I think it's... disappointing... when people say that OpenOffice is a Microsoft Office clone, especially when they append "let's be honest", like it's something every Linux user has to admit and live with, like we have no choice and it's a raw deal.<p>I disagree with that, or at least I really want to and think that changing that is possible and healthy to the bottom line outcome of what something like OOo can become. But we look at what position open office is placed in <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001215.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001215.html</a>, yet OOo has the daunting task of being a true competitor against Microsoft office, an office suite backed by a huge organization, even when compared next to Sun. I guess, from their perspective, they can mimic all MS Office's features within OOo and offer their product for free, and maybe that's enough to compete, but then it doesn't make OOo much better than it's competitor, it really just makes it a free clone, which is disappointing because it can be so much more.<p>Personally, my experience with the ribbon was negative, I thought it took a lot of screen real estate (especially since I always worked on a laptop) and essentially disrupted my previous toolbar work flow that I had spent time customizing. Whether OOo is making a 1 to 1 copy of the ribbon, I don't know, I haven't used it in such a long time, i forget what it looks like, but the opinion on the matter seems clearly laid out on the topic link.<p>Now that they are doing a UI redesign, now is a good time to define themselves, a lot like how Blender is and always has defined itself with it's UI <a href="http://www.cgcookie.com/articles/blender-25-overview" rel="nofollow">http://www.cgcookie.com/articles/blender-25-overview</a>. What blender has done was always amazing, and now, with 2.5 they are doing it again! that's crazy! and no one would ever call Blender a maya clone, or a 3dsmax clone. So i think, cloning something isn't really healthy, you don't create an identity, and I fell now OOo has a chance to finally define itself, do a little UX research and really define itself for it's users, create a different and better user experience we look out for and talk about and really compete with MS Office by offering something new.<p>If they don't do this now, then it's as if (us Linux users) we're never going to amount to anything more than users of a Clone platform in the desktop space, and at that point, we might as well cede: <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5290955/mac4lin-gives-linux-desktops-the-complete-mac-look" rel="nofollow">http://lifehacker.com/5290955/mac4lin-gives-linux-desktops-t...</a>