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Sun and Apple Team Up for StarOffice for Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes, "CNET writes about Sun and Apple getting together to create StarOffice for the Mac OS X." Apparently, the Java-based OpenOffice app will be released before year's end (a developer release went out on Thursday), with a commercial StarOffice release sometime next year.
I guess that means that AppleWorks is being discontinued. But yay, StarOffice!
--[Nothing important]--
"The partnership is expected to produce a Java-based version of OpenOffice by the end of the year, followed by a commercial StarOffice release sometime in 2003."
I really hope CNet got this wrong!
Corel already tried and we all saw the result: slow and dismissed by the market.
Even though JVMs improved a lot in the meantime, there's no way a JVM is going to make an app such as OpenOffice as smooth to use as a native version.
They'd better work on a native version, instead of working on something which has not a single chance of attracting users.
After so much fanfare and puffery by Microsoft, this seems like something they aren't going to be too pleased about. The Microsoft Office Homepage doesn't seem to have any reference to Office X at all. Of course, there is Office X info elsewhere, but not on the home page. How interesting... WTG Apple!
sig.
I don't know if this is still true or what, but in the past wasn't a lot of the "office suite" type software for Macintosh done in-house by Claris or Apple? Maybe that all changed when Microsoft dumped a boat load of cash into the company. Either Apple really is as different from Microsoft as they could possibly be and supports competition, or Claris/AppleSoft is effectively dead.
The future isn't what it used to be.
They already got a OS/X version, and this isn't javabased either.
A have seen confusion with this before, probably just C-net and Slashdot that are wrong.
S.L.A.S.H.D.O.T.: Synthetic Lifelike Android Skilled in Hazardous Destruction and Online Troubleshooting
There is a native version of OpenOffice for MAC.
7 1.html
See
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/263
Is the reference to "Java Based" a mistake ?
I've been thinking about this for a while now, currently I use my home x86 boxen for web development (php, mysql), with KDE/Qt for C++ development (and some Java).
:)
I haven't had the time to look into it a lot at the moment, but if anyone could reply with some insight (with my above requirements), would I run into problems if I say wished to use/purchase an iBook (or iMac)? I'm really getting sick of x86, and would love to run Linux on a mac and use OS X and PPC
I cannot imagine Java being of much use for StarOffice on OSX, given that the visual side of Java, AWT and Swing are very slow under OSX compared to Linux and XP.
I think this is either a mistake or else they'll be using Java for some system glue or something I imagine.
The main points of the article are:
1) The relationship between Apple and Microsoft has been strained by the lackluster sales of Office v.X. Apple supports the porting of StarOffice because it doesn't want MacOS X to be cutoff from the ability to interact with the ever-important Microsoft dominated office file formats should Microsoft decide to abandon the platform.
2) Development hurdles that Sun must overcome are removing and redesigning X11 protocol specific code to work with Quartz 2D -- Apple's windowing API -- and redesigning the user interface such that it conforms to the Apple Aqua guidlines. (That's a tall order, especially considering that much of the Aqua guidlines are incomplete and still being formed.) Currently, StarOffice uses its own interface toolkit, built from the ground up.
3) The ever-pressing issue of how to make money by selling an essentially open-source product. Sun plans to do this not by merely offering support, but also adding special enticements to a commercial distribution that wouldn't be available in an open-source distribution. (An example is the bundling of commercial quality fonts with the software).
to me, that sounds like apple is preparing for a time when MS decides -- for valid reasons, of course -- to discontinue their office product line for the mac.
btw, any new rumors about OS X for x86 out there?
--
making up good sigs is a hard thing to do.
I think competition is good for the market. But if Apple is laying the groundwork for getting out of the MS Office relationship, they they are signing their own bankruptcy papers. This really marks the beginning of the end for Apple. You might like StarOffice to fiddle with in your cube or home office, but the bread-and-butter user isn't going to go for a swtich away from MS Office. It's not so much a matter of features (although that become an issues when you talk about spreadsheets with lots of macros, for example) as it a matter of quick and easy document exchange. Like it or not, MS Office has become the standard for sharing documents. When a vendor sends me a spreadsheet, she sends it to me in Excel or Word. Send me the same quote is some other format...and you're probably not going to get the sale.
Now, put all of this together: Apple is asking Mac users who are comfortable with Finder from OS 6 to 9 to (a) swtich to a new interface, (b) run an OS that is still in beta -- really, look at all the compatibility issues...it's a beta, (c) may not run the software we have purchased, and (d) now suffer without MS Office. I don't think this is going to work. (And note that I'm setting aside the issue of OS licensing where Apple *used* to have a competetive advantage over MS, but now is squandering that selling point.)
Private to Apple: The #1 Selling point to "switchers" is that they can still use MS Office applications. Screw up that fact, and your product is dead in the water.
Java is exactly like interpreted C++ .
And what I mean by this sentence ?
C++ is designed to be a compiled language not for run time interpretation like perl/python .
When Java developers ripped C++ I think they forgot about that
Now you know why Java is so bloated....
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
I remember Apple wanting to please MS to keep Office available for Mac users, but this would sort of ease that tension, possibly allowing things to go on that never could before. The funny thing is that Apple seems to really have a lack if trust/interest in open software, Star Office has been out for a while and now that you can only get it by paying, people unfortunatly seem to take it more seriously. Apple doesn't seem to really appreciate Ogg either, but loves AAC.
Probably all it would take would be a new "theme" for the Toolkit OOo uses. Maybe they would have to extend the theming capablitities of the toolkit a little, but that can't be too hard.
Moritz
Sun's spokesman Siress needs to learn the difference between an adjective and an adverb:
"I think you can see OpenOffice running solid on OS X by the end of this calendar year"
"Microsoft is mad, and Apple's coming at them hardcore."
First I'd like to say that I like Java very much, but I think that this must be a mistake. Let's see. OS X is unix-based, and does support X11. StarOffice (and OpenOffice) runs just fine on X11. Basically their problem is to port the GUI from X11 to Quartz
Porting StarOffice (once the biggest open source project) to Java would be an absolutly huge task. This rules out a full port. It leaves the option of using Java as the GUI. World+dog (including me) agree that Java's GUI is so-so, even if it is better on OS X than anywhere else. Anyway, what would be the point of using Java to interface between C/C++/Objective-C apps? None.
CNET just got it wrong one more time.
Nobox: Only simple products.
we don't see 1000 posts talking about how a) This will be the end of MS or b) Apple's efforts are always futile.
On my Linux installation, there are several jars in /usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.0/classes. Enabling Java to interoperate with the Universal Network Object (UNO) model that sits at the core of OpenOffice was always a key part of their architecture.
So, the use of Java isn't really news, and any messaging around Java should just be seen as Marketing exploiting the fact that yes, indeed, parts are written in Java.
Sure there is. Java is quite fast these days and it has gotten a lot more stable and robust. OpenOffice could actually become smaller and simpler if it is written in Java because much of the big and complex stuff in OpenOffice is already taken care of by the Java runtime.
Also, Sun finally needs to put the resources behind Java for client/desktop apps--that means developing large and complex client/desktop apps and fixing whatever problems remain in Java and the Java runtime.
Corel already tried and we all saw the result: slow and dismissed by the market.
Corel didn't know what they were doing and they didn't have the option of hacking the Java runtime much. Besides, there are an awful lot of bad or failed C and C++ applications--should we stop using C and C++ because of that as well?
Java-based?
OpenOffice uses X-11?
I don't think so, Tim.
I have Staroffice on CD I purchased a few years ago (5 or so) at a computer show for $10. At that time, I had a Cyrix 6x86-233 w/ 32MB of memory and a 2MB Trident video card. I've got to say that is was painfully slow. I believe this was because it was a Java application (CD came with Sun's JVM). Once I loaded an application and started using it for a few seconds, it ran with a barely acceptable speed. If I had to do something else, like pull down a menu or something, it would run too slow. Then after I got rid of that and started typing again, it was OK. Probably running out of memory or something. :)
Well at any rate, a couple weeks ago I needed to open a MS Word file that a CVS'd kword was having some problems with -- viewable but tables goofed up. So since I read that that Openoffice released a ver1.0, I thought I'd apt-get it. Wow, was it horribly slow to load, my god. I have an Athlon 750, 256MB ram, ATA-33 30GB (~31MB/s transfer rate as reported by hdparm). Nothing else was using the drive at the time that was even moderately I/O intestive when I started it. It took about 30sec to load and loaded up in the spread sheet for some reason (just ran 'openoffice'). Then when I told it to open up the MS Word file, it took another 10sec or so to switch to the wordprocessor and then about another 5-10sec to load the document (which is only 1 page and has 1 table with 2 columns and 5 rows). So the total time was about a minute before I was viewing the document. And the best part of all, it didn't do any better job than KWord did.
