No matter what document writing tool I ever use, I NEVER… I REPEAT… NEVER make the mistake of changing a document from a given format to another

Oh boy, have I learned that lesson…

I don’t think either Microsoft or even the storage master companies such as Seagate, Western Digital, EMC and all the others can be trusted to “always” keep your data in sound conditions. If that was the case, backups wouldn’t be recommended and even at that paranoid people would still use them. So I believe your incident is more a problem of how much you care for your data than whether you should use OpenOffice Writer or Microsoft Word.

If I was to discard a Microsoft product for doing something whacko every now and then, I would have discarded them ALL long time ago. However I haven’t because they do what they do well most or close to most of the time. The same I can say for the free Open Source stuff, they do what they do well most or close to most of the time. In some cases Microsoft products do things a bit better and in some cases they do things a bit worse or they are just even.

With exception of Vista which has added layers of delayed unproductivity to everything, from the system’s overall performance to the GUI navigation which seems now buried deep underground. However, I still have to learn it and use it because I need it for what I do for a living, I hope Microsoft reforms their GUI in future versions, however that may never happen.

Re CVS: Guess there’s nothing really stopping you from just using Subversion or CVS on word processing files, is there? You’d probably have to save them as XML files first, and given all the chaos surrounding OpenXML formats, that might not be the wisest course of action.

I know that MS Word comes with built-in versioning, file compare, etc. — sort of Subversion Lite features — but honestly I’ve never had need to use them. Anybody know if OpenOffice has these features, and if so, how they work?

MnMKY: Sounds like you and I have a basic difference in philosophy. You’ve inspired me to write another longer post about my feelings on Microsoft. Hopefully I’ll get it posted here in the next day or two.

OpenOffice is a nice piece of software, generally, but even I continue to use Office.

–
Dustin Puryear
Author, “Best Practices for Managing Linux and UNIX Servers”
http://www.puryear-it.com

The accomplishments of a worldwide effort, unifying multiple cultures and countries, is what OpenOffice.org represents. It is not a company sole bent on making money but on helping.

I’ve had 1 corruption also. I use the OpenOffice.org product on a daily basis for over a year. Microsoft has showed little innovation since the beginning days, no wait they took the concept of a graphic interface from someone else to. Microsoft was a great marketing agency; their best client, themselves. Bill Gates is the ultimate master.

The efforts of open source should be celebrated because of it’s accomplishments and, yes, Microsoft has had it’s growing pains and constant security flaws; I believe the last comparison left Microsoft with 34 within Office compared to 1 in OperOffice.org.

They have lost innovation and now respin technologies for more money. They bully their way, with money only, through committee approvals and typically lose; look at the recent evaluation of the OOXML where they tried to stack the ISO process with partners and were unable to pass through their “standard”.

OpenOffice.org deserves your talents unless you would rather sit on the bench and criticize and follow the the rest of the groupies. Innovation does not come from working in a bubble (MS OS, MS Products, MS Backend, MS tools) and neither does efficiency. Innovation comes from competition and not buying it.