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No Abiword For Mac?
aliya writes "With Abiword's version 1.90 coming out, their cocoa developer has announced that he will no longer work on a Mac version of the software because he doesn't want to support the company which treated him so poorly. There is a still a somewhat-supported X11 version available, though it is not kept current, and it appears that Abiword will join the abundant ranks of 'almost supported' word processors for Mac OS X."
Who on Earth would want to advertise their sour grapes to every prospective client or employer?
If you're pissed, just say, "look, I'm having difficulty negotiating a good deal with these people" or some kind of euphamism.
But don't let everyone know that things got messy!
From the cited post: "I had no reason to be a loyal customer (sort of like I was until 1988) and offer them what could *possibly* be a killer app on
MacOS X"
I should point out that AbiWord was a VERY integral part of the software system that got my business going. I can't say that the overall system, and therefore my company, would never have gotten off the ground without AbiWord, but the open document format and load of command line options/commands made it possible for me to save months of work by just dropping in command line uses of AbiWord in Perl scripts. The AbiWord programmers are great to work with and have been very kind and helpful to me.
However, I recently changed the entire system over to OpenOffice.org. While AbiWord has some wonderful features, OOo has a fully documented programming language and API. It's a full blown office suite -- if, by chance, anyone didn't know.
While AbiWord was very important to me and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the programmers and people behind the project, I cannot see anyone realistically seeing it as a "killer app."
To be honest, while I love choice and all the options in OSS, I think Linux in particular and OSS in particular, would be much more widely adopted (and would be much more of a competitor to Micro$oft) if, instead of having so many OSS word processors and spreadsheets, all that effort had been focused on creating one kick-ass office suite. Once done, different groups could take the code from that suite and customize it to their hearts' content, much like what's happened with Mozilla -- one browser, but many groups have taken the source code and created their own versions (like Galeon and Konqueror).
While no AbiWord on OSX is not good news, I think the actual number of users (in proportion to the total number of Mac users) who will be effected by this is very low. I'm sure most people that spend the extra money on a Mac tend to either buy their own word processor, or use OOo, since it is almost out of beta for OSX.
While AbiWord is a great program, it is hardly a killer app.
-braxton
No AbiWord for AtheOS either, so why is this getting a Slashdot front page story?
Going on what the developer perceives of the situation, it's completely understandable.
He was working as a new Apple employee after a year of contract work and was an eager supporter of the platform making many sacrifices to take the job. Additionally, he developed the Cocoa/AbiWord software as a hobby on top of his paid work. He says that Apple terminated him during his probationary period with the reason of "incompetence" and he feels that this is documentably untrue and unfair.
Personally, I think AbiWord is cool and I think Apple makes some cool stuff. But whether this story is true or fair is irrelevent. This is his perception of the way he has been treated and I feel he's absolutely right for terminating this hobby if this is what he perceives.
It's disappointing. I sympathize with the guy in his current situation. And I hope that someone takes over AbiWord development (it is pretty cool stuff). It's too bad that this had to happen in this way.
The developer of selfQuit has decided to stop development of their "possible" killer app for OS X because someone said their friend who knows a guy who works at an Apple store made fun of the program.