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The problem with OpenOffice.org is *not* that it's LGPL'd, but rather that for code to be integrated into OpenOffice.org, Sun requires you turn your copyright over to Sun.

No, they don't. See here for details of the procedure used in situations where copyright isn't being handed over, along with a list of modules that have been integrated into OpenOffice without copyright assignment. Basically, you have to tell Sun about it, so that their lawyers can check the module's license over to make sure it's acceptable for inclusion, and then they grab a copy of the source of the module and stick it in CVS. Simple enough.

You are of course perfectly free to make sonamchauhanoffice, incorporating code from openoffice.org and linkgrammar.

However, because Sun bases its proprietary StarOffice on openoffice, code where the copyright can't be assigned to sun for relicensing is unlikely to make it into their repository.

Huh? LinkGrammar is distributed under a BSD-like license. This means that Sun are legally allowed to use it, as long as they follow certain very simple restrictions (as they already do for other libraries that they depend on, e.g. libcurl). Copyright assignment has nothing to do with it; they certainly haven't had the copyright for libcurl, aspell, berkely DB, freetype, etc. assigned to them, and nor is there any reason they should.

See here for a list of components in OpenOffice that were not written by OO.o developers. There are more in StarOffice that couldn't be released to OO.o because Sun couldn't get permission from the copyright holders of those components to license them appropriately (e.g. the database system).

Go get a clue. The suggestion that AbiWord is able to do this because it is GPL is a blatant troll, and doesn't merit defending.

From the Link Grammer link you provided:
http://bobo.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/
As of December 2004, we are releasing the parser under a new license; the license allows unrestricted use in commercial applications, and is also compatible with the GNU GPL (General Public License). You can view the license here. We are also releasing version 4.1b, which is identical to version 4.1 (released in 2000) except that the licensing statements reflect the new license.

Sun's license for OpenOffice is LGPL
http://www.openoffice.org/license.html

Check out the 2.0 codeline page.

It's closer than you think.

The 2.0 RC download link does not work, it's got an invalid hostname. If you change: http://download.services.openoffice.org/2.0.0rc/in dex.html to http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.0rc/index.html it will work.

The 2.0 RC download link does not work, it's got an invalid hostname. If you change: http://download.services.openoffice.org/2.0.0rc/in dex.html to http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.0rc/index.html it will work.

Answering my own post:

    http://dba.openoffice.org/drivers/sqlite/
    http://oooauthors.org/en/FAQs/Database/connectors/ 20041114b
    http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc/html/

but I'd like to hear from people working on it. Will there be an OOo package with SQLite or something in there, and no Java? (E.g. on Debian and Ubuntu?)

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5 5330

Well, looks like it's fixed now... ;-)

According to their issue db this bug was squashed... well... today.

This was answered several times in threads above this, but it got modded informative so I'll bite. The original poster wasn't questioning whether the owner of the code could relicense, it was whether the project managers actually owned the code. If I contribute a patch to someone else's GPL software, that owner can't relicense that code without getting my permission, getting me to sign over the copyright of my patch, or removing my patch and rewriting it. That's why it would be impossible for many active OSS projects to suddenly relicense, because of the long long list of people from all over the world who own copyright on little bits and pieces of the software. If you are managing GPL software and want to keep control over the codebase, have everyone agree to signing over the copyright for any contributions they make.

According to the GNU Enterprise on this page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnue/community/copylef t.html both parties have to sign a dead tree document. This seems like a huge hassle, but if you're serious here is an example of a copyright assignment form from the OpenOffice project: http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/jca.pdf

http://contributing.openoffice.org/donate.html

Or you can Click this link and delete Office XP while you download. Although the download will probably be quicker.

OpenOffice(TM) is a trademark of some other company, not Sun. Therefore OpenOffice.org is the name of the LGPL'd part of StarOffice. It's in the FAQ if anybody actually bothered to read it.

OpenOffice.org name FAQ

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Google's official statement is that "Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in its consumer downloads of the Java Runtime Environment on http://java.com./ In addition, the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies, like the Java Runtime Environment and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite available at http://www.openoffice.org./"

Somehow, the media seem to have spun this into "Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar." OK, fair enough - if you type "open office" into the Google toolbar, it'll help you 'access' it by telling you you can get it from www.openoffice.org - but it'll do the same for any other office suite, product or search phrase you can think of.

And then the Inquirer actually goes a step further with "Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets." Um, no. Google has confirmed nothing of the sort.

The actual Google press release is at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/sun_t oolbar.html/. You'll notice it doesn't make any reference to Google launching free software or taking on Microsoft.