It looks like, and from other peoples comments here, that Openoffice is a Java/C++ jumbalia. I can't imaging having to use Openoffice on a regular basis. I'd say fuck it, I'll pay for the Codeweavers Office WINE and purchase Office 97 off of ebay. Hopefully Apple can do something about the god awful slowness of it.
They seem to build a native C++ interface for the windowing system of OSX.
CNET probably confused this with the Java of OpenOffice support.
It's very unlikely that someone tries to build a GUI via Java. People are not that stupid.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I have a Celeron 800 with 128 megs of RAM. Open Office only takes about 25 seconds to load. Seriously why do you complain about how long an office suite takes to load? MS Office takes about the same time to load and I never hear anyone complain about that. Office suites are inherently slow. It's really not surprising that they take so long when you take into account that they try to offer loads of features that people will never use. One thing I have noticed though is that if you use native OOo files on Open Office it will load faster than native MS files on MS Office. So I suggest you quit insisting on using MS's proprietary file formats.
See subject.
Hasn't anyone here actually played with project builder? Apple lets people develop in project builder in either ObjC, *OR* Java. I'll bet this is what they're doing. There's probably nothing happening with Swing or any of the Java UI crap. What they're probably doing is writing the underlying code in java and allowing it to compile with either the new apple front end, or swing on other platforms. This sounds much more like a Sun strategy since they're so hip on Java in the first place, and cross platform apps secondly.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
Sun has been looking for hardware allies in its long-running quest to popularize StarOffice, which competes against Microsoft Office. To date, no major PC makers have pledged to heavily promote StarOffice.
To me, it's incredible that no hardware vendor such as IBM or HP is offering StarOffice or OpenOffice preinstalled on personal computers. I see no reason for them to not install it.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
Errr... No.
OpenOffice includes support for Java but it is most certainly _not_ Java based.
Anyone who has not used OpenOffice really should take a look. IMHO is is a viable replacement to Microsoft Office at home while Star Office (based on OpenOffice) is a viable replacement for Microsoft Office at work.
Wish good luck to the OpenOffice guys and take a bit of time to wish Sun good luck with Star Office too.
Thanks.
...I mean why script the OS with anything else?
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Blah...... It's been slashdot'ed and all. So, where's the mirror people?
yes, Apple/Claris make the home user version of office. over the years it was called either ClarisWorks or AppleWorks (Claris/Apple is the same thing). i'm sure somebody else knows better, but the Mac SE my sister got in 1988 came with Claris Write, Claris Draw etc back before it was really packed together. they have been working on that for years. i think the current Appleworks for OS X is just a carbonized version of the most recent Appleworks. i would think they will keep bundling Appleworks (unless they rename it someday) and sell somehting to the Pro users. in the past (and today even) pro users had to buy Appleworks. it's kind of strange, but Apple decided somewhere that Pro users were going to want M$ Office anyway. maybe it was part of the deal with Microsoft. if pro users had a free app, then they were less likely to buy one. if they bought one they were more likely to buy the high end app? i dunno. there were a lot of strange concessions in that deal. i'm glad it's over.
there have been rumors of some sort of "pro" Appleworks for a while now.... Appleworks itself, if you have never ised it, couls be thought of as iOffice or something. it's bundled with the iBook, iMac (new and old) and the eMac. i don't remember if they started bundling it with the pro models (there was talk of it). it's good enough for home users, but i guess not quite up to corporate use. the recent versions have good translation from and into M$ Office formats, so in some situations when you need to translate documents you will be fine. if you were at work and constantly exchanging documents though you might still want M$ Office itself.
Take a look at Mac OS X's official announcement. From the press release: By the way I don't even own a Mac. I use Windows XP and Linux. All the different OSen are great. There's no reason to be a fanboy of one or the other.
- In my tests staroffice was much slower than office. Unless launch time is under 200 ms (human reaction time), users will select the faster product, all other things being equal.
- Users in an office environment will need full compatibility with office (for document sharing). How can that be accomplished, when Microsoft can change file formats at a whim, knowing that users will update like lemmings to get the new "features" provide along with the thwarting format changes?
- Folks won't choose because of cost because cost is not a big issue. In an office environment, it makes sense to pay a day's salary (on tools), to save 10 days of work. In a home environment, people use (cheap) bundled Microsoft products or they steal them.
PS: all of the above applied to Corel, too.iMac, iBook and eMac have always come with Appleworks and i think it would be a mistake to end that. the buyers of those machines really dig bundled software. that was why Apple always made pro users buy Appleworks or M$ Office or whatever theyw anted. the whole beauty of the iMac is that it comes with enough software to keep you going for quite a while. Appleworks, all the iApps and the internet software is most all people need for a while.
if anything i see this teaming up for the recently rumored "pro version" of Appleworks. i don't know if they will bundle it with the Pro machines or just sell it, or pack it with all machines. time and the economy will tell on that one. you figure Appleworks is good for home users and school kids. no reason to make then use the Pro software, and no reason to make the Pro software simple enough for a 1st grader to use. also if someone is in a dedicated M$ enviroment, then they will probably still use M$ Office (at least while one still exists).
I'm writing this post on Commodore Colt running the GeoWorks OS you stupid fuck!
i really hate this. tech announcements that seem good, but then suck.
apple and sun team up. yeay! to port open office to os x. yeay! in java. oh fuck.
this is like the os x one. apple switches to unix. yeay! they'll be using the freebsd variant as a base. yeay! they're designing a proprietary gui. oh fuck. and in the end os x came out great, except that it was hard for the ***typical*** end user to gain access to *thousands* of x applications. think where we'd be if apple put their minds to improving x11.
what is with this urge to do things almost right, but to screw it up in a way that will hurt things in the end.
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We all know of the "spat," as Steve Jobs called it, with the sales of Office X for Mac OS X, and the Mac Business Unit's comment alluding to "reevaluating" the future development.
I don't feel that Microsoft would drop Office for Mac OS X because antitrust red flags (and lawsuits) would be dropping into the Federal courts, placing MS in another legal pickle.
Apple's public support of StarOffice is actually another bow to the power of open source software (of which OpenOffice is, I know, but not StarOffice--uh..kinda?). The problem that Apple might see is that the "radical" OSS community that shuns ALL things MS would not buy or cannot afford Office X. So, for these users (as part of an incentive to pull them to OS X from other *nixes), StarOffice would be available and in a condition that works natively and well in OS X. (I'm not trying to avoid discussing AppleWorks, but it is not as robust as either Office or StarOffice.)
And, should MS discontinue development of Office, Apple also has a strong backup productivity suite that may be less expensive.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I also tried to use the Java version of WordPerfect. I would not be bragging about it. It didn't work.
Welcome to Bill Gates Nightmare..
..MS is asking for gov handout with the Pallidium initiave!
Steve Jobs and Bill Joy outflanking MS and Bill Gates on applicaitons on the Mac OSX platform..
Better keep watch on your wallet
Don't Tread on OpenSource
There's no money in it on either side.
For M$, too low ROI. Two orders of magniture to low. First order is sheer sales market. There's one tenths as many machines. Second order is market resistance. Apple owners have a deep and abiding hatred for M$ that makes Linux people look tame. And they vote with their wallets. Look for universal acceptance of StarOffice as fast as Sun & Apple can ship the CD-ROMs.
For Apple, they make hardware, they use Aqua to sell it. Giving away the crown jewels would be slitting their hardware revenue throats while M$ could drop-kick their OS sales revenues just like they did to NetScape (And fuck the DOJ.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
No, MS Office opens lightning quick. Star/Open office may be slow to load, but it seems to perform well enough once it's been launched.
How is Apple going to feel about an Aqua theme that is easily distributable to Linux and Windows users?
They ain't gonna be happy...
That's why Apple will be hard-coding the OS X version to make calls to their windowing API's rather than building a theme.
Apple has had two achilles heels in the past. Number 1: Dependence upon Microsoft Office If Jobs is throwing some of the same programming talent that went into OS X onto Star Office, the result should be sensational. Apple surely has learned that it must lower it's dependency upon a Bill Gates controlled project. I'm sure they have been working on Star Office for some time.
