As a user (and by no means a developer), I'm constantly doing battle with the features vs. stability issue. I agree that new features need to be pursued to keep LO competitive. I also agree, however, that LO is full-featured enough that users are justified in expecting a stable program. There's nothing more frustrating than finding that the program just won't complete a task because of some bug.
As writing is my thing, I currently have five word processors installed on my Windows computer. I use them all at various times due to inconsistencies in either features or stability. I would like to simply commit to one program, but no matter which direction I go, I run into either a lacking but necessary feature or an unstable feature that simply doesn't work. For example, I use the following:
Atlantis (shareware, $35.00 registration) -- Extremely stable, but lacking features I often need (PDF export, tables, etc.). However, it has a very clean interface and the best e-book exportation that I've seen anywhere. The Atlantis folks are slow to publish upgrades, but when they do, they are relatively bug-free and accompanied by very detailed instructions on how to use new features.
Microsoft Word Starter -- Came with my laptop OS. I only use it when I need 100% Word compatibility.
Lotus Symphony -- Lacking in many, many features, but one I really like is the tabbed interface, a feature I wish LO would adopt.
LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 -- Overall, it works well, but I discovered this morning that, if I try to open an RTF file, every line in the entire file is centered and I lose all paragraph breaks. I end up with one, centered paragraph. When I open the same file in Apache OpenOffice or Lotus Symphony, it loads perfectly. I have no idea if this is a bug in LO or a setting issue or a problem with my computer. But, until I figure it out, I need to use another option when loading RTF files. This type of continuously having to chase down solutions to weird problems is frustrating. Thus user list makes life a lot easier.
Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 -- I've noticed that AOO seems to hyphenate my English(USA) words at the wrong locations. I haven't had that problem with LO, but I don't know why. So, if I want to open an RTF file, I need to use AOO, but if I want to edit that file and hyphenate it, I need to load it into LO, after first saving it in AOO to ODT format.
This is the type of juggling act we users end up doing as we bounce from one program to the next trying to find the features we need and avoid the bugs that bog us down.
I don't envy open source developers. They do a seemingly thankless job, and I often wonder what keeps them motivated, other than an apparent shared disdain for MS. However, I deeply appreciate all they do in their attempt to make LO the best program available, in terms of both features AND stability.
Virgil
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