[artzy65]

RickDobbelmannqbtt, on 12 April 2012 - 06:56 PM, said:

artzy65, on 12 April 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

RickDobbelmannqbtt, on 12 April 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

IanBetteridgezwif, on 12 April 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

"It's starting to look like Apple's “walled garden” isn't as safe as many thought it was."

Which "walled garden" would that be? The Mac isn't a walled garden, anymore than Linux is.

I love the its not ready for the desktop or there are not apps that compare to mac..

Fools!

'Compare to' can be miles off 'equal to' in a high-end professional environment. Can you run Dreamweaver on Linux... nothing comes close to DW (or Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, or....).

Why would I want to use those when I can use Quanta, Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, Net Beans, phatch, or the 1000's of other 100% free developer tools available with just a few clicks.

My degree in software development was from using Apple and Windows products. I have not had one need to use any microsoft adobe apple products since switching to linux 100% of the time.

Then your needs are different than mine.

This post has been edited by artzy65: 13 April 2012 - 09:07 AM

[artzy65]

MICHAEL6gvz, on 13 April 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

artzy65, on 12 April 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

Oh, yeah... I did all that myself, just as I have been troubleshooting all my Macs (12 since 1996) myself. I also have a 4-Mac LAN which I set up myself, and just this week figured out why my DSL connection had been dropping often over the last couple of weeks... with no help at all from my ISP, or tech friend.

Peace out.

Ha, sorry about that I read your message too quickly. I didn't realize you said "Any PC".
You are a rare breed. Most Mac users do not want to ever do so much work such as troubleshooting... which is why they say they use Mac. They are just supposed to work.

I wouldn't call myself a Mac user, because I like just about every OS out there for one reason or another. They all have their weaknesses and strengths to appeal to certain users.
In the computer world its never been "one size fits all". Probably my favorite OS of all times is BEOS it is better than OSX, Linux, Windows in many ways.... but hey we can go on forever and maybe talk about Amiga.


On a more serious note, unfortunately it is a violation of the license agreement to run OSX in a Virtual Machine. (private email me, and I'll explain how I know)


later.

Yeah, my IT friend knows that it's illegal. He says he installed it because you need OSX to design Apple apps.

I'm probably even rarer than you think, given that I'm a graphic artist and not a techie per se. But I jokingly call myself a 'techie wannabe', in the sense that why should I pay someone big bucks to troubleshoot my rigs when I can figure it out myself.

I wouldn't be too critical of Mac users... to separate them from PC users is a mistake in my view... the general public is pretty much non-techie, on Mac or PC. You can't expect a non-techie to want to troubleshoot their computer. A client/friend of mine is just as lame on his PC as he is on his wife's MacBook... but at least he feels better on the MacBook because of the design and simplicity.

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

This post has been edited by artzy65: 13 April 2012 - 09:11 AM

[nonseq]

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

Absolutely. Over the decades as technologies emerge and mature they also seem to become more democratic and the role of the "techie" gatekeeper becomes unnecessary. Ultimately, in my opinion, the most successful technologies are the most transparent technologies. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

[artzy65]

nonseq, on 13 April 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

RobinLim0bf7, on 12 April 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

nonseq, on 12 April 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Ridiculous. Give up a cohesive unified system with powerful and secure applications for the hodgepodge of distros and not quite ready for prime time programs?

Linux is great in the back office and on servers. One the desktop it's fragmented and hobbyist friendly without meeting average users needs.

Let the condescension and flaming begin!

Okay I am not going to flame you. A desktop operating system is pretty much just an app launcher. If you had Linux versions of MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim than more people would be on Linux.

If you want to covert people to Linux you have to convert them first to using Libre Office or GIMP on their Windows PC or Mac. Once people are comfortable with cross platform software Linux use will increase. As more users come in, maybe more developers will follows.

But LibreOffice and OO.org and the GIMP don't do what many need or want- they are imitations and little more. It's not a matter of education it's a matter of getting a product that creates a demand. Thanks for your civil reply.

Good one. My research into Linux graphic apps reviews always have comments like 'many of the features of' Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I suspect that Linux users of graphic apps are not under pressure to 'bring home the bacon' (as another poster here put it) with them.

This post has been edited by artzy65: 13 April 2012 - 09:48 AM

[MICHAEL6gvz]

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

I guess they pretty much can be like that out of the box. especially an Apple computer, but to a certain degree any pre-installed OS on any hardware. Its only when one makes changes, a general user can get lost and cause issues.
Your average user is not looking at a PCWorld article. Its just the more advanced user or tech professional/hobbyist.
The only people who don't care about these arguments about switching, etc. are the people who don't read about what we write.

[artzy65]

nonseq, on 13 April 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

Absolutely. Over the decades as technologies emerge and mature they also seem to become more democratic and the role of the "techie" gatekeeper becomes unnecessary. Ultimately, in my opinion, the most successful technologies are the most transparent technologies. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Legend has it that when Steve returned to Apple in 1998, he told Jonny Ives to 'design a computer that looks like an appliance.'