But hey. Who needs facts when you can use hype instead?

i think it is their's, see the link http://about.openoffice.org/index.html#history

I don't think Microsoft is scared about the competition in the Office space, because they haven't started priceslashing Office yet.

When you have a monopoly, the most important activity is to, above all, maintain that monopoly. If you can, then there will always be time later to regain what you lost during any price cuts. The OpenOffice.org suite and, especially, the OpenDocument format have them in fear - MS' current business model is dependent on income from MS Office and without it, MS itself is likely not profitable in its current structure.

Sun and Google Expand Technology Reach and Global Opportunity -- MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Google Inc. today announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies to millions of users around the world. The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun's Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, helping millions of users worldwide to participate in the next wave of Internet growth. Under the agreement, Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in its consumer downloads of the Java Runtime Environment on http://java.com/ . In addition, the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies, like the Java Runtime Environment and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite available at http://www.openoffice.org/ . "As a leader in free and open source software, Sun has long recognized that network innovation is vital to the evolution of the global economy," said Scott McNealy, chief executive officer, Sun Microsystems. "Working with Google will make our technologies available more broadly, increase options for users, lower barriers and expand participation worldwide. Free and open source technologies, such as OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and Java, have never been safer or offered more choices." "Google and Java are two of the most widely recognized technology brands because they provide users with online tools that enhance their lives on a day to day basis. The Google Toolbar offers useful Internet search services while Java enables richer interactive content. We look forward to exploring other related areas of collaboration," said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google. About the Java Software for the Desktop The Java software for the desktop, also known as the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), is a software package that needs to be installed on a machine in order to run Java technology-based applications. Over 700 million desktop users leverage Java technology today to have a more interactive experience on the web. Users can download the latest version of the Java software for the desktop for free at java.com, and test drive the hottest Java technology-based games and applications. About the Google Toolbar The Google Toolbar is a powerful search and web surfing utility that seamlessly integrates with users' web browsers. It's available in 34 international languages and supports a built-in word translation that translates English words into other languages. The Google Toolbar is scheduled to be available as a Java Runtime Environment download option in late October. About Google Inc. Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. A singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com/ . About OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, home of the OpenOffice.org software, the most widely distributed open-source multi-platform productivity suite. The OpenO

"Sun continues to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org and is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice.org. [...] The OpenOffice.org source code includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software."

I'd say attributing OpenOffice to Sun is pretty appropriate.

Dan.

Well, i don't know about the rest of the suite, but in my experience, Openoffice does an excellent job of importing Word .doc files. I only once came across a document that opened with formating errors (it had some weird tables layouts), and even then, it was easily fixed.

    In fact, OO is my preferred way of opening broken .doc files, or .docs that for some reason Word refuses to open altogheter (version issues, etc).

I can't beleive that no one has pointed to it yet: http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.0rc/index.html

This is not my Sig.: Give me $.02 anyway, I want it.

You have it the wrong way around. 1.1.5 can import but not export.

See:
http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.5/release_notes _1.1.5.html

Marty

OpenOffice isn't in beta anymore, rc1 is out... so the beta "canard" that MS have been trying to fly is an ex-canard... days to do are getting few for the final full release.

That may have been the most lies and misinformation that I have ever read in one place. Some choice comments:

"In other cases, the OpenDocument solution may cost more and provide less, but agencies and citizens will have to pay the price and make do."
Yup, definatley costs more, being free and all.

"It may be that an array of exceptional, low-cost OpenDocument applications will emerge in the coming years."
*Ahem*... http://www.openoffice.org/
That's about as low-cost as they come.

"Many technology writers, in fact, have cast a skeptical eye on OpenDocument and applications that support the format. George Ou, writing on ZDNet, recently compared the new Open Office Calc product to Microsoft Excel and found it lacking, writing, "[i]f someone from Open Office can explain why it takes more than 100 times longer to create and load spreadsheet documents and why it uses up several more times memory that Microsoft Excel to work with the same data, I'd love to hear it.""
So, OpenOffice Calc isn't as good as Microsoft Excel, and therefore the OpenDocument standard is no good...

One more.

"Until now, Massachusetts' citizens and government agencies have been well served by a competitive, merit-based procurement process for technology services."
And they still could be. He forgets to mention that the OpenDocument format is in fact open and therefore anyone can support it. Microsoft could make a product that competes here just as easily as anyone else (or more easily, considering the money they have to throw around).

I could go on and on. The entire article is horrid, anti-open source propaganda.

2. StarOffice has a nicer GUI that Sun has not backported into OOo

Hrm... Based on the linked screen shots I'd say it's pretty much the same as OO.o Beta 2, which I've been using for months.

Does anybody have any clarification on this?

