> most MS Office and PhotoShop users are professionals that are willing to pay for software that makes them more productive

No! Most MS Office users need it because other people send them Office docs, and users that weren't provided with MS Office on their work PC believe they have no choice but to pay for software that lets them read and write Office documents. It's very different from Web browsers where you're rendering somewhat standard protocols.

> no amount of awareness is going to get a happy MS Office or PhotoShop user to fall in love with OpenOffice.org or The Gimp

Agreed. The opportunity lies with new users or users with new computers who are faced with spending a lot of $$$ to buy the standard and aren't aware of alternatives.

When OpenOffice (and KDE Office, and Google docs) is good enough and compatible enough with MS Office file fomats, getting the message out about compatibility and $Free! will *really* improve adoption. (I've only used all three lightly so I don't know if they've reached that point.)

Also know that Mozilla has had conversations in the past with these groups and probably will continue to do so. From the marketing and organizational side, Open Office in particular doesn't seem to be ready yet not to mention Asa's arguments on the product.

There's an ideal world and there's a real world with FLOSS.

Down the road I'm sure Mozilla can/will promote OpenOffice and other FLOSS products. But these products better be damn good and right now they're not. Thunderbird is a damn good product. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be promoted either.

Spot on there, Asa, and thanks for asking the question that's been bugging the hell out of me: Why not simply "OpenOffice"? Do I use the program as a web application? NO, I use it installed on my hard drive. Must we have the TLD in the name?

As far as The Gimp goes, I never realized they wanted to be called "THE Gimp." What if there's a bigger gimp out there who wants to start something over the name? Monkeys aside, I came to Gimp from Fireworks and used Phooshop briefly a while back and promptly got lost. Gimp had the same effect on me, which is why I run Fireworks under Wine for most of my image work. It may not be as flexible as PS or Gimp, but at least I can figure out how to do 90% of what I want to do in it.

I'm sure you'll catch some heat for this post Asa, but I think you're absolutely right. Office 2007, for example, is superb, much better than the OpenOffice alternative.

Good post.

I recently had a little rant about how user un-friendly Openoffice is:

http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2007/01/openoffice-suction.html

I think those three problems are very central in scaring new users away.

It's funny, the question of the name also struck me while I was writing, but I never mentioned it in my post.

In a way you would think it were easier for openoffice and gimp to gain followers since they cost much less (infinitely less!) than their competitors. Since Firefox has managed to convert loads of people who see IE as free, it shouldn't be impossible for Openoffice and Gimp to do the same if they get their act together and push for nice UI and usability!

Every couple of years, I try out an MS free desktop. After a day, I go scurrying back to MS Office. After a week, I go right back to Windows Media Player. (I've been loving me some Firefox and Thunderbird/lightening for quite a while)...

In terms of functionality and usability, OOO is about where MS Office was back in 1998. Someone needs to do to OOO what firefox did to Mozilla: take a great back end and turn it into a wonderful tool...

Part of this also comes down to market conditions:

Gimp battles a product that costs several hundred dollars a seat. So does Open Office. Their competitors have HUGE budgets to add features, fix bugs, and manage development. Their competitors also have major advertising promotional budgets to get their products in front of businesses.

Firefox on the other hand is up against IE (also Free with Windows), and to a lesser extent (Safari/Opera). The difference is that Microsoft never had the same drive behind IE as it did Office. The goal of IE was to have control over the Internet space. That still is a primary goal. It's not a moneymaking product for them. Office on the other hand is.

Firefox is competing against a product that doesn't strive to be good. It strives to serve as a technological foothold. That's why it wasn't upgraded for years. GIMP/OpenOffice are competing against a much more active and aggressive beast.

If Microsoft included Office with Windows, Office would have much less polish/features and wouldn't shine anywhere near as much as it does. OpenOffice would be a much more fierce competitor.

I don't think the argument can be made against the open source product, but the market conditions it's in. They are very different battles.

You can't compare the battle against IE (a giant marketshare, but little financial incentive to Microsoft), vs. Office, which is substantial in revenue.