I can't, unfortunately, take credit for that description ;-)

This post has been edited by artzy65: 13 April 2012 - 09:46 AM

[Nuke61]

If you don't understand the appeal of the iPad, you can't understand the appeal of Mac's, and it seems to me that Linux fans really don't understand the appeal of iPad's at all. What you see as simplistic and limiting, my wife sees as easy to use and not intimidating. Even though it can do most of the things she does with her laptop, it feels more like using a toaster or the TV, and not so much like using a COMPUTER. In many respects, using a Mac is much simpler because of things like Time Machine for backups and Keychain for passwords. For those people a computer is not fun, and it's not for tinkering with - it is simply a means to an end, whether it is using the internet, using Quicken for their checking, or iMovie to make video's of the last family outing. That last part is why I switched from being a decades long Windows user. For my uses, iMovie was as good or better than apps I had already purchased on Windows, and it came with the computer.

If you want to know why Linux isn't appealing to many users, try to first understand why the iPad IS appealing to a large number of people.

[Evildave]

Kinda like a Microwave oven.

You can get a Microwave with a mechanical dial that you turn to set time, and no other setting. Everybody can put food in and turn the dial, and wait for the 'ding'. It's a no-brainer.

You can get a Microwave with all kinds of controls, and a million different settings. But it is intimidating for people who aren't familiar with the controls, and telling it 'how' to cook food can be bothersome.

There are reasons (and excuses) for the overly-complex interface exist. Convection and defrost and 150 examples in the included recipe book, and presets and all kinds of things.

But 99+% of the time, you only wanted to put something 'cold' in the magic box and nuke it for a couple of minutes to make it 'hot', and all of the added 'flexibility' for cooking only gets in the way of doing that.

[nonseq]

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

nonseq, on 13 April 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

Absolutely. Over the decades as technologies emerge and mature they also seem to become more democratic and the role of the "techie" gatekeeper becomes unnecessary. Ultimately, in my opinion, the most successful technologies are the most transparent technologies. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Legend has it that when Steve returned to Apple in 1998, he told Jonny Ives to 'design a computer that looks like an appliance.'

I can't, unfortunately, take credit for that description ;-)

And that legend goes back to the original mac. It looked like a refrigerator and when turned on the user was greeted with a smiley face.

[artzy65]

MICHAEL6gvz, on 13 April 2012 - 09:37 AM, said:

artzy65, on 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

For the general public, computers should be easy to use, like an appliance.

I guess they pretty much can be like that out of the box. especially an Apple computer, but to a certain degree any pre-installed OS on any hardware. Its only when one makes changes, a general user can get lost and cause issues.
Your average user is not looking at a PCWorld article. Its just the more advanced user or tech professional/hobbyist.
The only people who don't care about these arguments about switching, etc. are the people who don't read about what we write.

Yeah, out-of-the-box... but not yet, at least not to a non-techie. It's the iPad that's more like an appliance than a computer... that's the whole point. General users aren't content-creators or techies. They don't need what we need.

This post has been edited by artzy65: 13 April 2012 - 11:33 AM

[Tinman1957]

Oh now you've done gone and done it! You stirred up the hornets nest, Apple and WinBlows fanboys from all over the world are going to spread their hate in the comments section.
I currently use Win XP. I will not be "upgrading" to Win 7, and definitely NOT Win 8 with it's MetroCrap. After all these years of putting up with MicroSux shenanigans, I'll be installing Linux when the support for XP stops.
I ruled out Apple for several reasons, one being it's proprietary and all the problems that entails, another being cost. But one thing has always stuck in my mind with Apple over the years, and that's how they tend to screw over their user base in one way or another, kind of like MicroSux.
I just hate having to learn the in's and out's of another OS and being proficient at it....

FLAME ON!!!

[artzy65]

Tinman1957, on 13 April 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

Oh now you've done gone and done it! You stirred up the hornets nest, Apple and WinBlows fanboys from all over the world are going to spread their hate in the comments section.
I currently use Win XP. I will not be "upgrading" to Win 7, and definitely NOT Win 8 with it's MetroCrap. After all these years of putting up with MicroSux shenanigans, I'll be installing Linux when the support for XP stops.
I ruled out Apple for several reasons, one being it's proprietary and all the problems that entails, another being cost. But one thing has always stuck in my mind with Apple over the years, and that's how they tend to screw over their user base in one way or another, kind of like MicroSux.
I just hate having to learn the in's and out's of another OS and being proficient at it....

FLAME ON!!!

YEAH! Get out your witticisms and flame retardant!

Seriously, I miss '09-'10 when there were some really funny putdowns flying to-and-fro in the Mac vs PC Holy Wars. C'mon people, let's have some fun!