From http://development.openoffice.org/releases/OpenOff ice_org_2_x.html

Plan:

• OOo 2.0 Beta 2 : August 2005
• OOo 2.0 Release Candidate : end of September 2005
• OOo 2.0 Final : Begin/Mid October 2005
• OOo 2.0.1 : December 2005

Beats the ??? 2005 date I saw for 2.0 final last time I checked.

http://about.openoffice.org/index.html

StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation. Sun continues to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org and is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice.org. CollabNet hosts the website infrastructure for development of the product and helps manage the project.

The OpenOffice.org source code includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and scriptable functionality, including Java(TM) APIs. This source technology introduces the next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite as separate applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous other features are also present including XML-based file formats and other resources.

A FAQ addresses the changing differences between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.

From http://about.openoffice.org/index.html

StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation. Sun continues to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org and is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice.org. CollabNet hosts the website infrastructure for development of the product and helps manage the project.

use Open Office instead.

Problem solved!

Speaking of torrents; you may find them here: http://borft.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/torrent s/ or have a look at the p2p page: http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/download.ht ml

Start by contacting OOo's marketing people, I'm sure they can help you. Also, the OOo Newsletter usually has a section listing high-profile success stories.

Start by contacting OOo's marketing people, I'm sure they can help you. Also, the OOo Newsletter usually has a section listing high-profile success stories.

http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/download.ht ml

Also, MS was forced to make Office Mac if I am not mistaken, but would probably be hard pressed to stop since OSX users are in the unenviable position of having less good choices for non-MS office suites than Linux users.

I just got my first Mac ever to replace a PC laptop that had gone kaput. It came with 'Microsoft Office for the Mac TESTDRIVE' which is a 30 day preview of the Microsoft product. They didn't even really integrate it into OS X. They also charge $400 for the standard edition, while the Windows version standard edition is $322 (via Amazon.com)

In order to edit Word documents, I've downloaded and installed NeoOffice, which is an OpenOffice.org port using Carbon and Java (you can also get regular flavored OpenOffice for the Mac). So far (1 week) it works just fine.

What I don't understand is your belief that OSX users have fewer choices than Linux users. OSX can run pretty much anything *nix runs, since its built on top of [FreeBSD?] (BTW, I can drop down to command line any day of the week and geek it up to my heart's desire). I'd argue I actually have /more/ choices, since I can also choose products specifically meant for the Mac (such as Appleworks, which also came preinstalled on the machine but which I haven't used yet).

For years, I have heard that the differences between MS Office and Open Office were so significant that the cost of retraining was not worth transitioning.

Where are those people today? The same ones that argued that it was not cost effective to retrain, will be arguing this is an incremental change or significant but worth the effort. I can hardly wait for Laura DiDio's "How Office 12 will make your company 12 times more productive" press release disguised as a "research paper."

As several prior posters have said, if you are going to take the upgrade hit, why not take it to open office? It will certainly be less expensive in both licensing and training. And it will support OpenDocument formats, something MS has said they will not do.

At least until the MS PR machine starts rolling.

Open Office Home page

Personally, I want less and less to do with MS products every day, http://www.openoffice.org/

what about open office?
http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

who do I call when OOo crashes or has a problem? Who is the company behind the technical support? Are they going to charge me for supporting this product?

No Good, therefore Amazon does not count :)

I have not seen a Linux distro at my work with double-clickable packages.

How do the graphical front-ends work though?

but I have seen others that are nothing more than a curses-based install where manual partitioning had to be done, etc. which is unacceptable for mom/pop

however, that leaves those that would use a *BSD out in the cold

not to mention what will mom and pop say when they go to Costco to buy Crossover Office and they are running Linux on a Sun box or a Mac or anything that is non-x86?

Taking a look at Linux support from Novell, it is $325/incident!!! if you do not have an annual support contract ($5800/yr from what I could see, which would be ridiculous for a home user).

If I go to the store and purchase OpenOffice.org will it work on my Linux?

There are so many Linux distributions out there that they cannot possibly include them all

Alternately, they have to provide say 5 Linux Versions and at least 3 BSD versions

Gnome or KDE?

I agree. You should try out OpenOffice 2 beta as they've fixed this. That is, you can now get 65535 rows in a spreadsheet.

I agree. You should try out OpenOffice 2 beta as they've fixed this. That is, you can now get 65535 rows in a spreadsheet.

Lack of Microsoft Office

Once OpenOffice ... offers technical support

and can be purchased

provided of course that it is 100% compatible with whatever the current version of Microsoft Office is.

Oh and OOo or OpenOffice.org is a stupid name to call the suite, drop the .org and just call it OpenOffice.

