On the users mailing list, a significant proportion of a random view of questions seems to be with relation to using LO is some way with m$ document formats.
What should be the priority of LO development: bug-free and excellent behaviour in native odt format, or minimising "interoperability issues" with m$? No doubt it is convenient in a gnu/linux environment to be able to receive a document attached in an e-mail message and at least be able to view that document. However, is it really worthwhile, or fair to LO, to be able edit such documents so perfectly that the recipient doesn't realise LO was used instead of m$? In a business scenario, a customer who sends a document is m$ format (for simpliciticy assume for subsequent editing) would most likely expect the recipient to have the money to buy m$ software and edit the document accordingly. It is difficult to understand why a business would waste time trying to use LO; if a customer uses m$, the supplier might as well do so also and consider the m$ price as a cost of conducting business. Is the cost of m$ such a massive proportion of a business cost structure that transferring to LO is the difference between the business remaining profitable or not? In a non-business scenario, for example academia, one could imagine a scenario where the teacher sends a document in m$ format, the student uses LO because it is free. The student could explain his/her circumstances to the teacher who may be flexible in either accepting slight formatting differences, or even deciding to use LO also (the ideal result). To conclude, it does not seem a good long-term idea to be constantly seeking high (if not perfect) compatibility with the constantly moving targets that are m$ formats. The priority for LO should be to ignore self-inflicted problems such as "I saved a document is m$ format x and something has disappeared" and focus upon "when using writer to create a new odt file, a table alignment error occurs". -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