[JohnShepherd]

Nuke61, on 13 April 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

If you don't understand the appeal of the iPad, you can't understand the appeal of Mac's, and it seems to me that Linux fans really don't understand the appeal of iPad's at all. What you see as simplistic and limiting, my wife sees as easy to use and not intimidating. Even though it can do most of the things she does with her laptop, it feels more like using a toaster or the TV, and not so much like using a COMPUTER. In many respects, using a Mac is much simpler because of things like Time Machine for backups and Keychain for passwords. For those people a computer is not fun, and it's not for tinkering with - it is simply a means to an end, whether it is using the internet, using Quicken for their checking, or iMovie to make video's of the last family outing. That last part is why I switched from being a decades long Windows user. For my uses, iMovie was as good or better than apps I had already purchased on Windows, and it came with the computer.

If you want to know why Linux isn't appealing to many users, try to first understand why the iPad IS appealing to a large number of people.

Linus Torvalds, the original creator of Linux, has said that there's nothing wrong with designing for simplicity... but there is something wrong with designing only for simplicity. He explained that newbies eventually become power users, and when they learn more and want to do more, they become hampered by something that's only designed for simplicity. He made these comments in regards to a particular Linux desktop whose designers were discussing lists of features they could remove from the desktop to make it "simpler".

The problem with a computer designed like a toaster is that you're only going to be able to toast bread with it. :-) In the worst case scenario, you're never going to learn that more can even be done with a computer than toasting bread. An only-for-simplicity device can't grow with the user's learning level or needs.

Eric S. Raymond and another commenter, TN, wrote this when analyzing the Microsoft "Halloween Documents", leaked memos that showed internally how much they feared open source software and tried to decide how to deal with it:

Quote

The difference here is, in every release cycle Microsoft always listens to its most ignorant customers. This is the key to dumbing down each release cycle of software for further assaulting the non-PC population. Linux and OS/2 developers, OTOH, tend to listen to their smartest customers. This necessarily limits the initial appeal of the operating system, while enhancing its long-term benefits. Perhaps only a monopolist like Microsoft could get away with selling worse products each generation -- products focused so narrowly on the least-technical member of the consumer base that they necessarily sacrifice technical excellence. Linux and OS/2 tend to appeal to the customer who knows greatness when he or she sees it.The good that Microsoft does in bringing computers to the non-users is outdone by the curse they bring upon the experienced users, because their monopoly position tends to force everyone toward the lowest-common-denominator, not just the new users.

Note: This means that Microsoft does the "heavy lifting" of expanding the overall PC marketplace. The great fear at Microsoft is that somebody will come behind them and make products that not only are more reliable, faster, and more secure, but are also easy to use, fun, and make people more productive. That would mean that Microsoft had merely served as a pioneer and taken all the arrows in the back, while we who have better products become a second wave to homestead on Microsoft's tamed territory. Well, sounds like a good idea to me.

So, we ought to take a page from Microsoft's book and listen to the newbies once in a while. But not so often that we lose our technological superiority over Microsoft.

ESR again. I don't agree with TN's apparent assumption that ease-of-use and technical superiority are necessarily mutually exclusive; with good design it's possible to do both. But given limited resources and poor-to-mediocre design skills, they do tend to get set in opposition with each other. Thus there's enough point to TN's analysis to make it worth reproducing here. }

That leads me to this:

"...and not so much like using a COMPUTER."

This is going to have to end soon, something those who promote the only-for-simplicity/computer-as-appliance don't seem to realize. I'm going to be turning 40 this year, and I was reading computer magazines in the 3rd grade and programming by sixth grade, having a computer before I turned 13. There's already a whole generation who have had computers since birth, and my one-year-old nephew is already playing with my brothers smartphone and my sister-in-law's Nook tablet. A computer is no longer a big, scary, blinking-lights-sci-fi-movie-scary-unknown... it's a ubiquitous device indispensable for modern life. Even my 68-year-old mother has an e-mail address now, looks things up on the Internet, etc. You've got multiple generations growing up with computers now, and they're not scary or unknown anymore. They're required equipment in schools now and apparently for quite some time. The use of a computer is required (and assumed) knowledge for almost any office job. Who today is still frightened of a computer or needs their hand held to a Microsoft Bob-level degree? It would be understandable for someone to be frightened of the "horseless carriage" in 1908 but not in 1968. It's the year 2012 and most Americans are carrying in their pockets more computing power than the first several computers I used or owned. I don't see this stigma being a valid excuse anymore.

>If you want to know why Linux isn't appealing to many users, try to first understand why the iPad IS appealing to a large number of people.

