Talk:OpenOffice.org/Archive 2

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Performance

Lately there is a lot of input on Performance of OpenOffice.org Calc based on a single blog[1] on the web. Right now it is moved to the OpenOffice.org Calc article. But since this is a comparison article, I suggest contributors should try to write it in an article with a title like Comparison of office suites or Comparison of office performance. However, due to the highly disputable nature of benchmarking, I suggest writers perform their due duty to do some independent verification of those benchmark results on their systems using George's sample from his blog, like these from Slashdot.org. Also other sample files can be tested. In addition, I would suggest testing the same set of samples using Gnumeric as well if it to be a comparison of general office suite.

Keep in mind, however, this is unprecedented in Wikipedia as we have no article in Category:Software comparison that has focused on benchmarking results, not even for database comparison which is rather performance sensitive in nature. --Zero0w Feb 16 00:21

A benchmark comparison page could easily become an undesirable POV-fork. Non-notable benchmarks posted on blogs do not warrant inclusion in any WP article. Benchmarking Gnumeric is original research & doesn't belong in WP. Unless the benchmarks are actually notable, they should be omitted. (To remain NPOV, it should also be noted we don't include long details on Excel's statistical errors in any article, so we shouldn't include long details on OO.o performance.) --Karnesky 00:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually I agree with you, I believe putting an external link in the Comparison of office suites to George's blog should suffice for the purpose of information. So, the above paragraph is written for those who are so inclinded to write about George's benchmark comparison again and again (as I said, we have no software benchmark comparison article in Wikipedia at all). To these folks, please also check out Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy Karnesky just mentioned --Zero0w Feb 16 01:10

Correction?

"spreadsheet program called Lotus 1-2-3, a program similar to Microsoft's PowerPoint"
Shouldn't it say Microsoft's Excel?
Sadman64 23:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

No. It is saying that Lotus SmartSuite has Lotus 1-2-3 (a spreadsheet program that is similar to Excel), as well as a presentation/slideshow/beamer program that is similar to OO.o Impress or MS PowerPoint.--Karnesky 23:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism: Wikipedia's main content entry used for advertising journalists' blog

In the Performance section of this entry, mentioning the name George Ou in the title of the section on comparison between performance of Open Office Calc versus Microsoft Excel, seems too obvious for promoting the fame of a particular blogger and I am not sure this kind of name advertsing should be used in the main entry.

In addition, I have great conservation for person(s) to exploit Wikipedia as a platform for benchmark flame wars and the content added on Feb 2, 2006 clearly is exploiting for such purpose. -by Zero0w, Feb 2, 2006

Considering the WP:NPOV policy here, certain comment on benchmarking criteria in the Performance section should be removed. -by Zero0w, Feb 2, 2006

Zero0w should check his grammar before posting. Zero0w also linked to matt13.com with extremely questionable data (who in the world spends 13 seconds to load Word) and an annoying main page that chides IE users with a scary looking popup window that they should switch to Firefox. Those criticisms on performance methodology would not have been necessary had Zero0w not linked to matt13.com with such questionable test results and IE scare tactics. We could remove the entire Matt13 and performance methodology section.

You can disagree with me or the methodology of Matt13, for sure. But considering the WP:NPOV policy I believe any discussion on benchmarking methodology should be left as another entry or be excluded because this topic is about OpenOffice.org in general. Also matt13.com's Firefox switch Ad really has nothing to do with the performance discussion in this topic. I removed those sentences because of irrelevance.

By the way I do not believe Process Explorer is "the most accurate method" for benchmarking system application for all purposes either. Also system specification may dictate different results in benchmarking. Office 2003 would run slow in legacy PCs with long start-up time, whereas Office 97/2000 and OpenOffice.org would run sufficiently. But I would not conduct such debate in an entry about OpenOffice.org application - not Office benchmarking. And by the way, it is OpenOffice.org, not "Open Office". Please, keep in mind of the WP:NPOV policy - don't turn the entry into advertising and promoting certain benchmark philosophy over others when it is about Office software - Zero0w, Feb 3, 2006

It's a hell of a lot more accurate than what Matt13 used. Measuring process-specific CPU cycles is a constant number that's independent of the clock speed and eliminates external factors. As for slow legacy PCs, it still will not take Office 13 seconds to load. If it did take 13 seconds to load because of slow hardware, OpenOffice would be even slower since it takes 11 times more CPU time than Word according to Ou's analysis. When the external source is so inaccurate, it is only right to point out any flaws in it or we shouldn't have it up in the first place. Being nutral doesn't mean we get to quote any resource when the results are so questionable and its motivations are obviously anti-Microsoft because of the way the home page attacks Internet Explorer users.

