[PLUG] Struggling with OpenOffice

[Carla Schroder]

On Thursday 08 August 2002 07:46 pm, you wrote:
> Rich Shepard wrote:
> >   I've heard that argument too many times before. My response is that of
> > my parents when I was a teenager (back in the early Pleistocene) and
> > wanted to do something "because everyone else was doing it": "If everyone
> > else jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?"
> >
> >   We're letting Microsoft define the rules of the game, but trying to
> > tell them that our way is better. Discrepancy here! Why not do it a much
> > better way and sell that to the intelligent (i.e., non-sheep) out there?
>
> Oh, I agree with you 100%.  Why should we duplicate how M$ does things
> 100% of the time?  We shouldn't...  But the problem is, when people are
> migrating to OO from M$, they *want and need* that same functionality in
> order to get the job done.
>
> AFTER we've converted those who are willing to convert, THEN we can
> start changing functionality, or they can start using something that
> makes more sense.
>
> This goes along with the whole 'linux on the desktop' debate as well.
> Advocates want to see linux prevail, Critics say they have to have
> Windows functionality TO prevail.  People are like sheep, the'll follow
> the crowd.  If M$ does something, then Linux has to do the SAME thing in
> order for people to accept it.  The only reason Linux *hasn't* prevailed
> on the desktop is because it's not Windows.
>
> So, OO and SO are doing what people want.  People as a GROUP, mind you,
> not the geeks who know WTF they want.  Like K in MIB said, "A Person is
> smart.  PEOPLE are dumb, ignorant and scared."  Or something to that
> effect.  You get my point.
>
> -R

have you see Bruce Sterling's speech? 

http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/301-350/00325_open_source_speech.html

"There's a noticeable lack of basic creativity in the free software world, 
that is alarming and not very flattering. People in free software still have 
a basically piratical state of mind. They want goods without working for 
them. They still have a cracker state of mind. "How can I look through that 
closed bedroom window?"

"GNU's Not Unix." Okay, you're "not Unix" ? but what are you really? Why do 
you have to live in that shadow? The shadow of this other enterprise. There's 
something basically juvenile about that. Something that is unworthy, 
creatively feeble, childish."

"
What's the real price you pay for free software? The real price you pay is 
having to bow the knee to the weird organizational model and the freaky, 
geeky social values that prop that up. If you're the user, you have to hang 
out with Linux freaks."

Carla