Number 2: Dependence upon Motorola. Any company risks their entire future when they have a single point of failure and for Apple, that is Motorola. They have been limited by Motorola's ability to produce faster chips and enough of them in the past. They also lose mindshare with the "megahertz myth". I'm sure Apple by now has realized that most people don't give a damn about processor internals and pipelines. It is just going to be harder for Apple (in the mindshare department) once Intel is shipping 2 GHz processors in quantity, while Apple is just cracking 1 GHz.
Everyone knows that Darwin runs on Intel. What you don't see is how much more advanced development is going on at Apple to bring the full look and power to the Intel/AMD platform. In a Yahoo financial interview recently, Jobs played coy with the question but did not deny it.
This doesn't mean that Apple is turning it's back on the hardware business. Apple could easily make sure that it's OS X innovations became available first on it's own hardware. But an operating system that competes on traditional Windows platforms that includes great apps like iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, and Broadcaster (plus the new ones like iCal and iSync) for a prospective $129 must have the Microsoft honchos tossing in their sleep. Making the iPod available for Windows, is just another indication that Apple is opening up to a whole new market.
No, Windows isn't going away but now it must fight a strong competitor on two fronts: IBM/Linux and Apple/OS X. Linux shipping on Walmart computers for the average user may be a pipe dream, but do you think Walmart wouldn't love shipping Wintel platforms with OS X and saving the Windows OS fee?
I love Linux, but I encourage Linux programmers to take a good hard look at OS X (if you haven't already). Your product could run on both platforms with very little extra work. I have seen the future, and it is OS X.
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
That was the accusation but what the actual trial transcript showed was that IBM didn't get an early license to OEM Windows 95 because an audit of their sales showed several million dollars worth of Windows licenses that they hadn't paid for or reported to Microsoft. MS insisted that IBM put a better tracking system in place so that a similar "mistake" wouldn't happen again with the Windows 95 sales.
In the case of Sun's current HotSpot JVMs (1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4, 1.4.1beta), however, the basic execution is bytecode interpretation. Only when the HotSpot profiler determines that a piece of code would benefit from optimization does is (possibly) get compiled into native code. Many other optimizations are also possible, of course. This is part of why there is still hope for Java on the client and why Java on the server actually works quite well. For long running processes, the HotSpot optimizer can (more accurately 'could') do a bang-up job optimizing the code.
As for your statement that there are optimizations that a Java compiler can do that a C++ compiler cannot, that is true. Of course the reverse is also true; the Java bytecode compiler cannot do as much type checking as a C++ compiler can, and it cannot do some of the optimizations that C++ can because until runtime it cannot know if they will be usefull or not. Java's compilation environment is, in some ways, more complex than C++'s, even though C++ is a much more complex language. Java has two compilers: one source to bytecode compiler run at "compile time", and one bytecode to native compiler than [may] run at runtime.
This is mostly offtopic and mostly pedantic, but, as a developer who uses several languages, I hate to see silly comments by language biggots go unchallanged. Always remember: All languages suck; some just suck less in a given situation than the others do.
I use my home x86 boxen for web development (php, mysql), with KDE/Qt for C++ development (and some Java).
Mac OS X out of the box includes extensive support for the Java platform.
If you want to write KDE apps on the Mac, you're in luck: Fink, the most comprehensive distribution of free software for the Darwin operating system, now includes KDE. Fink also includes PHP, Ruby, Python, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Can someone explain this to me? It seems that M$ /must/ make Mac software of some sort, or did the following become invalid with time?
October 24th, 1985: John Sculley signs the worst contract Apple ever has made. He agrees that Microsoft may use some Mac GUI (Graphical User Interface) technologies if it continues producing software for the Mac (Word, Excel). If Sculley wouldn't have signed this deal Windows would have never been introduced since the similarities to the MacOS were so obvious that Apple would have easily won any lawsuits against Microsoft!
January 1988: Microsoft releases Windows 2.0.3
March 17th, 1988: Apple sues Microsoft and Hewlett Packard accusing them of violating copyrights of Apple on the MacOS. Windows 2.0.3 features Mac-like icons.
(http://www.theapplemuseum.com)
Apple/Claris make the home user version of office. over the years it was called either ClarisWorks or AppleWorks (Claris/Apple is the same thing)
I used AppleWorks on Apple IIe computers. The first version of ClarisWorks I used had a feature set similar to that of the version of AppleWorks for the IIGS.
Will I retire or break 10K?
...and that's not even counting the possibility that Microsoft, the company whose motto was once "The job's not done 'til Lotus won't run" might mutate their file formats a bit.
/ story/0,2000023555,20263448,00.htm says, in part: "Sun makes a big deal about StarOffice's compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats. That's smart, since Office is the de facto standard. Not so smart, however, is StarOffice's translation accuracy. With simple documents, such as lightly formatted Word docs or straightforward Excel spreadsheets, StarOffice is usually on the mark, though the beta version does create some pagination differences between a Word doc opened in Word and the same one opened in StarOffice's Writer. Give it something more complex, and it often chokes. When we opened a Word document with tables, two small charts, a footer, and minimal headings in Writer, it looked very different from the real thing, with one nearly blank page stuck into the document, and the table all on its lonesome on a separate page. We hope the final version fixes these problems. Expect complaints from Office owners if you trade documents more complex than plain text."
For fifteen years now, I have been reading marketing guff about file format compatibility. And then, if you press, gradually the disclaimers emerge. Typically, things like: Oh, I forgot to tell you, you have to turn off "Fast Save" in Word. What? Your document as equations in it? You didn't expect equations to translate, did you? Oh, yeah, sorry about those accented characters... Pagination and line breaks? Gee, I guess our font metrics don't match exactly, huh? (And the last straw) Well, sir, no conversion is perfect but we get at least 95% of the formatting and most of our customers are happy with that, yada yada...
A recent review http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/software/business
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
What people seem to be forgeting is that there was, and to a point, is, a version of OSX on x86. Its called OpenStep and NextStep. Most of the cool stuff in OSX is there. When it was released for X86 in the early 90's it developed a niche following, but not more that that.
If OpenOffice for OS X is Java based, I won't be running it on my OS X box, and neither should anyone else.
I think history (read: corel) has already proven that you shouldn't write desktop apps in Java. Remember the Corel Office written entirely in Java? it sucked, it was slow, it was pathetic, just like Java!
-- DuckWing
That's a long life product. There is not a lot that can beat that time frame.
If you are so worried about CPU cycles, then only use programs written using an assembler instead of a compiler.
Grandparent was talking about the speed hit of Java VMs currently in use (i.e. the VM from 1998 installed on most Windows machines) vs. native assembly language on the same machine. Pascal and C for applications took off only when optimizing compilers matured enough that the only remaining asm-critical portions were the inner loops of I/O drivers. (Note that many computer games still have asm inner loops.) C# and Java will take off when they no longer provide much of a performance difference vs. native assembly language.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Simply put RTFWebpage
This is good timing, since OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) includes GCC 3, and the GCC 3 compiler accepts Java at the same level as C. No JVM is needed.
Amazing. Microsoft must be ahead of everyone else in utilizing Java for the backend, based on their latest release of MS Office ;)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I recall the allegations I described being reported in the papers well before they made it into Jackson's FoF, and to the best of my knowledge, Microsoft has yet to challenge any of the Findings of Fact. Their line, well after the FoF was issued, was that they agreed with Jackson's facts but not of his conclusions.
If it's true that IBM simply failed an audit, why hasn't Microsoft challenged this critical document in the trial? And why, then, did IBM drop the practice of bundling Lotus and OS/2 at the exact time Win95 came out? One might be able to claim that OS/2 wasn't selling as well as hoped, but Lotus? What aspect of Windows 95 made Lotus's office suite unsellable and unbundle-able?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
but do you think Walmart wouldn't love shipping Wintel platforms with OS X and saving the Windows OS fee?
In exchange for the Mac OS X fee? Why?
Dude, quit hogging the Kool-Aid.
C++ can be ported to many platforms. You just make up a virtual platform, write a VM for it, then port a C++ compiler to emit VM code.
Microsoft did this. It's called Managed C++, part of Microsoft .NET.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"GNUstep's objectives include short-term and long-term goals. The short-term goal is to create a development environment based on the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT Computer Inc. (now Apple Computer Inc.). Apple has continued to update this specification, and there is no hope of GNUstep guaranteeing that we will maintain compatibility with an Apple API that is constantly changing. We will endeavor, however, to follow as closely as possible the additions that Apple has made so that we may provide interface compatibility with programs written for the Mac OS X system."
