For your information: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Sunday, April 18, 2021 10:48 AM, Max <mleo...@protonmail.ch> wrote:
> Dear Document Foundation Directors > > I am not used to providing scathing criticisms, but with LibreOffice those > are in order, with a good cause in mind: > 1. The only reason why I am using LibreOffice Writer is because it is to me a > lesser evil than MS Word in terms of costs - this comes at my expense of > LibreOffice Writer being a greater evil than MS Word in terms of bugs and > crashes. I believe I shouldn't pay for avoiding a Microsoft licensing fee by > damnation to a hell with a buggy-crashy LibreOffice. > 2. If it did not state "Donation" on the LibreOffice download page, in all > seriousness I would have literally asked the Document Foundation for a refund > a long time ago. > 3. Because of LibreOffice's bugs and instability, I seriously do not > recommend it to any employer I may work for or any colleague I may work with. > 4. I do not see myself making further donations to the Document Foundation, > because I don't want my donations spent on supporting Windows and macOS > versions of your apps. Why would I donate an amount for LibreOffice on > Windows when I can just buy a MS Office license on Windows? > 5. Free open source is not worth it for me if it doesn't reliably work when I > need it to work because I have to do my work on it. > > Document Foundation, please fix this on a strategic level. > Here are my proposals to you, as explained further below: > I. Discontinue support for Windows and macOS operating systems. > II. Seek a merger of LibreOffice with KDE's Calligra Office into 'CALIBRE > OFFICE'. > III. Harness community power by focusing UX on efficient bug reporting. > IV. Harness the world wide student power at institutional (university) level. > > I. DISCONTINUE SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS AND MACOS OPERATING SYSTEMS! > > While I am grateful for all the cross-platform apps out there, developing an > entire cross-platform office suite may be too ambitious and off limits even > for some profit-seeking corporations that may gather sufficient resources to > do so - please review this intention. > > But what is more important is that there has to be a mutually beneficial > relationship between LibreOffice and all Linux distributions, and despite my > lack of participation I clearly do not consider the current arrangement as > such, because the Document Foundation is still committed to stretching > LibreOffice thin on Windows and macOS. Offering LibreOffice on Windows and > macOS can never be lean and comes at the expense of reliability. > This stretching LibreOffice thin on Linux, Windows, and macOS is hurting both > LibreOffice and Linux distributions, because the Linux distributions are > permanently stuck with a substandard office suite (LibreOffice) that does not > meet enterprise-level expectations (I don't care what you may say, it does > not from my personal experience with it), while Windows and macOS enjoy the > MS Office that in turn ensures that on Windows and macOS such substandard > office suite as LibreOffice will never replace MS Office - these two trends > combine to ensure that as many users will remain stuck with BOTH MS Windows > AND MS Office. If I can't have a reliable office suite on Linux, then I'm > stuck with MS Windows, but since I'm stuck with MS Windows, then I use the > reliable office suite on Windows that is MS Office. It's a Catch-22 situation > that is perpetuated to a large extent by your insistence on cross platform > implementation of LibreOffice. It's time that the Document Foundation finally > realize that LibreOffice can only succeed on Linux alone, and stretching > LibreOffice thin on Windows and macOS defeats both LibreOffice and Linux > distributions. > So my recommendation, in order to break out of this Catch-22, for the > Document Foundation to drop Windows and macOS and publish a manifesto (to > which it will hold itself publicly accountable) to provide Linux > distributions with an office suite that consists of free open source software > and yet such that meets enterprise-grade reliability expectations similarly > to how MS Office does. That means that the Document Foundation has to gain > the courage to DISCONTINUE support for Windows and macOS. In other words, the > Document Foundation should give up its unsustainable ambition of LibreOffice > as a cross-platform office suite and instead become much more ambitious in > the area of giving LibreOffice enterprise-grade reliability for all Linux > users that in turn will boost user adoption for all Linux distributions. > LibreOffice is a productivity suite, and there is no such thing as a > merely-community-grade productivity suite - a productive suite shall always > be judged by its workplace contribution to productivity, regardless of how > much it costs and regardless who uses it in what context. > As supporting measures: > 1. The Document Foundation should accept the risks of NOT supporting > Microsoft's further file format versions (that Microsoft will release from > now on) and let third parties, such as proprietary apps and community > projects (e.g., Pandoc), to fill in the file format conversion. > 2. To enable computer users to open files in LibreOffice file formats (e.g., > .odt) on Windows and macOS, the Document Foundation should design a very > lightweight app for (1) generating/displaying a PRINT VIEW (e.g., named as > "LibreOffice PrintView") for LibreOffice files (e.g., .odt) on those > operating systems and for (2) converting any such LibreOffice-format file > into the .pdf file format on Windows and macOS. > 