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."

Comments

Cool, Excel is done

[georgeha]

but when, when, when is there going to be a PowerPoint option for Gnome? Otherwise how can the managers be convinved to leave MS-Orifice?

Re:Cool, Excel is done

[markov_chain]

Also check out StarOffice's presentation program. It's more stable than Powerpoint, and has more features.

Bill: Check it out!

[copponex]

Ted: What?
Bill: The Gnome graping program. The little guys make wine and even do your taxes! Open source booze, dude! Excellent!
Ted: Dude, he's talking about math.
Bill: Bogus.

Re:how good is the Excel import?

[madenosine]

Well, to find out, you can simply look at the changelog...

1.0:
-changed i++ to ++i (Miguel de Icaza)

0.99.0
-changed i=i+1 to i++ (Miguel de Icaza)

0.76:
-the darned thing looks better as i=i+1 (Miguel de Icaza)

0.75:
-changed i++ to i+=1 (Miguel de Icaza)

0.74:
-actually, i liked i++ (Miguel de Icaza)

0.73:
-changed i+=1 to i=i+1 (Miguel de Icaza)

(...)

As you can see, gnumeric has made great progress. I highly reccomend it over KSpread to any self-respecting linux user.

It's the apps!

[GRH]

While I would love to see a mass migration to Linux, it won't happen without the apps. Granted, this is hardly a revelation.

However, what if the Windows desktop domination can be chipped away at by utilizing <flamesuit> Linux apps compiled for Windows </flamesuit>?

Conceivably, a number of folks who currently use Excel could probably work just as well in a Windows version of Gnumeric (or pick your Open Source equivalent).

Over time, as people migrate from Windows apps to Linux for Windows apps, they may eventually reach the point where they ask "why am I still running Windows?" and move to Linux.

Although Gnumeric may not be the best example of this, one of the touted advantages of GUI tookits for X are their cross-platform availablility (I'm specifically taking about Qt, and yes, I know Gnumeric is not Qt).

Lowering the transistional pain to small steps seems the only way I can see Linux eventually having a presence on the desktop.

Anybody else think this makes sense, or am I having a lapse of reason on the last day of 2001?

Happy New Year,
Greg

Re:It's the apps!

[Registered Coward v2]

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."

Re:It's the apps!

[lkaos]

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.

Re:It's the apps!

[lkaos]

But gcc is not the Holy Grail of code generation. Not anymore. IBM and CodeWarrior both beat it senseless on PowerPC; Intel has something that apparently does better on x86, and a lot better on Itanium; DEC has kicked its butt on Alpha for years.

(Of course, gcc probably has more CPU backends than any other C compiler out there - but within a single architecture it often is not the best.)

Well, that's really the trade off one makes. The difference is speed of generated code is not extreme though and in comparision with other main stream compilers (what would /. be without bashing MS) such as MSVC, it just blows the competition away.

GCC's nice because it tends to be more standards compliant then alot of compilers. It's funny that you mention the HP-UX compiler because that is what we were formerly using and when we started a new project, I insisted on using a version of GCC-2.95.2 that just happened to be laying around.

I can't even begin to tell you how much hassle it saved. Pair it with GDB and the other utilities (such as gprof) and it's just incredible.

The best part is, to get the GCC installed on a machine, all it takes is a phone call since there are no licensing issues. I definitely have to give you some credit if you take care of Licensing, because that is definitely a bitch. I would do anything to avoid having to deal with it.

Unfortunately, I have to say I have encountered quite a bit of bugs in GCC :) That's ok though, it's not with the C compiler it's with the C++ compiler and the C++ specs suck so much, how can anyone blame GCC for messing up a bit ;-)

Re:That is true, but...

[bourne]

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.)

Re:how good is the Excel import?

[Jody Goldberg]

I don't know what version you tried but we should be damn near pixel perfect for borders, patterns, formats, content and values. Sheet objects like buttons and drawings still need work.

Release notes

[Jody Goldberg]

The release notes would be useful.

Re:Neat. How many of these do we really need?

[Uruk]

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.

Re:Who does use this thing professionally ?

[Jody Goldberg]

Several of the core Gnumeric developers use it for real work, and based on our bug reports so do many other people. Most of us are working on the project because we are so familiar with the pain and the power of MS Excel (tm). When it works it is a hugely powerful piece of work, but when it doesn't you are up a creek. The 1.0 version of Gnumeric will not replace MS Excel (tm) for a power user. However, it should be sufficient for most day to day users. The goal is to produce a platform that will be able to do all the things we're used to, and hopefully we're on the right track.

It's duplication of effort, but not of result

[Crag]

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).

Re:Gnome should stick to the GUI and System Tools

[Jody Goldberg]

Gnumeric started 3.5 years ago well before StarOffice began its transition to OpenSource. Our goal has always been to produce a the best possible spreadsheet, and we chose the GNOME project as our toolkit. I've looked at the source for kspread and attempted to borrow code from OpenCalc and have concluded that while they each have their strengths, Gnumeric's architecture feels like it is a better basis for development. Try loading large or complicated workbooks into either and compare for yourself.

The GNOME project has a well developed and evolving toolkit specificly _because_ of projects like Gnumeric, Evolution and Galeon. A toolkit without developers does not progress very quickly.

GNUMERIC is a good spreadsheet

[einhverfr]

Gnumeric is enterprise ready, because it is capable of being automated (via Bonobo) and scripted (via VBA, Perl, Python, etc). In fact it beats the crap out of Excel in every area I can think of including flexibility of its automation model and security (MS does the first well and the second not at all). So this is big gnus...

The real issues will be a Powerpoint replacement, scripting capabilities in Evolution (which should not be too hard to add via Bonobo), and a replacement for Word which is scriptable and automatable. KOffice is nto there yet, nor is StarOffice, and I have yet to be able to INSTALL Office without using WIndows, so WINE is not yet there either.