This assumes the stereotype that Linux is still a command line-driven OS where people need to compile their own software. I could sit a Windows user down at a KDE-based Linux distro and they might never know they weren't using Windows (I talked to someone who had his girlfriend fooled for months after he installed Linux on her PC after a virus infection and told her he "upgraded" Windows too; her son finally spilled the beans). The difference between Linux and Windows and OS X is that Linux doesn't attempt to dictate the user experience or hide any functions or settings. As people grow in their comfort and knowledge, they can discover the extra power being in control of the machine provides. If it were designed solely for simplicity, it would be like having a tricycle rather than a bicycle with training wheels - you're stuck forever in beginner mode, even when you want to go faster or do more. The open source nature of the software also leads to almost everything being modular so that any one program can leverage the others... for instance, my screenshot program has the ability to send snapshots via e-mail, instant message, SMS or upload to about 18 different photo sharing sites, and my photo organizing program makes use of the same library to offer the same features. UNIX's design philosophy was to make programs that did one thing really well and make them interconnectable. This allows an incredible degree of sharing and pipelineing between programs and processes so that a great degree of automation and scripting can take place. None of this makes Linux harder to use; it only makes a world of amazing new options available if and when the user wants to learn about them and try them out.

Understanding the iPad doesn't make me understand at all what people have against customizability, flexibility, modularity, sharing, rapid update cycles, transparency and openness, being in control of their own machines or free software. This post, though, lets me understand that there are a lot of people who don't find Linux appealing because they've bought into outdated or false myths about the nature of Linux and haven't yet taken the time to explore what it has to offer them.

[DanielSandmanr50z]

nonseq, on 12 April 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Ridiculous. Give up a cohesive unified system with powerful and secure applications for the hodgepodge of distros and not quite ready for prime time programs?

Linux is great in the back office and on servers. One the desktop it's fragmented and hobbyist friendly without meeting average users needs.

Let the condescension and flaming begin!

You have obviously very little knowledge about the Linux world.. Linux on desktop is used by millions (still just a fraction of all desktop) and offers everything from very stable to bleeding edge fragile. I wouldn't call Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Caligra or any other software not ready for prime time. Many even thinks distros like Ubuntu to be even more user friendly than OSX. So try to educate yourself before you have an opinion.

[Nuke61]

JohnShepherd, on 13 April 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

The problem with a computer designed like a toaster is that you're only going to be able to toast bread with it. :-) In the worst case scenario, you're never going to learn that more can even be done with a computer than toasting bread. An only-for-simplicity device can't grow with the user's learning level or needs. 

For people who enjoy learning about computing, Linux is a wonderful OS, but large portion of the population simply don't care and just use their computer as a means to an end. The Mac allows anything from a very simplistic desktop to using terminal commands with shell scripts and running X11 programs.

Quote

"...and not so much like using a COMPUTER."
This is going to have to end soon, something those who promote the only-for-simplicity/computer-as-appliance don't seem to realize.

No, it doesn't have to end anytime soon. In fact, simplicity of use and interface is more popular now than it has ever been. The iOS design philosophy is to make the computer an appliance. The design philosophy of Windows 8  is to simplify the interface, with Windows Phone having a UI even more streamlined than iOS. The most popular Linux is the various versions running on smartphones, and what do they all have in common? They give the end user a simple interface, one where all of their apps are in plain sight and the file system is hidden. 

Quote

It's the year 2012 and most Americans are carrying in their pockets more computing power than the first several computers I used or owned. I don't see this stigma being a valid excuse anymore.

Those smartphones all target a simplified UI. No file system to deal with, just a simple click of the app you want to run. It's staring you right in the face and you don't see it... it's clear that most users want computing power but with something that feels less like a computer. You want more than that, but you are in the minority.

Quote

>If you want to know why Linux isn't appealing to many users, try to first understand why the iPad IS appealing to a large number of people.

I could sit a Windows user down at a KDE-based Linux distro and they might never know they weren't using Windows (I talked to someone who had his girlfriend fooled for months after he installed Linux on her PC after a virus infection and told her he "upgraded" Windows too; her son finally spilled the beans). 

That's fine for a situation where it's set up for them, but it makes no sense whatsoever for someone who already has a running Mac. Switching your OS and all your apps because of a malware outbreak? Uh, how about just installing security software instead, when you previously didn't?

Quote

This post, though, lets me understand that there are a lot of people who don't find Linux appealing because they've bought into outdated or false myths about the nature of Linux and haven't yet taken the time to explore what it has to offer them. 

That's probably true, but I'm not among that population. I used an Amiga when DOS was popular, I used OS/2 when Windows started becoming popular, and I've tried several Linux distributions over the years. OS X offers me the power of Terminal commands and scripting, while maintaining the simplicity of offering to use my NAS as a Time Machine backup destination. Meanwhile I have other backups going to FireWire drives that are directly bootable if the main drive dies. No reinstall, just reboot and hold down the Option key, then select the external drive and I'm back in service, in less than 60 seconds.