First, anti-Internet Explorer doesn't mean anti-Microsoft. In fact, Windows Live! and Office Live! will support Firefox as widely reported.

And, if you follow George Ou's previous blog, he also has another Firefox article and how it is more vulnerable than IE - even though Secunia still shows IE has 20+ unpatched vulnerabities. This way one can call Ou anti-open source in this regard if you so want to label person to have an agenda to begin with. You can question the result of studies but leave any agenda alone, or I can say any blogger's opinion about a software package should not be posted in the main content of a software entry (as external link would be more appropriate) because of agenda.

Second, you sound like Ou's analysis is taken for granted without dispute, but there are 400+ comments in his blog alone (not in Slashdot.org). I am thinking the type of methodology debate should belong to Ou's blog or your own blog if you want. There are alternative test results using Ou's file samples posted in Slashdot.org at here too. Should we post every set of result here to account for the discrepany, in this OpenOffice.org entry? Or, that Matt13's measurement isn't good enough because he uses a different computer or sample files to begin with? Turning this Office software entry into performance methodology debate is off-topic, and I am firmly against doing so. By the way, anonymous user: you are not the first one to post controversial issue here, see more near the end of this Talk page.

Let's see what other Wikipedians would say about this. I believe the WP:NPOV policy and relevancy should lead to a more saneful arbitration of this dispute. -by Zero0w, Feb 3, 2006

Criticism should be cleaned up

The (long) additions to the Performance section over the past two days are highly biased and not encyclopedic. They do not belong in the artilce:

• Wikipedia is not a soapbox
• They don't apply to the suite, but rather more specifically to the Writer and Calc components, which each have their own page
• The two blogs are not sufficient references
• The topic is higly contentious
• Most other software entries do not have similar diatribes, though they certainly could
• The article itself isn't the right place for the debate & the section reads like a talk page!

I'm removing them. I believe they warrant nothing more than links on the Writer and Calc pages, as was done for Microsoft Excel#Excel and Statistical analysis. If the criticism should go into the main text of this or any other article, it should be cleaned up considerably. --Karnesky 07:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Excuse the self-reply, but one more point is that the criticism was a comparison between programs in two suites. If it belongs in WP (and it didn't in the previous form), there's little reason for it to be in OO.o articles and not MS Office articles. If someone wants to cleanup this info, I think it would be appropriate to make a new article on the comparison which can be linked from pages of all compared products.--Karnesky 07:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it isn't the right place for the debate --Zero0w 07:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a lot of good data there even if it was contested. If you removed that section, then it needs its own page like "OpenOfficePerformanceDebate" or something like that. Then a short link should be posted in this entry. Also, the entire performance should be cleaned up or even removed and that Java statement should probably be removed. Disabling Java really doesn't help OO.o that much and it's just as slow without Java in most situations so the whole performance section is worthless. It should just be a link to the performance debate entry on OpenOffice.org.

Not exactly right. Disabling Java will reduce the start-up time in Version 2.x because OpenOffice.org no longer needs to look for the path of JRE during launch. In addition, some functions in the Database module will be disabled without Java Runtime. This could affect certain interface responsiveness as a result. And, once gain, it is OpenOffice.org, not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office". Is it so hard to get the name right if you want to write about this software product? --Zero0w 08:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I did use "OpenOffice.org" though I may have made informal references. Second, your shot against Ou's Firefox blog is dumb since it simply presents the data and does not say one is better than the other as you claim. Third, I was talking about Ou's test which doesn't talk about application start up time but rather data read and write times which are unaffected by Java. Please try and keep it accurate so we don’t need to turn this in to a shouting match.

