Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched

Hi :)
Updates and upgrades are different things although i guess there is some overlap in the middle.  

"Frequent updates and bug fixes are a mark of quality" which is odd really, when you really think 
about it.  What it means to me is that the program, as sold to customers, was so broken and easily 
exploited that it needs a whole load of extra work to be added later.  

Note that the updates for MS Office are almost entirely "Security updates".  There is almost never 
any mention of updates increasing functionality nor to add extra features.  Similarly for Windows, 
for Adobe products, Oracle stuff and so on.  

LO and other OpenSource programs tend to be written with security as a top priority.  Over the past 
year or so there have only been about 2 times when upgrades have been about solving security 
issues.  Those security issues were pre-emptive as there didn't appear to be any threats out in the 
wild.  All the rest of the upgrades have been about adding functionality and  simmering the code 
down to make it smaller and faster.  

MS Office only upgrades once every few years.  Four years between 2003 and 2007, then another 3 
before 2010.  Each install is a major pita.  Everything changes.  Compatibility issues with older 
documents.  Several rounds of updates and reboots.  Settings and all that tend to be lost by 
default.  

Installing an OpenSource product  is easier as it keeps the old settings and stuff and still reads 
old documents the same.  If you don't like the newer one then reinstalling the older one back over 
the top is easy.  
Regards from
Tom :)  


--- On Tue, 17/4/12, precutcolours@mailcan.com <precutcolours@mailcan.com> wrote:

From: precutcolours@mailcan.com <precutcolours@mailcan.com>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched
To: "Users LibreOffice" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
Date: Tuesday, 17 April, 2012, 0:10

Well thank you Tom.  I know beacoup info about release cycles, open vs. proprietary, and user 
configs.  I seek to help grandmas.

> Updates item [is] pointless

When Libre app reports no update to grandma, but I counter-invite to
Libre org's home page news, grandma gets confused.  Why does the app say different than the web 
site?  Microsoft Office update doesn't behave so, nor Windows Update.  The patches listed on 
Microsoft's web are the patches one gets in Windows Update.  They are in sync.

> Updates tend to be minor patches
> LibreOffice doesn't have minor updates very often

Frequent updates and bug fixes are a mark of quality.  Advising people not to patch bugs is rather 
poor advice.  Grandma needs a simpler way than full reinstall.

Minor bugs kill grandmas.  I want minor patches.  I want the menu to
tell grandma about them.

Release cycles seem aggressive enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#Release_schedule

> OpenSource [keeps user] stuff safely away

User prefs aren't relevant.  The trouble is getting bugs fixed.

A menu tells grandma no update exists, yet I claim to know better, but my info just means more 
work, a re-install.  What seems easy to you and me is very intimidating to grandma esp. when she 
didn't do the original install.  Some people did not grow up with computers either for age or 
poverty or both.  So she ignores me, or says "manyana," all merely because there's no one-two click 
update.  The result is users not keeping LibreOffice bug-patched.

Next they complain if Calc breaks over something that Excel does
perfectly well, only because they lack a "minor" fix.  After that, they
tell others that LibreOffice "broke on me doing X, so I went back to
Excel" etc.

Thanks very much to the team for all the hard work!  Pushing fixes out to users is a no-brainer, I 
hope...

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Faster than the air-speed velocity of an
                          unladen european swallow


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