Typically, people don't want to go to the command-line and 'apt-get' or 'make install' or 'emerge' et. al.

The installer for the Operating System must be as easy as Windows or MacOS X

Pre-Configured Systems at retail outlets such as:

• Wal*Mart
• BestBuy
• Fry's

Support from Major software vendors such as:

• Macromedia
• Adobe
• Maya

A Call Center

The user should have a standard command-line available, but should not ever really need to touch it if they don't want to

So...the "BSD tcp/ip stack...and the ftp/telnet apps, and SFU (MKS utils and Interix subsystems)" are "trivial" as well?

How about a preembtible kernel? A full office suite?.

Jeez. I'd love to see some of the stuff you've coded if this stuff is trivial.

$170 for a word processor, spread sheet, and groupware? What a rip-off!

If you think $170 is a good price for this, take a look at http://www.openoffice.org/ and get a complete office suite for free. Almost any OS is supported, too.

Frankly, having glanced at both the new Office 12 screenies and the Word95 one you gave, I very much prefer the latter.

Hear, hear. Mind you, it has to be said that that's probably one reason why people like you and me are now using OpenOffice ...

Here's the The Adobe PDF reference, for if you want to implement applications that use PDF. In particular, you might want to read Section 1.5 of the PDF Reference, "Intellectual Property". In summary, it says that they'll enforce their copyright on the PDF specification in order to keep the standard accurate, but grant you the right to implement the standard pretty much however you like.

Some apps that do so, without licensing the Adobe PDf libraries or tools, include:

GhostScript
OpenOffice.org
Scribus
Mac OS X
(specifically the window system, print system, and Preview tool) ... and *LOTS* more, including evince, xpdf, kpdf, libpoppler, and other open source PDF viewing tools/libs, several reporting libraries like ReportLab, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Massachusetts isn't using OpenOffice's format, it's using OpenDocument. This is an open format that OOo just happens to use as well. I understand OOo had a hand in creating it, but it's not "their" format.

Indeed -- and Microsoft also had a hand in creating it. Just to be clear, this is the specification for the OpenOffice.org file format; and this is the OASIS OpenDocument specification. (Both in pdf format - I can see why, but there's a certain irony there: in what format do you write the specification of your format? ...)

Beginning with version 2.0 OpenOffice.org uses the open standard OASIS OpenDocument XML format as the default file format.

Embedding Images and charts is not supported? Seems like someone forgot to tell Oasis to remove that from the spec, or OpenOffice.org forgot to cripple OOo!

What even made you think OpenDocument didn't support such basic features?

Can't someone fix this, because it allows MS to use the term 'less functional document format' quite legitimately, IMHO.

Go see for yourself; >There is nothing to fix in the beta. There is nothing to fix in the previous releases of OpenOffice.org.

Embedding Images and charts is not supported? Seems like someone forgot to tell Oasis to remove that from the spec, or OpenOffice.org forgot to cripple OOo!

What even made you think OpenDocument didn't support such basic features?

Can't someone fix this, because it allows MS to use the term 'less functional document format' quite legitimately, IMHO.

Go see for yourself; >There is nothing to fix in the beta. There is nothing to fix in the previous releases of OpenOffice.org.

Disclaimer: I am a developer of the Mac OS X OpenOffice.org port as well as a founder of the NeoOffice project.

If anyone is affected by this, it will most drastically affect IBM. If you look at the original list of Sun Copyright Assignment signers, you'll notice that IBM is listed as one of the original signers. Curiously, this page is no longer accessible (the wayback machine lists it as blocked by robots.txt) and there are few IBM-OpenOffice.org references left. Has IBM made any source code contributions to the OpenOffice.org product? No. Why should they...

They develop IBM/Lotus Workplace. Workplace incorporates OpenOffice.org code directly and provides their Word/Excel style integration with the old Notes environment. Doubtless they have probably made enhancements to the code to support collaboration. Since SISSL allows for binary only distribution, however, IBM never had a need to join the OpenOffice.org project to develop Workplace. They could happily have their own team of engineers working on it and had no obligation to share that work with others under SISSL.

So is this a good thing? Who knows. IBM very well may just stick with the last version of source released under SISSL for Workplace. OOo 1.x/2.x is "good enough", so unless future LGPL only versions have some type of major advantage, there's no need for IBM to contribute back their Workplace enhancements.

This is really ironic, though, since LGPL was actually thrown into the original OOo license as an afterthought (I think by Joerg, but may be mistaken). The afterthought has won out!!

For me personally, this is a good thing since it legitimizes GPL-only forks like NeoOffice and hopefully can help them stop accusing us of stealing OpenOffice.org and engaging in illegal activities when all we do is exercise our rights under the LGPL license.

ed