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Ximian to Bundle StarOffice 6.0
rainmanjag writes "A Ximian press release is reporting that Ximian will be bundling StarOffice 6.0 for Linux with the packaged version of Ximian Desktop Professional, Red Carpet Express, and Red Carpet CorporateConnect." This means that both Ximian and Mandrakesoft are offering comprehensive software bundles which happen to include StarOffice 6.0, a package which would otherwise cost more by itself than either of the bundles.
StarOffice includes templates, fonts and clipart that OOo doesn't.
:)
:P
....sooo....you just take the template fonts and clipart from your StarOffice 6.0 beta (which was free for all takers) and put them into your OpenOffice 1.0 setup.
Seriously, someone ought to put together an Open Sourced set of templates, fonts, clipart, etc. And no I did NOT just volunteer! Stop looking at me like that!
My journal has hot
OpenOffice 1.0 is available through Red Carpet.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Poor little troll.
Red Hat ship a whole ton of Ximian code. Some of it like Evolution in 7.3 is really rather good too.
I think it would be a good idea that this version of Ximian contains non-free software, much like Debian letting you force no non-free stuff.
Many Linux newbies get into the "sport" for various political reasons, and through buying Ximian, they are no longer using a "pure" open-source desktop.
Buyer beware.
-twb
This seems to happen everytime there's a story about openoffice.org or staroffice. Here's a list of the major points:
1. StarOffice 6 is released and costs $75.95/seat.
2. StarOffice 6 and OpenOffice.org are built from the same codebase
3. StarOffice 6 includes niceties and extras that OpenOffice.org doesn't include (many templates, nice clipart, a manual, and a database component)
If you need to do basic stuff, OpenOffice.org will be just fine. If you want to a database tool to go along with your office suite, you'd need StarOffice 6.
creation science book
Beware that if you want to be productive in an 'office suite' sense (exchanging documents with others, etc), not in a 'I write C code all day' sense, you might need to offend some GPL/FSF zealot's idea of how you should operate your computer.
creation science book
I don't know if any of you guys have the same problem, but I can't seem to copy and paste text (or any objects for that matter) between everything else on the Gnome/KDE desktop and SO/OO. This becomes a pain when trying to C/P URLS and other information to list documentation sources. Hopefully this union between Ximian and SO will clear that up.
$cat
Night and day difference. *Definitely* worth the download for openoffice - especially if you actually thought 5.2 was OK. I hated it - slow and ugly interface. The OO (and SO6 beta I used) were quite nice. Not perfect, but *quite* usable for most situations.
creation science book
Indeed, templates and clipart are really what most people are looking for. There are a jillion office suites on the market, but the ones that sell best are the ones with the most comprehensive collections of templates. Countless times I've heard that people prefer Microsoft Works to Office, because of the templates. Publisher has always been a big seller too. People don't want design flexibility. They want the computer to design their documents for them.
Anyone have any experience with the database components?
(This is the first I've heard of the database part...)
That part, if it's done well, would be worth the money to me - my office has people using Access databases that I would love to convert over to to StarOffice (connected to MySQL or Postgres) if I could.
Also, if I 'upgrade' people to StarOffice, how tough/legal is it to sell off the MS Office licenses? Assuming we have a bunch of individually-purchased copies...)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Try it if you don't want to shell out money for Staroffice or want a great alternative to Openoffice. I have been using it for about a year and although still limited compared to MS Office I like it alot. Here's what it comes with:
KWord - A frame-based word processor
KSpread - spreadsheet application.
KPresenter - full-featured presentation program.
Kivio - Visio®-style flowcharting application.
Kontour - vector drawing application.
Krita - raster-based image manipulation program
Kugar - tool for generating business quality reports.
Kchart - ntegrated graph and chart drawing tool. Sorry I am also one of those who thinks "screw diversity". Linux should rally behind a few key projects, instead of several projects trying to re-invent the wheel
http://www.kubuntu.org/
That being said, when SO or OOo can read Word docs consistently, then there will be something to report. But that won't happen because M$ keeps changing their formats.
.5% that you need to fix now and then that cause frustration though... :)
SO and OOo *can* read Word documents from Office 97, 2000 and XP fiarly consistently and reliably.
I routinely pull in Word documents that have tables and other 'advanced' formatting features.
Yes, there are few glitches now and then with certain 'advanced' formatting features. But most of the Word documents I get at the office don't use these features.
99% of the people who complain about SO/OOo and Word documents are complaining because they have the wrong fonts installed! It might seem like the Times font you used in OOo on your Linux desktop is the same as the Times New Roman font in Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP. Let me assure you, as someone who has done professional graphic design work, it is not. Subtle differences in the sizes, shapes, and kerning tables of the fonts cause things to wrap weird and text to fall into the wrong places, especially when you have columns, tables, or text wrapped around a picture.
