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I heartily agree. I submitted a bug report to OO.o a while ago requesting they stick a bug reporting feature directly into OO.o. Although many would still not use it, I'm certain it would encourage more bug reports and improve the product. My original request is here. As you can see if you look at it, it's dated January 2004. The problem with bug reports/feature requests in OO.o is obviously that they sometimes take a *long* time to be addressed. I guess if people really want to see this feature they can register with OO.o and vote to support this request.

I'm not sure whether this would increase responsiveness to bug reports in general, since this is a volunteer project. That's the Achilles heel of F/OSS, as most here are already aware.

Did you submit the bugs to the OO.o bug tracker? If enough people start submitting these bugs, they'll eventually get fixed and OO.o really will become a killer office productivity app. If you're interested, the OO.o bug tracker is here.

Is there a major Windows program that doesn't try to run at startup? Even OpenOffice has its own system tray icon installed by default.

At least OpenOffice's is easy to disable, unlike Real and QuickTime.

The OpenOffice team is redoing their internal APIs for version 2.0 - the Mac porting team would be wasting their time porting a deprecated version. You can find more at the OOo Mac port site.

"The postgresql SDBC Driver allows to use the postgresql database from OpenOffice.org without any wrapper layer such as odbc or jdbc."
http://dba.openoffice.org/drivers/postgresql/

Internet accelerator

Bandwidth optimizer

Password manager (Gator, the industry standard)

HotBar

and many other goodies you would have never got off some open source site.

I've been following this lately, it seems that the Open Office folks are working with the XDesktop movement- api: Interface XDesktop. It all makes sense, why install software that you rarely use? I'd much rather have it on a central server, think about lic costs, think about the easy of patching said software once, instead of hundreds of places...

CBG

She did such a good job creating the crazy seagull for OpenOffice that I feel it's imperative that she lead the project to create the BSA Copyright Weasel!

And how is this any different from downloading your newest Linux distro ISO? I would not call your concern insightful, I'd call it pure FUD. As with any download, compare and verify the hash before you use it, if a known good hash is not available, take your chances.

Some MD5 verification apps for W32.
Here
Here
Here.
There are others.

"Sun doesn't want to own this code. They want to hand the IP ownership off to an independent entity that can manage the IP assignments, be a non-profit so that liability can be checked, and be completely non-partisan towards any company, including Sun."

You can already see this in OpenOffice.Org and in MySQL. I am also attempting this in my EDL Language Project. I do not think it is a bad thing and will in the long term enrich free/open software.

Dual Licensing is a very good intermediatory from a proprietary to a free software environment.

Unfortunately not. Nor does it seem to use MODS XML for record storage (which, incidentally, will be used by OpenOffive.org's bibliographic and the bibliophile project, which hopes to do cross searching across the open source literature databases.

SRW/U hopes to supplant Z39.50. Not only does it use MODS, but it still uses ZeeRex and CQL .

For more nerdy e-refererence stuff, check out darcusblog

And, like it or not, the world uses MS Office formats. OO.o isn't good enough.

That comment is a joke. There is no such thing as "MS Office formats". There are as many de-facto Word formats as there are versions of Word, and as many Excel formats as there are versions of Excel. Moreover, if you want to know exactly what these formats are, the best source I know of isn't Microsoft, it's OpenOffice.

The real reason LM will not run OpenOffice is that their MS Office users will not want to change from what they know, and there are plenty of little problems with OO that they can use as ammunition to reject it. The fact that there are about as many little problems with MS Office (plus the big problem that if your data is in a Microsoft format, you really don't own it anymore) will not be mentioned.

Also, Linux *caugh Debian* is gaining enough marketshare that it is a very real threat on Microsoft's radar. As that continues to ascend, there will be a lot of people w/o MS search integrations. Moreover, IE has begun to go south in marketshare. People are realizing that there are some badass alternatives to IE and even without being marketed to use them by any form other than word of mouth. People may extend this logic to software beyond the web market, and who knows, maybe one day people will be comfortable with the .swx format.

Mozilla and OpenOffice are always seeking documentation help and seeing as these two products are the windows worlds's first glimpses of open source, they need all the help they can get.

GIMP could also use some documentation help to bridge the gap for Photoshop and PSP users.

