[odf-discuss] News on MS pluggin

[Ian Lynch]

On Mon, 2006-10-16 at 12:19 +0200, Thomas Zander wrote:

> The simple fact of the matter is that all the free software solutions have had 
> one or more problems that made it too hard for the non-caring users.
> Ranging from
> * Doesn't run on Windows, and Linux is not running needed software.
> * Is not a full solution (KWord doesn't do tables, abiword has its own 
> problems) and you need two suites to do your work.
> * File exchange. People send you .doc files, they also expect to receive files 
> that can be opened in MSWord.
> 
> There are probably more.
> Point is, OOo has been the only one that didn't really suffer from any of 
> those problems.
> 
> Right now, the landscape is changing. Linux is becoming less laughable on the 
> desktop, ODF is decimating the "I want .doc" problem and open source has 
> gotten serious attention from industry and users. So KOffice and others now 
> get the attention they need to get the needed features and to run on Windows 
> etc.

I don't think I'm disagreeing that change is taking place and that in
the longer term greater diversity will win out - or at the very least,
the products that give the best user experience.

> I'm sure it will take many years before ODF reaches the level of maturity so 
> it can be a viable replacement of the .doc fileformat. And OpenOffice is a 
> required player in that time, to bridge the gap.

That was exactly the point I was making so I think we agree :-)

Ian
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