With the right fonts installed, 99.5% of all Word documents will look just fine in OOo. It's that
My journal has hot
How is it misleading? What I stated is exactly correct, and states precisely why I, and most other people, might choose to purchase StarOffice rather than downloading OOo. Yes, OOo doesn't include a database component. And? Not everybody needs a database component. I know I don't. I'll bet the majority of users don't either.
Besides, the StarOffice Adabase component is weak at best, IMHO.
My journal has hot
Because they already have OpenOffice in it's own channel. Subscribe if you want, it's all nice and free. Quite handy, that (I installed it that way myself just this week) .
I don't plan on it either. I use LaTeX and I dig it. But that doesn't solve the same problem as these Office suites do. Sure, everyone can read and print a PDF, but what about edit it, and send a revised version back to you? LaTeX savy people can work from your source document, yes, but most normal Office-users wouldn't have the slightest clue what to do with a LaTeX file.
I have Office v.X installed, because there are times when I need to do just this. You'd be surprised, even among CS profs, how few people know LaTeX enough to feel comfy editing your drafts written in it.
Also, there's no way to do something like a spreadsheet with LaTeX. However, in lambdaTeX or Scribe (in Scheme) something like this could be done, and for that reason, I plan on moving to Scribe eventually (over LaTeX). It can generate PDF, HTML and PS just like LaTeX, but has a more familiar (s-exp) syntax, and has a much more powerful language behind it, for doing calculations within your document. That said, I'd also welcome a LaTeX preprocessor that could do something similar... For instance:
\begin{worksheet}{c|c|c|c}
\hline
Name & Beer Drunk & Milk Drunk & Total Liquids \\
Me & 10 L & 12 L & \add{\cell{B2},
\cell{C2}} \\
You & 14 L & 2 L & \add{\cell{B3},
\cell{C3}} \\
\end{worksheet}
and so on... ugly as hell in LaTeX, but in something Lisplike, it could be a lot nicer-
(worksheet "c|c|c|c"
(hline)
Name & Beer Drunk & Milk Drunk & Total Liquids \\
Me & 10 L & 12 L & (+ B2 C2) \\
You & 14 L & 2 L & (+ B3 C3) \\
)
Man, that'd rule.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Is Star Office that much better than open office.org? Or is it just the name/image thing?
Better, maybe. But that's not the fundamental difference. If there's a problem with Star Office, it's Sun's problem. If there's a problem with Open Office, it's the user's problem. This doesn't mean that Sun can or will fix any problems faster than Open Office. It's just where the ultimate responsibility lies. If I'm a PHB, I will buy Star Office. If I'm a crafty PHB, I will buy Star Office, download Open Office, and use whatever seems to work best.
Use Gobe Productive 3 for Linux. It's not bloatware and it kicks SO's fat ass!
s ta ll.tgz
http://www.gobe.com/downloads/gobe_linux_x86_in
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
StarOffice's new pricing structure is plainly aimed at the corporate environment. Charging something for the package sets off less alarms within business culture (where "free" spooks horses). The features (functionality and various collections of data) available in StarOffice but not OpenOffice also have more value to businesses than your average techie/home user (although I'm sure the OO folk would welcome some Free clipart).
While OpenOffice is darn good, and also available via Ximian, StarOffice is a better fit for the Desktop Professional market.
uh, anytime someone says to do --nodeps or --force - you know that they haven't a clue as to what they are talking about.
you think red-carpet messed up your system? I guarentee that
rpm -e --nodeps `rpm -qa | grep ximian`
will leave your system in an even less usable state than anything red-carpet could do.
> Looks like you found yourself a new project ;)
:P
Actually, it's something I've wanted to work on for a while. I was going to write it in and for Squeak- one of the last tools I need before I can dump primitive systems like Mac OS X and Unix/X11. Like I said, Scribe can do this, to an extent. I don't know if there's a way to refer to cells within a table though, but it could definitely be added without pulling teeth.
Yeah, read-only, no prob. But there are times when I'll just use Word because I have to pass it around. Sucks, but what can you do?
Never used LyX. TeXShop or Emacs was always good enough for me, for what I do, which is pretty simple, mostly tables, \em \bf- very little math.
I'll wish for a thought-to-MIDI converter while we're at it!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The source code available at OpenOffice.org does not consist of all of the StarOffice code. Usually, the reason for this is that Sun pays to license third party code to include in StarOffice that which it does not have permission to make available in OpenOffice.org. Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:
In addition, Sun also has a FAQ that says:
StarOffice 6.0 softwre is a commercial product aimed at organizations and consumers while OpenOffice.org 1.0 is aimed at users of free software, independent developers and the open source community. StarOffice includes licensed-in, third-party technology such as:
In addition to product differences, StarOffice offers:
Hope it helps!
