OpenOffice 2.0 Preview Release

The Register? by dan+dan+the+dna+man · 2004-12-20 05:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Or The Inquirer! :)

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I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?

OS X by cratermoon · 2004-12-20 05:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

But when will they ever have native OS X support?

Re:OS X by the_2nd_coming · 2004-12-20 05:21 · Score: 3, Informative

the OS X support is coming now, but they need help.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:OS X by pbailey · 2004-12-20 05:33 · Score: 4, Informative

They are looking for people to help on the project that is going to create the OS X native support. Head on over there if you want to help out. Should be an interesting project.
Re:OS X by WIAKywbfatw · 2004-12-20 05:42 · Score: 4, Funny

But when will they ever have native OS X support?

When the enthalpy of Satan's domain is reduced to the point where dihydrogen oxide becomes solid, perhaps?

Seriously, I don't know. But do you really think that asking a subset of Slashdot is going to be any more informative than the officially maintained FAQs?

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"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:OS X by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2004-12-20 05:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Has any software project (open source or commercial) ever decided to drop Mac support simply because they were so fucking sick of hearing OS X users whine about the look of the app clashing with their beautiful desktop?

It is true that Mac users often seem ungrateful in open source circles. I have heard them complain about lack of support for freeware open source programs many times, and it seems like beggars should not be so choosy. On the other hand, Open Office really is pretty awful on OS X. It does not integrate well with other programs, and does not support the majority of the features that make using OS X so much nicer than other systems. I do think OS X support should be a priority for the Open Office team since it is important to their cross-platform message for environments with a variety of systems deployed. It makes them a non-starter for any place with a few macs, that want to be consistent, and puts them at a disadvantage in comparisons with MS Office (Which runs as well on OS X as it does on Windows.) Since I can't really help out right now though, I can just make polite requests for improvements and hope for the best.
Re:OS X by RatBastard · 2004-12-20 06:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Open Office really is pretty awful on OS X
That is an understatement if I ever heard one. OOo on OS X is terrible! It makes my eyes bleed just to look at, to hell with the lack of ineractivity with other programs. I gave OOo a three-month trial on my Mac (after using it almost exclusively on my Windows systems for almost a year) and gave up in disgust and frustration. I moved to a OS X native word processor that supports RTF files and never looked back. I will not ever use OOo on OS X again until a native version comes out.

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Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:OS X by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2004-12-20 07:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

I tried it once, long ago. I used it for about ten minutes before learning that it didn't support such revolutionary and leading-edge Mac technologies as cut-and-paste.

Please tell me that they've at least fixed that little omission?

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I write in my journal
Re:OS X by IamTheRealMike · 2004-12-20 07:14 · Score: 4, Informative
I would love to see OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X, but it probably isn't a small deal. In a project that big, I'm sure there's tons of code that needs to be changed. As someone that has only programed in PHP, Perl, Python and ANSI C, I don't completely understand what needs to be done, but I realise that it isn't a simple matter.
- Rewrite the drawing/windowing layer to use Quartz instead of X
- Either use a native theming engine (but this requires a ton of tweaking, Firefox is the only app I've see that pulls this trick off reliably) or go the AbiWord route and rewrite the whole GUI to use native MacOS widgets (means rewriting almost all the GUI code in OpenOffice)
- Make sure the build system can spit out MacOS binaries
- Make sure it integrates with the host system with things like clipboard support etc
- Redraw all the artwork so it fits the Aqua "blue water" style
- Optimize for the systems graphics/kernel/linker characteristics
and many many more things. All of those tasks are huge. The first wasn't an issue for Linux but the rest were, and the work has been done primarily by Red Hat and Novell working together, as well as volunteers from the Linux community.
It probably helps that on Linux, people just got down to work and started fixing things, with the result that OO now tracks native themes in both GNOME and KDE, has a complete native Industrial icon theme (by the same Ximian artists that did the original GTK+/GNOME artwork), integrates with the native file pickers, gnome-vfs, and starts quickly (prelink and the GCC symbol visibility work was motivated largely by OO).
In contrast, whenever OO is mentioned on Slashdot all I see are comments bitching at the developer team and stupid (wrong) statistics being thrown around in an attempt to convince Sun to do the work even though they have no interest or need for it. Because, you know, Mac users are special so they shouldn't need to do the work themselves. The NeoOffice guys are the only ones I know of that are actually getting serious stuff done, and they seem to be years away from getting something that works well.
Re:OS X by Vengie · 2004-12-20 07:37 · Score: 2, Funny

Do you mean DHMO? That shit is *NASTY*.....