At the end of the day, when it comes to competing in corporate, the dollars speak. There's no way around that.

skierpage, I agree with Asa. Most users want Office, not a "free" knock-off that, bluntly, sucks. Now I did manage my company to begin putting Open Office on our machines before we ship if the customer did not purchase Microsoft Office. (Ironically, I still can't get pretty much anyone onto Firefox, but that's another story).

However, the fight to get Open Office on shipping systems was hard, and it's a battle just to keep it on. The reason? As I said, OOo sucks. It's just too problematic, difficult, and different. I don't know whether it will "get there" or not, but it needs to at least properly open and render the average .doc file nearly flawlessly. It's not that OOo is unusable, but it really doesn't come close to being as good as Microsoft Office.

Asa, I think you nailed this one.

Andrew, Windows Media Player? Really?! I'm always shocked to find somebody actually using that. Definitely didn't work for me.

I don't follow OOo development but I also hope they focus on making it *work* just like MS Office, while sticking to ODF. A frequent feeling with it is that it doesn't work "the way it should" for simple tasks such as making an image "float", or setting cell/table properties. Of course "the way it should" is Office's way, since like many other users I've been using it for years.

Regarding its name, it used to be called Open Office but they had a trademark problem as well and settled for OOo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openoffice.org).

I think it wouldn't hurt thinking about upselling in a manner that may not confuse users of course. As for The Gimp, there's no hope as it is more focused on power than usability.

> "As for The Gimp, there's no hope as it is more focused on power than usability."

ahem, maybe not commercially, or in schools but if you're a power user than yeah, take photoshop for instance a normal user wouldn't know their ass from their face if their using it for the first time.

> In terms of functionality and usability, OOO is about where MS Office was back in 1998.

Exactly. It's equivalent to one of the better releases of MS Office and avoids the featuritis and alien interface with gradient backgrounds later versions tacked on as upgrade incentives for PHBs.
OpenOffice was designed to do a job. It does that job and that's what matters.

Gimp was similarly designed to give *nix an image editing program that can do more than MS Paint graphics. Photoshop cannot compete with Gimp, due to the fact PS simply doesn't exist there. The Windows port of Gimp is just a nice benefit of good software design.

I'm not sure what niche Firefox fills, as with the last 3 major releases it seems to stray farther from its original goal of being a good lightweight browser and more toward being a PR pissing contest with Microsoft. That's not intended as a flame aimed at the developers, it's just how it all looks from a distance.

this is not the same asa that posted many years ago!

> [Photoshop vs Gimp], maybe not commercially, or in schools but if you're a power user than yeah, take photoshop for instance a normal user wouldn't know their ass from their face if their using it for the first time.

I'm a UI geek, so I watch over people's shoulder when they hit Photoshop the first time. Believe it or not, most of them get what they want out of it. It's usually something simple and they do it the most convoluted inefficient way possible and it takes them at least 10 times longer than it'd take me, but they get it done. Gimp is similar for drawing but people struggle with text input and the right click menu.

For me personally, I can't use Gimp because the quality of the output. I can deal with almost any usability, but output quality is something I can't sacrifice. The last Gimp I tried had ugly aliased text output (in addition to the horrible entry method). It also failed to work with variable pressure input from my Wacom. Actually it does work, but it steps brush size up and down in whole pixels creating this horrible jagged line instead of the smooth transition I'm looking for. Took me 10 minutes to figure out what was going on at first because I was on a small brush. That pretty much did it in for serious evaluation, so I could be missing other issues. I do use it for stuff like making animated .gif images, screenshots, and resizing/cropping/converting under Linux, but I prefer and recommend Paint.Net for simple things under Windows. Inkscape is promising. Incomplete, but I do like the parts that are there.

I can't say much about the quality of OpenOffice since I haven't really used it but this statement is obviously and plainly wrong:

> but most MS Office and PhotoShop users are professionals

Everyone uses MS Office, that includes, you, me, my friends and your grandmother. People use it because it is "the standard", because everyone uses it and not be deliberate choice or because of its quality.

