Concern

[Tomasz Małecki <tm...@gmail.com>]

Dear Sirs,

I'm writing to you with regards to what concerns me the most while using
Open Office of your design.

I truely i deeply acknowledge the fact that your software is free to use
and stems from a great idea of making the world a better place, at least in
the field of text editing. However, there is something I need to take vote
against...

I hate using Microsoft Office due to its misconcepted ideas of what is best
for most people. Their software behaves as if it knew better what a user
wants, and averting its own actions is not only time-consuming but annoying
to the point of abuse.

Once I hoped to find a better text editor, and it happened - I liked the
Apache Open Office at first sight. With time the changes you introduced
happened to worry me more and more - you decided to follow the steps of the
aforementioned company, which makes your software incrementally
unergonomic/user unfriendly.


My message is 'let people decide what to key in, what to do, what to make a
text look like, and not think for them as if you knew better'. Allow them
to choose, not to fight your own ideas. Unchecking certain options is not
easy not only due to the jargon but also because one has to spend hours on
finding what has just happened to the text and how to disable it
permanently.

Sometimes more is less, and less is more.

With regards,
Tomasz Małecki.

Re: Concern

[Armin Le Grand <Ar...@me.com>]

     Hi Tomasz,

On 12.01.2014 12:02, Tomasz Małecki wrote:
> Dear Sirs,
>
> I'm writing to you with regards to what concerns me the most while using
> Open Office of your design.
>
> I truely i deeply acknowledge the fact that your software is free to use
> and stems from a great idea of making the world a better place, at least in
> the field of text editing. However, there is something I need to take vote
> against...
>
> I hate using Microsoft Office due to its misconcepted ideas of what is best
> for most people. Their software behaves as if it knew better what a user
> wants, and averting its own actions is not only time-consuming but annoying
> to the point of abuse.
>
> Once I hoped to find a better text editor, and it happened - I liked the
> Apache Open Office at first sight. With time the changes you introduced
> happened to worry me more and more - you decided to follow the steps of the
> aforementioned company, which makes your software incrementally
> unergonomic/user unfriendly.

I appreciate your concers, but I cannot make a picture myself with the 
information you give here. Could you give more concrete examples what 
you mean concretely?

>
>
> My message is 'let people decide what to key in, what to do, what to make a
> text look like, and not think for them as if you knew better'. Allow them
> to choose, not to fight your own ideas. Unchecking certain options is not
> easy not only due to the jargon but also because one has to spend hours on
> finding what has just happened to the text and how to disable it
> permanently.

Thanks for not keeping your concerns for yourself, but having taken the 
first step of sharing these. This is an OpenSource project, and you are 
invited just as every other person to take part in the processes, so you 
might just get involved and tell us more about what concerns are. It is 
of course always a 'balancing act' to find the right features which fit 
most users best, so help is appreciated and it's an open process here. 
Still noone wants to release and ship several 'versions', that's just 
too much work - but everyone could do just that if he intends to do so 
(there is e.g. AOO for kids which is a heavily differently configered 
version of AOO afaik).

One point is certainly to find a balance between long-time users and 
newbies; we definitely want to attract both, but both have probably 
different preferences. It's not only about people who use AOO for a long 
time, we also need to be 'easily adoptable' to newbies who have (or had 
to) use other programs before, thus as closer we are to what they used 
the easier it is for these to get familiar. On the other hand from my 
POV we are not and will never be a pure clone of what others offer (and 
dont ask how often this is requested :-). Just take part in the defining 
process and speak out in more detail.

Thanks,
     Armin

>
> Sometimes more is less, and less is more.
>
> With regards,
> Tomasz Małecki.
>


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Re: Concern

[Tomasz Małecki <tm...@gmail.com>]

Sure, I shall change it for a better one.

Re: Concern

[Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie>]

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 20:02:58 +0100
Tomasz Małecki <tm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Sirs,
> 
> I'm writing to you with regards to what concerns me the most while using
> Open Office of your design.
> 
> I truely i deeply acknowledge the fact that your software is free to use
> and stems from a great idea of making the world a better place, at least in
> the field of text editing. However, there is something I need to take vote
> against...
> 
> I hate using Microsoft Office due to its misconcepted ideas of what is best
> for most people. Their software behaves as if it knew better what a user
> wants, and averting its own actions is not only time-consuming but annoying
> to the point of abuse.
> 
> Once I hoped to find a better text editor, and it happened - I liked the
> Apache Open Office at first sight. With time the changes you introduced
> happened to worry me more and more - you decided to follow the steps of the
> aforementioned company, which makes your software incrementally
> unergonomic/user unfriendly.
> 
> 
> My message is 'let people decide what to key in, what to do, what to make a
> text look like, and not think for them as if you knew better'. Allow them
> to choose, not to fight your own ideas. Unchecking certain options is not
> easy not only due to the jargon but also because one has to spend hours on
> finding what has just happened to the text and how to disable it
> permanently.
> 
> Sometimes more is less, and less is more.
> 

If the automatic (but configurable) formatting features of OpenOffice are disabled, then there is no point in using it. If you find them obtrusive, then you may be using the wrong application for your needs.


-- 
Rory O'Farrell <of...@iol.ie>

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