or steering/BoD group rather than continuing to bully and intimidate new users to this list.

This list is meant to be open and welcoming to new users some of whom may be vulnerable and may come from cultures that do not appreciate the aggressive stance you usually take. To be fair, my posts are often quite a lot too aggressive too.

Please try to be a little more gentle to new people here that may not share your point-of-view.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: