Slashdot Mirror
One Year Of OpenOffice
no parity writes "Last year on October 13, much of the source to Sun's StarOffice was released as the OpenOffice project. They have set up a birthday page to celebrate what they have achieved in that one year - yes, it prints, spellchecks and has online help. Keep up the good work, guys!" Yep - and my installation still spits up, too. *grin*
I realize this statement was tongue in cheek but please keep in mind these people are trying to create an office suite that is comparable in functionality with Microsoft Office, currently the best office suite period, that is not only free for download, but also open source. Give the developers some credit for even attempting such a Herculean project.
I just downloaded this yesterday, as I was unable to provide Micro$oft with the pound of flesh to use Office XP. I just used it to do a paper for school. I LOVE this program. Keep up the good work, Sun!
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
...due to the file compatibility issue you have mentioned.
Not that I speak for everyone in a similar situation, but when you work in an enviroment that is 99% msoffice, usually the main stumbling block is "Yeah linux sounds cool but can I read everyone's files under linux? What about Word?"
It sucks but it seems to be the case in my experience. In fact, that is what kept me strictly a windows user for so long (until recently) was the one or two programs I needed at the time, which we unavailable under linux.
I'm not saying its right. I'm defending the laziness of the average computer user but it seems that is one of the major issues, and most likely be solved by an open source office suite (which I am impressed with by the way).
The linux users just have to change the world one user at a time, I can't imagine one single piece of software making that happen.
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
I want a e-mail program with the same features of Outlook 2000/XP. I'm a college student and I love the Outlook Today feature, which displays your calender, task list, and what new messages you have in your mail folders. It's perfect for me, since reminders always pop-up at the time I set them to and I can, at a quick glance, tell exactly what is going on in the next 7 days + what assignments I need to do. I've switched to Mozilla for browsing, and I am testing StarOffice 6 Beta with my hundreds of Word Documents. But I won't switch e-mail programs until someone offers a program on Windows that offers an Outlook Today-like feature. Until then, I pray that Norton AntiVirus will pick up any viruses that come through the e-mail.
With each release of Star/OpenOffice we're seeing something that more and more resembles MS Windows/Office. Most people here keep on saying that its a bad thing. I think otherwise.
You'll Microsoft and Apple are slowly tending towards very similar UIs, case in point being Aqua and Luna - they're really similar now. This is because both companies are spending millions of R&D dollars to find out what the best user interface is for their users, and, surprise-surprise, this doesn't differ across platforms.
That's why I see this trend in SO/OO as a good thing. It's tending towards a much more usable state now. Though, it still has to play catch-up with MS Office. In Office, even if I don't know how to do something, I can easily find out by clicking as few buttons or even some guesswork based on looking at icons/tooltips. SO/OO still has quite a ways to go before it reaches this kinda ease-of-use.
I just hope that people understand why these office apps are all tending towards a similar UI. It's not Microsoft's UI, or anyone elses for that matter, its just the one that works, and that's what's important.
What was the reason for dropping mac support, does anyone know?
/. in a way).
I, for one was looking forward to Star/Open Office 6 for the mac. (drooling for it more like it).
It just seems a trifle silly, really, if you think about it.
Everyone that wants an alternative to Microsoft's Office products, but still need the compatability with it.
I'll concede that the Mac has a smaller market share, but, you gotta admit that it has a more "vocal minority" (kind of reminds me of
Add to the above thought, that, it is NO secret that Sun's CEO released S.O. free to tweak Microsoft's CEO's nose. (figurativly, of course).
So, If you see where I am coming from it does not make sense.
heck, I platform hop enough not only to keep up with the tech, but sometimes the politics of distros, tools and apps.
Look at the screenshots and tell me that this would not look good under aqua, and run under osX.1 really nice.
I suppose I understood a little in the 10.0.X days becuse a lot of developers and programmers were griping (rightfully so) about the APIs not being coherent and up to spec/snuff.
But now, seems silly.
Help me understand.
Moose.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)