No, read your own writing ("OpenOfficePerformanceDebate") and also in the history record, in the topic title you used. You should know better. It's not the first time - and if you bother to read why the name change in the intro section. Regarding Java, I said "not exactly right" because there is certain improvement from that information. Who said this is refering to any study from certain (or any) blogger? Maybe you want to call it "start-up performance" instead? Btw, I didn't shoot George Ou, others already did before me because you have to understand how he drew his conclusion, and that conclusion did not take into account of stuff that matters (he did edit his Firefox article later in response to the complaint). -- Zero0w 5:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion regarding [[: regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]]]! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

NOTE: If the article only has the comparisons, I suggest it be called Comparison of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org or similar, as it would be useful to link from both office suites. -- Karnesky 17:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, you might want to consider your formatting since it has to scroll right forever. Anyways, I agree with your title but what should the new article link be?

The more I think about it, it should be a title like Comparison of Office software, like other similar category such as Comparison of vector graphics editors. Wikipedia should not fixate on the campaign of comparing only two specific products if it is to be encyclopedic. Sure I want to know how Gnumeric does when processing Excel documents, not just OpenOffice.org Calc; Or how WordPerfect does in processing Word documents. Also, other set of sample files other than those by George Ou should be tested in order to provide more cases under different circumstances. -- Zero0w 5:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Man, we already have a topic like Comparison of office suites. --Zero0w 5:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but is that the right place for it? I'm up for suggestions. I say present all the data so long as they're reasonably sourced and let the reader decide.

Neutrality problems in the "Components" section

The components section has serious POV problems throughout and should be reworked substantially. A far-from-complete sampling of problems:

• We call Writer "an extremely capable word processor which is certainly capable of competing seriously with Microsoft Office".
• We say that Impress "improves upon Microsoft Powerpoint's drawing system greatly."
• We call Draw a "superb" graphics editor.
• We say that Base is "excelling Microsoft Access on many fronts."
• We call Math "an absolute gem of a program". "If a human hand can write it, Math can write it just that little bit neater."

Personally, I wouldn't be opposed to completely reverting Goodgerster's edit, but maybe it would be better to rework the section. —Caesura 16:36, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've given the section in question a substantial POV-ectomy. It's a little rough, and still a bit heavy on comparison to MS Office, but that may be necessary as that's most people's reference standard. Tverbeek 17:34, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I still think it needs work. Here's an idea: Move all references and comparisons to Microsoft products into one section for that single purpose. Use the "Components" sections to actually describe the components. What do they do? How are they used? Screenshots, etc. Nothing about competitors or equivalences. Leave that stuff for its own section. DanielAmelang 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A voice of sanity eventually ;). Yes, wikipedia is not an adverstising place for Microsoft. If someone doesn't know enough about OOO to describe it better than a slashdot post, he simply has no place writing this encyclopedic article. Compare with the french article, for example. I wish i was good at english enough to write a similar article here.

Agree, seems like certain anomymous user would want to use Wikipedia to conduct his flamewar on benchmarking in addition to advertising blogger's opinion in the Performance section.Zero0w Feb 2, 2006

Humble request: please, define the word "roughly" as it is used in "Components" section :-)

When comparing to Microsoft Office, please, bear in mind that OOo is a massive memory hog. E.g., a formula in Calc takes more than 5 times space of Excel equivalent. Same applies to Writer and Word (about 3 times difference per sentence). This applies to 2.0 betas, 1.1.4 is worse.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=101

NeoOffice

I'm trying to avoid the kind of detailed, time-sensitive statements that require somebody to edit this page every time a bug-fix release of OOo comes out. Today it's 1.1.4 and NeoOffice is up-to-date; next week it might be OOo 1.1.5 and NeoOffice isn't up to date. Then it is. Then OOo 2.0.0 is released and it's not for a while. Then it NeoOffice 2.0 comes out, except OOo 2.0.1 has come out in the meantime, and so on. NeoOffice releases lag behind OOo and apparently always will. Saying so is not POV-pushing (especially since my POV is pro-NeoOffice). Tverbeek 15:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree. Our articles should focus in supplying useful background information, such as the history and evolution of such packages, rather than up-to-the-minute release details. That's rightfully the job of others. -- Viajero 16:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I just removed a newly-added comment from an anonymous user that NeoOffice "also works slower than other office applications on OS X." A statement like that is unhelpful - it does not specify a version, or a comparison benchmark, or consider tradeoffs in functionality, or specify a configuration. As such it tends to denigrate its subject without recourse. As a user of NeoOffice/J, OpenOffice.org (X11) and MS Office, all on Mac, I can say that the relative subjective "speed" of the three packages is not the main source of concern on any of the Macs I support or use. Webmink 13:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