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Re:OS X by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2004-12-20 09:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

whenever OO is mentioned on Slashdot all I see are comments bitching at the developer team and stupid (wrong) statistics being thrown around in an attempt to convince Sun to do the work even though they have no interest or need for it. Because, you know, Mac users are special so they shouldn't need to do the work themselves.

Sun has done most of the work on Open Office to date. They have a vested interest in making it work on Windows and Linux because they need a windows version for migrations and cross-platform deployments and they need Linux because they are trying to sell it. They have ignored OSX, because they don't think they need it (and they may be right). It would be great if Apple threw some people at this and came out with their own version, but it is not too likely. As for the rest of us, the open source community, well a lot of people here would like to see it because they would like to use the same word processor all the time. Many of us run both Linux and OS X. When you say Mac users are special and have no need to do the work themselves, you are a bit off. Most of them are happy to use MS Office, and won't change because it would be a huge amount of work to port OpenOffice properly. Those that would like to do the port are stymied by too few developers that know both UNIX/X11 and OS X interface design. Also they are hindered by Sun's coding practices that fail to account for portability. Sun makes it very hard because they are not interested in the advantages of portable code, they just want it to work in X11 and windows. This is short-sighted, but a fact nonetheless. And just so you know, there are people working on it, and working hard. But without more help from developers and unless Sun starts to follow better coding practices, the work will be very slow. And MS will benefit from it. If you think the Mac market is insignificant, well that is 5% of the market you have just lost, who would be very likely to support an alternate/open format. It is more than all the Linux desktops combined. It is 5% more market MS can use to keep OpenOffice from gaining ground.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If MS provides the only functional word processor, Mac users will use it. Open Office will have less leverage. Sun will not write it, but they also make it hard for anyone else to do so and that is a problem.
Re:OS X by JCholewa · 2004-12-21 03:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

> At least that's where Bill Gates & Steve Jobs are light years ahead of the open sauce crowd. The
> interface is built into the OS, and if your app can't hook in, then you're only a script kiddie.

I'm not sure that I follow you. My web browser is Opera. It uses Qt. My mail client is Mozilla, which is XUL-based. I have a few cmd.exe windows open, which don't even try to emulate any widget set (in XP, the titlebar is even non-standard, which is something that even the most trivial of X11 window managers get right!). MS Office uses a different widget set than the OS itself, even though it's made by the same company. My editor, EditPad (really awesome), also appears to use different widgeting.

Where is this magic world where Win32 third-party apps are guaranteed to have the same interface as built-in apps? I get a slightly better degree of consistency with KDE than with Win2k, but the prevailing opinion is that Win2k should be solidly the same everywhere, and KDE should be confusing at every turn. Huh??

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-JC

Native Widgets? by user9918277462 · 2004-12-20 05:19 · Score: 4, Interesting

Does this contain the native widget work that Ximian (and others) have been working on?

This is key, IMO, to desktop integration and widespread adoption in at least the corporate desktop sector.

Re:Native Widgets? by pjrc · 2004-12-20 05:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

If you follow the link and read the list of new features or just to a search for "native" (yeah, RTFA... I must be new here):
Native System Theme Integration (Native Widget Rendering)
To enhance integration of OpenOffice.org with the underlying operating system, all user interface elements (such as buttons and scrollbars) will have the same look as those used in most other "native" applications for that platform. OpenOffice.org will react on-the-fly to changes of the desktop theme, so that when the user changes the desktop colors or theme, OpenOffice.org will adjust its own appearance to match.
Native system theme integration will be available for Gnome (version 2.4 or higher), Microsoft Windows (including XP and future versions), and KDE (version 3.2 and higher) desktop environments. On Windows XP the "Windows XP Style" must be chosen under Settings->Control Panel->Display->Appearance to achieve the correct look.
Theme integration will be the default for desktop environments that support it (listed above). Systems that do not support it (e.g., Windows 98/ME/2000, CDE) will see no visual change in OpenOffice.org. On supported systems OpenOffice.org will always adopt the theme of the system and cannot choose not to do so.