3. The Document Foundation should seek to target explicitly the users of > LibreOffice on Windows and macOS for LibreOffice Online. > 4. The Document Foundation should leave it to third-party proprietary apps on > Windows and macOS to fill the void to offer other functionalities related to > LibreOffice file formats on those operating systems. > In my opinion, the Document Foundation is not helping users have an access to > a free office suite on Windows and macOS; instead, the Document Foundation > ends up helping those users remain trapped in those proprietary operating > systems. > If you are interested in using outreach to help end users who cannot afford > MS Office, then > 1. help users switch to free operating system - Linux (including the Linux > for Raspberry Pi), > 2. promote (cheaply priced) Raspberry Pi hardware for LibreOffice, > 3. target the developers contributing to other Linux office suites as > explained below. > > II. SEEK A MERGER OF LIBREOFFICE WITH KDE's CALLIGRA OFFICE INTO 'CALIBRE > OFFICE'! > > Take the good of your users above the good of your organization, and seek a > community merger with Calligra Suite on the following principles: > > 1. Both LibreOffice and Calligra Office jointly drop support for both Windows > and macOS, so that both can focus exclusively on Linux distributions. > 2. Ideally, there shouldn't be multiple projects trying to develop directly > competing, free open source products, > a) because that's a waste of resources, efforts, and time; > b) because due to their limited resources they end up with multiple competing > products of inferior quality and limited feature sets and thus cannot compete > with fewer proprietary products of better quality (and that is on proprietary > operating systems where the proprietary products normally reside); > c) because of the market presence of superior proprietary products, having a > selection of inferior free open source products with various permutations of > incomplete feature sets does not help adoption of any of them; > d) multiple competing projects that cannibilize each other for the same user > base eliminate portability of open source user expertise - home users of > Calligra Suite will not know how to use LibreOffice at work and vice versa, > which hampers adoption of any and all free open source productivity suite and > further entrenches MS Office. > 3. The Document Foundation must officially, narrowly, and diligently focus on > the enterprise aspect of LibreOffice, because: > a) Individual users will be happy with using enterprise-quality software at > home, but enterprise customers will never adopt buggy software that is good > enough only for home use. > b) Any productivity software that is not adopted at enterprise level will > never gain widespread adoption (using software at work also means using it at > home too). > c) The focus on enterprise-grade productivity software profile will provide > the Document Foundation with corporate sponsors from among LibreOffice > corporate users/customers. > 4. Adoption of Calligra Suite's UI styles (that are in fact more suitable for > enterprise contexts) in LibreOffice applications for the purposes of > collaborative inclusion of LibreOffice apps in KDE; since GNOME and MATE use > LibreOffice, this move will standardize the productivity suite across most > Linux desktop environments. > 5. LibreOffice Suite and Calligra Suite can only compete with MS Office by > merging; otherwise, LibreOffice and Calligra will remain competing with each > other for the small niche of users while MS Office remains dominant and > undisputed. > 6. The Document Foundation and Calligra can organizationally join their > respective contributors, that is their developer bases, to result in a more > significant effort to develop common software. This will enable both the > Document Foundation and KDE's Calligra team to halt cannibalization of their > mutual open source user base, combine their developers/contributors to more > efficiently produce superior software with more features, adopt the best > project management principles and toolchains from both projects, and benefit > from combined brand exposure. > > Such merger of LibreOffice and Calligra Office should not be viewed as simply > calling a one-off meeting to determine whether it may work or not for both > the Document Foundation and the Calligra Suite project, but instead this > merger should become a mentality to be adopted as a long-term view, treated > as a matter of strategic outreach to Calligra, and accepted as the only > approach that makes sense to proceed into the future with. > > Specifically, I recommend one common systematic framework to methodically > take the following steps: > 1. > Seek mutual consensus by conducting a joint review of LibreOffice Writer and > Calligra Words to determine which is (a) technologically superior with more > potential going forward, (b) offers features that the other lacks, (c) code, > and (d) offers cleaner enterprise-grade UI & UX, then adopt one and integrate > the other's winning features. > 2. > Seek mutual consensus by conducting a joint review of LibreOffice Calc and > Calligra Sheets to determine which is (a) technologically superior with more > potential going forward, (b) offers features that the other lacks, (c) code, > and (d) offers cleaner enterprise-grade UI & UX, then adopt one and integrate > the other's winning features. > 3. > Seek mutual consensus by conducting a joint review of LibreOffice Impress and > Calligra Stage to determine which is (a) technologically superior with more > potential going forward, (b) offers features that the other lacks, (c) code, > and (d) offers