[wplug] OpenOffice, StarOffice

[Tim Lesher]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 07:09:44PM -0400, Robert Supansic wrote:
> Tim Lesher wrote:
> What you are calling a "Utopian dream" was actually all that existed
> before galloping featureitis took over in the early 90s.
> WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS was for several years the largest-selling
> word processor program around.  Take a look at its menus and then
> look at Word and tell me that something hasn't gone seriously wrong.

I can't speak for WordPerfect (I went from WordStar, to MacWrite, to
Word for Windows 2.0).  So what killed that reality?  While there's a
significant minority of people who will find one thing they like and
stick with it until the wheels fall off, it seems that more people
want the latest and greatest, at any cost.  Given a choice between a
two-year-old, stable release with 80 features, and a brand-new release
with 100 features, most people (right or wrong) pick the new one.
That money drives the market, unfortunately, even before we get to the
80/20 bloatware stage.

> Bear in mind that I am talking about simplified core applications
> for each of the major parts of the OpenOffice suite.  More
> specialized features would be bundled separately -- a full graphics
> package, mathematical formulas, programmers support, specialized
> support for specific fields such as law, medicine, etc. -- and
> installable as modularlized components.  As I undertand it, Firebird
> is simply a stripped-down Mozilla.  

The Firebird analogy may be a little off, but I was referring to the
point that Firebird is a browser only, as opposed to the "Mozilla
Application Suite" of browser, mail client, HTML editor, IRC client,
can opener, floor wax, etc.

What you're describing was once pitched to me as the reason for the
existence of COM.  Unfortunately, MS never followed up on it; I don't
know why.  Now that we're in a situation where most people have
Internet connectivity of one kind or another, there's no reason that
it couldn't work, IMHO.

> But your speculation may well be
> right on the mark: the existing architecture probably will not allow
> it.

Not having seen the source code, I don't want to make that
assumption.  I was just playing devil's advocate.

> >Not to denigrate your web browsing abilities, but what website did you
> >go to? 

Egad... that reads a lot harsher than I intended it... I apologize if
I offended.

Anyway, the idea of a leaner, extensive OpenOffice is certainly
attractive; I originally thought you were suggesting something like
AbiWord, which (IMHO) is a cure for which there is no known disease.
A word processor with the less-used features pulled into transparent
plugins is a good idea; a stripped-down word processor in a vacuum
isn't.

-- 
Tim Lesher <tim at lesher.ws>
http://www.lesher.ws