Offtopic, I know, but sometimes being offtopic is justified.
Responding to the sig in the above post: "begin happy.exe See Microsoft KB Article Q265230 for more info." (Note that two spaces are required after the word "begin".)
Once I sent someone at Microsoft an email message that had a period as the first character in the body. This has a special meaning to some email servers, apparently, because Microsoft sent me hundreds of identical email messages in response. I had to call my ISP to get it stopped.
On Topic: In a way, this is on topic, because my experience is that Open Source software is less quirky and weird than Microsoft software. So that is another reason to use Star Office and Red Hat or Mandrake.
Another on-topic comment: It looks like Rekall with PostgreSQL would solve any word processing database needs.
I like bundling, I like integration, I like a package that is tested and I hope that there will be more high quality bundling in the software world (not throwing in two worthless games with a GFX card, but useful software from the start).
(Note that I said Netscape Composer, and not Mozilla... which I personal feel is a piece of bloated slow s**t... open source or not... try running it on a P200 and you'll see what I mean, its unusable)
:-)
ANY full-featured modern browser is slow on a P200.
Just don't run software on your P200 that wasn't intended for it. I bet WinXP will run slow on your P200, but that doesn't mean it's bad software. Oh wait, bad example
If you're going windows on a P200 i would recommend win98lite (with all the desktop enhancements turned off) and netscape 4.7x or IE 5.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
If you want a decent, compact editor you should try something like Jed - an EMACS clone but about 1/10th the size.
Forget Ximian, apt-get see apt.freshrpms.net will let you upgrade your distro and all your rpms in seamless way. I have installled it 2 months ago and my Linux experience has completly changed.
Evolution is very stable for me and doesn't depend on Gecko in any case.
It's certainly true that getting Mozilla, Galeon and Nautilus' web view to all work at the same time hasn't always been the easiest thing if your compiling it yourself, that's one of the reasons that using Ximian is so pleasurable. Everything just works because someone who knows what they are doing has done the hard bits for you.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
As for EMACS, I've used it in the past, but to me it is the epitome of over-engineered bloat. If you just want to edit stuff you're better off going for something like Jed or MicroEMACS that do the same in a fraction of the space.
This is called adding value. It's what MS did to gain it's market dominance (with one or two other tactics which I won't mention here) and it's about time. Good on Ximian, Sun, OpenOffice.org and Mandrake. Good on them all.
this is the achilles heel of the whole "linux on the desktop" idea. The most basic operations just don't always work. Cut and paste between apps doesn't always work, printing doesn't always work, fonts don't always work, or totally suck if they do, etc. I can't switch my girlfriend over to a linux desktop because she would hit all of these obstacles within the first 30 seconds of use.
Sure, if you susbscribe to only one Ideology (kde/gnome) you can get past some of this, but then you can't use the best app for the job. What if you want to use Mozilla and Evolution and Koffice?
Choice is great, freedom is great, Linux is great, but I'd rather pay for commercialware and get those "little things."
...so I'm going to ask. If I were to purchase Ximian Desktop Professional for $59.00 do I get the regular StarOffice, or a custom, only-runs-when-Ximian-is-present version?
I would be willing to buy Ximian, not install it, and get StarOffice for a $20.00 discount. If it is just a regular version of StarOffice. But if Ximian has pulled a Dell, I'm not interested.
Well it means to me that we're finally going to see some good apps showing up, like Ximian and Gobe, and that Linux is going to be able to be used by regular people, which means that everyone is going to have CHOICES again.
Get a job somewhere else?
This has to have been written by a person who hasn't been to Silicon Valley lately!
No, I don't think it's $75/5 seats. It's $75 which you can install in up to 5 locations, as long as only one is being used at any one time. It's meant so that I can pay $75 and install it at home and at work at the same time.
Perhaps my definition of seats is wrong. If I have 10 employees in an office and I want them all to be using StarWriter 6 during the work day, I need to buy 10 licenses, not 2.
creation science book
Though the fonts may differ, that typically isn't the root of the problem. The real problem is that people don't know how to use word processors!.
WYSIWYG does not mean that you can ignore the tools that you are using. A document should never have more than 2 adjacent spaces; people should learn the difference between hard- and soft-returns (paragraph breaks vs. line breaks); etc.
This is the same problem as we see on the Web. HTML "developers" are fighting the system trying to force a particular look to their pages.
So what if a document repaginates differently in one word processor over another? The document will look good given any font (though radically different sizes may look awkward). If the document is formatted properly, it will Just Work.If you care about exact layout, then a word processor is the wrong tool . That's what page layout programs are for.