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KOffice 1.1 Rolls Out

Posted by timothy on from the excellent-news dept.

Andreas "Dre" Pour wrote to say that KDE's long-awaited version 1.1 is out, and asks you to check the dot for some more details. He also points to this temporary fixed-for-Netscape announcement as well as the official announcement. Dre continues: "The dot link includes commentary by me (including a call for Open Source office developers to collaborate on filters!)"

2 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. I can see the lawsuit now... by Kasreyn · · Score: 1, Redundant

    "KOffice is confusingly similar to Microsoft Office".

    Cmon, guys. I mean, we may agree amongst ourselves that such things are BS, but why keep setting yourselves up for them? Call it KFooBar if you have to, but at least TRY to protect yourselves from lawsuits... sheesh...

    It may make no sense that people can "take" a name and not let anyone else use it, but in this case MS has the muscle to enforce ownership of "Office".

    -Kasreyn

    --
    Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger /. flamers since 1999.
  2. Re:I'll get hammered, but Internet Explorer 6 is o by Eloquence · · Score: 1, Redundant
    You make the mistake to assume that Microsoft will implement its strategy with just one software release. Instead, they will gradually try to introduce more and more extensions without causing too much media attention. First these will be "optional" (such as IE was initially), then they will be bundled, but switchable, then they will be bundled and deeply integrated. This has been true for IE, for Windows Media Player, for Messenger, for IIS, and it will be true for DRM, for censorship standards, for Smart Tags and all similar technologies as well.

    Regarding security, it is true that only a small minority of users examine code. This percentage is much larger on Linux, and not only because Linux has bigger appeal to technical users -- also because it comes with all the necessary development tools. The only development tools that Microsoft bundles with Windows are QBASIC and VBScript. Coincidence?

    Regarding IE on the Mac, Microsoft sees the Mac as a "Rolls Royce" PC, and so does Apple -- no serious competition to Windows, a high-end system for a small margin of users. MS invested $150M in Apple when Apple was down -- in order to make sure that Microsoft's standards and applications would also run on the Apple platform. From this point, they can ignore Apple. They may have a silent or secret agreement that Apple doesn't port to x86, but that isn't even necessary -- if Apple gets cheeky, MS will simply withdraw all support from the OS. So yes, when MS controls everything that is relevant, they don't need an OS monoculture. In fact, they can use the Apple product line to easily test new features for their market acceptance, and it strengthens their position in court.

    Microsoft is not a charity. They have a sophisticated business strategy that is focused on completely dominating all aspects of PC technology. This is NOT a conspiracy. Microsoft acts solely in the interests of its shareholders -- if they wouldn't do everything to maximize profits, they could even be sued. Microsoft is not evil, it is, like any corporation, amoral. To give another example: The insurance industry is the largest lobbying group for car security -- not out of altruism, but out of pure business interest. At the same time, the insurance industry is also a large motor of the erosion of privacy -- to exclude those from health insurance coverage who need it. Highly immoral and highly moral behavior can both be very profitable. It is only the government (with reasonable democratic control) that can make this distinction.