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Gnumeric 1.0 Has Arrived
plastercast writes: "Gnumeric 1.0 is now out, which makes the Gnome desktop even more 1.0-tastic, with the recent milestones of Galeon and Evolution. ... For those that do not know, Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program with the ability to include all sorts of neat bonobo objects, and also can create graphs through guppi, the Gnome graping program. Enjoy!" Update: 12/31 20:08 GMT by T : That's "graphing." Graping is for the stroke of twelve. Update: 12/31 21:01 GMT by T : Jody Goldberg writes "You folks posted the story a touch too quickly. The release announcement just went out 5 minutes ago."
I think we're beginning to gnotice a pattern...
OTOH, it seems that the pace of GNOME development has been quickening as of late. Now, I haven't reviewed the API/Object Model for several months, but at last glance I was beginning to notice some real cohesion in the various components. For a long time I have preferred working on KDE's code, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's time to take another glance at good ol' GNOME...
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
Just because Excell has like a bazzillion features (that most people don't use), doesn't mean its the best. The software has to match the job being done. The office I work at could get buy with what Gnumeric does. They don't require all the fancy bells and whistles that MS puts into Excell, so I don't see how its better, since in my case its like putting 50 pairs of clothes in your car when your only going to be gone for 2 days.
Can all fish swim?
OpenOffice opens and creates powerpoint files already.
Rather than develop a myriad of different open source office product, it seems to me like we should focus on a couple of the well developed ones and help them gain more momemntum.
The main market for spread sheet apps should be accounting etc.
Does anyone use linux spreadsheet apps for such professional purposes ?
Managing private stuff doesn't count.
Would be interesting to know if linux does penetrate such conservative/ non-IT markets.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Also check out StarOffice's presentation program. It's more stable than Powerpoint, and has more features.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I will be curious to see when 1.0 makes it onto Red Carpet. The last two release candidates, 0.99 and 0.99.1, never did. Since I would bet the majority of Ximian users get their updates via Red Carpet, that means a large chunk of their user base never saw the preview releases.
The only reason I bring this up is Ximian just recently announced their for-fee Red Carpet fast subscription service. As I recall, a common theme in that discussion was questions regarding how up to date (not up2date!) the Red Carpet channels would be maintained. This doesn't seem like a great start.
#DeleteChrome
Fair enough, it's your point of view. I agree Excel will never be Gnumeric. My point of view is that Excel is the alternative for Gnumeric, useful if you are forced by your management to interoperate by exchanging Excel spreadsheets. ;)
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Neat. This makes, what 47 different spread sheets for Unix/Linux now? KOffice, StarOffice, GnomeOffice, ApplixWare, Corels Office Suite, etc. All from different code bases? Funny, I thought that aside from all of the "Software should be free" propaganda, the point of open source software was be able to modify others code to suit your needs instead of reinventing the wheel every time. I realize not all of the above are open source, but still. Couldn't say, Gnome Office and KOffice share big chunks of their code? Like, say the parts that they use to handle the Microsoft formats? A great deal of time and energy is nessecary to figure them out, why replicate it 5 times?
Why?
If we all wanted the same code base we would be using Microsoft.
Anyway, how do you know that they replicate efforts on features like importing and exporting Microsoft formats? Have you looked at the code bases for all these and found completely different code? I think not.
Although GNumeric is a great program, and I appreciate the effort, it is not Excel
No, but it is exactly what I (and, I suspect, various other people) need: a simple way for me to be able to do most of my work in Linux and still be able to submit a timesheet to the nice people in accounting.
90% of the spreadsheets out there use 10% of Excel's capability. Most people don't know how to use most of Excel except the simplest bits. So for my money, Gnumeric doesn't have to be Excel. I've got real work to do.
(Of course, those in the audience who count beans will want Excel. Have fun.)
And the only reason Excel has all these features (and will continue to have more) is that without them, M$ would absolutely no way to perpetuate the money stream that comes from the endless upgrade treadmill. So it's not that these extra features are necessary, or even useful - it's that without them, M$ can't make money. Why more people can't understand this is beyond me.
