openoffice bashing [was Re: How long will 64bit Ubuntu users have to wait?]

[Peter Garrett]

> On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:16:41 +0100
> Scott James Remnant <scott at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 01:06 +1000, Peter Garrett wrote:
> > 
> > > On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 09:45:44 +0100
> > > Scott James Remnant <scott at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > In fact, I think the entire "Office Suite" concept is flawed.  It should
> > > > be replaced by a set of simple and elegant programs that each work
> > > > independently but whose results can be combined to produce work.
> > > 
> > > Which, if I understand correctly, is the "Unix Way" - and I agree.
> > > Unfortunately, DE s like Gnome and KDE also have ( IMHO ) far too much
> > > "integration".
> > > 
> > Integration isn't a bad thing, it's also the UNIX way.  You don't
> > implement your own regular expression engine and modify a file, you use
> > sed.
> 
> I probably wasn't clear enough in my expression. I think what I find
> unfortunate is more related to the dependencies and settings required for
> certain apps - "integration" is not exactly the issue.
> > 
> > Likewise you wouldn't implement your own address book backend, data
> > format and UI; you use evolution-data-server.
> 
> Yes - that's fine *provided* that it's reasonable for an individual to
> uninstall, say, evolution if he/she prefers a different solution.
> Currently, if you want to use Gnome but not evolution, you *can* uninstall
> evolution but you have no obvious alternatives, for example, for
> "nautilus-sendto", which defaults to using evolution even if your
> preferred MUA is sylpheed as set in the Gnome "Preferred Applications".
> 
> So perhaps rather than "integration", I should have highlighted this kind
> of apparently hard-coded inflexibility. I might have missed something
> again, though :) Perhaps there's some obscure gconf setting that can be
> tweaked or similar. I hope so - but my point would still stand that such
> options are not easy for general users.
> 
> Peter