Chad Smith wrote:
It's not like Luxative Office is the only one doing this. In my local
Office Max, I saw "Perfect Office Pro" or something like that.
That is how I learned about OOo for the first time when I bought that software. So, I guess it can work.
Yeah, how many people have written the email list saying "I bought ____ Office and I had a question." They are finding out about the list somehow, therefore they are hearing about OOo (since the email addy is [email protected]). And most people on the list tell them how to get OOo for free. Paying $20 for information on how to get an office suite with free support and free upgrades for life isn't a bad deal.
I just don't like the way that Luxurosity is marketing it like they made it and they market it in general without mentionin that not all of the filters are perfect and that Impress in 1.1.x is a far cry from PowerPoint.
They also say that OOo can replace Acrobat Professional, which is crap.
Well, there's not much use in complaining about it. It's the risk you take with open source. If you give people freedom, they may do things that you don't like. I think there is more harm done by people fighting "among themselves" than good. And I say "among ourselves" because, as has been pointed out, Lux, Perfect, et. al. get lumped into the same group as OpenOffice.org. Luxative Office isn't going to do anywhere near the "damage" to OOo as MSO is. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Especially if they are actually OOo is disguise.
Lux is telling the truth, btw, when they say OOo can replace Adobe. If all you use Adobe for is to turn Word files into PDFs. It replaces *one aspect* of Acrobat. But, you are right, there is much more that Adobe can do that OOo cannot - like edit PDFs, for example.
As far as Impress competing with Powerpoint - we make that claim ourselves. I agree that Powerpoint is much better (animations, audio, plug-ins, etc.), but we still promote Impress as a comparable presentation program. It's called marketing. You promote your strengths and ignore or "spin" your weaknesses. (An example of "spinning" our weaknesses - people swore up and down that it was *better* that OOo didn't have a database before it did, because it gave the user "more options and freedom" - can you believe that!?!?).
Just bother me. I don't mind what Cosmi did, because when I bough Perfect Office Pro, it came with a TON of other stuff, clipart, sounds, and some other crappy software that might help someone. I don't feel like I was lied to, because when I ran it, it was very clear that I was running OOo and I was able to find the website very easily for updates. I don't get that impression from Luxurosity.
Lux comes with other stuff too. All open source programs. Like has been said, it's much like TheOpenCD (if it's not *actually* The Open CD). It's just a bunch of FLOSS programs on a CD. To me, that is a value add. Ordering one CD full of programs is great! And they aren't "crap" programs. They are GIMP, Audacity, Blender, etc. - All great programs. It's really not a bad deal - it's just their attitude that stinks.
Anyway, my 75 cents (man inflation sucks).
-Chad Smith