Karl G - I found Photoshop's UI straight forward and easy to use. GIMPshop not only screwed up the first time I downloaded, but I've never figured out how to use it properly. It doesn't make sense to me, and I am an above average on computers (not able to do programming, but can actual work most programmes without looking in a manual).
OpenOffice likewise has a poor UI.
Part of why Firefox works is that the UI is straight forward for people changing from IE. OpenOffice and GIMPshop are no way near the same UI level.

Another point - > why is it Firefox's job to promote OpenOffice and GIMPshop? Mozilla's job is to promote itself and its products. If Mozilla took control of OpenOffice and GIMPshop then it would make sense, but until then, those projects need to get a better UI design team and marketers.

For the five times a year that I actually want to open a .doc or .xls file that was emailed to me, I find OpenOffice.org to be a more than capable reader. Of course I have personal bias, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a sizable percentage of people just like me who virtually _never_ create such documents themselves anymore (everything's published directly to the web nowadays), and that promoting OpenOffice.org to these people would be very beneficial.
I don't think I've ever used a newer MS Office than Office 2000, and the quality of OpenOffice.org is easily comparable to that. I think the comparison to Office 2007 someone made above is a fallacy; how many real (non-geek) users are on recent versions of Office, or would care to be? Looking at those I personally know, most are using 97/2000/XP, with the same burned to CD versions being passed back and forth whenever someone gets a new computer and feels the need to install it. There'd be a lot of good that could be done by replacing those CDs with versions that'd contain OpenOffice.org.

No argument on the Gimp - it's still several leagues behind even Photoshop 7.

I think OpenOffice.org is required to be called that because some other company holds a trademark (or somesuch) on "OpenOffice."

Of course, I don't use either MS Office *or* OpenOffice.org for word processing (yes, I realize there are other components) now that I've discovered the joy of LaTeX. (Still getting used to it, but I've got a 10-page paper due on Friday, and I'm LaTeXing it all the way ... used it earlier this month, when I decided to start learning it, for smaller assignments to get some practice. :))

As a user of Firefox (and IE when I must, such as for work), a user of Office apps (and I try OOo), and a dedicated a loyal user of Photoshop (I also try Gimp), I must agree. I'm a huge booster of OSS alternatives, but when they're not better, they're not better. I'm sorry, Gimp sucks. OOo is nice, but klunky, and jsut nto as polished and easy to use as Word, Excel, etc.

Additionally, where were these projects when Mozilla was still a bit player? Where were these projects during the changeover from the Suite to Firefox? Honestly, I see this as sour grapes and an attempt to whine their way on to Firefox's coattails. If you want success, earn it. Mozilla did. Linux did. PHP did. Perl did. I'm not saying they should be ignored in spite, but I agree with Asa, and also it's not our job to be crutch-ware. If we start propping up bad projects to force them on users, then we've stopped being pro-user and started being pro-agenda. Firefox is Pro User. If OOo and Gimp want to succeed, they need to be Pro User. Scratching the itch doesn't cut it anymore.

As a user of Firefox (and IE when I must, such as for work), a user of Office apps (and I try OOo), and a dedicated a loyal user of Photoshop (I also try Gimp), I must agree. I'm a huge booster of OSS alternatives, but when they're not better, they're not better. I'm sorry, Gimp sucks. OOo is nice, but klunky, and jsut nto as polished and easy to use as Word, Excel, etc.

Additionally, where were these projects when Mozilla was still a bit player? Where were these projects during the changeover from the Suite to Firefox? Honestly, I see this as sour grapes and an attempt to whine their way on to Firefox's coattails. If you want success, earn it. Mozilla did. Linux did. PHP did. Perl did. I'm not saying they should be ignored in spite, but I agree with Asa, and also it's not our job to be crutch-ware. If we start propping up bad projects to force them on users, then we've stopped being pro-user and started being pro-agenda. Firefox is Pro User. If OOo and Gimp want to succeed, they need to be Pro User. Scratching the itch doesn't cut it anymore.

Robert: I think the argument that Openoffice and Gimp are up against revenue-generating software is wrong. I think it's simply a matter of them not having simplified and streamlined their userinterfaces enough. That would get grass-roots marketing going, and the snowball would be rolling.

