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#81

Hi :slight_smile:
I am not sure about current usage levels but 2 areas that Sun had problems trying to break into were
1. Windows users
2. US and England etc
Europe, Brazil and many other places were quite happy to use a product that wasn't primarily about making huge profits for a certain US company.

There is always a risk, when going for new markets, of losing stable and existing loyal customers. Would gaining a lot of Windows users annoy the Gnu&Linux users so much they would leave?

(It might be worth noting that the "extremist" group (probably not the way extremist is usually used these days), the "Free Software Foundation" and Richard Stallman backed LO where they would never back OOo (OOo is what AOO used to be called under Sun) so i doubt Gnu&Linux users would leave! More likely the opposite and tons more would continue to keep joining.)

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

My observation is that LO/AOO will be your default office suites for Linux users because we support ODF and MSO file formats as well as many others. While MSO formats can be problematical, they are extremely common.

For Mac and Windows users, you have more options both commercial and FOSS that support MSO file formats. IMHO the problems here are lack of awareness and the perception of "geekiness" being required to install LO. Many Windows users rely on friends or family to help maintain their systems, install software, etc. I suspect most LO users are more comfortable with working on their system since LO requires a user install of either LO itself or the Linux distro. Note, I am not saying installing LO is difficult but that many potential users are afraid to personally install any software on their computers. Installing LO makes one a comparatively advanced computer user; you can actually install software on a computer.

IMHO, the real problems for LO are the overall size of the user base, reliance on word of mouth marketing, and lack of support by hardware vendors. The user base size means that many potential users are unaware of LO and have never seen it used. There are regional differences where LO is stronger. Word of mouth advertising is actually very effective but not necessarily very fast. Most hardware vendors (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) do not normally install LO on the retail machines but often install a crippled/trial version of MSO. This may change if MS continues to move into device manufacturing, hardware vendors may promote/install other products to avoid supporting MS.

#82

How old do you think engineering is?
           granted this term existed, yet the definition has changed
post-industrialization.

       Here are a couple sites which seem to be fairly accurate
historically -

           http://www.creatingtechnology.org/history.htm

http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/192894/careers_and_job_hunting/a_brief_history_of_engineering.html

       Also, what you described would not have been necessary until the age
of middle-managers - ca. mid 20C, post WWII

#83

Tanstaafl wrote:

With this mix of system being used for various tasks, I would have a
mess if I tried to read emails on more than one system, even if I
could get a sync system to work properly between the various Windows
and Ubuntu systems.

This is what IMAP is for. I have 20+ accounts set up on 5 different computers, and work with the same mail on all of them, and they all stay in sync because of teh way IMAP works.

IMAP is the only way to do email, especially if you can host your own server.

I agree. I have my own IMAP server at home. It makes no difference which computer or email program I use, all the mail is synced. It even works with my smart phone and tablet. I also use Google Contacts to sync my address books everywhere.

#84

Give it a rest.

I am 60. I know what an RFQ and what an RFC is. I know what NATO is and
what a BFF is, lol..... I know where I can go to find acronyms because
I spent the time to go look. And if someone references zotero, instead
of asking a dozen times what it is, I can spend two seconds finding out
for myself. The same applies with respect to AOO, which one could find,
knowing the context, in 15 seconds..... And I know that no matter what
term I might use on this list, someone will argue that they want to
know what the term means and eventually that I used the term
inappropriately.

Like "Engineering", for example. Let's argue about what an engineer is.
The neighbor kid thinks an engineer is someone who runs a train.
Someone want to argue that? I think the Roman Army was staffed with
engineers. Someone is going to tell me I am mistaken because Roman army
did ENGineering, not engiNEERing? SOmeone else wants to suggest that
today engineers are "Scientists"? Not according to the spokesman for
the Higgs Boson team, lol....
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/mars-rover-should-not-get-so-much-attention-say-higgs-boson-scientists.html
, rofl..... but, come on, this is a grgeat place to discuss anything
other than LibreOffice!