[JohnShepherd]

waldojim, on 13 April 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

RobinLim0bf7, on 12 April 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

Okay I am not going to flame you. A desktop operating system is pretty much just an app launcher. If you had Linux versions of MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim than more people would be on Linux.

If you want to covert people to Linux you have to convert them first to using Libre Office or GIMP on their Windows PC or Mac. Once people are comfortable with cross platform software Linux use will increase. As more users come in, maybe more developers will follows.

But see, now you are asking people to give up tools they are familar with, or in some cases, use to bring home the BACON! Also, Libre Office/Open Office is NOT 100% compatible with MS Office documents. You could either A. Give up MS Office and spend hours upon hours reformatting the text, just to have it broken again by the next person who opens it with MS Office. B. Use a web only editor that is cut down to near useless levels. Or C. Keep using what works, get the job done quickly, and move on. Which do you see happening?

When you ask anyone to ever do anything new, you're asking them to give up something they're familiar with by definition. When I'm presented with the choice of using program X instead of program Y, I know there will be a cost in time to learn program X and and additional cost in giving up my expertise with program Y and starting from a lower level of experience. There will often be a monetary cost for the software as well. What I have to weigh is what I gain for the tradeoff of time and possibly money. However, to suggest that needing to invest any time at all is a dealbreaker regardless of benefit is just silly.

Once again we're confronted with the urban legend of OpenOffice and its alleged vices. On a personal note: does it really matter? How often are people giving you Microsoft Office documents that you have to look at in pixel-level fidelity? Here's a hint: if you need pixel-level fidelity, you don't send a document in Microsoft Office format; you send it in PDF format. It's rude to send any document in any proprietary format, actually.

But if compatibility with Microsoft Office is your big bugaboo, then you shouldn't be using Microsoft Office. Huh? I'll explain and then you'll understand the hypocrisy in attacking LibreOffice with charges of compatibility. Up through Office XP, Office saved document settings based on the default printer of the machine it was saved on. This means that someone opening up a Word doc on another PC with the identical copy of Microsoft Office could see differences if they had a different default printer! OpenOffice dealt with this by surveying many users as to their default printer. They then averaged these values and used them to open a Word doc. The result was that often OpenOffice was more accurate than the same version of Microsoft Office used to create the document when opened on a machine with different default printers. OpenOffice never saved its own documents like this so did not share this problem. Somehow the entire world continued to use Microsoft Office even though Microsoft Office wasn't completely compatible with Microsoft Office. The same people who did this now complain that LibreOffice isn't completely compatible with Microsoft Office.

But wait, there's more. Access 2000 would automatically convert Access 97 documents when they were opened even if the user never saved any data to them (and being closed source, naturally gave the user no choice in the matter). This meant that if anyone just opened an Access 97 database in Access 2000 it could never be opened in Access 97 again. Thus, Microsoft Office was not only not completely compatible with Microsoft Office, if you looked at certain documents with Microsoft Office they'd become incompatible with other versions of Microsoft Office. This was a little bit more difficult to swallow for "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft" folks so many users skipped Access 2000 entirely. In true Microsoft fashion, they responded to the complaints by making things worse. Access 2003 didn't screw up Access 97 files... because it couldn't open Access 97 files at all! Problem solved! Not only that, you couldn't install Access 2003 alongside Access 97 like you at least could with Access 2000. It wasn't until Access 2007 that the ability to (non-destructively) open Access 97 files returned to Access, finally restoring interoperability a mere decade later! Again, somehow Microsoft Office continued being considered the One To Beat because LibreOffice might not render every pixel of MS' proprietary files correctly. That would be unacceptable.

Of course, there's even more. A statistics professor examining Excel found it was not very accurate with calculations involving the "tail end" of distributions (very small or large values). The same problem existed with an open source spreadsheet called Gnumeric. The professor preferred to say that Gnumeric was such an accurate clone of Excel that they even copied the bugs! The professor reported the issues to the Gnumeric folks and they fixed them to the point where Gnumeric became extremely accurate. Excel... didn't change at all. It eventually did change... it became more accurate at the tails while becoming less accurate everywhere else! The professor was flummoxed in that standard algorithms for calculating these values were widely available in reference books that didn't have these errors. He was even more floored by the fact that just a few people in their spare time producing Gnumeric for free were able to do what Microsoft couldn't (or wouldn't?) do with Excel. Gnumeric even has 157 functions in areas like engineering and finance that aren't in Excel. Meanwhile, in tests of Excel 97, 2000, XP, and 2003 it continued to be left in the dust on a standard set of statistical accuracy tests by Gnumeric. The professor published a paper with all of these findings advising anyone working with statistics to avoid using Excel. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.csdassn.o...ts/gnumeric.pdf

So to recap... Microsoft Office has often been not completely compatible with Microsoft Office and could make its own files incompatible with other copies of itself... when it can even open copies of its own documents, which may take a decade give or take a few years to get right. It has also been shown to not be completely compatible with reality, at least in the realm of statistics. And these are just the things I can think of off the top of my head. There's a few more I haven't seen myself but heard from others that I won't get into as I don't have all of the details.