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
When I went to WWDC this year for the first time ever, I went as a Java programmer interesting in learning how to program OS X (and Quartz GUI stuff) in Java. I was told by the "java evangelist" in no uncertain terms that I was "not Apple's target market". Java was its own platform, not to be crossplatformed to OS X and Quartz.
WWDC did not have a single session on programming Quartz in Java. In the only mildly interesting session on Java, it was like pulling teeth to get concrete information out of the presenters in Q&A, and yet the presenters (Apple JVM guys) were incredibly arrogant about their work and how advanced it was (which in some ways it is) and how even Sun was considering incorporating their JVM innovations.
What was boggling was Apple's Java guys didn't _get_ that they should want Java to become a first class citizen on OS X (rather than a poor stepchild to OS X's (and NeXTstep's vaunted in their eyes) objective-c. Sure, I could see the obj-c guys being protective of their baby (even though it's basically stillborn by the time its reached OS X), but why would the Java guys be so lousy sharing information on Cocoa (OS X) programming in Java.
On the side, I got contradictory information about how to program in Cocoa using two different bridges across obj-c and java. In sum, neither really works so Apple doesn't support either really. (In particular, obj-c's reference counting doesn't mix well with Java's garbage collection.) Unfortunately, despite Apple's migration of WebObjects to Java (from obj-c), The rest of OS X and Cocoa (GUI) stayed in obj-c. Doh.
I even spoke with their then new head of software tools and engineering. As a smalltalk guy (skeptical of java and obj-c), he claimed that obj-c won him over. No love for Java there. Just more "not Apple's target market". It's hard to swallow paying thousands to go to a developer conference and have some pinheaded honcho tell you that despite Apple's "best platform for Java" campaign, that Java programmers are not allowed to program in Cocoa (OS X native) since Java Cocoa is not Apple's target market. What arrogance!
Unfortunately, one of Apple's catchy banners did not mean what I wanted it to mean: "Come for the Java, Stay for the Cocoa". Instead of providing the means to program Cocoa in Java, the banner really means come to learn about Java on OS X (and be profoundly disappointed), and we'll (try to) lure you to objective-c every step, session, and discussion along the way.
Cough-cough.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm an ex NeXT enthusiast, so I've already tasted obj-c (not to my liking), reasonably informed about its strengths and weaknesses, and happy with Java.
-=-
So, why is Apple, its head of engineering so obstinate. I assume it's because he's in love with smalltalk and obj-c caters (a la obj-c tenuous lease on life) to smalltalk, his desired language. Fair enough (but too bad for Apple and its Java shortcomings).
But why oh why would lowly Apple Java grunts be so against first-class java support on OS X for Cocoa? That really confused the heck out of me, until I discovered that the very arrogant presenter(s) of JVM breakthroughs (yada yada yada about Apple innovations) was really the obj-c kernel team doing side work on the JVM. Doh!
Java not obj-c. Obj-c >> Java. You know?
There are not Java evangelists at Apple. The keepers of the Java VM are obj-c hacks. Their baby (albeit on life support) is obj-c. OUCH.
When I figured that out, beat around the bush at the top to discover the smalltalk allegiance, and just generally got stonewalled by too many (certainly not all) of the small team of java(obj-c) insiders, I just gave up.
Besides, the Quartz Extreme team had awesome presentations, was extremely humble despite their awesome GUI architectural innovations, and was just generally the real mccoy from an engineering point of view. My WWDC became a GUI tour rather than a deep tour of Java (as intended and paid for, as far as I was concerned).
One final note: my impression is that Java on OS X is good --- but only for Java only apps (i.e., use Swing, not Apple's Cocoa). Their target market (as I gathered anyway) is pure Java (as opposed to Java Cocoa apps). So, if you want to port and run pure Java on OS X, they (should) love you. FYI.
-=-
So, it's amusing and ironic to see Apple spending any resources on Java for Cocoa now as I assume (fingers crossed) they'll do for OpenOffice after telling me that's not their target market!
What happened to all the arrogance? Disdain? Curt political marketroid answers to basic engineering questions? Yada yada yada.
Too painfully amusing and ironic.
So I guess I am crossing my fingers that Apple separates the JVM team from their obj-c team, fires (or at least reassigns to obj-c only) their so-called "java evangelist", and gives java its own first-class political and technical citizenship at Apple.
Maybe next year's WWDC can have a banner which says (and means) "Come for the Java, and Stay for the Mocha". That would be a dream worth having.
= Joe =
Most people who say that OpenOffice is java based don't know what they are talking about. Seeing that it is cross platform, and supports java, many uninformed people have assumed that OpenOffice is written in java. OpenOffice is not written in java!
That is not to say that Apple may not have plans to use java in their OS X implementation of OpenOffice -- but that would be extremely surprising.
Unless strong supporting facts appear, I'm confortable in assuming that this author, like so many others, does not know what he is talking about.
The timing of Apple's move against Microsoft's market position couldn't be better for several reasons:
(1) Most important, Microsoft CAN NOT abandon the Apple market - the courts wouldn't allow it. Nothing would say monopoly more than the standard office application suite only runs on our OS.
(2) Microsoft's "Three Kings" - MSN Messenger, IE, and Office v.X - are all being supplanted by Apple - iChat w/ AOL integration, hiring David Hyatt (Mozilla/Chimera), and now Open/Star Office - ensuring no dependency on Microsoft
(3) Sun is no friend of Microsoft and teaming up with other folks who would like to have a piece of Microsoft's pie makes sense (cents).
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
From the consumer's point of view, very little will change: Apple would have the same eye candy hardware, and it would only come from Apple. Except for the fact that it'll be running some AMD processor at 4.5 GHz! Big diff.
One more problem: all OS X apps will have to be re-compiled for x86. I don't think that'd be too easy.
You can have my one-button mouse when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
It would not make any sense for Apple to port OS X to *generic* IA-32 platforms - just as Microsoft now makes most of its money from Office, Apple makes more from selling boxes than selling the OS itself.
What I would like to see is for Apple to roll out a product based on generic IA-32 platforms, but requiring an enabling chip or so (putting product activation key in hardware would be cool) without which OS X would not run.
That way we can even run Linux/x86 on it and run all the MMX/SSE enhanced video apps. Adobe would probably throw a tantrum though, what with all their AltiVec optimized software.
My twopence,
Michel
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Have you even bothered to try StarOffice/OpenOffice? Come on, OpenOffice is free and very easy to install...rather than parroting something you read about the _beta_ version, try out the real thing and see if it's still true. I d'loaded OO for Win32, installed it and tried out various, rather complex docs. Yes, there were some differences when loaded in Writer, but nothing like what you describe. Also, there are a million ways to format Word docs...if someone makes the mistake of spacing instead of using tab stops, etc, then it's no suprise it gets screwed up in translation. Even WordPerfectWord used to have this issue (either program). Honestly, I'd have to say OO is a remarkable achievement.
I'm interested in knowing how you can open a PDF file to edit it. My understanding is that once you save to PDF, you can view, but cannot very easily edit the document.
There's no way a JVM is going to make an app such as OpenOffice as smooth to use as a native version.... They'd better work on a native version
But I'm betting it WILL be a native version. It will be a Cocoa app, just using Java as the programming language rather than Objective C. All the windowing, and UI widgets etc. will be Cocoa/Quartz/Aqua being invoked by a few lines of Java.
But why use Java instead of Objective C? It may just be Sun wanting to "eat their own dog food" or simply having more programmers familiar with Java than with Objective C.
But perhaps there is a more intriguing possiblity. Cocoa is just the upgraded OpenStep which could run as a layer on top of windows, and Solaris. It was a cross platform solution that handled all the platform specific UI (as well as a bunch of other stuff) so a simple recompile was all that was needed to get your app running on windows, NeXT, and Solaris (& maybe others?). Apple was originally going to keep things that way and add support for Java so you could build (semi)native windows/mac/solaris apps using Java & Cocoa without even a recompile. Only the Java bit is running under the JVM, the UI & all the other Cocoa stuff is native.
This plan was 'steved' when Steve Jobs took over. That was probably the smart thing to do, they needed to focus on getting their own house in order first. But now they have everything basically ship shape on the Mac side, maybe they are revisiting the idea of Cocoa as a cross platform API. Apple and Sun working together on StarOffice seems like a perfect oppurtunity to revive the old OpenStep on windows & Solaris. Maybe I'm just being clueless, after all Sun has their own approach for Java's cross platform UI. But it doesn't seem to be that great and isn't very popular. Maybe they are considering OpenStep/Cocoa as a better solution to getting Java used on the desktop, especially if Apple has already done (almost) all the work to develop it.