Just because you don't pay for OpenOffice.org doesn't mean nobody does

I have to admit, I've been using Slackware since 7.1 as my desktop OS. I was a total n00b when it came to linux, and it took me a week or so to get my X display setup and lovable, but it was a head-first dive into linux anyway. Slackware had most of what I needed; Mozilla for mail and browsing, KDE for a desktop (even though Steven seems to lean towards GNOME), and Gimp for the pictures. I just had to add OpenOffice for the wordprocessing and rlpr to print to our OpenBSD print server. But the thing that saved me the most was the beloved documentation in /usr/doc. Almost every How-To was stuffed in there! I'd recommend it for any newbie that wants to go hard-core fast. I can't wait to try Slackware 10, but I'll probobly wipe out my boxen first (as I've been using the -current branch for so long).

Regarding Word and PDF: first off, Word and PDF are not parallel products. PDF was designed to allow documents to be transported electronically while still retaining its original characteristics. Word, however, is a word processor at its core; its primary uses are related to creation and printing of documents.

Though I don't know much about Word and PDF implementations, I do know there are free readers available for both formats. Also, an open source office suite that works wonderfully with Microsoft's publishing formats is widely and freely available

What we're ending up describing is, essentially, a proprietary environment just like Sony.

True, DirectX is proprietary... but it's extremely widespread and is hardly comparable to Sony's format. We may hate Microsoft, but a lot of their standardized systems (.NET anyone?) are easy and intuitive to develop with.

With the cost of upgrades, the continued security holes, the perceived instability, the required activation, and the neutering of XP Home... I really don't see myself or others upgrading from Win98 or Win2K without being forced to.

How's that going to happen? Microsoft is going to have to discontinue support for those operating systems.

And, I suspect that's their longer term plan. By cutting support, when the next window of bit-rot or software bloat forces a user to consider their options, I think Microsoft is banking on intimidating them into a newer version of the OS, no matter the cost.

It was precisely the anticipation of this world wide event that made me switch to using Apple's OS X (based on FreeBSD!) and start finding non-Microsoft solutions via Linux.

I've found a new mouth piece as well. When I went to evangelize alternate solutions to friends and family, I got the standard "but you're a geek" roll of the eyes. I was, however, able to convert my wife of alternatives to Microsoft with the use of applications such as Mozilla's Firefox as a browser replacement to get rid of pop-ups/adware and Thunderbird to stop her from getting infected with viruses.

Upon learning that there are alternative solutions with better features that let her not have to deal with everyday annoyances, she was an easy sell on Linux, and now uses Putty and SSHing -- something I never thought I'd see!

She's the one who gets creditability marks with her friends. They know she's an artist and not a computer geek. If she's raving about it, they want to try it, because obviously it's not above their level.

Linux, however, is going to have to compete hard with Microsoft. It isn't Linux's free price tag or outstanding stabilily that's holding it back. It's complexity.

The learning curve is too great for the non-technical user to setup and immediately start using it. Microsoft scores big when it comes to easy install for a basic system, and they actually do automatic updates quite well from a simplicity standpoint.

What many geeks don't get is simple computer users are willing to give up power and features for ease of use. If someone put out a basic distribution that auto-detected hardware, did an easy install, and set up the basic environment with nothing but the standard Office tools -- much like a dumbed down version of Mandrake or BeOS or the free OpenBeOS version.

Microsoft sees that "we don't get it" and aren't catering a special distribution to "grandma", and with that fact they leverage Windows into homes, knowing that once someone invests in learning something, they usually don't switch without good cause (frustration, cost, or inapplicability to task).

If you go the windows route (which frankly I don't recommend) I'd go with OpenOffice, TheOpenCD and Gnuwin II for lots of free software.

Dave.

Does anyone know the projected timeline for OO.o on OS X, specifically whent eh Carbon version is targeted for release?

Here is a timeline.

Bottomline: Projected OS X native availability of OpenOffice.org 2.0 is currently Q1 2006.

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. OSS guys that are projecting 2 years out? Unlike a commercial dev, they are inclined to let RL get in the way. + this article was last updated 8/03, so it's an even further out projection that it is today. So basically, no telling. Unless someone has an up-to-date timeline? Any chance these guys are ahead of schedule?

Refutal:
1: No matter what Linux distro you get, you start out with a optimizing compiler.
2: Theme=changing colors and images, correct? Can you, for example, put titlebars on the side of the windows? Compress multiple windows holding different programs into one tabbed window? Remove borders? Add and remove extra buttons from/to titlebars/taskbar/etc? The list goes on. All of these can be done in Linux, all at once if you like. Some (but not all) of these things can be can be accomplished in Windows through third-party tools, which are reliably unreliable and unstable.
3: Plenty of games for Linux, most of which have been eventually ported to windows, allowing you to say that.
4: There aren't nearly so many, and even those that do exist are only available to those with a respectable amount of spare money.
5: Exactly.

