On Thursday 21 June 2007, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:07:48 -0500, M. Fioretti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 00:39:26 AM -0600, Larry Gusaas > > ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > >> >>>FOSS is not just about requesting something but doing it yourself. > >> >>> > >> >>So are you saying that if I can't program or provide a programmer I > >> >>shouldn't use FOSS? That is pretty narrow minded. > >> > > >> >No, more like: if you can't pay the piper, you can't call the tune > >> > >> Attitudes like that make one want to quit using FOSS. Obviously you do > >> not care about the users of OO.org. You seem to believe that only the > >> people who can program it should use it. Anyone else's opinion doesn't > >> count. This attitude will drive people away. > > > > I agree 100% with Larry here (see points 5 and 7 of > > http://digifreedom.net/node/56). This attitude towards end users, this > > language and set of arguments for advocating FOSS made sense in the > > 80s (when using any software very likely also meant being able to > > program). Today they are absolutely uneffective, if not actually > > counterproductive to increasing adoption of FOSS. > > > > 95% of people are unable to program and simply have no interest, need > > or possibility at all of changing this fact of their life. Until the > > "traditional" FOSS advocates don't come to accept this fact, and above > > all to realize that there's nothing wrong with it, FOSS risks to > > remain or become irrelevant. All those who could be "converted" only > > with the usual Stallman/FSF arguments and language have already been > > reached, already accepted them if they wanted and still remain a very > > little percentage of people. > > > > This doesn't mean that OOo *should* have email, calendaring and > > everything else, of course. The best and only realistic way to satisfy > > these requests of creating one 100% FOSS "fully integrated office > > platform" with all and the same functions of MS Office remains to > > integrate, them and pre-package OOo, Thunderbird and what not. I also > > agree that this is something which is not going to happen without Sun, > > IBM, Novell or similar paying a full time staff of professionals. > > > > But telling the end users of a program like OOo (ie something that > > everybody must use, something which is not a compiler, web server or > > anything else which by its own nature is restricted to specialists) > > that they should "do it themselves" is, frankly, pretty naive (even if > > it _were_ right). > > > > Marco > > > > Great marco except that someone in the end has to code this things if we > want them to move forward. This is a great answer for the user, but not a > great answer for the product. > > If the user is not bright enough to accept the limitations of the current > development staff. The who should develop this pieces in the end? We are > all users of OOo and we all want to see become the best suite, but until > you answer who will be the creator, there is not really a reason to this > conversation. > > Having the user with a mentality that only big corporations can provide > any development is naive. Corporations need to make business sense of the > product if they want to put themselves behind it. Eventually all those > developers that Sun employ are payed with the money that the StarOffice > product raise from theri corporate costumers. This ecosystem is not > widespread and reliying that this will always be the same is foolish, or > as risky as the same proprietary platform most users are acostume too. > > -- > Alexandro Colorado > OpenOffice.org > Community Contact // Mexico > http://www.openoffice.org > > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jza > Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hello to all, Calm down a bit and think about this discussion. I think Alexandro stated it very well: > >No, more like: if you can't pay the piper, you can't call the tune And all this means is, if I want a feature, I can request it, promote it, proselytise it, advertise it, beg for it, and so on. What I can not expect is that just because I need it that it will be done immediately. I used to have to wait years for Microsoft to fix a problem in a program that I paid for. Apparently I hope for better response from FOSS but the only way I can demand it is to hire some programmers and demand that they code it to work the way I want it. And it would be fair that I offer the code to the OOo project since they made the base program available for me to modify. Sun at present gets to decide what is the most important to implement since they are allocating the resources. They seem to read the requests but they decide based on their own criteria. I imagine that even Microsoft does the same. I'm sure they get mail asking for this or that other feature which they alone decide and there is no possibilty for it's inclusion since they hold all the keys. Sun doesn't. If Sun doesn't want to implement it, I or a group of I's or companies can have it coded for themselves. I don't see what these facts have to do with the uptake of open source software. It seems in this sense to work similar to closed source: If you want to call the tune, you or somebody must pay the piper. regards, Richard. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
