Daniel Kasak wrote:
We are talking about the possibility. The problem is that you don't like
the answer that you're getting.
I haven't liked your answer, not so much because of the substance, but
because of your condescending attitude.
No. Look at the post I responded to.
The main part of that post:
"I also work for an organization that is unwilling to move away from
Microsoft Office because they feel that they need the calendaring and
meeting arrangement facilities of Outlook, on Windows. Many of them
frequently work offline, so web-based solutions are not applicable. I'm
pinning my hopes on Evolution for Windows, but the project seems to be
moving very slowly (understandably, as it is a complex project with many
libraries to port).
I think that people that argue that there is no reason to develop a mail
client as part of OpenOffice because there are other mail client
applications available are misguided for two reasons:"
So where do you get: "... otherwise they won't switch, and not only
that, they don't know anyone else who will switch either."
from that?
My take on it is that a lot of organizations could and would be
persuaded to switch but they have certain organizational needs that
can't be simply wished away.
Whatever. I'm just pointing out why it's not going to happen.
I wasn't aware that you were a Sun executive in charge of this whole
project.
*or* *else* will get you no-where fast.
Point to any post on this forum like that.
Selective blindness. Read over the thread again.
I have. You're implying a tone to the posts in this thread that just
doesn't exist. If I'm wrong, please provide quotes.
Why can't people get over themselves and use an existing application.
Without an email/pim component many will do just that. It's called
MSO. Is that what you really want?
Um. I think you're just re-using the arguement that you were claiming
hasn't been used.
Maybe forget about reading the thread. Read your own post.
Ahhhh. I get it now. You have a problem with people pointing out the
reality of things as opposed to the way you only wished they were. You
want "people [to] get over themselves and use an existing application."
I thought the idea was to convince/persuade/entice people to use a
different application -- OOo vs. MSO.
Well, the *reality* is that the lack of a suitable drop-in replacement
for Outlook *is* a significant stumbling block. As much as I love the
folks at the Mozilla foundation, T-bird+Sunbird isn't there yet. And I
compared a completely up-to-date version of Evolution on the other side
of this dual-boot box with a five-year old copy of Outlook. Closer, but
there's a lot of functionality missing there as well.
This isn't just theorizing; I am friends with a woman who runs a
business designing and maintaining small e-commerce websites from her
home. Most of her client interaction is via the Internet. She uses
Outlook practically like an operating system. In one place she can
organize everything about a client -- e-mails, documents, outstanding
tasks, etc. She doesn't even have to open a browser to view their sites
because she can do that in the same message pane she uses to look at
their emails. The only other programs she uses regularly are Photoshop
and a WYSIWYG web page editor.
Don't like Evolution? Fine. Test it. Submit bug reports. Hassle the
developers to hurry up with their Windows port. Do you really think
that you're going to get a better product in less time by insisting
that OOo include every function under the sun?
Reductio ad absurdum. I have yet to hear a call for a Tetris
component, music composition, or audio editing, for instance. Last I
checked those *are" functions and they *are* under the sun.
Oh wow. The garbage some people post when they've had their buttons
pushed :)
And I note your response was the height of elocution. The fact is that
nobody is "insisting that OOo include every function under the sun".
We're talking about one specific thing here -- an answer to Outlook. By
characterizing that as "every function under the sun", you're avoiding
the real debate by arguing against something that hasn't ever been
proposed, at least not in this thread, and not by me.
Sourceforge.net lists 105,746 active projects. A good case could be
made that open-source development is the most unfocused,
undisciplined, and wasteful phenomenon in the history of software.
Starting "yet another" project is practically a revered tradition, so
*suggesting* that OOo should somehow integrate an email/calendar/pim,
preferably by cooperating with the Mozilla project, is actually quite
conservative.
You're changing your arguement in mid-flight. You start out by saying
that OOo developers should write their own mail client because it's a
'revered tradition', and immediately switch to saying that an existing
email client be integrated. That's my arguement ... that we should focus
on existing tools. Has logic finally sunk in?
So are you now suggesting that OOo could adapt or integrate existing
tools to provide the requested functionality? Then what the **** are we
arguing about??!! I'm perfectly fine with that-- always have been, and
I've repeatedly stated the same -- *provided* that the existing tools
actually provide the requested functionality. Unfortunately, they don't,
AFAICT.
I was merely reacting to your implication that the "open-source" way of
doing things is to be very conservative with scarce resources and work
with existing projects as much as possible. Nice theory, but that's
clearly not the way open-source works in reality. If that were the case
there wouldn't be 350 different flavors of Linux, when a generous count
would yield maybe 20-30 genuinely distinct market niches. And there
certainly wouldn't be over 100K active projects on SF.
Open-source could be right now kicking Bill's butt, if only it weren't
so much like herding cats. Unfortunately, entirely too many open-source
developers are basically selfish and narcissistic. Convinced that
they're going to be the one to write the next killer text editor or
browser, as if there weren't a hundred of them out there already.
--
Rod
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