name change over trademark dispute

Could we have more details about this? Who owns the OpenOffice trademark, and what happened? -- Tarquin 21:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and why was the same question removed from the talk page with this edit? Motor 22:10, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Aha! So I'm NOT going nuts! I knew I'd asked this question before! ;) -- Tarquin 15:28, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can't find any similar trademark registrations in the US, UK, or Aussie trademark databases. (Canada's isn't online.) Could be registered in another jurisdiction, but that covers most of the major English-language ones (where "open" and "office" would likely be meaningful). I have found some comments on web pages stating that "OpenOffice" is a trademark of Sun, but that seems like an unlikely source of conflict. Maybe it is. Lacking any objective information, I think we should switch to a "what they say" format for the article. Tverbeek 16:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's unlikely to be an english-speaking country as "Open", "Office" and their combination are a generic term and can't construct a defensible trademark - I think that's why the name was chosen. I can personally confirm an issue existing in a latin american country with a trademark holder, but I don't think that one is the one that caused the .Org suffix requirement. --Webmink 00:37, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Several links here, but all those (perhaps) giving info on the trademark holder are dead, except those links in cyrillic. I couldn't find a better place to ask than at webmasters@openoffice.org here. Espoo 13:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The "developer"

The summary box names Sun Microsystems as the developer of OOo. That is not strictly true. The project is developed by the OpenOffice.org Community, which anybody can join, though admittedly the bulk of the work is done by members who happen to be employed by Sun.

OpenOffice 2.0 (Open Document) to MediaWiki format

Is there a macro or export filter that will allow one to create documents in OpenOffice, and export them in MediaWiki format? -- 68.10.113.7 21:05, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Still looking for an OpenOffice to MediaWiki export filter... -- BBlackmoor ^(talk) 18:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

There is an extra bit of code that claims to give this functionality. A link to it is available at the official bug report for this issue. If you think an OpenOffice to MediaWiki export filter is a good idea, VOTE FOR IT on that page!--None Error 15:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tech support options?

Just wondering if there is a place for tech information or troubleshooting. I was the one who added the external link (now removed), dated 03:11, 5 September 2005. Option 4 there saved my file. This was after about an hour of searching the web - only other solutions were a bunch of postings in newsgroups. This is the link: http://www.andybrain.com/archive/mb/open-office-data-recovery.htm

'Resource hog'?

Is OOo a resource hog? (I like it a lot, but) --Vyr 12:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the content of the article, not opinions about the subject of the article. Tverbeek 12:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

No Tverbeek - the poor performance of OO is a VERY IMPORTANT issue that is preventing its widespread adoption. It is DISGRACEFUL that no mention of this PIVOTAL fact is made in the main article. In a previous edit of the article (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenOffice.org&oldid=27805257), I added the following remark: "loading Java slows OpenOffice.org applications down - they load and run much faster if "Use a Java runtime environment" is deselcted in the Tools - Options - OpenOffice - Java dialogue box" - but somebody has since removed it. Obviously, someone thinks that if OO's poor performance isn't mentioned in the article, the problem will just quietly disappear. However - it is the most serious problem the product has (it's the main reason why most people uninstall it) - and the people who take the time and trouble to read the article have a RIGHT to know about it.--New Thought 09:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with "they load and run much faster" without JRE statement: yes, they do load faster, but they run with the same speed (provided sufficient memory) and some major functionality is not available. User_talk:67.160.0.197

New Thought: Everything you put in all-caps and boldface expresses an opinion. Wikipedia isn't interested in opinions. Tverbeek 02:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Ha! An encyclopedia article is a collection of opinions about what the most important things to know about a subject are.--New Thought 11:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It's no more of a resource hog than any other office suite. As such, I do not think the article needs to make a point of saying whether OpenOffice is or is not a "resource hog". -- BBlackmoor ^(talk), 2005-11-10 T 15:55:32 Z

You had to be kidding, of course it is. And that includes 2.0, which promised a lot, but haven't delivered. And if memory problems can be partially offset by throwing a huge amount of memory at it, nothing can be done about OOo's hunger for CPU cycles. (And before you start on George Ou's credibility, be a good pal and find us some other detailed comparison of different Office suites.)

