Open office goes down in flames...

[DocWalt]

people need to stop complaining about freeware - buy the damn microsoft office then! I can use both on slow, fast, old, new, laptop, dekstop - makes no difference.

lolol... If they are going to claim it's an Office replacement, it better be. It isn't.

I too got Office for $10 at work, I'd much rather pay for something that works.

[Telionis]

A good bit of the time, open source is only worth it if your own time is worthless.

LMFAO. You must be joking. This is the most inaccurate statement I've heard in a while... Open source stuff is usually better than the commercial competitor unless you're talking about huge volume mainstream (like MS Office).

Firefox or Chrome > Internet Explorer
7-zip >> WinZip or WinRAR
Filezilla > commercial FTP clients
Audacity > bundled audio editors
CDBurnerXP > bloated NERO or Roxio
FoxIt > Adobe's own reader
Pidgin > AIM
gnuCash > Quicken / MS Money

Plus how can you live without AdBlock, Peerblock and Speedfan? All my small utilities, and all my security stuff is also open source.

The majority of the internet runs on Apache running on Linux/BSD boxes with Snort IDS and IPFW or IPTables protecting them and using OpenSSL to secure their connections. The majority of the email on the web goes through Sendmail, Postfix or Exim.

I'd even go so far as to say that linux is better than Windows for specific needs (not generic consumers, gamers, office work). For specific apps though, like dedicated firewalls, web servers or network file servers, etc., it can't be beat.

BTW - the guys that worked on Open Office before Sun shafted the project went on to create LibreOffice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
________________________________________

For my use, the only thing I can't replace with open source is Quickbooks & Solid-Works + games at home. Though I will concede that Office is better than Open Office, it is not $250 better.

[3000GT MR]

This is why i limit my computer use to these main things

-Internet
-tuning/tuning programs
-digital photo album
-some music

[DocWalt]

LMFAO. You must be joking. This is the most inaccurate statement I've heard in a while... Open source stuff is usually better than the commercial competitor unless you're talking about huge volume mainstream (like MS Office).

Firefox or Chrome > Internet Explorer
7-zip >> WinZip or WinRAR
Filezilla > commercial FTP clients
Audacity > bundled audio editors
CDBurnerXP > bloated NERO or Roxio
FoxIt > Adobe's own reader
Pidgin > AIM
gnuCash > Quicken / MS Money

Plus how can you live without AdBlock, Peerblock and Speedfan? All my small utilities, and all my security stuff is also open source.

The majority of the internet runs on Apache running on Linux/BSD boxes with Snort IDS and IPFW or IPTables protecting them and using OpenSSL to secure their connections. The majority of the email on the web goes through Sendmail, Postfix or Exim.

I'd even go so far as to say that linux is better than Windows for specific needs (not generic consumers, gamers, office work). For specific apps though, like dedicated firewalls, web servers or network file servers, etc., it can't be beat.

BTW - the guys that worked on Open Office before Sun shafted the project went on to create LibreOffice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
________________________________________

For my use, the only thing I can't replace with open source is Quickbooks & Solid-Works + games at home. Though I will concede that Office is better than Open Office, it is not $250 better.

FWIW, a lot of what you listed isn't exactly "open" They're only open in the sense that Android is open. You can get the source, and work on it, but you have to mess with the bureaucracy of getting anything done. Plus, most of those programs have terrible GUIs that aren't easy to learn.

[Telionis]

FWIW, a lot of what you listed isn't exactly "open" They're only open in the sense that Android is open. You can get the source, and work on it, but you have to mess with the bureaucracy of getting anything done. Plus, most of those programs have terrible GUIs that aren't easy to learn.

What? Which one has a terrible GUI?

Firefox
Thunderbird
7-zip
Filezilla
Songbird
Audacity
CDBurnerXP
FoxIt
Pidgin
gnuCash

Of all the ones I've mentioned, only gnuCash is difficult to use, and it is no more so than Quicken or Money. Were you talking about the server software, like Apache and IPFW (neither of which have any GUI)? In that case, yeah they are difficult to use, but I'd expect a server admin to know his way around computers well enough to not need an easy GUI. I can't imagine Exchange or IIS is that much easier to setup and secure properly.

[DocWalt]

7-zip, Filezilla, Songbird, Audacity, FoxIt, Pidgin. They're all ugly, and the GUI is poorly designed.

Look, one of my jobs at work is to analyze our GUI systems and find ways to make it better. I'm not being anal for no reason.

[Telionis]

7-zip, Filezilla, Songbird, Audacity, FoxIt, Pidgin. They're all ugly, and the GUI is poorly designed.

Look, one of my jobs at work is to analyze our GUI systems and find ways to make it better. I'm not being anal for no reason.

I cannot imagine how anyone could complain about the 7-zip or FileZilla GUIs. They're both flawless in that they're simple and clean. They're not pretty or flashy, but they're so straight forward my Mom could use them, which IMHO is what makes or breaks a GUI. If you want "pretty software", buy a Mac. Besides, 7-zip is so far superior to the commercial competitors that I'd use it via the command line if I had to.

Songbird is a knockoff of iTunes, and I personally dislike the GUI on both, but tons of people love iTunes, so I can't imagine how fans of iTunes could complain.

Incidentally, FoxIt is not open source, I was mistaken. But for the sake of argument, are you really going to tell me that the Acrobat reader's GUI is so much better that it is worth the bloat and immensely slower performance? Sh-t there are only two relevant functions in either reader, zoom and move.

[DocWalt]

They're too simple and clean. The icons essentially mean nothing to the uninitiated on most of them. 7-zip is definitely prettier and easier to use than WinRAR (the worst GUI known to man, rofl) but it's behind WinZip in features and readability, IMO.

Songbird is uglier than iTunes. I'm a user of iTunes, but I'd like to find a suitable replacement since the newest versions f'ed up my CD drive functionality (they fudged up a registry setting that disables my HDD if it's enabled. Disable it, and iTunes f's up. lovely)

I partially agree. Adobe Reader sucks, but FoxIt is uglier. I notice no perceivable difference in speed between the two since the latest few updates for Adobe Reader. They really cleaned it up. That said, on a slow PC, FoxIt is faster.

Sorry for not clarifying which is ugly, and which one has a crummy GUI.