Meanwhile... LibreOffice uses and always has used an open file format so there's no need to reverse engineer it to read it or any other excuses for poor compatibility. It is not only compatible with itself, it reads formats from many other programs (including my old Microsoft Works format documents, something Office can't do without downloading, installing and using a tool to convert the Works to Word documents first, which makes LibreOffice more Microsoft-compatible than Microsoft). OpenOffice could directly create PDF documents (not print-to-PDF) for compatibility years before Office gained the feature. In fact, LibreOffice offers "hybrid format", a really awesome idea that embeds the LibreOffice document in a PDF of the same document. LibreOffice can see the embedded document and open it for viewing/editing while anyone who can't read it can still have the PDF to view the file with!

In addition, the latest version of Office supports the Open Document Format so there shouldn't be much excuse to be sending documents in proprietary formats anymore. The city of Munich, Germany just finished converting 18,000 desktops to Linux, so apparently this imagined crippling incompatibility is no problem for Munich.

With the incompatibility issue out of the way, LibreOffice offers a great deal of innovative new features including the "hybrid" format. While Office uses its own proprietary VBA for programming, LibreOffice has not only its own very compatible Basic programming language but supports the much more widely used and vastly more powerful javascript and python languages for serious programming. In 2013 they say users can expect to see a (full-featured, identical to desktop) online version and collaborative abilities added to the desktop version as well. To dismiss all of this and so many more interesting features because of vague claims about compatibility that don't even begin to rise to the level of incompatibility Office hsa demonstrated not only with other versions but identical copies of itself over the years is completely unfair, shortsided, and quite frankly FUD.It's perfectly fine to not use LibreOffice or to argue that it doesn't have feature X or feature Y that you need, but these unsupported claims of incompatibility discourage those who haven't given it a try from looking at it, and that's just not fair or acceptable.

Finally, any incompatibility in LibreOffice would not be a mark against it and a source of pride for the Office user; it would be just the opposite. It would exist because Microsoft intentionally created an undocumented file format and worked to keep it from being reverse-engineered. They would have done this to create vendor lock-in to prevent you from moving to another program very easily. If LibreOffice weren't compatible with your Office documents that should be a source of sadness for you, because it would mean you were stuck with Office no matter what thanks to MS and thanks to you yourself choosing to use something with a proprietary format in the first place. Whatever your software preferences, vendor lock-in should be avoided like the plague; it's a terrible place to be in.

[waldojim]

JohnShepherd, on 13 April 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

When you ask anyone to ever do anything new, you're asking them to give up something they're familiar with by definition. When I'm presented with the choice of using program X instead of program Y, I know there will be a cost in time to learn program X and and additional cost in giving up my expertise with program Y and starting from a lower level of experience. There will often be a monetary cost for the software as well. What I have to weigh is what I gain for the tradeoff of time and possibly money. However, to suggest that needing to invest any time at all is a dealbreaker regardless of benefit is just silly.

If you have tools that do your job, and do it well, why switch?
If your tools are capable of doing the job as quickly as a cheaper replacement, and people already know the tools you have, why switch?
Change for the sake of change is meaningless.

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Once again we're confronted with the urban legend of OpenOffice and its alleged vices. On a personal note: does it really matter? How often are people giving you Microsoft Office documents that you have to look at in pixel-level fidelity? Here's a hint: if you need pixel-level fidelity, you don't send a document in Microsoft Office format; you send it in PDF format. It's rude to send any document in any proprietary format, actually.

OK, not sure where you got this idea that I am talking about some magical pixel level fidelity, but I am talking about simple documents. Or rather, documents that seem simple enough on the surface, yet the actually formatting is too complex for OOo to decode. For a while, I didn't even believe this was true. Then I was sent a one page legal pleading. It not only got torn up in OOo, but LibreOffice, Google Docs, AbiWord, and anything else I could find. It was a one page, text only document that proved the point.

As for your snide remarks about proprietary formats. Yeah, I think you may want to reconsider your viewpoint on that. PDF is just as proprietary for starters. Now, since 2008, Adobe has created a completely open license for PDF, but that doesn't change the facts. In fact, apart from the few open document formats from OOo and similar, pretty much all formats are proprietary. And the OOo document formatting changes with every version.