Below follows my reply to the OpenOffice.org community to the reporter who wrote this awful story. And he even seems to be using an illicitly obtained copy of Jaguar. To: Joe Wilcox From: Ed Peterlin Subject: Re: StarOffice OS X story Date: 03:10pm Jul 26, 2002 From: dan@bigw.org, dev@porting.openoffice.org, ed@dashboardbuddha.com >First of all, let me acknowledge your hard work. I believed it would have been better acknowledged with thorough research and reporting before dropping a bombshell story like this that has taken this entire community off guard and opened a new rift between the community, Sun, Apple, and God knows who else. >I can't guess Sun's motivations. In fact, the original interview had >nothing to do with StarOffice for Mac OS X. But I asked, as I always >do, and got the starling response you read. If the response was startling, I believe it would have benfitted from further investigation as to the motivations behind why it was stated in the first place. >My apologies, I had no idea you had a Quartz version. I didn't see >anything on the OpenOffice.org Web site today and was unusually short >on time. On another day, I also would have tried to contact you folks. >Does that version support Aqua? I don't understand how you had time to find this information out with the degree of specificity you reported, quoting multiple sources. By your own admission, this story was going to cause problems. Given the potential waves resulting from this, would it not have made more sense to contact the people who actually have been performing the work you are reporting upon and responsible for this OS X port? I don't understand how you had time to attempt to contact the people you quoted in your story but yet overlooked the Quartz build, which has been referenced on our mac.openoffice.org frontpage for the last month and a half, and is currently simply one link away at http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/build_mac.html Unless you expect me to believe that Tony Siress volunteered this information without question, your statement "was unusually short on time" seems to make no sense considering the entire Mac porting website is only twelve pages, and the Quartz build is referenced on the front page as well as six additional pages linked to off of the main page. Percentagewise, I find it difficult to believe you even read our front page, much less the entire Mac porting site. Added to which, stating that "I left a lot out from the interview", also conflicts with your stated time limitations considering that information. Off the Mac porting front page my personal e-mail address is accessible. The effort required to contact me requires only clicking a link at the top of the Mac homepage, and it is disconcerting that you did not have time to consider this. In light of the backlash you knew this story would cause, I would think that contacting at least one member of the OpenOffice.org OS X porting community would not only have been a basic courtesy but would have made your article more credible then it is. respectfully, ed peterlin >I can't speak to Sun's intentions. But I left a lot out from the >interview. I suspect Sun may be trying to seize on the opportunity >created by the Microsoft-Apple rift. > >Frankly, I'm CNET News.com's Microsoft reporter, but I run OS X pretty >much full time. You can imagine Apple likes that. I'm using Jaguar full >time right now (build 6c106, not obtained from Apple). Certainly, an OS >X version of Office would be an important addition. > >Thinking things through again, Sun's objective probably has nothing to >do with undermining or disregarding your efforts. A commercial release >of the code, with all the fonts, transcoders and other bells and >whistles, would be Sun's way of striking back at Microsoft in a market >where many users don't like Microsoft anyway and Mac Office isn't >selling so well. > >Please contact me anytime. > >Thanks, > >Joe > >On Friday, July 26, 2002, at 07:13 PM, Ed Peterlin wrote: > >> Greetings. My name is Edward Peterlin, and I've been leading up the >> community effort for the OpenOffice.org port to OS X, currently a team >> of two (see http://www.dashboardbuddha.com/OOo/ for my personal site >> in addition to the mac.openoffice.org site). >> >> I'd like to inform you that your story took the OpenOffice.org >> community completely by surprise, all two of us, and no possibility of >> this has ever been discussed with the community. Since April 2001, >> the OS X port has been wholly a community effort with no programmer >> employed to work on it. For example, I work at a medical device >> company, and the guy who worked with me to get 1.0 building is a >> student. >> >> Your story is interesting even if it contains facts that are incorrect >> (e.g. OpenOffice.org has produced a version that does *not* require >> X11 and runs directly on Quartz, but has not yet provided binaries for >> download). This took the entire OpenOffice.org community by surprise >> and could be the start of showing how Sun is willing to take advantage >> of the work of the OpenOffice.org community without giving >> acknowledgements when credit is due to the community, or even getting >> the name of the community product correct (it's OpenOffice.org!). >> While I am still awaiting clarification, I consider this to be a >> sideswipe of the open source comunity, especially taking the pure >> community effort up to this point and potentially completing it in a >> proprietary closed-source manner without even having the decency to >> consult the community. >> >> I would like to higly encourage you to continue pressing on this story >> to uncover its implications for the OpenOffice.org community and Sun's >> attitudes towards open source developement and determine if it's just >> Sun's ploy to obtain free labor or simply gross miscommunication. >> >> regards, >> ed peterlin >> >> >Joe Wilcox >CNET News.com >jyw@editors.com (faster) >joe.wilcox@cnet.com > >--Apple-Mail-4-41086678 >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Content-Type: text/enriched; >charset=US-ASCII > >Ed, > >First of all, let me acknowledge your hard work. > >I can't guess Sun's motivations. In fact, the original interview had >nothing to do with StarOffice for Mac OS X. But I asked, as I always >do, and got the starling response you read. > >My apologies, I had no idea you had a Quartz version. I didn't see >anything on the OpenOffice.org Web site today and was unusually short >on time. On another day, I also would have tried to contact you folks. >Does that version support Aqua? > >I can't speak to Sun's intentions. But I left a lot out from the >interview. I suspect Sun may be trying to seize on the opportunity >created by the Microsoft-Apple rift. > >Frankly, I'm CNET News.com's Microsoft reporter, but I run OS X pretty >much full time. You can imagine Apple likes that. I'm using Jaguar >full time right now (build 6c106, not obtained from Apple). Certainly, >an OS X version of Office would be an important addition. > >Thinking things through again, Sun's objective probably has nothing to >do with undermining or disregarding your efforts. A commercial release >of the code, with all the fonts, transcoders and other bells and >whistles, would be Sun's way of striking back at Microsoft in a market >where many users don't like Microsoft anyway and Mac Office isn't >selling so well. > >Please contact me anytime. > >Thanks, > >Joe > >On Friday, July 26, 2002, at 07:13 PM, Ed Peterlin wrote: > >Greetings. My name is Edward Peterlin, and I've been leading >up the community effort for the OpenOffice.org port to OS X, currently >a team of two (see http://www.dashboardbuddha.com/OOo/ for my personal >site in addition to the mac.openoffice.org site). > >I'd like to inform you that your story took the OpenOffice.org >community completely by surprise, all two of us, and no possibility of >this has ever been discussed with the community. Since April 2001, >the OS X port has been wholly a community effort with no programmer >employed to work on it. For example, I work at a medical device >company, and the guy who worked with me to get 1.0 building is a >student. > >Your story is interesting even if it contains facts that are incorrect >(e.g. OpenOffice.org has produced a version that does *not* require >X11 and runs directly on Quartz, but has not yet provided binaries for >download). This took the entire OpenOffice.org community by surprise >and could be the start of showing how Sun is willing to take advantage >of the work of the OpenOffice.org community without giving >acknowledgements when credit is due to the community, or even getting >the name of the community product correct (it's OpenOffice.org!). >While I am still awaiting clarification, I consider this to be a >sideswipe of the open source comunity, especially taking the pure >community effort up to this point and potentially completing it in a >proprietary closed-source manner without even having the decency to >consult the community. > >I would like to higly encourage you to continue pressing on this story >to uncover its implications for the OpenOffice.org community and Sun's >attitudes towards open source developement and determine if it's just >Sun's ploy to obtain free labor or simply gross miscommunication. > >regards, > >ed peterlin > >HelveticaJoe Wilcox
>
>CNET News.com
>
>jyw@editors.com (faster)
>
>joe.wilcox@cnet.com</fontfamily>
>
>--Apple-Mail-4-41086678--
>
I believe that the Fast Save issue was solved a long time ago. Equations, I don't know; I don't use them in Word. Pagination and line breaks, not even Microsoft does it properly. Even between the same version of Word, on two different machines, it can be different. But everyone should know that if you need pagination and line breaks to be the same, use PDF or PostScript instead of Word. Word was never meant to get those things right.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
I'm hopeful that StarOffice will be good for the Mac. (Either that, or I'll have to go write another integrated app - I won't use MS software.)