cleaner enterprise-grade UI & UX, then adopt one and integrate > the other's winning features. > 4. > Seek mutual consensus by conducting a joint review of LibreOffice Base and > Calligra KEXI to determine which is (a) technologically superior with more > potential going forward, (b) offers features that the other lacks, (c) code, > and (d) offers cleaner enterprise-grade UI & UX, then adopt one and integrate > the other's winning features. > 5. > Seek mutual consensus by conducting a joint review of LibreOffice Draw, > Calligra Karbon, and pgAdmin (for PostgreSQL), to determine which is (a) > technologically superior with more potential going forward, (b) offers > features that the other lacks, (c) code, and (d) offers cleaner > enterprise-grade UI & UX, then adopt one and integrate the other's winning > features. If pdAdmin is found to be a better option than LibreOffice Draw and > Calligra Karbon, then both the Document Foundation and KDE's Calligra team > would drop their respective projects in favor of pdAdmin, offer their > developers to join pdAdmin to bolster that project, and promote PostgreSQL to > LibreOffice and Calligra users. > > III. HARNESS COMMUNITY POWER BY FOCUSING UX ON EFFICIENT BUG REPORTING! > > The most critical problem that I have with LibreOffice is the fact that the > Document Foundation has not learned how to harness the power of the open > source community for bug detection. This is a hard statement to make, but > it's true: As a longtime user of LibreOffice Writer, I don't know how to > report bugs: in fact, I don't want to know how to create bug reports, because > I'm an end user of the LibreOffice Suite, not a QA engineer for the Document > Foundation! First of all, too many bugs and crashes to report - it's not my > job as a user to login to some webpage, research whom to contact for bug > reporting, and write out a bug report with screenshots! BUT, I'm happy to > press a button every single time there is a bug or a crush to send the > relevant data to the Document Foundation. I bet you're pained to explain that > there is a way to submit bug reports - maybe you know that, but I don't and I > am the end user. So while the Document Foundation has figured out a way how > to extract donations on the downloads page, you people still have no idea how > to enable your end users to submit bug reports in an acceptable and viable UX > setup. > So the most important aspect of UX that LibreOffice has to focus on, at least > for the near future, is the UX of sending a bug report. The process has to be > as extremely simple as possible. There HAS to be a button to do so within > every single LibreOffice application (especially in LibreOffice Writer!). The > process has to be as automated as possible; as such, it can take advantage of > existing feature such as the command history in the Undo/Redo buttons. The > automatically generated report must include generic parameters that describe > the relevant document structure or properties in an anonymized way. The user > has to be able to preview the complete report before clicking the 'Send' > button. This report generation and submission (e.g. emailing or > messenger-app-style submission from within the application) has to be > supported for both individual consumers and LibreOffice installations by > large corporations. All sent bug reports have to be saved in the application > for the user to be able to open and review any of them any time later (unless > manually deleted by the user). > > IV. HARNESS THE WORLD WIDE STUDENT POWER AT INSTITUTIONAL (UNIVERSITY) LEVEL! > > Develop an international program for blanket involvement of IT students at > voluntarily participating universities, a program that integrates earning > student marks, having learning access to real-world application development > projects (i.e., the LibreOffice Suite), gaining work experience, and > contributing effectively to LibreOffice application development. > LibreOffice should create a database of: > 1) Universities (in all countries possible) that teach IT degree programs > with which the Document Foundation will collaborate: Universities represent > an institutional equivalent of large corporations and as such can extend not > only the next-generation adopter base of LibreOffice but more importantly > also the "workforce" of LibreOffice to all interested students that can gain > their IT skills by working and thus gaining work experience (while earning > their marks) on LibreOffice projects. As such, universities can plug into an > online/Linux-cloud system set up by the Document Foundation for creating, > distributing, assigning and reassigning development and testing tasks using > some existing open source toolchain and IDEs for application development in a > multi-institutional, international context. > 2) Specific courses that are included in the syllabi of those IT degree > programs (previous point): University courses have assignments and practice, > so the Document Foundation should negotiate and arrange with each relevant > university how to integrate development and testing of LibreOffice > applications into as many as possible of each university's relevant IT > courses. > 3) IT students: The Document Foundation should arrange with all voluntarily > participating universities a sign-in/identity provider system to automate > creation of student contributor accounts for LibreOffice for all students > enrolled in all relevant courses of those universities. > > Please someone respond to confirm that this message has not fallen on deaf > ears. > > All views above are my own > Max > Currently unemployed, starting a new job next month > Max Leonov, born 12 April 1979
