At 11:50 26/03/2023 +1000, Ponly Conly Sonly wrote:
Dear Brian,
You have initiated broader discussion, so I shall respond.
No: actually I didn't do that at all.
Your "Are you perhaps for some reason prejudiced
against OpenOffice?" sounds like an equivalent
of my father's "If you can't afford a Dodge,
dodge a Ford" when he owned a 1928 Dodge (our
first family car) and his "If you can't afford a
Ford, dodge a Dodge" when he subsequently owned
a 1953 Ford Customline, i.e. it demonstrates the
tribalism of belonging or ownership, the same
phenomenon seen in football fans, religious
bigots (including aggressive atheists),
political party faithful, and "my country, right
or wrong" nationalists. And Trump supporters.
This is completely inappropriate and bordering on
the offensive (as I'm sure others will see!). I
was responding to a message from a particular
subscriber, who had chosen neither to answer the
original enquirer's question helpfully nor to
leave the matter to others that could do so. His
message had already received the critical
response "This is not a very helpful answer, isn't it?" from someone else.
The message was just "Yes, there is a limit.
OpenOffice is limited." - and neither of those
statements was helpful in the circumstances.
First, as I demonstrated in a separate reply to
the original query, there was no limit preventing
the original questioner from achieving what she
needed. Secondly, messages sent to this Users
list are distributed to multiple users around the
world, and it is unhelpful if bold but inaccurate
claims such as this are allowed to go
unchallenged. I wrote the minimum required to
avoid worldwide readers being misled. It was that
responder's claim "OpenOffice is limited" that
was tribal, not my contribution. Surely that is
obvious on the most cursory of readings?
Pride of ownership really is a bit silly, Brian, ...
Now you are becoming patronising as well, which you must know is unattractive.
I fail to see why you cannot appreciate that the
(probable) tribalism was on the part of the
responder whose message I was commenting on, not
mine. Others will have understood this. I'm
perfectly happy with anyone preferring whatever
applications they do - as I frequently make clear
in private correspondence. For me to point out
that, in respect of the original user's problem
at least, OpenOffice happens not to be "limited"
can in no way be characterised as tribalism.
Please take care that you understand the relevant
attitudes before making such criticisms as this. Thank you.
Brian Barker
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