If you want to help out, join the development team.
Will I retire or break 10K?
12 months? Nah, give 'em 18. They're not gonna be moving to plain-jane x86, y'see, Apple is gonna want to get a real technological leg up on Microsoft by going straight to AMD's 64-bit Opteron, or maybe Intel's Itanium2. Plus it's gonna take time to work all the bugs out of OpenOffice:Mac and move the other apps. But yeah, in the end Power PC's days are definately numbered. Too bad. The PPC had a lot of potential and coulda been a contender, if only Motorola were not run by vegetables.
One of the beauties of the Mac OS is that there's a unform, consistant, and universal interface and scratchpad model. IBM pioneered the idea of a standard interface and Apple brought it to the GUI and applications with a vengance.
Not only do the MacOS and applications follow the same behaviors they also allow universal cut-and-paste. Anything you see that's editable on a Mac can be cut-and-pasted anywhere else that is editable and supports the medium (eg no sound-for-text.) Styled text, QuickTime multimedia, everything. This is more thoroughly plumbed then on Windows and certainly more extensive then on X and traditionial Unix applications.
It has always frustrated me when someone puts together a Theme and presents it as being the same as another OS. No. There's more to an interface then window-dressing. Another misbegotten kinda-sorta-looks-like-Aqua (but doesn't use the System Services or Quartz engine etc.) is exactly the sort of half-assed implementation Apple is selling the alternative to. Without a doubt if Apple ships an Apple/Open Office it'll be as high-gloss and thoroughly native as any of the iApps. That they've chosen Java as the platform to work from rather then Cocoa is a "Good Thing" for everyone else.
Yes Java is a completely peer layer in MacOS but it is portable and so anything Apple & Sun produce is instantly applicable to all of the other Open Office platforms (if not as nicely as the Apple implementation - think of this as payback for Apple having really committed to making Java a native portion of their OS.) This will also allow all of those other wonderful Java libraries to be leveraged in a consistant manner and become directly usable by Open Office.
Is this worthwhile for Apple? Yes. They get the only robust MS Office alternative to run suh-weet on their OS, now the best-selling Unix out there. Sun gets a partner in melding Open Office and Java, pusing their jewels out into the marketplace. The Users gets a better GUI on Open Office, one that can build on lots of other work rather then being another home-grown roll-your-own deal. They also get an infusion of all of those new MacOS X (Unix) desktops all using and supporting and developing further Open Office.
Win-Win-Win.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Yes, you've alreadys heard the arguements that Java is bad and C++ is good. That's not what I'm concerned with.
What I ABHOR, is dependence on external libs. Just think of the Unix world... More and more I see apps depending on external libs. That's why KDE and GNOME users are so bent on destroying the other. If I was to use all the (console) apps out there, without choosing lesser implimentations due to dependencies, I'd have perl, python, ruby, lua, netpipes and any of dozens of other interperaters, all running at once. Since I'm a little more stubborn on the subject, I'm using a computer that is several years old, and still only utilizing a tiny fraction of it's resources. But resources are secondary as well.
Even C and C++ programs are increasingly being designed with increasing dependencies. The problem is, if any one of those libraries has even a minor change made, the program won't compile. Then, you need to find the older libary, and attempt to introduce it, without destroying all the programs compiled with the old lib.
Just look at OpenOffice.org itself. You've got to download several large libs (which really aren't used for any other program) and compile those, as well as already having several libs, which may or may not be installed due to other programs.
Well, I'll stop myself before this gets too long.
Increasing dependance on external libs (such as Java) wastes memory (you're usually using a handful of fuctions of a huge lib), increase complexity, increases problems (the new version of Java was installed by another program, now StarOffice doesn't work), and is just plain and simple bad practice, and bad coding.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Am I the only one that still thinks software is going to be browser based? (that is, who cares about all the efforts to stuff stand alone packages on this or that platform)
Take a look at all of the current popular "productivity" suites. Most of the biggest, best, and newest features include heavy integration with a browser engine, HTML/XML parser, and native file support for Internet documents. The conclusion to draw is that the productivity suites are just pumped up browser shells. Don't get me wrong, there are a few things the browser can't do that these productivity suites can but I don't know if they do enough to warrant a $75-300 software package.
There are a lot of holes in my view but I'm certain the development community can fill them in eventually.
This relates to the current article because all of the discussion about beating MS Office and coding this and that for MacOS. I suggest these efforts may just be a smokescreen for the real innovation in desktop productivity which have to do with cool browsers.
How many times does this have to be said?
Well, you know one thing. Microsoft can't dare say that it's not fair for Apple to bundle software.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Serlets/JSP/Struts are great, but Applets suck the weinie. I've never seen a good one. Ever.
Is Sun's two-faced attitude towards open source. They open source a dead OS X port to let the community finish it, and then once the community finishes it, they decide to do the final leg as commercial closed source. What a fhole attitude. I say boycott sun...they're worse then m$ft and leech off the open source community without even having the nads to tell it to their faces.
This article has that interesting flare of speculation and wishful thinking which draw a readership, i.e., the ever important hits, but that doesn't mean it provides anything else.
/. seems to be doing quite a lot of this in recent months. "Revelations" about things new and interesting or different have lapsed into a rumor spreading for-the-sake-of-inane-rumors mode.
This isn't news. It isn't information. It's the heart of what gets gets hits on the Internet these days, lots of speculation and inane commentary about something that has no bearing on the reality of anything.
There are interpreters for C and C++ as well. Does that make C and C++ "interpreted languages"? The fact is that there are excellent native code compilers for Java, both JIT and batch. Java is as much a compiled language as C++.
however, the basic execution is bytecode interpretation.
For some uninteresting definition of "basic" that may be true. In real life, however, with a good JIT, all compute-intensive Java code is compiled into native code. Java byte code that is executed rarely may be interpreted, but that doesn't matter for performance, exactly because it's rare (in fact, it saves memory).
Of course the reverse is also true; the Java bytecode compiler cannot do as much type checking as a C++ compiler can, and it cannot do some of the optimizations that C++ can because until runtime it cannot know if they will be usefull or not.
That is utter nonsense. A JIT has much more type information and much more statistical information available to it than any C++ compiler. Furthermore, the Java language spec prohibits aliasing in many cases in which C++ does not, giving Java compilers a lot more opportunity for optimization where a C++ compiler can't do anything. So, even a batch compiler for Java has a lot more opportunities for optimization than a batch compiler for C++.
This is mostly offtopic and mostly pedantic, but, as a developer who uses several languages, I hate to see silly comments by language biggots go unchallanged. Always remember: All languages suck; some just suck less in a given situation than the others do.
When arguments fail you, you resort to insults? All I said was that Java is natively compiled (i.e., that there are native compilers for it) and that it offers more opportunities for optimization, two statements that I completely stand by.
No Outlook v.X. That's one reason why my office hasn't moved the Macs in the art department to OS X yet. (The other reason is no carbonized version of Quark XPress.)
If Apple/Sun or whoever really wants to get market share for a competing Office Suite, they need to have an integrated solution that can connect to Exchange servers and provide the cooperation features that Outlook provides. Then, not only would they have something that can compete with Office v.X but would actually be superior by delivering the functionality that Microsoft has yet to give to OS X.
Further, as a corollary, if Microsoft would provide Outlook v.X, then perhaps they could help their sales problems *AND* spurn more offices to adopt OS X who would upgrade to Office v.X and on and on. Microsoft shouldn't complain that their product is not selling when they won't give it the functionality that would help it sell. (Entourage sucks, most of us agree on that.)
Alas, with the friction between Apple and Microsoft, the chances of seeing Outlook v.X are probably slim. SOMEONE needs to connect OS X to Exchange servers to increase adoption of OS X in offices. And it might as well be part of StarOffice, don't you think?
Jaguar adds iCal (with features to share calendars), a system-wide Address Book, and iSync. Perhaps they're off to a good start to a PIM solution. Connect those and Mail to Exchange servers, and they've got it.
----------
Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
Then your beliefs are wrong. If you wish to check things out you can go and get the source. Java is not used for the suite (and was not for StarOffice either), but instead is merely hooked up in case you want to show Java applets in the browser, or to have an API so that you can write Java programs that interface with OpenOffice.