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PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools

Murphys Law by doublem · 2004-12-20 05:19 · Score: 4, Funny

30 minutes after upgrading to Open Office 1.1.3...

Guess I'll try and update Thunderbird so the next release hits the servers this afternoon.

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"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA

Database crashes a lot for me on Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-20 05:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Make sure you have java installed. Looks good, although the new database tool crashed a lot for me.

Re:Pretty Neat by davesplace1 · 2004-12-20 05:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Microsoft needs the help to keep their prices down :)

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roamingfeet

torrent by etaluclac · 2004-12-20 05:25 · Score: 2, Funny

I know suprnova won't be hosting it, but does anybody have a torrent?

Warning: Unstable build by VAXGeek · 2004-12-20 05:26 · Score: 4, Funny

Don't use this build! I downloaded it, instantly all my programs were segfaulting. I got bus errors all over the place, my RAID arrays are failing, and my ethernet device will only work in half-duplex now. I advise everyone to wait until the final release, unless you want to have ECC errors with your RAM, like I do now.

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this sig limit is too small to put anything good h

Re:Warning: Unstable build by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-20 05:59 · Score: 3, Funny

that's ok , my usb mouse now works backwards, the Cd burner now burns DVD's and the installer overclocked my P-III 500 to a P4 3.6ghz and upgraded my ram from sdram to DDR2 and tripled it to 3 gigabytes.

Oh and it scratched all my CD's and put dirty socks on my table!

the horror!
Re:Warning: Unstable build by Alien+Being · 2004-12-20 11:00 · Score: 2

That reminds me of an old Dilbert.

Manager: I'm here to fluff up the marketing for that program you've written.

Engineer: It's not really working properly - we told you we needed 6 months
and you only gave us one month.

Manager: We'll take care of it with a bug fix release.

Engineer: Well, ok, but instead of backing up your hard disk, it erases the
disk. Also, if you have a modem it calls up your friends computers and erases
their disks. And if you have a sound card it swears at you.

Manager: We'll call it 'Quick Protect'.

Better MS Office Support by dteichman2 · 2004-12-20 05:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

So does this mean it stops looking like a corrupt file to Office 2003. I'd really like for it to stop doing that (even though it's Microsoft's fault).

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Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.

Re:Better MS Office Support by Simon+Lyngshede · 2004-12-20 05:41 · Score: 5, Funny

What I would like to know is when does Microsoft Office get better OpenOffice support?
Re:Better MS Office Support by Planesdragon · 2004-12-20 05:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hypothetically...

if the OOo-made document opens in Office 97, 2000, and 2002, but breaks in 2003, then it *IS* MS's deliberate attempt to break compatability.
Re:Better MS Office Support by gardyloo · 2004-12-20 05:51 · Score: 4, Funny

What I would like to know is when does Microsoft Office get better Microsoft Office support?
Re:Better MS Office Support by dteichman2 · 2004-12-20 06:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft Office will get OO support when OO converts enough end-users that OO has more users than MS-Office. They will gain OO support at that point because OO will be more powerful and then it will become the "standard." In order for OO to become that powerful, they need to support MS-Office so that people will be able to switch easily.

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Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
Re:Better MS Office Support by MarkLewis · 2004-12-20 06:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

First of all, I'm sure the OOo developers would LOVE to follow the Word format correctly. That is, if it were a standard format, which it isn't, or if it were documented at all, which it isn't.

Secondly, let's assume just for the sake of argument that you had full access to all required documentation, had direct access to the internal MS code that reads/writes the files, and access to the developers who designed the file spec in the first place. Given that, you should be able to create a pretty good import/export tool, no?

So Microsoft shouldn't have any problems with their own format, right? After all, it can't be that tricky, and they DO have all of the advantages listed above.