I apologize if I appear rude (yes, I am aware of the Latin root and
would like to spend some considerable time on this list discussing the
use of "rude" as meaning impolite, as opposed to unlearned, but think
doing that in a new thread would be preferable, though we could argue
about the appropriateness of a new thread to accomplish same here for a
bit), but I have a burr under my saddle, as it were, and it seems to me
if one is going to chew some butt, one might as well chew as much butt
as one can chew.... kind of a how much wood can a wood chuck chuck
thing..... (no, this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q6Ti9xCX_M - has
nothing to do with it)

If one looks at the bandwidth on this list I think one would note, on a
regular basis, that a substantial portion is spent arguing over
communication style (as is the case with this epistle.)

Give it a rest.

#85

Thank you Marc, couldn't have sad it better my self. Now let the flame
wars begin again about top vs. bottom posting. I'm normally a bottom
poster, but am trying to convert.

- From another 60 something old fart!

Give it a rest.

I am 60. I know what an RFQ and what an RFC is. I know what NATO is
and what a BFF is, lol..... I know where I can go to find
acronyms because I spent the time to go look. And if someone
references zotero, instead of asking a dozen times what it is, I
can spend two seconds finding out for myself. The same applies with
respect to AOO, which one could find, knowing the context, in 15
seconds..... And I know that no matter what term I might use on
this list, someone will argue that they want to know what the term
means and eventually that I used the term inappropriately.

Like "Engineering", for example. Let's argue about what an engineer
is. The neighbor kid thinks an engineer is someone who runs a
train. Someone want to argue that? I think the Roman Army was
staffed with engineers. Someone is going to tell me I am mistaken
because Roman army did ENGineering, not engiNEERing? SOmeone else
wants to suggest that today engineers are "Scientists"? Not
according to the spokesman for the Higgs Boson team, lol....
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/mars-rover-should-not-get-so-much-attention-say-higgs-boson-scientists.html

, rofl..... but, come on, this is a grgeat place to discuss anything

#86

       Thanks for clearing up that acronym.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=RFC

You can repeat the same on Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Wikipedia et al.

#87

I strongly support the change. It is the fail-safe option. Users of this
list know how to use their email to send back to the list

regards

Mike

#88

Hi :slight_smile:
I think that on this particular list we should be open and allow people to use any style they want.

Each
of the 3 main styles have merits but also have flaws.  I think this
particular list should 1.  Welcome people whatever style they use and
avoid demanding they change styles purely for us
2.  Let them see
there are other styles and hopefully help them learn-by-example the
best ways of handling those other styles so that people are prepared
when they reach other OpenSource mailing lists.

One of my
hopes is that LO becomes as successful as Firefox and becomes another
gateway that helps people move into the OpenSource world.

Great
product and technically accurate answers are only a part of that.  Many
times great products have failed and given way to far inferior product
due to an assumption that the best product will always win.  My hope is
that LO succeeds despite being a great product.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#89

don't assume most new-comers are not familiar with mailing lists. some aren't but many already have ideas of etiquette.

anyway, I find some of the top-posts here too laborious to read. they open with a comment that makes no sense so I have to scroll down through a string of messages to find what they are responding to.

even then I might not know since people often don't snip out bits that are irrelevant to their reply so it's hard to tell what the reply related to.

I just end up deleting a lot of top-posters' messages.

anyway, this is a separate discussion, a good example of 'thread drift'. I have altered the subject-line correspondingly.

I think people should mostly bottom-post and do inline comments though if the original post and the reply are very short, no harm in top-posting (especially the 'heads up' one-liners).

no way to enforce preferences one way or the other but the exchange of views can be instructive or entertaining except for the dogmatists'.

F.

#90

I filter on [libreoffice-users] and Ref:[libreoffice-users] in Subject
line with no problems. I route them to a local folder LibreOffice. I do
it for various lists.

Tom Davies wrote:

#91

Personal (Private) Message.

Wikipedia article showed up as fourth entry when I asked Google about
"PM forum".

But since Google personalizes search results (according to past queries of
user), it's much harder to tell people "just fscking Google it". They actually
might have done that and still don't get answers.