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But if compatibility with Microsoft Office is your big bugaboo, then you shouldn't be using Microsoft Office. Huh? I'll explain and then you'll understand the hypocrisy in attacking LibreOffice with charges of compatibility. Up through Office XP, Office saved document settings based on the default printer of the machine it was saved on. This means that someone opening up a Word doc on another PC with the identical copy of Microsoft Office could see differences if they had a different default printer! OpenOffice dealt with this by surveying many users as to their default printer. They then averaged these values and used them to open a Word doc. The result was that often OpenOffice was more accurate than the same version of Microsoft Office used to create the document when opened on a machine with different default printers. OpenOffice never saved its own documents like this so did not share this problem. Somehow the entire world continued to use Microsoft Office even though Microsoft Office wasn't completely compatible with Microsoft Office. The same people who did this now complain that LibreOffice isn't completely compatible with Microsoft Office.

But wait, there's more. Access 2000 would automatically convert Access 97 documents when they were opened even if the user never saved any data to them (and being closed source, naturally gave the user no choice in the matter). This meant that if anyone just opened an Access 97 database in Access 2000 it could never be opened in Access 97 again. Thus, Microsoft Office was not only not completely compatible with Microsoft Office, if you looked at certain documents with Microsoft Office they'd become incompatible with other versions of Microsoft Office. This was a little bit more difficult to swallow for "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft" folks so many users skipped Access 2000 entirely. In true Microsoft fashion, they responded to the complaints by making things worse. Access 2003 didn't screw up Access 97 files... because it couldn't open Access 97 files at all! Problem solved! Not only that, you couldn't install Access 2003 alongside Access 97 like you at least could with Access 2000. It wasn't until Access 2007 that the ability to (non-destructively) open Access 97 files returned to Access, finally restoring interoperability a mere decade later! Again, somehow Microsoft Office continued being considered the One To Beat because LibreOffice might not render every pixel of MS' proprietary files correctly. That would be unacceptable.

Believe it or not, the problems you are addressing are FAR more minor than the formatting corruption brought on by OOo. You keep harping on about "every pixel", apparently you never tried opening some of the more entertaining files from MS Office in other software. You should. That would completely change your perspective.

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Of course, there's even more. A statistics professor examining Excel found it was not very accurate with calculations involving the "tail end" of distributions (very small or large values). The same problem existed with an open source spreadsheet called Gnumeric. The professor preferred to say that Gnumeric was such an accurate clone of Excel that they even copied the bugs! The professor reported the issues to the Gnumeric folks and they fixed them to the point where Gnumeric became extremely accurate. Excel... didn't change at all. It eventually did change... it became more accurate at the tails while becoming less accurate everywhere else! The professor was flummoxed in that standard algorithms for calculating these values were widely available in reference books that didn't have these errors. He was even more floored by the fact that just a few people in their spare time producing Gnumeric for free were able to do what Microsoft couldn't (or wouldn't?) do with Excel. Gnumeric even has 157 functions in areas like engineering and finance that aren't in Excel. Meanwhile, in tests of Excel 97, 2000, XP, and 2003 it continued to be left in the dust on a standard set of statistical accuracy tests by Gnumeric. The professor published a paper with all of these findings advising anyone working with statistics to avoid using Excel. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.csdassn.o...ts/gnumeric.pdf

So to recap... Microsoft Office has often been not completely compatible with Microsoft Office and could make its own files incompatible with other copies of itself... when it can even open copies of its own documents, which may take a decade give or take a few years to get right. It has also been shown to not be completely compatible with reality, at least in the realm of statistics. And these are just the things I can think of off the top of my head. There's a few more I haven't seen myself but heard from others that I won't get into as I don't have all of the details.

First, no one needs the recap. We can read the first time through.
Second, MS has fixed the flaws you speak of. Yet you only mention that in passing.

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Meanwhile... LibreOffice uses and always has used an open file format so there's no need to reverse engineer it to read it or any other excuses for poor compatibility. It is not only compatible with itself, it reads formats from many other programs (including my old Microsoft Works format documents, something Office can't do without downloading, installing and using a tool to convert the Works to Word documents first, which makes LibreOffice more Microsoft-compatible than Microsoft). OpenOffice could directly create PDF documents (not print-to-PDF) for compatibility years before Office gained the feature. In fact, LibreOffice offers "hybrid format", a really awesome idea that embeds the LibreOffice document in a PDF of the same document. LibreOffice can see the embedded document and open it for viewing/editing while anyone who can't read it can still have the PDF to view the file with!

In addition, the latest version of Office supports the Open Document Format so there shouldn't be much excuse to be sending documents in proprietary formats anymore. The city of Munich, Germany just finished converting 18,000 desktops to Linux, so apparently this imagined crippling incompatibility is no problem for Munich.

With the incompatibility issue out of the way, LibreOffice offers a great deal of innovative new features including the "hybrid" format. While Office uses its own proprietary VBA for programming, LibreOffice has not only its own very compatible Basic programming language but supports the much more widely used and vastly more powerful javascript and python languages for serious programming. In 2013 they say users can expect to see a (full-featured, identical to desktop) online version and collaborative abilities added to the desktop version as well. To dismiss all of this and so many more interesting features because of vague claims about compatibility that don't even begin to rise to the level of incompatibility Office hsa demonstrated not only with other versions but identical copies of itself over the years is completely unfair, shortsided, and quite frankly FUD.It's perfectly fine to not use LibreOffice or to argue that it doesn't have feature X or feature Y that you need, but these unsupported claims of incompatibility discourage those who haven't given it a try from looking at it, and that's just not fair or acceptable.