Would Mozilla be promoting Thunderbird if they just had Firefox and Thunderbird was someone else's product though? Thunderbird is great, but I wouldn't say it was as clear a winner over Outlook Express as Firefox is over IE, and I certainly don't think it matches up to Outlook.

And as someone already said, OpenOffice.org is called that and not "Open Office" for the same reason as Firefox isn't called Phoenix or Firebird. I imagine changing the name now would lose more people through confusion than gain them through having a less awkward name.

LOL. Thunderbird is an even clearer winner over OE if you ask me. Light years ahead.

Some of the problems must be in user-friendliness too. I find OOo off-putting because the feel of it on my screen is much less polished and much more "grey". The icons aren't as bright; surely a simple thing to change?

Similarly, I find it hard to tell people I know to use a program called GIMP; in fact, I hate calling it that so I have to refer to it to others by its long name.

While I completely agree with Asa and think that Grey Hodge has hit the nail on the head, I also see Ganesh's point, even though he's taken it too far. What will make these programs any good is more users leading to more feedback and QA, leading to better development (and more developers). This would lead to more users, and the circle would continue. But it hasn't reached that stage yet.

And Thunderbird definitely is a competitor with OE; and I think many people I know like it over Outlook because it's not as scary! Outlook has too many features and so people I know prefer to use OE (though I'm talking about "average" people).

Both OO, Gimp, and boatloads of other open source applications all suffer from this. I really don't get the finger pointing at FF. They all just need to sit down for a month and set up their defaults to something useful and useable. Right now, they're not. Clear and simple. Then, after that they clean up their toolbars and options panels with the same goals in mind, and voila, they've got a vastly improved product.

Not to say that vastly improved will allow them to compete with their counterparts though. Like you said in the article, the two apps here are in a fight against giant money making monsters. FF on the other hand, is competing against what is pretty much the weakling in its industry. Improving on IE's feature set required adding popup blocking. That was pretty much it. Everything else is icing on the cake.

I was expecting more opposition than this- but Asa is right on. The two products just aren't as great as the competitors, and even if they are there are no direct ties to these applications anyway. Ok- it's easy to tie-in a browser with just about any piece of software, but still- an email client makes more sense to promote with FF than an office suite.

Asa, what you don't realize that FOSS projects aren't supposed to have appealing, people-friendly names. They are supposed to have names that are clever to the developers or based on some sort of in-joke.

So what if "The Gimp" is an unappealing name? You can't argue with the appeal of it being an acronym for "Gnu Image Manipulation Program". Isn't that clever?

And don't forget that uber-FOSS project, the Gnu Hurd (because the Linux kernel just isn't free enough):

"'Hurd' stands for 'Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, 'Hird' stands for 'Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms."

Mutually recursive acronyms! Gee, that is just so completely clever I can hardly stand it!

And let's not forget the PostgreSQL database. It doesn't matter that there isn't a person on the planet who can figure out how to pronounce it the first time they see it... it's a clever programmer in-joke based on a competing product (Ingres), and that's way more important!

Of course, sarcasm aside, you hit home a very good point which is that just because two products are designed using similar programming techniques doesn't mean that they have the same goals or the same target audience.

The Gimp didn't set out, as Firefox did, to be a highly usable product that has 90% of the features that 90% of people use. Its goal as a product is different. And that's fine... I use the Gimp and it's a pretty good product, but its goals are very different from Firefox or even Mozilla in general, so there is no need for Mozilla to be promoting them.

While Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer, I think it is debatable whether Thunderbird is better than Outlook, especially for professional users.

While Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer, I think it is debatable whether Thunderbird is better than Outlook, especially for professional users.

While Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer, I think it is debatable whether Thunderbird is better than Outlook, especially for professional users.

Christian Schmidt,

I don't think Thunderbird was gunning for Outlook (at least no yet), it was gunning for Outlook Express. That said, depending on your calendaring choices (I know use Google Calendar so I can sync with both work and my wife's calendar), Thunderbird can exceed Outlook. I am slowly shifting over at work because the spam has gotten nearly unbearable on Outlook. I know there are plugins but they don't seem to work as well and as easy as the Spam filter that learns in Thunderbird.