Non-numbered:
You are defining "Linux" as the kernel. Suprise suprise, windows doesn't come with anything either if you use that definition. Windows is essentially an OS with only one "distro," and therefore has as much right to come with things as linux. It seems that windows is much larger, though, and comes with lass. I wonder how thay do this? I have a fully functioning linux distro on a floppy, though it lacks a GUI. Don't tell me that DOS fits on a floppy, because Linux minus the GUI is just as powerful and recent as with the GUI (if not more so, GUIs quite frequently get in the way), whereas DOS is hugely out of date. If you can't survive without a GUI, there are many Linux distros that fit on a CD that are quite complete.

Linux is much easier to get up to snuff. In fact, the out-of-the-box settings are substantially above snuff, provided you have a decent taste in distros. If you're good with windows and incompetent with Linux, that doesn't mean windows is better. It merely means you lack the required technical expertise, or, in more common terms, are a lazy... hmm, how not to start a flamewar... person of less than average intelligence, deserving of a couple good LARTings.

Now, your comment about Windows being easier to download and install stuff on: Many recent distros support a quite useful feature. On my personal favourite, Gentoo Linux (http://www.gentoo.org/), it's called emerge. Say, for example, you want to install a word processor. First, you go online, and look around for a decent Linux word processor, like you would look for a windows program. If you are at all competent, you'll find Open Office. Now, here's the fun bit: Open up a terminal, and switch to user root. Type in "emerge openoffice". Sit back and watch it download, compile, optimise, and install the most recent version of OpenOffice. If you're lazy and/or have a slow computer, you may want to skip compiling and optimizing, which can take a long time for large programs. I imagine that you're reading this, thinking "Hah! Windows is better after all!". Sorry to dissapoint you, that's sill not true. There is an easy way to not compile it, and still install it. Merely type in (as root) "emerge openoffice-bin" instead of "emerge openoffice". Now, how's that for quick? If you're thinking that the searching online invalidates it, because at that point you could just download it, there's another quite useful command: "emerge -s [--searchdesc] ".

Yes, I know you have software that absolutely must run on Windows. But the vast majority of popular computing tasks can be accomplished quite well on Linux.

RTFM and follow directions on how to make a bootable BartPE CDR, and then how you can install BartPE to a hard drive.

Then download and install OOO.

Then give Microsoft and Billy Boy the middle finger. ;)

Or try this alternative and install it to your hard drive for a Non-Windows edition and still give Microsoft and Billy Boy the middle finger.

I was just thinking that I'd pay MORE for an MS Office "Starter" version. An Office type program without all the crap that comes with it would be great!

But then there already is one OO :)

For those of you who don't have the proprietary .doc viewer, there's another one here. ;-)

Or Open Office

They are both free alternatives and I'm sure I'm the first to inform everyone of these.

"OpenOffice.org" is the name of the office suite. www.openoffice.org is the name of the website.

To get a spell checker in Linux, there is open office, Abi Word (both of which do red squigglies below misspelled words), and one can always type in "ispell -a" at the shell prompt and start typing in words which they're not sure of the spelling of.

Sometimes we underestimate our users, anyone who's using office is able to use openoffice. It'll be an adaptation time and maybe some complains that things are not were it used to be, but people are not likely to changes. But they did it before, I remember Wordperfect, Amipro, those were killer apps, but died and people got used to MS Office.

And if it's necessary people get used to openoffice and gnome or kde more easily than you may have expected.

How about the fact that they provided a viable alternative to Microsoft Office

There are already Danish and Swedish translations of OpenOffice Perhaps a class project could be to take a crack at bokmål, nynorsk or sami gielli depending on your geographic location. Some of these are already under way.

I'm surprised that any particular U.S. company would be allowed to dictate the terms of Norwegian education. Especially for products that are notoriously expensive and high maintenance.

60 workstations can be a lot of money thrown into the sea if they are expensive and high maintenance. It might be a good time to point out that there are more local options, like Skolelinux, which are lower maintenance.

Danny.

You can download the Canadian English (or even NZ or Australian English) spellchecker dictionary for OpenOffice / Star Office from this location.

