I am using the beta version of OpenOffice, and very fond of it. Although I really enjoy using it for all text purposes, I am not that delighted by the math-mode of Oo.
Indeed, as every scientists on earth, in need for well-typed scientific documents, I rather use latex, and usually without any particular software for that - using ultraedit/notepad/emacs/vi/gedit which are native text editor. I was very disappointed that Oo was in a sense copying scientific word which is a clearly very bad... A rather good way for Oo could be something in between Lyx: http://www.lyx.org/ or Kile: http://kile.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php the very issue being, not to developp another proper language, but using the very strength of all the long experience in latex. A very very very good software to "copy" should be : http://www.mackichan.com/ and as you could figure, this software uses the very common and suitable language that Latex is... Frankly, if you want to tackle the scientific community which is clearly a Oo-pro (especially because Oo provides this magnificient plug-in that can convert everything in .pdf : splendid !) In short words, I do believe that the path that Oo followed in the "Math" product is not convenient nor for the scientific community neither for the other people. And as a conclusion, I propose my services to the Oo community, in order to reoriente the direction the "Math" poject looks like, in order to make it reach the highest known standards. Best regards to all ! Fabrice Mathurin
