On Saturday 30 June 2018 17:40:29 Mike Bird wrote: > As other people may read this thread I think it is important to add an > opposing viewpoint. > > Unless you are willing to do what Tim and friends did for KDE by taking > on and actively maintaining the project, I cannot recommend OpenOffice > to anyone. Even OpenOffice's own few remaining developers have at times > recommended against using it. Those who do use it are recommended to > install workarounds themselves as OpenOffice does not have the resources > to produce fixes for known security problems until many months after > they are reported. For example, 4.1.3 had a known security problem for > ten months but did not have the resources to get a fix out. > > If you must use OpenOffice do not download from third party sites as > there are lots of infected OpenOffice downloads out there. But even > after downloading OpenOffice from the master site your work is not done. > You have to follow the project and install workarounds yourself for > security holes that OpenOffice knows about when they can't get the > releases out to fix them. > > Unlike KDE 4 versus KDE 3 (or systemd versus sysvinit) LibreOffice is > a good and compatible replacement for OpenOffice. Indeed, none of our > users reported any problems or complaints when we switched from > OpenOffice to LibreOffice. Thus there is little reason to maintain > OpenOffice and I do not foresee a long future for it. > > I also recommend installing LibreOffice from your distro rather than > from LibreOffice upstream unless you need bleeding edge functionality. > > --Mike As you say, it is good to have other viewpoints, and I certainly don't recommend downloading from third-party sites, etc. I am also aware that there aren't many people maintaining OpenOffice, and all that other stuff. However, you missed what are, for me, the most important points: 1. LibreOffice messes up my documents, so that I would have to redo thousands of pages of layout. Usually the pages are only off by a couple lines between my OpenOffice version and the LibreOffice, but over the the length of an entire document, everything gets screwed-up, and I would be forced to begin all over again, almost from scratch. 2. LibreOffice often refuses to open my own documents; even after I change permissions, remove lock files, etc. 3. When I did complain about my problems with LibreOffice, I was basically told just to "get over it"; sort of like when KDE3 died. When people started mentioning the possibility of reviving the old KDE3 as TDE, we were told that it wouldn't work, that it couldn't work, that there were problems with Qt3, Qt4, etc. And anyway, anybody who didn't just give up and "get with it" and stop complaining and just use KDE4 Plasma must be old fogies, and nobody cares about them anyway. 4. I don't like LibreOffice. I do like OpenOffice. (See #8 below.) 5. I didn't recommend "OpenOffice for Everybody!"; I only said that some few might prefer it (for example, myself and deloptes, to start); and others might find that it suits their needs. I don't feel that I must take on the responsibility of maintaining OpenOffice merely because I have made a qualified and limited recommendation. 6. I do not doubt that OpenOffice has some security holes; most stuff out there as some problems, and some have more than others. Please direct me towards some software that has absolutely no security holes, as I've never encountered a virgin in the real world. 7. LibreOffice tends to do a lot of stuff that takes control out of my own hands. (I haven't used it for a while, so no, I don't have a list handy, but perhaps others can help there.) 8. I do like OpenOffice. I don't like LibreOffice. (See #4 above.) As I said, it might not be for everybody, but maybe for a few people it is still useful. You seem to be saying that nobody ought to use it, and that I am wrong even to bring it up. So much for WORLD PEACE. Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: trinity-users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: trinity-users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Read list messages on the web archive: http://trinity-users.pearsoncomputing.net/ Please remember not to top-post: http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/mailing_lists/#top-posting
