desktop-packages team mailing list archive

[Gretha <782406@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christopher

I make two observations.

First, I am sorry to have to note that you repeatedly digress and go
off-topic.  Issues such as, first, apport (which clearly does not work
properly) and, then, Microsoft Office are entirely besides the point.
The point is the incompetence of the Compare Document functionality in
LibreOffice Writer.  This is all the more remarkable and disappointing,
because OpenOffice in version 3.2 had finally made at least some
significant progress here just when LibreOffice was forked.

Second, I am, amongst other things, first-line responsible for, at the
last count, close to 18,000 installations of Ubuntu and -- since the
investment-destroying and inefficient Unity iphone-lookalike desktop --
Xubuntu at over 100 clients across the world.  This gives me a
reasonably balanced picture of the most common issues clients struggle
with.  For (X)Ubuntu, top-ranking at present is Network Manager when
using 3G dongles on netbooks (see bug 796872 which is still awaiting
attention and remains unresolved).  Second in key parts of the world
still comes the absence of a synthetic fax modem simulator for Skype or
similar.  For LibreOffice, the primary issue still remains the
dysfunctionality of Compare Document (this bug) and the regression here
relative to OpenOffice.

For us, it is quite all-right if the LibreOffice developers wish to use
LO as a toy to hone their software writing skills.  Just tell me, and
we'll put clients back on Microsoft and on Macs, systems still run by
the vast majority of our clients.

Specifically, in post #18, you meander off in a complex attempt

(a) to assert the equivalence of Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer
or even the superiority of the latter;  as well as

(b) to claim our ignorance of how LibreOffice actually performs document
comparisons.

No doubt, as regards (a), you can construct a scenario with a carefully
crafted text and/or manual intervention which happens to support your
claim, but in general the assertion is both false and, more importantly,
it is completely besides the point.

As regards (b), the document compare described in my earlier posts here
was carried out by the book and to the letter.  (See also LO Writer
Help.  And please don't bother and scare routine users of Office
applications in a document production environment with terminal
commands, otherwise I'll be more than happy to dish out some rolls of
paper tape and stacks of uninterpreted punch cards left over from my
earlier days in computing long before it was called IT.)  You even go so
far as to use your assertion to bump the matter and simply declare the
issue invalid.

The key point, however, and I am sorry to have to repeat it, is this:

(1) A precise, complete, effective and efficient LibreOffice Compare
Document functionality is an absolutely elementary function in any real
document production environment where routine version management and
control are standard and where document quality and integrity are
important or even vital;

(2) LibreOffice Compare Document has unnecessarily and avoidably
regressed since LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice;  and

(3) LibreOffice Compare Document is badly in need of fundamental
overhaul, radical improvement and proper fine-graining, and this also
includes the removal of its implicit exclusion of frames, footnotes,
headers, fields and other essential items of information contained in
documents.

I am attaching a single random document which once more illustrates
these three points I am making.  Since LibreOffice Document Compare is
so bad that it in fact makes even this short document crash, I can only
salvage it in the form of three screen grabs.  I have compiled these in
a single png image with added explanation and comments.  It very much
saddens me that this presentation is by no means an advertisement or
recommendation for LibreOffice.

Open source software is an invaluable phenomenon.  However, it can only
make true and broad inroads beyond hobbyists and servers if the
developers, on the one hand, and those like us, on the other, who
promote it and actually put it in the workplace -- often in key
production-critical contexts -- work hand in hand and in sympathy to
effectively and efficiently resolve the issues reported by actual users
of the systems and applications.  We resolve almost all such issues in-
house, but some are elusive, defying practical work-arounds, and often
systemically rooted in key core components and applications.

We do our very best to support open source and to get it deployed
wherever suitable.  But when the effort proves one-way and when positive
feedback sincerely aimed to improve matters routinely falls on deaf ears
and is left unattended or, as in this case of LibreOffice, simply bumped
and dumped, then, I am very sad indeed to say, we are clearly on the
wrong track.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to the bug report.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/782406

Title:
  LibreOffice Writer Document Compare (regression)

Status in “libreoffice” package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: libreoffice

  Comparing two files has reverted to the old OOo behaviour of flagging
  entire long sequences of paragraphs as different, when in fact they
  are actually identical except maybe for just one or two minor
  typographical differences.

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