[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 135501] Change the default UI (see comment 67)

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=135501

--- Comment #123 from Mike Kaganski <mikekaganski at hotmail.com> ---
Reading through the heated discussion, I see the recurring motive in the
proponents of the change: "we must attract new users".

I see why me personally could be motivated by that: I work for a commercial
community member (Collabora), and our business indeed would benefit from
increased user base of LibreOffice, so that increase by itself could be a goal.
But what is others' motivation to demand *just that*?

I always had an impression that FLOSS *projects*, unlike commercial vendors,
should not be motivated by "get more market share! drag people from other
software! consider every alternative a competition!" attitude. I always thought
that FLOSS should provide something that the project feels unique distinctive
feature(s), so that others could use *if they also share the vision that that
is important distinctive feature*. And consider all alternatives as welcome
diversity.

Is there something in the project (not in some its members, that may and should
have own goals) that forces us to seek new users with passion, requiring doing
everything just to make the increase happen? Not "make it distinctive and
attractive", but "make it attractive by all costs, possibly sacrificing the
distinctive pieces"?

To clarify: I do not see proponents of the switch saying "we have a *great* and
polished UI that we like so much, and that makes our productivity much greater
- why is it not default yet?". I see them saying "We have a half-backed UI,
with many shortcomings in it that we see, too; and we only require to make it
the default because that would resemble something else and *attract users* that
otherwise are so uninterested by our distinctive features that they prefer
paying money for another UI; and we don't think that such users who require the
UI to fit them so much, would immediately see the problems of our similar but
not polished thing. Attracting users it the only thing that matters!".

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