Linked by the_randymon on Thu 10th Jan 2013 22:17 UTC
For years, developers decried the tight fist Sun kept on the development of its office suite, preventing the hacker culture from improving its software. So now that LibreOffice is, well, free, it's not surprising to see one ambitious hacker has developed a mechanism for theming it. Let's have a round of applause for Jan Holesovsky, whose patch in the upcoming 4.0 edition of LibreOffice allows you to style LibreOffice using FireFox Personae. Holesovsky's blog is full of other interesting UI changes made to LibreOffice, proof perhaps that letting hackers hack is the best way to keep your project improving.
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RE[5]: Comment by jared_wilkes
by BluenoseJake on Fri 11th Jan 2013 16:12
in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by jared_wilkes"
Member since:2005-08-11
Why does it make it crappier? Is it forcing you to use Personas? No. Did it take resources away from something else? No.
When somebody gives me stuff for free, stuff that took a lot of work, I generally keep my mouth shut about things that I don't like that doesn't affect the functionality I need. It's called "Not looking a gift horse in the mouth"
Try showing some appreciation for the LibreOffice devs hard work.
RE[6]: Comment by jared_wilkes
by jared_wilkes on Fri 11th Jan 2013 18:09
in reply to "RE[5]: Comment by jared_wilkes"
Member since:2011-04-25
If I'm not using, it's just bloat. And if I were to recommend it (again, I'm now less likely to), I may have to support someone else needlessly using it.
Also, no, I'm not thankful for things that I don't need and actively do not want just because they are free.
Edited 2013-01-11 18:12 UTC
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2011-04-25
Does his work make LibreOffice a crappier product that I am less likely to use or recommend?
Absolutely 100%.
As I said, it's this silly notion that any work done is good work because eventually an infinite number of devs with craptons of spare time will eventually do the work that needs to be done that makes a lot of OSS software mediocre, tedious, or entirely unusable.