On 24/03/2008, Graham Lauder <yorick_(a)openoffice.org> wrote:
I doubt that MS will ever move down the OSS track
In some respects, MS is moving down a similar track by selling cheaply into some markets ("3rd world" and academic) in an attempt to stop others gaining market share. But open, no.
My opinion of Ubuntu is extremely low if only for the bad screwing with OOo that they do and the fact that OOo gets blamed because the marketing has the world convinced that Ubuntu can do no wrong and a large chunk of the Linux community has swallowed it HL&S.
That has aroused my curiosity as it is the software I use (by choice) and I wasn't aware of any issues. Can you elaborate? As an aside ... just a couple of days ago I received a PowerPoint presentation that ran away with all my RAM and swap space. First time I've seen that happen. I must file a bug report for that one. One thing that I do find a nuisance from time to time, and as far as I can recall it also occurred with Fedora Core (up to 4) is that line spacing in an MS document increases when using OO under Ubuntu. The result is that pagination is all out of whack with what the author intended. In most cases, of course, the author, in common with most ordinary users, has used the wrong techniques to control where text is placed on the page. I haven't researched the problem. I suspect it is nothing to do with Microsoft's doc format - just that that is what commonly arrives in the mail. I have noticed that some of my earlier OO documents suffer the same fate. Any comments? I have struck quite a bit of "Ford v Holden" thinking. Many are prepared to try OO, but as soon as they strike a difference they go running back to MS Office. Perhaps my powers of persuasion are not good enough! Michael