[ Thanks to Rex
Djere for this link. ]
“I recently read the article “Goodbye, OpenOffice. Nice
Knowing You” by Mr. Serdar Yegulalp with great interest.
OpenOffice.org has been of particular interest to me of late due to
the recent controversy surrounding Oracle’s Google lawsuit. I have
loved OpenOffice for more than seven years now, and I personally
think that it is better than ever. However, Yegulalp’s article was
very well-written, and he made very compelling arguments as to why
he decided to switch back to Microsoft Office after years of using
OpenOffice.org, the free software alternative. After reading his
article and carefully thinking about his conclusions, I made
several observations and I came to my own conclusions about Mr.
Yegulalp’s experience. In this article, I will reveal those
observations and conclusions.“First of all, he made some very good points. Many people expect
software to just work right out of the box. They expect the spell
checker to just work, for example. Unfortunately, proprietary
software has bred a certain laziness and culture of dependency in
people, in my opinion. If you use a piece of proprietary software
such as Microsoft Office, the proprietor will always be there to
hold your hand. They hope that you decide to stay locked in to
their product so that the state of dependency continues from cradle
to grave so that they perpetually profit from you.”