One of the problems with that model is:
"How do you get people to try the non-MS software?"
Pricing alone won't, because:
1. Many get Office bundled with a PC, so they never see the cost; or
2. Large companies have site licenses, and a few non-MS apps will not impact that cost - but will add to the support costs because now you have to support 2 different apps; and
3. You have to overcome the idea that MS (in theory) tests its codes so bizzare computational errors won't creep in - who tests Gnome? X thousands of users isn't a good answer - because tehre is no one to call or blame when there are problems.
Linux software needs to offer compelling, non-cost, advantages to get people to switch. For example, instead of Office's collection of programs that let you link data togeteher, how about one data store that you apply views to i.e. spreadsheet, presentation, diagram; so when you change a value, it changes everywhere - because it's all the same data.
Chasing MS is a loosing proposition - it's too hard to overcome their entrenched position with something that's almost as good - even if it's "free."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
People see duplication of effort and they assume that it must be a bad thing, but it's not.
Thinking that it is a bad thing is based on the assumption that these people who are "reinventing the wheel" would have worked on a more established project of the same type if they hadn't done what they did, which isn't true. These coders are all voluteers, and they ONLY hack on things that are INTERESTING to them.
Besides, a lot of the failed projects of today are going to be the start of tomorrow's best hackers. Don't bitch about what people choose to do for free.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Each of the office suits you name has benefits and drawbacks of its own. If all the developers of all those projects were going to try to colaborate on The One True Suite, they'd have to set aside their differences and make comprimises. The result would be mediocre and would squash the individual efforts.
If all the kernel hackers in the world tried to colaborate on The One True Kernel, their results would be mediocre as well.
When all the best musicians get together to make an album you get Hands Across America and The Three Tenors, not Mozart or Van Halen. (Your tastes may vary, clearly.)
I was going to mark this post 'redundant', since this issue comes up in every thread, but I thought it more constructive to explain in words, rather than a moderation: it is false to call the efforts of these various projects wasted, since each developer works towards whatever is important to him or her. Their efforst would only truely be wasted if they all came up with the same result (identical software AND developer experience).
Plus, as the trolls are pointing out, you can also use IceWM as the window manager in both Gnome and KDE.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Well, I have to disagree with you on some parts of what you are saying.
My largest problem with MS is not that they do not produce low-cost or even free software, but rather they that produce high-cost low-quality software.
A good example of where the quality of open source software overrides the lack of support is with GCC. GCC is commonly used in production environments over other Unix compilers because it is such a better compiler than most other compilers.
The fact that it's free also means that you can always get the latest version without having to relicense or upgrade. That's a big advantage for most projects.
For many people who are forced to do spreadsheets and get tired of using Excel because of constant bugs, having an alternative will make a big difference. Good software has a tendency to spread like a virus too and before you know it, all projects are using that software and here some company has come along and repackaged that open source software with support so that everyone is happy.
And I've seen this happen with GCC so it does happen.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Interesting. A GPL'd library (Qt) isn't GPL compliant. Very interesting indeed. I'm sure Trolltech would love to hear about this.
That's one more reason why I don't use GNOME or WindowMaker anymore - all their supporters seem to have nothing better to do than bash the alternatives. I'm sure they're very nice technically, despite their C origins, but that's no reason to flame the good people at KDE at every opportunity.
"why am I still running Windows?"
No they won't ask themselves that, the average user doesn't really know what an operating system is or how it differs from a program like Excel or Word.
Putting a Linux app on windows won't do jack for Linux. Its time to face the facts, there are very, very few people who care what OS they are using.
For every 1 slashdot geek who is fighting the holy war vs Microsoft, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of "regular" people who don't give a rip about how, what, or why. A computer to them is a magic box that does stuff. How it does it or what OS it is running on is not important, users want one big thing, ease of use.
In the mind of users, easy is AOL and Microsoft, which in some cases is hard to argue, though AOL doesn't really offer much in the way of ease of used like they once did.
Good applications running on Windows may be successes, but don't expect people to jump from something easy and comfortable to something that is much more difficult(you know and version of *nix is, be honest). Frankly, they just don't care what OS they are running.
Peace