Christian Schmidt,

I don't think Thunderbird was gunning for Outlook (at least no yet), it was gunning for Outlook Express. That said, depending on your calendaring choices (I know use Google Calendar so I can sync with both work and my wife's calendar), Thunderbird can exceed Outlook. I am slowly shifting over at work because the spam has gotten nearly unbearable on Outlook. I know there are plugins but they don't seem to work as well and as easy as the Spam filter that learns in Thunderbird.

OK. I like Gimp (mostly - there are some really annoying problems in the way it interacts with window managers). I like OpenOffice, which is more than sufficient for most of my word processing and spreadsheet needs. But I'm dismayed by the sense of entitlement in that post.

Yes, it would be nice if Mozilla would help out other FOSS products. But the way to do that is to open a dialog. To say, "Hey, Mozilla, you're doing really great. Would you be interested in cross-promoting our stuff?" Demanding that they "must" do so is, frankly, presumptuous.

Maybe what he meant wasn't, "Mozilla must do this," but "We must convince Mozilla to do this," or even "Here's an idea for what Mozilla could do." But it doesn't sound like a suggestion. It sounds like a set of demands.

tim, I agree that Thunderbird should rather be compared with Outlook Express than with Outlook (and likewise is OpenOffice.org more comparable with MS Works than with MS Office). But if I understand Asa correctly, his point is that Mozilla should not promote products that have better commercial alternatives. And my point is then that many people believe that Outlook is a much better email client than Thunderbird.

But I don't have strong opinions about whether Mozilla should promote this or that product. I just wanted to point out that Thunderbird like OpenOffice.org have better commercial alternatives (in a lot of people's opinion), at least if you don't consider the price difference.

Wow, with so many people that know exactly what GIMP needs, I expect it to be better than Photoshop next month!

*crickets*

The biggest problem is that GIMP does things a different way than Photoshop, and boy, that makes people mad!

Personally, I dislike the 'eat your entire desktop up' metaphor it uses.

There are, however, features that it does lack, which are being worked on, but as most people that work on GIMP don't get paid to, that (GEGL - http://www.gegl.org/ ) is going slowly. As gimp is ( whether people know or not ) the origin of gtk+ and from 1995, it has to get over some of the legacy issues, which GEGL is meant to do.

This however is the hard work that noone wants to talk about.

Everyone seems to want to talk about changing names and removing a few buttons.

-dante

We got a huge break because Microsoft stopped working on IE for three years. If Microsoft stopped Office development for three years, OO might start to look more interesting. But that ain't gonna happen, so I think OO has a tougher market environment than we did. (Although it certainly has other problems as well, some of their own making, some not (e.g., no easy revenue model).)

Gimp, on the other hand, simply has an awful UI for new users and the developers don't seem to care, so it's just a dead end.

I had installed Real Player, Quicktime, DivX, Windows Media Player. Then I saw the light and now only use Media Player Classic from the KLite Mega Codec Pack.

As Robert pointed out, "OpenOffice.org" is necessary because of trademark questions.

I, personally, think that OpenOffice.org should bother more with its users than with M$, as it do right now.

GIMP is a great program in its own world. If you don't take it side by side with Photoshop...
You need to know a lot more to take all you need of it, being hard for newbies.

Anyway, a image manipulation program is not something as cool as a browser, neither OpenOffice.org and GIMP have too much appealing features.

>> Another point - > why is it Firefox's job to promote OpenOffice and GIMPshop? Mozilla's job is to promote itself and its products. If Mozilla took control of OpenOffice and GIMPshop then it would make sense, but until then, those projects need to get a better UI design team and marketers.

because mozilla and the other developers are *supposed* to be on the same side, they're supposed to be holding hands and singing 'kumbaya my lord' while these other guys rip eachothers heads off with marketshares, and profits.

