odf purists mailing list request

users
#1

Readers,

Analogous to the creation of LO, it is time to consider an "odf
purists" mailing list for users such as yours truly who are tired of
the m$ groupies yearning for a free m$ clone.

Is there a formal procedure to request for the creation of a new
mailing list, with the provisional intention as dedicated solely and
exclusively to native odf behaviour for LO?

#2

Am 09.09.2011 21:48, e-letter wrote:

Readers,

Analogous to the creation of LO, it is time to consider an "odf
purists" mailing list for users such as yours truly who are tired of
the m$ groupies yearning for a free m$ clone.

Is there a formal procedure to request for the creation of a new
mailing list, with the provisional intention as dedicated solely and
exclusively to native odf behaviour for LO?

I found this hint for new language groups on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language

Available mailing lists in your language. If it appears that your language is not listed, please ask for the creation of the mailing lists on the website list.

How about zealots@global.libreoffice.org?

Bye

#3

Am 09.09.2011 21:48, e-letter wrote:

Readers,

Analogous to the creation of LO, it is time to consider an "odf
purists" mailing list for users such as yours truly who are tired of
the m$ groupies yearning for a free m$ clone.

Is there a formal procedure to request for the creation of a new
mailing list, with the provisional intention as dedicated solely and
exclusively to native odf behaviour for LO?

I found this hint for new language groups on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language

Available mailing lists in your language. If it appears that your language is not listed, please ask for the creation of the mailing lists on the website list.

How about zealots@global.libreoffice.org?

Bye

#4

I might be wrong, but I think you'd be rather lonely. I don't think OO/LO combined have enough market share for that.

Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did, and mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on current operating systems. Partly because that's what I'm used to, and partly because in my opinion that was an excellent product. It did what it did better than anything since, and it contained all the functionality that 90%+ of us will ever use. If LO approaches the same ease-of-use, it will take HUGE market-share from Microsoft.

Thanks,
-- Tim

#5

Am 10.09.2011 18:37, Tim Deaton wrote:

Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did, and
mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on current
operating systems.

Such a program would be rather useless without a free file format.

#6

HI

> Readers,
>
> Analogous to the creation of LO, it is time to consider an "odf
> purists" mailing list for users such as yours truly who are tired of
> the m$ groupies yearning for a free m$ clone.
>
> Is there a formal procedure to request for the creation of a new
> mailing list, with the provisional intention as dedicated solely and
> exclusively to native odf behaviour for LO?
>
I might be wrong, but I think you'd be rather lonely. I don't think
OO/LO combined have enough market share for that.

Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did, and
mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on current
operating systems. Partly because that's what I'm used to, and partly
because in my opinion that was an excellent product. It did what it did
better than anything since, and it contained all the functionality that
90%+ of us will ever use. If LO approaches the same ease-of-use, it
will take HUGE market-share from Microsoft.

Thanks,
-- Tim

Most users of LO or MS Office probably do not routinely use more than
half the features available in a given part and often do not use all the
pieces equally. For example, I rarely use Impress or Powerpoint but use
Calc extensively. The only problem is what combination of features will
cover 90% of all the users' needs.

#7

[...] who are tired of
the m$ groupies yearning for a free m$ clone.

[...]

Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did,
and mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on
current operating systems. Partly because that's what I'm used to,
and partly because in my opinion that was an excellent product. It
did what it did better than anything since, and it contained all the
functionality that 90%+ of us will ever use. If LO approaches the
same ease-of-use, it will take HUGE market-share from Microsoft.

Ease-of-use is sometimes subjective. Do not confuse ease-of-use with
"it's similar to the microsoft product".

Also IMHO if you want a feature MS Office has, you should ask for the
feature because it's needed, not because "LibO should have the same
features MSO has". Instead of using MSO as a reason for the enhancement,
use it to grab some screenshots and descriptions of a way to implement
the feature.

#8

An odf-purists lists might be interesting though I am not sure how one discerns what it means to be odf-pure, as opposed to OpenOffice-pure. Maybe it is about OpenOffice purism, where use of the native ODF Open ... and Save As ... is handled. No opening by clicking on .doc/.docx files, etc.

I'd say the developers are certainly concerned with making that part work as well as possible.

Not sure how you'd describe the list so fellow purists would know they were fellow purists. I shall watch with interest.

- Dennis

BAFFLEMENT

I am baffled by this statement though:
"Such a program would be rather useless without a free file format."

