Hi Carol, You are definitely NOT out of line.
I'm not desk based and use OoO for the basics. I come from a military and "hands on" manufacturing environment (now retired) where there must be established procedure for every task, as I'm sure is the same for an office environment. I'm also a newby regarding the full potential use of OoO or Libre. I am impressed with your succinct analysis of effort spent between the two. Such a waste of time should not be necessary, and could not be tolerated within any productive environment. Frankly, the reasons behind the split don't interest me. and I am just as likely to use Libre as Open Office. What does interest me is, why there isn't a global outcry for a focused effort to produce one office suite to equal any paid for suite without all this wasted, counter productive, time and effort needed for configuring it. Why such a situation is tolerated for so long, when a combined, focused effort is all it takes. regards, Mike Lish On 10 December 2012 22:07, Carol-Virgil Arrington <arringto...@hotmail.com>wrote: > I may be way out of line here, but I’m sending this post to the user lists > for both LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. I have both programs on my > computer and regularly use both. Like many of you out there, I have > subscribed to both user lists. > > I don’t know the full history behind the Libre/Oracle split, but from what > I have read on various forums and lists, there is considerable emotional > pain resulting from the split. The result is two different FOSS office > suites. > > Some have pleaded for the two to combine forces. Others have noted that > the competition is good for the end user as it results in more rapid > development of improvements to both suites. > > I see both sides, but I’d like to point out one thing I have noticed in my > own use of the two programs. Some computer programs are what I would call > “load and use.” Programs like web browsers and mail clients, etc., require > little to no configuration or customization. One can simply do productive > use without much thought. I can easily bounce back and forth between > Internet Explorer and Firefox, Live Mail and Thunderbird. > > Not so with office suites. To get the most out of my office suites, I > create and edit templates, page, character and paragraph styles. I have to > set the autocorrect functions of each program to my liking to prevent a (c) > from turning into a ©. While it’s not essential, I tend to customize my > toolbars and have created helpful macros. Effectively using an office suite > requires a commitment akin to a marriage. > > For this reason, bouncing back and forth between two suites is > counterproductive. I find myself importing and exporting settings, styles, > and templates between the two programs rather than simply doing my work. > > Why do I put up with this inconvenience? Because each program has > essential virtues over the other. > > For example, if I need to properly hyphenate my US English, I use > LibreOffice as (to date), OpenOffice fails to properly hyphenate US English. > > But, if I need to create mailing lists, as I just did for Christmas cards, > I use OpenOffice as its Avery 5160 template is more properly aligned than > that found in LibreOffice. > > LibreOffice remembers my hierarchical stylelist setting, whereas > OpenOffice does not, but OpenOffice more effectively supports the advanced > Graphite features of the Linux Libertine font. > > So, depending on my specific needs, I bounce back and forth. I’m sure many > would suggest that I help out by reporting bugs. I have done so, but even I > get lost keeping track of the bugs of each program that I am most > interested in following. > > I suspect this situation will only get worse as each program develops > features that will be lacking in the other. And, while I’m not a developer, > my guess is that both programs are so complex that keeping up with each > other will become an increasingly elusive effort. And, the time will come > when decisions will be made NOT to implement features found in the other > program. > > I truly like the motivation generated with competition, and sometimes > having multiple programs on my computer to meet specialized needs can be > helpful. But, in the world of office suites, where user commitment is > essential to effective use, it would be very helpful to us end users if TDF > and Apache could somehow overcome their differences and join forces to give > us one glorious office suites rather than two almost glorious office suites. > > These are just my thoughts. > > I’d be curious as to how many others are using both programs because of > advantages of each over the other. > > Virgil