Dictionaries for several dozen other languages are also available. Includes some that probably aren't available for MS Word - Moari, Faroese, Setswana, Zulu, etc.

What, they haven't heard of OpenOffice?

My former slight thoughts of Canada's intelligence are withering.

OpenOffice.org
deep down, Sun loves us

That has to suck... or maybe we're just smart enough to have our web browsers lie and say, we're running MSIE 6.01 WindowsXP, 1600x1200 24bit color.. eh? :)

XP is better as an emoticon anyways.

Here's teh offtopic part, and a shameless plug for a really awesome Window Manager. Try XPde out. It's really awesome at the look and feel of windows, especially when you want to move someone over to Linux without telling them.

Now I know that sounds evil, but hear this story out. My sister wanted me one day to fix her "slow" computer. Turns out that she has 100's of spyware, literally, running on her computer. Not to mention trojans and viruses. I did a backup of her documents, put them on a zip disk and virus scanned that on my comp, just to make sure. Then I installed Slackware Linux, and used XPde (quite successfully I might add) as the WM. Installed Gaim, OO.org, Mozilla, software firewall, gimp, and misc games (frozen bubble rocks!) Total install in just around 250mb. No crashes, no viruses, nothing and it's locked behind a NAT that allows no incoming/outgoing ports except what's specified for IM services and outbound httpd traffic.

She didn't know she was running linux for a few months until she went to install a program! (Insert WineX installation at this point. Went well too!)

My point. Most people dont care what they use, and if the conversion is successful (I do many like this, only with people I really *KNOW* and trust me), they'll learn to champion linux to people who are easily intimidated by "techies" and zealots who want to install linux for you because MS is "7!^3" (evil)

To summarize this success story by my sisters quote: "Windows SUCKS!, where's my cute penguin?"

----zoloto

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Mobile porn faq

Yeah, totally wierd concept of open source, just like that Linus fellow's...

Any why should we take anyone seriously who bitches about shit on slashdot and in usenet, instead of doing something USEFUL and filing a, um, bug report??????

And what's more, you describe the default behavior of 4 popular word processors! I suspect WordPerfect behaves the exact same way. So, in essence, you want to change the entire paradigm of word processor programs, alienating hundreds of millions of users, so you can save 2 mouse clicks???

My god man, get a clue!

Let's see... $399 for MS Office or $398 for EIOffice. That means I could save a whole dollar by switching to a system no one's ever hear of. For my dollar, though, I get to install it (legally) on THREE computers. (You know, instead of passing the CD around the office anyway.)

Quite frankly, for my small business, the answer is still perfectly clear. It does everything I need it to do and more and the price is right, too.

Use OpenOffice?

And oh, completely offtopic -- what's the deal with saying, work fine in OOorg -- shouldn't that be works fine with OO? Why the org/.org thingy?

From Logos, Trademark, and OpenOffice.org in a Nutshell:

Trademark

Because of trademark issues, OpenOffice.org must insist that all public communications refer to the project and software as "OpenOffice.org" or "OpenOffice.org 1.0," and not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office."

Your OT question could be trivially answered by visiting www.openoffice.org... "OpenOffice.org is both an open-source application and project. It is free. The product is a multi-platform office productivity suite compatible with all major file formats." The product is actually called OpenOffice.org. That's sort of like calling your really fancy version of hack "nethack" because it was developed in collaboration via the internet - it has no networking features, why is it nethack? It's not a domain, why is it OpenOffice.org? Now you know :)

You can find it on the download page.

Second-guessing who's behind it is a waste of valuable time. Unless you believe in fairy tales, it will almost surely never be known who exactly is financing the effort. We can infer that whoever it is, they have a desire to influence public opinion. That is, after all, why people write books.

A better use of time is to think what your Windows-running friends might like: burn copies of OpenOffice for Windows or Freeduc or KnoppiXMAME, all of which will run or boot from Windows machines.

Help someone new fall in love with free software...today!

Sun is already working on the Glow project.

I'm a full-time desktop Linux user, and not just for coding, but for every aspect of business, so all this stuff matters to me. This week is going to be a great week in Desktop Linux: Suse 9.1 and Crossover 3 are both coming out at about the same time, and both are huge improvements over what came before.

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WAP news

I don't see why it wouldn't be MS Office compatibile

Because there are a lot of companies that have tried to create a MS Office compatible product and have not been unable to fully achieve this, mainly due to the closed nature of the Office document formats.