Nitpicking on a name

users
#1

Hello everyone,

I apologize as what I am writing about might seem like a detail to many, but I think it hurts a bit the project in the end to leave these things as they are.

On this list (a few others as well but esp. On this one) people call LibreOffice "LO". We -sorry to take on my founder's hat here- never called LibreOffice LO.

Historically the people who did were long time OpenOffice.org users who were a bit skeptical of us at first and who felt necessary to "format"LibreOffice in a way they thought was easier.

Now you will tell me that it is easier to type LO than it is with LibreOffice. Perhaps. But everyone here writes MS Office...

Anyway the point I am trying to make is that LO does not mean anything and sends the wrong message. We are not "low" , we are not "hello", we are libre people. Ans when I say we I lean everyone here.

Thanks!

Charles.

#2

​I've seen MSO used in long messages... Seeing that these messages are on
the *LibreOffice* mailing list, I doubt that there is any confusion
possible.

#3

Bravo!

#4

Hello Cley,

2014-07-25 9:19 GMT+02:00 Charles-H. Schulz <
charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org>:

Now you will tell me that it is easier to type LO than it is with
LibreOffice. Perhaps. But everyone here writes MS Office...

​I've seen MSO used in long messages... Seeing that these messages are
on
the *LibreOffice* mailing list, I doubt that there is any confusion
possible.

Oh, I am not afraid of confusion. Only that we are using a weird way to call LibreOffice and that it does not make much sense to use an acronym.

Best,

Charles.

#5

Charles-H. Schulz wrote

On this list (a few others as well but esp. On this one) people call
LibreOffice "LO". We -sorry to take on my founder's hat here- never called
LibreOffice LO.

Acronyms / nicknames / shortcuts are rarely at the discretion of the one
being named. If the "O" in LibreOffice had been lowercase, then there /may/
have been a chance to prevent this, but that is long past now. People will
shorten it as they can e.g., "LO", "LibO", LibreO", "LOffice", etc.

Charles-H. Schulz wrote

Now you will tell me that it is easier to type LO than it is with
LibreOffice. Perhaps. But everyone here writes MS Office...

OOo for OpenOffice.org, AOO for Apache OpenOffice, LO for LibreOffice, MSO
for Microsoft Office are all acronyms I use, here on the mailing lists, at
the AskLO site, and at the original support forum. Even the source code is
filled with "lo" and "LO" (e.g., LO4Android) for the same reason. I am not
meaning to be antagonistic by stating this, I am just presenting facts. What
you are asking is akin to suggesting people refrain from using "MS" for
Microsoft or "FB" for Facebook. The chance of success would seem improbably
low.

Best wishes, Owen.

#6

With all due respect here, and not to shoot the messenger, but apart
from the possibility of confusion, I cannot see any other reason to
worry about this.

I don't think using acronyms or shortenings are "weird", I think they
are perfectly normal, and I see them all the time. "FB" for Facebook,
"MS" for Microsoft, "MSO", "AOO", "OOo", even "*nix". I've seen
Photoshop called PS before; the examples are many, and it seems to be
human nature to make things easier for ourselves. SMS texting
conventions like "b4" and "l8r" are the same thing, really, as are
things like "IANAL", "AIUI", and others.

Out in the wider world, one should be careful of just using "LO",
because people may well not know what one is talking about, so
confusion *is* a possibility, but I mostly see this used here on these
lists, where confusion is hardly likely.

One could argue that "LibO", say, is nicer, and probably clearer, so if
one was writing a more public review one might prefer that, but
it's probably a matter of taste, and, on this list especially, I hardly
think it matters.

My opinion, of course, just adding it to the pile...

Paul

#7

-1.

I am completely new to the world of LO, OOo and the other variants
(still haven't the foggiest as to what is AOO and can't be bothered to
google it) although I am a long-term user of MS Office (which I
sometimes have been known to shorten to MSO).

However, I have absolutely no reason to stick with MS software; in fact,
I am actively trying to get way from them and the ONLY two principles
guiding this effort are 1) Is the replacement as capable as the stuff I
currently use? and 2) Is my long-term productivity at least the same as
it was with the stuff I currently use?

IOW, I am a 100% pragmatist and not in the least interested in the
"politics" of various FOSS proponents. You may not like that but that's
the way it is for many people.

Back to topic. It came natural to me to shorten LibreOffice to LO and
so, I assume, it'll be with others. Use (and abuse) of "nicknames" and
abbrev. is very rarely, if ever, in the domain of the person or "thing"
concerned. What's more, I am convinced that attempts to impose naming
conventions and suchlike will, in the long run, backfire.

As to "LO" vs "low", I have never even made that connection and I
actually feel it's faintly ridiculous to so. I think it'd be much better
to invest time and effort to make LO a better product, in itself and
also as far as the documentation and other "external bits" are concerned
than to waste time with ultimately fruitless naming discussions. IMHO,
YMMV etc.

I'll stick with LO for reasons of brevity.

Jon

#8

Actually you are making quite a good point; "LO" is used here -again mostly, and oddly- likely only on this list. So yes indeed, if we are careful (and we should be) not to use that acronym in the "wider world", this list is the one primarily used for and by users. Some of them are completely new, and as such it is their first interaction with the Libreoffice community.
We would not want to use "LO" with new users then.

