On Wed, 2012-11-28 at 16:14 +0100, Mirosław Zalewski wrote: > On 28/11/2012 at 15:55, "VA" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > That may be > > the hazard of having a truly open and standard file format. It eliminates > > a program's ability to survive. > > This is far from truth. > > Take a look at e-mail protocols: POP3 and IMAP. Do we have only two e-mail > server apps and two e-mail client apps, one for each? No. We have plenty of > servers and tons of clients. > > Take a look at XMPP messaging protocol (this is what Gmail and Facebook uses > for their chats). Again: plenty of servers, tons of apps. > > Take a look at BitTorrent file sharing protocol. There are many clients for > every platform. > > We have standards for HTML and CSS, yet there are at least four competing web > browsers out there (although there was time when market was monopolized). > > This list can go on. > > Standard file formats are pretty much irrelevant to program's ability to > survive. It's number of features, availability on certain OS, UI, branding, > number translations and other things which are around standards that matters. > -- > Best regards > Mirosław Zalewski > The key issue is user experience. If the tool does what the user wants, in a manner the user understands, and with less effort than any similar tool, that is probably the best tool for that user. That doesn't mean it will be the best tool for all users, as each user values different things, so there will be as many tools as the market will bear and as the market will generate enough capital for support. Free tools exist because someone gets something, prestige, admiration, sense of accomplishment or cash for creating and maintaining that tool. Other tools have different values attached to them, according to the demands of the market place.
Marketing can cause a tool to develop a following, and smart developers will find a way to build on their successes. Marketing includes commercials, self promotion, awards that make it into the public awareness, and the best one of all word of mouth. Marketing can overcome some limitations, and so some tools that are quite good may never become successful if they have no marketing at all. That is not to say they will die, because if there is a strong core of support, they will live perhaps for a very long time and may eventually be adopted by a majority of users, especially if the developers listen to their users and keep the experience delivering quality and meeting needs. I love linux. I use and like Fedora (most of the time ;-) ! -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
