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OpenOffice.org for Mac Delayed Two Years
Athyra writes "According to their Mac porting page, OpenOffice.org will not release a native version of their software for Mac OS X (not counting the X11 version) until 2006. According to the project timeline, no real development can happen again until OpenOffice.org 2.0 hits Windows, Linux, and Solaris in 2005. Looks like Microsoft's got a cozy ride ahead on the Mac side of things for a while."
With the way that Apple has been swinging recently I wouldn't be surprised if they released an office suite of their own for OSX. They already have a powerpoint replacement in Keynote. In panther you will be able to read/write MS Word files with cocoa text apps. They have a simplistic email client in Mail.app, but it could easily be buffed up into an outlook like app, using iCal for calendars, etc.
Apple has shown that they can make seriously kick-ass software, so wouldn't it make sense for them to make a seriously kick-ass word processor already???
Even if they don't, I think that cocoa's newfound ability to read/write MS word files will probably spurn the development of some nice third party office apps.
Ack, the silly lameness filter says that I have too much repetition, so forsooth fair lassy, may thine future be full of ripe cheese and bountiful eggplants!!! Godamn it! Fuck you you stinking lameness filter, accept my post.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
While it may seem more *elegant* to have a native version, what is wrong with the X version? It runs great for me -- would there be better functionality from a native version?
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
Cocoa in Panther can handle simple Word document formatting natively, and will be publicly available around September. Various folks (in this thread and others) have pointed to that feature as a precursor to either Apple or 3rd-party Word-compatible apps. But what happens when, one month later, MS Office 2k3 comes out with its new "XML" document format? How quickly can Apple release a Cocoa patch that handles it?
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
It seems like it would be in Apple's best interest to donate to, or fork, or assist the OpenOffice project. The payoff should be excellent since the product is already mature, and they've had good luck with open-source in the recent past (OS X). Why not? Is it politics?
That "one type of customer" in this case; Mac user, is a strange breed. They are more willing to spend money than your average x86 user. They also have the option to buy MS Office for their platform (unlike linux). Most corporate users (a minority in the Mac niche) will buy MS Office instead of using something less compatible (they have to swap files with MS Office users on the Windows platform in a professional manner). This leaves home and education users to push for OOo. Education users get nice discounts from Apple on software, and most will buy MS Office that way. So we have the home user that is responsible for the push to use OOo. And remember, only about 25% of Mac users today actually use OS X.
The numbers just don't look good. No getting around it. It just makes OOo priorities that much easier to manage.
Sorry.
Anyways, its a shame that OOo isn't ready for the Mac. My wife who does the church bulletin has been using MS Office 97 (she tried OOo 1.0.x and it didn't cut it) just tried out OOo 1.1 and was very impressed. Starting soon she plans on switching over.
My wife and I have been using OO for about three years for my university work and our Sunday school work. It has worked brilliantly and the new version with export-to-PDF is fantastic.
I just imported the entire FreeBSD online HTML manual (copied and pasted from Mozilla) and about 834 pages later I have a beautiful document with all FreeBSD's original formatting intact and it looks great. As the owner of an iBook (donated from mother-in-law), I would love to see Apple put some $$$ into porting it. It is one app that would stop me buying a Powerbook at years end.
Personally, I find it really obnoxious to use X11 apps while using Aqua apps. The difference in look and feel is rather distracting, so it's honestly not worth it to me to use OOo until that make it native. Granted, part of that is the fact that I get really cheap software by being a student, so I don't have to pay the outrageous prices for Microsoft Office, but still, X11 is fine for people who are used to using some variety of unix, but for anyone who is used to the look and feel of the Mac platform will be disappointed by it.
As one of wxWindows developers, I also find it very sad that OO people have never even tried to contact us directly. I did see a discussion about using wxWindows to port OO to Mac on OO dev list and there were some things which were just false there -- and we could surely explain it if only we were asked.
Unfortunately this never happened and I really don't know why. We'd certainly be eager to help. The particular point about accessibility is a very good example of why collaboration between wxWindows and OO would be good for both projects because we are working on adding accessibility support to wxWindows but have encountered some problems with this. Surely if this is so important for OO (I do agree that it should be important!) they could consider helping us with this. We'd definitely appreciate help from people knowing more about this domain.
Anyhow, maybe using wxMac wouldn't be ideal for OO but I just don't see how could it be worse than postponing the native version for at least 2 more years. Maybe it's not too late to do something about it though! If anybody is interested in porting OO to wxWindows, just contact us at wx-dev@lists.wxwindows.org.