[Leaplist] Sun releases StarOffice 9, drops price to under $35 ($25 and below in volume) ...

[Jim Hartley]

I use OOo regularly, and I like it. Yes, it's a little slow, especially 
opening and saving files (I just use text files and spreadsheets, no 
mailmerges or anything like that). I hear that OOo 3 is faster, BUT ... 
it seems like anytime I do an upgrade it loses all my settings and 
reverts to the defaults, and I have to go back and tinker (I want the 
default font on text to be Courier, they don't). It seems worth putting 
up with the older, slower version.

No way am I going to pay $$$$ for StarOffice when OOo does all the 
things I need.

Jim Hartley

Jason Boxman wrote:
> Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> <snip>
>> I'll gladly pay for community and developments I believe in.
>> It's up to you if you agree or not and use what you wish.
>> Although don't call for "boycotts" of the product if you
>> don't want to look like a fool (especially if you use
>> OpenOffice.org).  ;)
> 
> I keep trying OpenOffice (dot org, weee) and being almost thoroughly 
> disappointed.  The latest version is certainly an improvement, though.
> 
> It's still incredibly slow compared to, say, WordPerfect.  (And since 
> OOo is a huge monolithic binary, that's not necessarily a fair 
> comparison, though that in itself is a strike against OOo.)
> 
> There are also some awful quirks.  For example, mail merges need to be 
> done against even number of pages, or you end up with blank pages in 
> your output.  In recent versions, you can suppress the extra page, but 
> it's broken by design that such a option is even necessary.  Doing a 
> merge of around 500 entries is also extremely slow and it crashed at 
> least once.
> 
> A similar merge done with WordPerfect, using a Quattro Pro spreadsheet 
> as a data source, worked flawlessly.
> 
> Obviously, there's some product familiarity in play, since OOo takes 
> after Office heavily and thus it feels very little like Corel Office. 
> Speed and stability are valid issues nonetheless.
> 
> Lest I meet with charges of productivity suite 'pissing', I do believe 
> "basic functionality x" ought to work in an office productivity suite, 
> where in this case it's a simple mail merge.
> 
> Obviously, OOo is completely free and it's Free, so I can take my ball 
> and go home.  And for personal use, I certainly have done that.
> 
> ymmv
> 
> 

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