Some may find the use of "LO" as a convenience, but convenience can often be the ennemy of excellence; especially in this case when only used by a small fraction of the community.

Cheers,

Charles.

#9

You guys are lucky that anybody uses your French-named program. If the guys in the distros didn't get PO'd at Open Office, you wouldn't even exist! And if the
distros started putting OO in their defaults instead of LO you'd be out of business. What a dumb thing to bitch about!

#10

Hi Charles,

Anyway the point I am trying to make is that LO does not mean
anything and sends the wrong message.

for LibreOffice as well as AOO, OOo, MSO are well-known
abbreviations for other products.

As a kind of proof at least in german:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LO

:wink:

Stefan

#11

I never us "LO" outside of these lists. Well except maybe a DVD volume title like "LO-NA-DVD-4.2.5", which needs abbreviations to fit everything in.

When abbreviations are "allowed" or needed, then I use LO, OOo, AOO, MSO, and things like that.

#12

"Charles-H. Schulz":

On this list people call LibreOffice "LO". We -sorry to take on my founder's hat here- never called LibreOffice LO.

Right, you have fixed all the bugs, got a functional parity with Microsoft Word 2.0, and have a chance to bitch about the acronym. Cheers.

#13

Absolutely, I do have that chance. Only an absolute moron who hides his or her own name behind pseudos like you to insult people can think that a software can have all of its bugs fixed. As for the feature parity with Word 2.0, we have obviously passed that stage before OpenOffice.org 1.0; and if it was so easy, if it is that easy, why don't you go start your own office suite and leave everyone else alone? What pleasure do you take out of insulting people? Are you that much of a pervert, are you that much lonely and screwed up that you can spend that much time around here bitching against the software and the people around it? How about looking for a solution to your own problems, to the very fact that you are in such pain and misery that you use a pseudo to go around and insult people online? Your life must be a terrible experience and you have better to do than lingering around here, so STFU.

Charles.

#14

gentlemen, I suggest this discussion be taken off-list where you can pursue it much more effectively.

F.

#15

Could this be moved to the "discuss" list?
I would like to see where this is going, but not on the user list.

Tim L.
[a good number of you know my real name instead of my different "pseudo" emails I use for different lists, here and "out on the net".]

#16

Hello Tim, everyone,

"Charles-H. Schulz":

On this list people call LibreOffice "LO". We -sorry to take on my founder's hat here- never called LibreOffice LO.

Right, you have fixed all the bugs, got a functional parity with
Microsoft Word 2.0, and have a chance to bitch about the acronym.
Cheers.

Absolutely, I do have that chance. Only an absolute moron who hides his or her own name behind pseudos like you to insult people can think that a software can have all of its bugs fixed. As for the feature parity with Word 2.0, we have obviously passed that stage before OpenOffice.org 1.0; and if it was so easy, if it is that easy, why don't you go start your own office suite and leave everyone else alone? What pleasure do you take out of insulting people? Are you that much of a pervert, are you that much lonely and screwed up that you can spend that much time around here bitching against the software and the people around it? How about looking for a solution to your own problems, to the very fact that you are in such pain and misery that you use a pseudo to go around and insult people online? Your life must be a terrible experience and you have better to do than lingering around here, so STFU.

Charles.

gentlemen, I suggest this discussion be taken off-list where you can pursue it much more effectively.

F.

Could this be moved to the "discuss" list?
I would like to see where this is going, but not on the user list.

I do not think that we need to have this moved to the discuss list; there was a perfectly normal and courteous thread that was interrupted by the person using the pseudo "Urmas" who started to insult me, as he/she has done repeatedly against many people here. I am happy to see the courteous side of this thread continue, if needed, here. As for myself, I'm done with this topic.

Best,

Charles.

#17

A lout known as "Charles-H. Schulz":

As for the feature parity with Word 2.0, we have obviously passed that

stage before OpenOffice.org 1.0;

And yet it was not until 4.3, not yet released BTW your suit got support for
paragraphs longer than 64k or tagging the text with a language.

and if it was so easy, if it is that easy, why don't you go start your own office suite and leave everyone else alone?

_You_'ve got 90% of your office suit for free from StarDivision (with German comments
included), and it is _you_ who cannot develop it properly.

What pleasure do you take out of insulting people?

It is you who are insulting people.

#18

A lout known as "Charles-H. Schulz":

making note of this...

> What pleasure do you take out of insulting people?

It is you who are insulting people.

So what, your defense is essentially "Nu-uh, you did first!" ?

:smiley:

#19

Urmas why do you not just go back to the M$ Corp lists and stay there Eh!

Pete

#20

Please, please - lets calm down =) Charles is right - it makes sense to
have a consistent, findable brand: LibreOffice emphasized - it is good
to have a gentle reminder from time to time that it is good to do that
rather than using 'LO' =)

  Of course, it's not the world's most burning issue - I guess that is
Urmas' point: there are plenty of other priorities; and of course there
is still a lot to do to improve LibreOffice left/right. I don't know
anyone who is satisfied with where we are. I see room for improvement
everywhere left/right. Then again to become overly obsessed by our flaws
is also unbalanced =)

  Quite apart from all that it'd be helpful to be reasonably pleasant to
other people who disagree with us [ working on that myself ;-].

  ATB,

    Michael.