OpenOffice.org 2.1 is decent application (OOo 1.x was more like a joke). No more no less. 90% of users in my firm are using it, as it serves the purpose. It has sluggish performance, but it works fairly on newer machines (and at a time it is more cheap to buy memory than software). There is at least one important level where OOo works incredibly better than MS Office: Undo/Redo system, specially in spreadsheet. The worst thing is print module in Calc (though some tweaking in Options helps).

GIMP is... following its own logic which it doesn't function well in real world (it is like opposing QWERTY keyboard - simply useless even if it is was made to slow down typing not to jam keys ...) So it is pretty hard to catch its logic.

Though, I have tried to live several months on Linux at home, and I didn't have big problems (except that I had to go into config files to make my 4th and 5th mouse button work and to make my screen work at desired frequency)

And one more thing...

FF is focused on consumer market, while OOo is focused on business market. So, though I agree that title is non-user-friendly, it won't actually influence decision makers in enterprises too much (at least not as it would consumers).

well, with microsofts new release of office 2007, and it's overexaggerated interface, openoffice (i refuse to call a product by a url name) will have some users glancing in another direction, and maybe see the light in such an alternative..

BTW, the gimp, does has some traction, it's the most popular opensource graphic editor, despite what you think of it.

well now heres your answer: http://www.ossdi.org/ (hope it breaks through)

I absolutely agree with you. Like you I use the Gimp and OOO from time to time and switch back a while later. While I always seem to find what I am looking for in Photoshop and especially in MS Office, it normally takes me several minutes or even a websearch to find out how to do a thing in the open source software. Last week it took me half an hour to learn how to use the presentation master in Impress. I believe PowerPoint would have provided me with several ways to access and manipulate this thing and would have been much better at guessing what I want to do.
Since the market is saturated, today people know what they want. They aren't going to install just anything just because it is bundled or linked from a trusted application. Half the Windows applications I try out are bundled with some stuff I most definately don't want. So the communities over at Gimp and OOO have to face the fact, that they produced a nice piece of software, but the usability is still lacking - and will probably the next five years, since Office seems to have made a big step forward with 2007, while OOO seems to only have reached the accessibility of 2000.

ms office is garbage. i can't even begin to know why people use it, other than microshafts monolopy. so openoffice diffently is a viable alternative. gimp on the other hand is a very nice piee of software but photoshop is more advanced, and has a cleaner interface. but both gimp and openoffice clearly have a disadvantage, that is the userbase and lack of developers, i think it would only be right to link to the opensource and free alternative despite what your biased opinion might be, because frankly firefox would still be just an "alternative" browser if it wasn't for mozilla's aggresive compaign tactics.

the more visibility = more developers = more features/usability = higher quality = larger userbase.

not that my opinion very well matters but comeone and have a heart.

- postsaint

Asa -- I agree with your hesitation that Firefox has some sort of cross to bear on behalf of the other FOSS projects. It does seem a bit odd that others would insinuate Firefox hasn't done enough to start people on the path to realizing that just because something is freely available doesn't mean it sucks.

That said, I don't know that the best solution is to get your hate on with OOo and The GIMP. I understand your critiques of those products, and I especially agree with The GIMP's shortcomings... I'm less-sold on the idea that OOo sucks; I've managed to make do with it since I do my writing in LaTeX anyway ;) I know you didn't intend to start flames against those projects; I'd just offer up that it's best to keep comments constructive!

And you're dead wrong about one thing: I didn't think Firefox was so great that I started to tell friends about it -- or Firebird for that mater, either. I thought *Phoenix* was so great I started to get other people to use it. And it still rocks today, after rising from the ashes of two previous names!

Agree with whoever said that using Office in many cases is more about opening than creating documents. Most people will probably never themselves need functionality beyond that of Abiword, but they need to be able to open all the Word-created docs that they are sent. Personally, I find the Word interface nightmarish, and for my type of document writing, I have no use for 9 out of 10 of their bells and whistles. Still, for work, I sometimes have to use MS Office just to be able to see documents. It's a crying shame that alternative processors have to spend so much time chasing compatibility with MS formats, and yet never fully succeed.