Is not ODF a free format?

Or is the assumption that Tim Deaton wants "everything MS Office 97 did" to include open and save as .doc, .xls, and .ppt?

I guess that doesn't matter for the odf-purists list. The non-purists get to deal with it.

I would think that availability of free-to-the-public specifications for [MS-DOC], [MS-XLS], [MS-PPT], [RTF] and some of the common features like [MS-OFFCRYPTO] would be handy for the non-purists. That those and more are covered by the Open Specification Promise will be sufficient reassurance for some of us, I think.

#9

I always hated Office ’97, so when I first tried OpenOffice.org it was
one of those ”wow experiences”. Never looked back since.

By the way, I remember a funny thing with an Excel document I had back
then, when Excel was the only spreadsheet software I had. I opened the
spreadsheet, replaced a value in one cell, replaced a value in another
cell and then saved the spread sheet. Excel crashed.
Starting up Excel again, did exactly the same thing, Excel crashed.
Same thing again, Excel crashed again.
Started up Excel, but this time I changed the second cell first, then
I changed the first one, then saved. No crash…
Very funny indeed.

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#10

1) ODF zealots do not help anybody to dare the switch.
2) A pure MS Office clone would not help anybody to solve the most severe problem with proprietary software. That is the factual co-ownership on your own data. Therefore it would be rather useless. It would waste thousands of man hours for a clone of an already existing application without adding extra benefit (except for a tiny amount of money which would no longer pay the livings of the true creators).
3) LibreOffice should provide the world's best import filters for the standardized version of OOXML. Writing OOXML is a sin against the interests of The Document Foundation. There is no technical reason to help spreading that file formats as long as all MSO applications support 100% of the old file formats.

#11

I'm not thinking file formats at all. The open-source file formats are an advantage. Mostly I use spreadsheets & word processing. I used to work in Access a lot, but since a 2008 job change am just maintaining a few databases I use at home.

For what I do in word processing, Writer already works fine for me, and I use it almost exclusively. But I'm mostly doing individual letters (no mail-merge or other heavy-duty stuff).

For spreadsheets, I'm more finicky. All the functions I used in Excel work now in OOo v3, but what I think of as convenience features are still lagging. I'd like to see things like "Insert Cut (or Copied) Cells added to the right-click context menu, for instance. (That was discussed in another thread recently.) Another thing I'd like is to be able to crop objects (like screen-prints pasted into a spreadsheet) using the mouse, instead of having to try to make adjustments in a small cropping window where it is very difficult to see what you're doing. I'm sure others who've used both MSOffice and OO/LO will have other areas in mind where things could be made easier.

I think what really gets me about the "purists" approach is the idea that OO/LO ought to be different just to be different. That reminds me these days of Microsoft's approach to their "Ribbon". If there's a better way of doing things, great. But if not, then adopt what's already been successful elsewhere.

And I focus on MS Office 97 because I see MS Office as the main competition, and because of all the versions of MS Office I've used, I like that one the best. v2003's help system is less helpful, and I hate v2007's ribbon. v2010's ribbon feels a little better, but I'd still take the traditional menus any day.

-- Tim

#12

An odf-purists lists might be interesting though I am not sure how one
discerns what it means to be odf-pure, as opposed to OpenOffice-pure. Maybe
it is about OpenOffice purism, where use of the native ODF Open ... and Save
As ... is handled. No opening by clicking on .doc/.docx files, etc.

The definition of the recommended content for this list would be for
users who are interested only in creating odf documents and
investigating/discussing behaviour of LO to produce odf documents. As
such, issues of compatibility with other formats, specifically m$,
would be excluded, for continued discussion in the main users list.

Not sure how you'd describe the list so fellow purists would know they were
fellow purists. I shall watch with interest.

After reading the web page 'get involved' I have subscribed to the
mailing list 'web site', where I shall continue this discussion; feel
free to read the archives and join if further interested.

#13

See proposal: http://www.mail-archive.com/website@global.libreoffice.org/msg05999.html

#14

Am 10.09.2011 18:37, Tim Deaton wrote:

Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did, and
mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on current
operating systems.

Such a program would be rather useless without a free file format.

#15

I think that is an excellent description. Since my reason for working with these formats is interoperability for and among everyone, I would not participate exclusively on such a list.

It will be interesting to see what happens when folks who don't understand that come to the "wrong" place.

Have fun!

- Dennis