Except for us poor Mac users! ;)
#include standard_MOT.bitch
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Two things improve the file format changes in Word: 1. Word users are finally sick and tired of not being able to send documents to users of older versions of Word, so the Word file format is much more stable than it was at the height of the WordPerfect / Word rivalry (Corel ought to be banished for what they did to WordPerfect after v. 8 - malicious neglect, I call it). 2. Word is heavily based upon Unicode, which is an open standard; so "accented characters" should no longer be a problem if OpenOffice includes decent Unicode support (which I believe v. 1 does). In fact, since Office v.X does NOT include decent Unicode support, for non-English users OpenOffice might conceivably be a better match to Office for Windows than the MBU product is! I find this very, very interesting. Also interesting is the fact that one of the brighter bulbs on the Mozilla project now works at Apple, suggesting that Chimera might be getting a more central place in OS X (I don't know if it will be in Jaguar or in OS X 10.3 or some subsequent version).
One more problem: all OS X apps will have to be re-compiled for x86. I don't think that'd be too easy.
Porting Cocoa apps should be trivial, porting Carbon apps probably shouldn't be difficult, and Classic apps would need to be ported to Carbon (a bigger PITA than Apple lets on, apparently). However, what are the chances that all apps would be ported and tested on x86? Sure, the major popular ones would be, but what about the thousands of freeware and shareware apps that help make the Mac great when Apple's asleep at the wheel?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I wholeheartedly agree about Outlook. Microsoft has only themselves to blame for Office X's slow adoption rate. They priced it in the frickin' stratosphere for non-academic purchasers, and Outlook, arguably the most important app under the Office umbrella for corporate purchasers who can easily afford Microsoft's extortionate pricing, has not even begun to be developed (AFAIK).
Though I do like Entourage a lot for my own personal mail and calendar at home, I was very impressed with the improvements to Apple's own Mail, and iCal, and iSync to keep all my devices that need that data up to date. I have not yet made the plunge to OS X as my primary OS at home, because I don't have a Mac truly capable of running it. That will change, as my six year-old Power Mac 7600 with the G3/400 upgrade moves to the server room and a shiny, new G4/G5 tower being introduced in a few weeks (with Jaguar preloaded) replaces it. When that day comes, I will take a long, hard look at how much I *really* need Microsoft Office.
One of Apple's Jaguar pages vaguely hints at Exchange compatibility, but does not go into specifics. This worries me, because I'm hoping they don't just mean, "it's compatible with the POP/SMTP functionality of your company's Exchange server." Also, isn't Outlook/Exchange a proprietary enough system that Microsoft could raise a stink over Apple developing their own Outlook client, or even take measures (legal or technical) to stop/prevent it?
Oh, and don't get me started on those Quark assholes. They are just begging Adobe, "Please, please, keep polishing your X-native InDesign! Take our marketshare! Put us out of business!"
~Philly
with a link you are a fool. without one a liar.
If they use the JAVA-Cocoa bridge, Apple can speed things up by adding functionality to Cocoa. Apple already has the basic functionality of a word processor built into the application kit (multiple fonts, spell checking, WYSYWIG printing).
I wouldn't be suprised if OS 10.3 has a few new cocoa classes like NSWordProcessorView, NSSpreadSheetView, NSRelationalDatabase. These would be subclasses of existing Cocoa classes like NSTextView, NSTableView, and NSData.
I think this fits Apples strategy of making development for the Mac quick and easy. This benefits them in several ways: 1) They attract more badly needed developers to their platform 2) They can churn out iApps much more quickly than M$ 4) Once developers have tasted Cocoa, they don't want to go back 5) With so much work done in the Cocoa frameworks, Apple can make the frameworks run faster and make all the apps on a system runs faster. 6) If apple changes processors, they can make it real easy to port cocoa apps to the new architecture since all of the machine dependent stuff is done in their APIs.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
They have Qt for OS X, but I think you have to pay for it... and there is XDarwin to run X11 apps.. you should be able to get what you've written for Linux to run on OS X without much work...
Of course, the real joy of mac is learning cocoa... it's yummy.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
If Apple began selling OS X for x86 just to kill the megahertz myth, people would expect OS X to run twice as fast on the new hardware. When it doesn't, they'll either realize that Apple was telling the truth (that's a lot of effort and expense just to get people to buy into the megahertz myth story) or accuse Apple of intentionally crippling the x86 version to support its earlier claims. Either way Apple would be shooting itself in the foot.
Cocoa can do all of the grunt work for JAVA and JAVA can just do the controller work. Then you get Mocha.
"They also lose mindshare with the "megahertz myth""
There is no megahertz myth. Faster is, well, faster.
Its a sad joke when people and companies claim that although their processors are slower, they're more efficient.
It sounds more pathetic the more they say it, too.
Ultimately, MS would've won this argument if only because MS could've pointed to the Xerox PARC team's GUI that the Mac UI was stolen from.
Think of it...Amiga, Atari ST, and a bunch of others did a WIMP UI with no agreement from Apple. So its pretty clear that even Apple understood they didn't own what you seem to think they did.
But I expect that from a kid who thinks computer history started in 1992.
I thought that staroffice did have a java version in the days when it belonged to the german company called star div.
What happened to the original java version ?
Was that one the commercial version back then ?
Java's place is not in the UI.
Every Java applet is a pathetically ugly mistake. So I agree that Apple approached the Apple UI exactly the correct way.
Nobody says "Write once run anywhere" any more, except for servlets.
So get rid of the kool-aid and come back to earth.
In Summary - Java on Desktop = Sucks
Java on Server = Greatest thing ever.
Apple just purchased Claris & renamed ClarisWorks (avaliable for Win & Mac, if you purchased it you got both ports on the same CD, pity MS doesn't do that) AppleWorks
The team that was behind ClarisWorks then created Gobe Productive for BeOS, & just recently Windows & Linux too.
I wonder how similar Gobe Productive for Windows is to the current version of AppleWorks for Windows?
...instead of trying to steal office packages from other OSes? Windows has had Microsft Office for years and it has worked flawlessly!
funny
If I had made that statement I would have posted it anonymously too.
Though it was funny.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
What, again?!
Dude (or Dudette),
Something is seriously wrong with your computer.
I have a PIII 533 MHZ, 768MB ram and an ATA 100 HD and OpenOffice 1.0 Calc loads in 9 seconds flat.
From within the Calc window I can open a new Writer document in less than two seconds.
Given the program takes so long to load on your computer I would suspect your hard-drive (ATA-33? do they even make drives like that/how old is that drive?) is the real issue.
I can't comment on your document load time, I don't have your document available.
And just because nothing else was utilizing your hard drive at the time of your executing the OpenOffice executable didn't you perhaps consider that the execution of OpenOffice was enough to exhaust your physical ram which would have sent your computer into a swapping frenzy?
I do use OpenOffice on a regular basis and it far exceeds my needs so far.
So, the moral of the story here is that for every person out there having a bad experience there certainly may be a guy having a good experience. And mine is gooooood!
What is being argued here is an inaccurate article. The source code is over 300 MB of templatized C++ code. If someone can manage to assess a time frame for porting that to pure Java in 30 days, I'd be interested if htey could reveal how they came to their decision. The idea that we've had as an open source community was to use Java only for rendering button graphics and the like using Swing, instead of using the Appearance Manager interfaces for OS X. Using Swing would not only let us achieve our objectives of rendering Aqua widgets, but also potentially give back to the community and let Motif/GTK/etc. style widgets accssible from Java to be used in kind. But instead Sun decided to F us and do it all in closed source without our input. Sun Open Source = abused Free Labor
A few years ago when there was much uncertainty about the viability of Apple, McNealy at Sun stated that Sun should buy Apple and some in the industry called the proposed merged company Snapple.
Apple, Sun, and SGI should merge to create a giant UNIX company that serves consumers, businesses, and the scientific community and survive to compete against MS and IBM. Otherwise, if the rule of 3 applies, it would be a shame to see any one of them die.
I cannot imagine Java being of much use for StarOffice on OSX, given that the visual side of Java, AWT and Swing are very slow under OSX compared to Linux and XP.
Actually, MacOS X is probably the best platform for Java development and use. MacOS X has great, fast java support. I use jEdit as my main gui text editor on my Mac.
In any case, I think the article got it wrong. I doubt that the StarOffice gui would be done in Java.
t'nera semordnilap
Claris was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple spun off in 1987.
In 1998 Apple restructed Claris as FileMaker, Inc. to focus on its most profitable product, FileMaker. Apple killed the other Claris-branded software (Emailer and Home Page being the most notable) and returned the office suite known as ClarisWorks to its pre-1987 name: AppleWorks.