One more benchmark from geekpatrol.ca, this one is for Mac OS X Office suites.

It crashes my machine after refusing to be killed. -- Jashank 20:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

... and I have no problems. The issue is subjective. Webmink 23:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't change the fact that some users have issues with it, and is therefore worth mentioning. --Aeon17x 23:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Bugzilla. Not every bug needs to be in here. -- Karnesky 23:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Emphasis on OOo 2.0

I think you are emphasising to much on OO.o 2.0. I use OO.o 1.1.5 but had to switch to KOffice 1.4.2 to maintain stability. Could we balance things out? I know we have a history tree, I know we have screenshots, but OO.o 1.1.5 doesn't have as much as 2.0. BTW, does anyone know if OOo 2 has Master Document support? -- Jashank 20:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

1.1.5 is a legacy release. It should be treated as such & it doesn't seem to have any less coverage compared with legacy versions of other applications. OO.o 2, like OO.o 1.1, has Master Documents. -- Karnesky 20:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone could make that clearer on the page. -- Jashank 20:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is too much emphasis on 2.0. Although I have not yet used 2.02 or whatever the latest release is, I've noted that functionality and stability is severely reduced from 1.1.4 and even 1.1.5. I've used 1.1.4 and 1.1.5 for business data because they are reasonably stable and very versatile. It's just not possible to do the same things with Excel or the MS database program without all the built-in garbage and hold ups preventing users from doing what's important with biz data: analysis and reporting. I would go as far as to change the article to note the problematic 2.0 release, but for the fact that I have this discussion outlet. Nevertheless, this is supposed to be an encyclopedia, rather than a compendium of all news. History will judge, and if 2.0 doesn't improve fast, eventually the article may reflect the fact that openoffice got a lot of people excited for a few years and then was killed off by its developers. -- Ben Nicotera, April 6, 2006 1740 GMT -5

On Portal:Free software, OpenOffice.org is current featured article

Just to let you know. The purpose of the featured article section is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. Gronky 12:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternatives section

Is it really useful? I don't see a point to it. a thing 04:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

While usefulness might be in question [to you] it should be there since it's on the Microsoft Office page, infact it should be on every office page. 16:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

difficult to install on a mac?

In the Mac OSX section it says that OOo is difficult to install and NeoOffice is far easier to install.

The most recent version of OOo is incredibly easy to install on a mac, you don't reallly have to do anything...just like pressing next a couple times on any windows installer. Is this statement obsolete?

you're right of course, why didn't you just change it. i've installed oo on os x, myself, there are several untrue statements there as well.

Footnotes

Not long ago I converted the article to the note/ref template system to clean up the links used as references within the article body. A new system is now available to make this simpler and avoid orphaned or misordered footnotes Wikipedia:Footnotes. It's more straightforward, and the references are embedded in the text right next to the place they are used. I've converted a few articles already myself... but I'll not get around to this one for a while. Does anyone feel like doing it themselves? It's easy enough, but you do have to ensure that the information is converted correctly, and fix any mistakes in the original note/ref system (misordering and the like). Thanks. - Motor (talk) 11:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I've done the conversion myself. In the process I've removed some links, done some rewrites and generally tried to clean things up. I'd appreciate anyone going through the article and verifying that the references supplied actually do verify the claims in the copy (I've did a cursory check, but I'm running out of steam!). Also, I've had to replace some links with the fact template... if anyone could supplied good sources for these, that'd be great. - Motor (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks for the conversion. --Zero0w 23:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

On the subject of too much info in the introduction:

"The source code for the application suite was previously available under two different software licenses: the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL); starting with version 2.0, the code is only available under the LGPL."

This is unneccessary... in the introduction. It's something better left in the history section. It just needs "The source code for the application suite is available the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)". - Motor (talk) 09:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)