Finally, any incompatibility in LibreOffice would not be a mark against it and a source of pride for the Office user; it would be just the opposite. It would exist because Microsoft intentionally created an undocumented file format and worked to keep it from being reverse-engineered. They would have done this to create vendor lock-in to prevent you from moving to another program very easily. If LibreOffice weren't compatible with your Office documents that should be a source of sadness for you, because it would mean you were stuck with Office no matter what thanks to MS and thanks to you yourself choosing to use something with a proprietary format in the first place. Whatever your software preferences, vendor lock-in should be avoided like the plague; it's a terrible place to be in.

LibreOffice/OOo are also incomplete (comparatively) and require many modifications from one version to the next, that just happens to create the same backwards compatibility problem you keep harping on about. Yet you conveniently ignore this. And yes, they did offer up a gimped version of PDF tools. Before Adobe released the license to the public. As it stands, MS would have had to PAY Adobe to do that, adding more cost to the already expensive software.

I love how you all like to quote Muichs conversion. Do you think that all the documents just converted themselves overnight? Do you think they fixed the formatting overnight? And WHO do you think they complained to? The hardware support/OS support team that is referenced in all the articles?! NOT HARDLY. Those guys would have simply answered: "NOT MY PROBLEM, THE SOFTWARE WORKS AS INTENDED".

Lastly: You are working under the obviously false impression that it is always YOUR CHOICE what software is used. There are many industries where the choice doesn't belong to the user, or even the company. A large law firm can no more chose to use Open Office than I can at work. WHY? Because all documents must be submitted to the courts in the format that the COURT wants it in. Do some homework on this, and think about it from more than the home users point of view. It is obvious you have never considered that. In all honesty, until I talked to people that deal with these problems daily, I didn't either. Then after looking at how the market works, and how the real world works, I found out that my way of thinking is what needed changed.

[Evildave]

Of course, unlike Micro$uck Orifice, LibreOffice.org doesn't cost anybody any cash to use or upgrade.

It's ABSOLUTELY REASONABLE to expect someone to update free software, and keep it up to date.

Want the latest version of OOo or LO? Download it. It's free, like free beer. Free forever. ALWAYS free.
http://www.libreoffice.org/

When you're slavishly shelling out cash for Micro$uck Orifice 2015, because you're terrified that Microsoft won't provide you 'updates' any more to patch their millions of severe security holes, LibreOffice.org will still be free.

And we'll still be pointing and laughing at the morons who have trapped themselves in the paid upgrade loop.

[nonseq]

DanielSandmanr50z, on 13 April 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

nonseq, on 12 April 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Ridiculous. Give up a cohesive unified system with powerful and secure applications for the hodgepodge of distros and not quite ready for prime time programs?

Linux is great in the back office and on servers. One the desktop it's fragmented and hobbyist friendly without meeting average users needs.

Let the condescension and flaming begin!

You have obviously very little knowledge about the Linux world.. Linux on desktop is used by millions (still just a fraction of all desktop) and offers everything from very stable to bleeding edge fragile. I wouldn't call Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Caligra or any other software not ready for prime time. Many even thinks distros like Ubuntu to be even more user friendly than OSX. So try to educate yourself before you have an opinion.

I think my experience with the "Linux World" is pretty much like millions of other users. Linux on the desktop is, for the most part stagnant and I stand by the contention that Linux apps are not there yet and probably won't be. Just telling me and others that we don't know about the Linux world is not persuasive. Most of us who tried Linux got only as far as complications or apps that don't cut the mustard and said, "Linux is not for me" I'm glad you like it and work well with it. But please don't take the "you have very little knowledge" thought too far. My contention is that we (the great unwashed- those who are not hobbyists or techies) shouldn't have to know that much about learning any OS. We fall into a different category. We're neither better or worse than a well versed Linux user- just different.

Be we have gone far astray from Noyes contention that flashback Mac Malware is One More Reason to Switch to Linux. The proposition is ridiculous on it's face and demonstrates, in my opinion, Ms. Noyes absolute bias and agenda.

[artzy65]

JohnShepherd, on 13 April 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

The problem with a computer designed like a toaster is that you're only going to be able to toast bread with it. :-) In the worst case scenario, you're never going to learn that more can even be done with a computer than toasting bread. An only-for-simplicity device can't grow with the user's learning level or needs.

You forgot English muffins and bagels (and magazines if you're Jason Bourne) ;-)

This post has been edited by artzy65: 14 April 2012 - 08:30 AM