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And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it e

by skgoa 9y ago

And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it exists, it will most likely be a buggy mess that has far fewer features and a horrible interface. LibreOffice is a great example. I tried writing my masters thesis in it and it was a complete disaster. I don't regret going back to office.

jhasse 9y ago
> LibreOffice is a great example. I tried writing my masters thesis in it and it was a complete disaster. I've made similar experiences, especially the crashes were very annoying. I wrote my bachelor and master thesis with LyX, which is a lot more stable and better than Office if you have lots a formulas: https://www.lyx.org/ https://www.lyx.org/
markvdb 9y ago
> And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it exists, it will most likely be a buggy mess that has far fewer features and a horrible interface. We wanted to help FreeCAD[0] grow as a leading FOSS CAD application, to help it reach out to other developers. That is why we invited Yorik van Havre[1], one of its main developers, as a main track speaker to FOSDEM 2015 [2]. I'm not asking you to do something similarly constructive, but... Next time you state your opinion about "professional level FOSS software (eg. CAD)", please think first if it is necessary or even useful to gratuitously throw around negativity. Even if the tools are not useful at all (yet?) for your task, why discourage its users and developers? Chances are, the FOSS app _will_ be useful and even the only option for some. [0] https://freecad.io https://freecad.io [1] https://github.com/yorikvanhavre https://github.com/yorikvanhavre [2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/freecad/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/freecad/

by skgoa 9y ago

jhasse 9y ago

> LibreOffice is a great example. I tried writing my masters thesis in it and it was a complete disaster. I've made similar experiences, especially the crashes were very annoying. I wrote my bachelor and master thesis with LyX, which is a lot more stable and better than Office if you have lots a formulas: https://www.lyx.org/ https://www.lyx.org/

markvdb 9y ago

> And when you start looking at professional level software (e.g. CAD), very often you will find that there is literally no FOSS alternative in existance. If it exists, it will most likely be a buggy mess that has far fewer features and a horrible interface. We wanted to help FreeCAD[0] grow as a leading FOSS CAD application, to help it reach out to other developers. That is why we invited Yorik van Havre[1], one of its main developers, as a main track speaker to FOSDEM 2015 [2]. I'm not asking you to do something similarly constructive, but... Next time you state your opinion about "professional level FOSS software (eg. CAD)", please think first if it is necessary or even useful to gratuitously throw around negativity. Even if the tools are not useful at all (yet?) for your task, why discourage its users and developers? Chances are, the FOSS app _will_ be useful and even the only option for some. [0] https://freecad.io https://freecad.io [1] https://github.com/yorikvanhavre https://github.com/yorikvanhavre [2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/freecad/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/freecad/