The idea of Mac OS on intel based hardware is not too hard to believe, I think it is a big step to say that Apple would be happy with it running on generic clone PC's.
Apple offerings have allways worked so well because they have controlled the hardware religously. It has hurth them in some ways but also been their greatest strength. (Look at th weird errors that can occur with weird PC hardware and Linux of Windows)
Possibly Microsft have even realised that half their OS programming effort has been to make it work with all the weird hardware configurations. This might be part of their push for Pallidum (but not tha main reason) to get truly standardised hardware to make OS programming easier and more robust.
Complete nonsense.
So I take it this means that, if you ever do want to edit an old Microsoft file that has been archived as PDF, you would have to do a pdf2text conversion and redo all of the formatting?
"Well, you know one thing. Microsoft can't dare say that it's not fair for Apple to bundle software."
I doubt Microsoft gives a damn. If it turns out that Apple's bundling StartOffice causes MS Office X to be unprofitable, then MS will simlpy abandon the product (as they have every right to do for a money losing product, and the antitrust enforcers could say nothing about it).
The article says Java based, so if that is correct, to me that would mean Java in the background, and a Cocoa front. With that said, I don't think that would happen. Sun wouldn't like that much because it would go against the write once, run anywhere principle. 100% Java apps do however look like Cocoa apps on OS X. With a few minor problems of course. Apple has been working hard on getting the Aqua look and feel working with Swing. It's pretty close, but I don't think 100% Java as we know it is what will be used. The third way is to use Objective-C. If StarOffice is written in C, then that is the way to go as far as I can see. You can use C alongside Objective-C, so mostly they would have to work on the interface part using Cocoa. I am not sure about C++. Also the Cocoa API came from Next, which ran on Intel. I have wondered a lot as to why Apple has not opened the libraries to other platforms. Objective-C will go nowhere, and there will be few developers until this happens. It would be good for Apple to open this up, and be great for development of cross-platform apps. This would not be good for Sun though. How would it look if they make this great app, and didn't even use the progamming language that they created and have promoted as being the replacement for other languages. It would make it look like Java is sub-par to C, C++, and Objective-C. My guess is that Apple and Sun are working together for something bigger. Sun is already looking to integrate into Java what Apple has done with hardware acceleration, who's to say that they aren't looking at something bigger. Like Swing2. A better windowing system than what they have now. This is all speculation, but to me there is something bigger here. Why else would Steve Jobs be antagonizing an already upset Microsoft? And why has there been no talk of .NET for OS X?
How is .doc which is a closed format with no published spec open while .pdf which is an open format with all specs published and freely available "proprietary"? Your comment makes no sense in context.
Don't we all!
" Win-Win-Win. "
That should be "Mac-Sun-Mac"
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
java apps in OS X aquire the Quartz aqua interface automatically. Its one of many ways apple is not M$.
The source being the actual transcripts available on either the DOJ site or Microsoft's legal site. As for your question of why Microsoft didn't raise this in court. It did.
Again, read the source documents not just the press releases.
I would suggest, without those URLs, that I think you're making it up. Microsoft hasn't challenged the Findings of Fact, perhaps you should volunteer to be on their legal team...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I am a dude.
Nothing is wrong with my computer, it works just fine. Nothing else takes that long to load, just Openoffice. If your statement is correct about running out of memory, then that really proves that Openoffice is complete shit. I've tried openoffice with just twm and not KDE&kwin and it still takes as long to load.
I didn't do anything goofy to Openoffice, I just downloaded it with apt-get. So then Debian's packagers must be at fault.
The fact that I'm having problems tied in with the fact that it looks like shit will make me recoment no one use it and use gnumeric&abi-word or KOffice instead -- if they're in *nix. KOffice doesn't load nearly as slowly.
Hey, Apple can still make tons of money if they switch to a software-only business model and give away their software free... Marketshare's the only thing stockholders care about, right? :)
actually, i run xwindows rootless often alongside aqua. just goto fink, download the binaries, and choose your default mode, either rootless or full-screen. not hard to install, so no biggie thatr its not included. (anyone who knows they need it can install it.) just my 2 cents.
Making the iPod available for Windows, is just another indication that Apple is opening up to a whole new market.
you're right, but you're wrong about the market: Apple didn't port iTunes to windows, they're using a 3rd party to give them software support (musicmatch jukebox). They're selling digital lifestyle devices that work on windows, but work better on a mac.
following the paradigm to StarOffice/OpenOffice, they'll be doing the same thing: selling (or bundling) something that works on windows/linux but works better on OS X.
by following that strategy, they're getting their foot in the door about how good their products are, without forcing people to switch overnight. That way, they attract more people to their products that have more lucrative margins. If they ported OS X to x86 hardware, they'd only cannibalize their margins that are keeping them in the black even in this economy, and place them in direct competition with microsoft over OS licenses. Not to say OS X wouldn't/couldn't win that, but the vast majority of computer users are idiots, creatures of habit. give them a choice between OS X - a wicked powerful OS that's a whole different story even to traditional mac users - and windows - the same thing they've been using for their whole lives, no matter how worthless it is - and they'll pick the one they've been using. even if it's more expensive. even if it's worse. hahaha, "if" hahaha.
Microsoft challenged almost every finding of fact and that was one basis for their appeal. Perhaps you should read the real documents rather than relying on what Jackson said since he slept through most afternoon sessions.
I'll happily quote URLs (just go to the DOJ's antitrust division site or Microsoft's legal press site) but you'd still have to actually read the transcripts rather than look for one sentence soundbites.
The differences between Cocoa and Carbon apps is troublesome enough without introducing the non-Mac behaving Java apps. The 'Aqua' theme for Swing apps doesn't make Swing apps behave like Mac apps at all.
Apple still hasn't hammered down what the hell "Save" means when the file has been moved/renamed after opening it. In TextEdit it will create a new file at the old path, in Carbon apps it will save the original file regardless if the path has changed (my preference).
Anyway I don't see how the current Star Office will ever become sufficiently Aqua compliant to be worth using.
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
My scroller wheel doesn't work because they haven't upgraded AppleWorks from Carbon to Cocoa yet. It used to be that Apple showed off all the latest technologies in ClarisWorks/AppleWorks but they've let AppleWorks kind of hang lately.
Imagine a flashy new iMac that not only ran Apples cocoa stuff on AMD chips at high speeds, but could dual boot into Windows for those tentative folks unwilling to jump right in to 100% macintosh but want the cool looking system.
Certainly could make a nice, semi-safe first step, once Apple has distanced itself from the Classic/Carbon legacy.
Okay, in the world of standard desktops and towers the heat is a non-issue but a snazzy little computer like the iMac would melt with a pentium inside. Apple laptops tend to be faster than the competitions as well because the can use the fastest chips available without the huge heat problems.
TextEdit can already save to RTF format, and Microsoft can't change the format without screwing up their own backwards compatibility.
If OpenOffice did that they wouldn't need to chase Microsoft around after every version trying to make sure they were compatible.
Perhaps they could add OpenDoc to the picture. I know Sun/Apple don't like IBM but it is in the best interests of all of them to really screw MS and OpenDoc had a lot of potential.
I hope this gets moderated up so people will read it.
This article is false.
Sun is currently in the process of creating a press release denying any involvement with Apple on developing a version of StarOffice for MacOS X.
I don't know when the press release will go out as it depends on how long it will take for the VPs to approve.
You'll also notice that the webmaster of OpenOffice.org is purposely NOT linking to any of these false articles from the OpenOffice news page:
http://www.openoffice.org/news.html
hi,
a couple of observations from the discussion threads:
a. java too slow for staroffice.
I am surprised no one mentioned Thinkfree Office, which is based on pure Java. The application isn't perfect, but I think it is quite usable. There is also an option within THinkfree office for Hardware Acceleration. I believe if Sun/Apple pull their collective programming might together, they could have a usable staroffice / java.
b. Is StarOffice for Mac going to be programmed in Java ? This gets fuzzier. There is an indie port over at openoffice.org based on X. I am not sure if those efforts are going to be incorporated into SUn/Apple'
s Staroffice. I suspect why Java as the first release is because the code is already available from Sun. By using Java, Sun and Apple can release this interim version while the C/C++/ObjectiveC version can be properly developed.
c. Thirdly, I hope M$ migrates the format to XML soon, so that proprietry format becomes a thing of the past. The compatibility in the current Thinkfree/Staroffice is about 70% at best.
cheers!
laxx
java based.... o dear o dear o dear! :p
lol
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