On 11/12/05, Sam Stainsby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 2. This idea that OpenOffice only concentrates on applications that are > not available from other packages is completely bogus. Look at OpenOffice > Draw for example and compare it to packages like Inkscape. >
And OOoWriter v AbiWord and OOoBase v MySQL.... OOoImpress is fairly unique in the cross-platform open source presentation world (I, personally, cannot name another such project). The same is true for Calc. The arguements against a mail client and PIM are the same as the ones against Base from a year ago. (1) It takes away choice (2) It duplicates other projects (3) It's not what it means to be "an office suite" or "a productivity suite" or "OpenOffice.org" (4) The people who want/need it are whiny n00bs who don't know anything about anything and (5) OOo can already do it if you write this macro, hack this code, download this patch, compile this completely unrelated program, build this bridge in Perl, and it only works on Linux -- plus it's not gonna work exactly like you think it should.. (NOTE: #5 is an exagration to prove a point, the "Copy and Paste" suggestion is not nearly this complex, but it does require a completely different piece of software, IE an email client, which is what people are asking for in the first place - but I'm thinking more of the people who say "OOo *did* have an email client back in the day, so the API is there, if you want to build one again" - and I'm still bitter about the "Use this Macro to get Word Count, even though it doesn't count exactly right - we don't need a f'ing word count anyway!" - although I'm truly grateful for Andrew's work on the Macro, which I did use until I found the buried "Properties" thing, and now I have my Word Count button where it should have been in 0.1alpha.) this is what I think. We're all gonna argue and have opinions, and get our little feelings hurt, and call for each other to be banned from the land of Open Source because we disagree, and in a few months or a year or two, Sun and Google are going to decide that to compete with Office, Star Office needs an email client and PIM software, and they are going to write one, or use Thunderbird, or whatever, and the people who wanted the software will be happy, the ones who complained and moaned about how stupid and useless and wasteful and "prone to viruses and SPAM" it would be will sudden forget it was a bad idea and say it's what they wanted all along, they just thought it was too much work, and then never bring it up again. Kinda like what happened with Base. :-) -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ Because everyone loves free software!
