[SC.LUG] ping!

[Neil Lucock]

On Friday 19 Sep 2003 6:37 pm, Rick [Kitty5] wrote:
> Neil Lucock wrote:
> > Open Office.org is every bit as good as MS Office for most
> > users
>
> I think that's one myth that's doing more harm than good to the open sour=
ce
> camp, OO is not a patch on MS Office as anyone who uses it will tell you.
> Its a fine office suite don't get me wrong, but being told its as good as
> MS Office is just a plain barefaced lie (usually told by people who don't
> use the MS suite).

I was under the impression that an opinion on OO.org was just that. To be=20
accused of telling a "barefaced lie" is beyond what you expect from a LUG=20
member. If I can not express an opinion in the group without being insulted=
,=20
then I think I'll find a different group. If someone thinks I've got it=20
wrong, I'll listen to whatever counter-arguments they care to bring to my=20
attention, but I don't think insulting other group members is a particularl=
y=20
productive way to spend your leisure time.=20
I have used MS Office nearly every day at work for the last 4 years, I thin=
k I=20
qualify as someone who uses it. (the only part I don't use is Access.) I sa=
id=20
"for most users", meaning that the MS Office power user is bound to find=20
something that OO.org doesn't do, but for everyday use, OO.org does=20
everything you might expect.  Most people do not use half of the features i=
n=20
MS Office. I've found that I can do anything with OO.org that I'd expect to=
=20
do with MS Office. Most of the training materials I produce for work start =
in=20
OO.org and are emailed to work as Word or PowerPoint files and used as they=
=20
are. Perhaps you ought to have another look at OO.org?=20

> Its one thing to evangelise Linux & open source, its quite another to tri=
ck
> people into trying it with claims that just don't hold water. Once bitten
> twice shy and all that.

Who's tricking whom? It's not as if it's going to cost =A3300 to try it out=
=2E =20
What has anyone got to lose except 60 mb of hard drive space? If they are=20
encouraged to try it and don't like it they can always get rid of it.=20
Encouraging someone to try out the software can hardly fall into the catego=
ry=20
of "tricking them".=20
 I agree about the "once bitten, twice shy" bit but I stand by what I wrote=
=2E=20
It's not the same as MS Office,  but it is as good in my opinion.=20

Neil