"Not that long ago, a significant portion of desktop GNU/Linux enthusiasts were actively advocating GNU/Linux among Windows users. I even remember doing it myself at one point, though now I really don't care what you use on your computer as long as I don't have to use it too. I thought that sentiment was isolated to me, but lately I've seen an abrupt decline in GNU/Linux evangelism on online forums. Here are some possible reasons for this change in community thinking and behavior."
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Member since:2005-07-06
My experience is different. Most people (and I mean 99%) I tried to bring to OpenOffice have encountered lot of problems importing Word, Excel, Powerpoint docs and tired of those problems went back to MS Office.
Not to nitpick, but you judge an Office Suite on the support it has for non-native, closed source, proprietary formats without documentation?
What about judging OOo on its abilities, when using it as an Office Suite in its own right, instead of using it as the cheap ass replacement version of MS Office.
That OOo can import .doc, .xls, .ppt is a bonus, not the raison d'etre of the suite.
I doubt that the OOo native formats would give the same amount of trouble...
Member since:2005-12-31
> Not to nitpick, but you judge an Office Suite on the
> support it has for non-native, closed source,
> proprietary formats without documentation?
I read from his posting that he judges OO.o by the amount of trouble when switching to it, versus the advantage of using it. Not being able to open MS Office documents *is* a disadvantage for most people. This is by far not the only way OO.o should be judged, but it's the way it should be judged by people who consider to switch *now*.
Member since:
2006-04-10
I know of a lot of legacy documents that open better in OpenOffice than they do in MS Office.
My experience is different. Most people (and I mean 99%) I tried to bring to OpenOffice have encountered lot of problems importing Word, Excel, Powerpoint docs and tired of those problems went back to MS Office. Evangelization in those conditions is not easy believe me lol
I know of a lot of Windows systems that are extremely sluggish due to all the resources of the PC being used to run viruses, rootkits, spyware and keyloggers.
I know a lot too since that is part of my job. I mentionned its 'sluggish behaviour' whatever OS it is run on. AFAIK I'm not the only one out there to find Oo slow. I'm glad it does exist but it still has a way to go.
Your point?
My point is it is one thing to tell like the author 'OpenOffice.org is in many ways equal or superior to Microsoft Office', not giving any demonstration about the equality and superiority and it is another one to experiment on daily basis the two problems I have mentionned previously.
The people I made try Oo didn't see much of this 'equality and superiority'. That is concrete experience no fancy expression in some article.
The two links you provided look pretty good and I will certainly recommend them for beginners. However that is the work from one particular distro. Linux is a huge world, Windows and Mac users are not used to that diversity and universe of choices.
Maybe linux.org might be revamped, redesigned from the ground and could federate all linux distros and provide linux users/beginners/curious more stuff. That might help.
Things get better every day but there is still lot of hard work to do.