Ah, but have you ever tried to import older Word documents into the most recent version of Word? Or even worse, to try to save a newer Word file in an older file format? It doesn't usually crash, but the translation makes OOo's Word export look pretty good.

Now, I realize that I haven't directly answered your question. All that the above is trying to do is convey the underlying complexity of the problem, and the fact that MS itself can't even get it right.

To address the specific issue of broken compatability: Given that MS makes a great deal (most?) of its money from lock-in to its proprietary formats, I would say that they have a vested interest in protecting their monopoly, no?

Of course it isn't proveable (think anti-trust ramifications here), but would it not be convenient, given this vast complexity of code, if some change just so happened to break compatability with a competitor?

Especially when you realize that when MS-Word imports older documents (even from previous versions of MS-Word), they get run through an intermediate converter that changes them to RTF, and then the RTF is imported.

You wouldn't expect the Word 97 -> RTF converter to need to change with each new release of Office, would you?

No, of course not. Not unless they were fixing a bug. And for a company where interoperability itself is a bug ...

An Access-like program? by h_jurvanen · 2004-12-20 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

an Access-like program

I remember when those were called "databases."

Re:An Access-like program? by EvanED · 2004-12-20 05:33 · Score: 4, Informative

"Access-like" is more specific. If they had just said "database" it could have been a wider range of applications. "Access-like" specifies that it's used like access.

MySQL is a database, yet I hardly think you'd call it "access-like".
Re:An Access-like program? by LurkerXXX · 2004-12-20 05:43 · Score: 2, Informative

Access isn't always used as a database. In many places, it just just a front-end GUI which talks to MS SQL, Oracle, or some other Database server. Access makes interfaces to the database fairly quick to put togeather. Usually much faster than writing a web/java based one.
We never use the actual Access database here. We just use it as a front-end. I'm glad to see an 'access-like' program in OpenOffice. We could use a nice free front-end to talk with a 'real' database server. Not just some lightweight database that comes as a part of an office suite.
Re:An Access-like program? by MadFarmAnimalz · 2004-12-20 05:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

I disagree with you pretty strongly.

I have worked in fairly high level management for some years now. Where I work, I am the only relatively tech-savvy person, and that includes our IT department (AS/400 without DB2. go figure).

As such, it falls to me to do any form of knowledge generation and decision support based on figures. So, I have been using access for several years now. While I truly hate it, I must admit that it strikes a pretty sweet spot in terms of features.

It is a database. A very poor one, I know. My inventory table reached three million records and access keeled over. I'm in process of migrating to a postrgresql backend.

It does not require knowledge of SQL. This is the killer feature, except no one seems to get it. The query builder is simply superb. I am an ardent FOSS advocate and I helped found the first Egyptian LUG. If I say it is superb know that I do not say so idly.

Lastly, it has been remarked in another comment in reply to yours that it is more than a database since it contains a form designer. I at least do not consider that atrocity in any way usable. Killer feature number two: seamless interoperability with Excel. Ad hoc reporting nirvana.

As such, I'm looking forwards to testing the 2.0 release. A proper access replacement will do wonders.

Now if only they'd fix the autofiltering functionality in the spreadsheet to only show filtering options based on existing filters like Excel... Then my linux migration would be complete.

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Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Re:An Access-like program? by learn+fast · 2004-12-20 06:45 · Score: 4, Funny

Maybe they just called it "Access-like" because it was still unreliable and buggy.

In XP theme ?... by Gopal.V · 2004-12-20 05:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

Couldn't they pick a less Window'ish theme for this thing ?. After all I don't use XP or any MSFT Os at home... How's performance on linux-x86 (redraw stuff) and what will it show if I'm running fluxbox (instead of gnome/kde interfaces).

And YTF is "StarOffice 8" == "OpenOffice 2.0" .. Managers do have this version madness you know (guess which sounds better ;)

The Writer screenshot looks better than MS word but how about editing. I've had problems with fonts in RTF output (which is what I use by choice).

That's it I'm switching this weekend !! :)

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Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

Re:In XP theme ?... by EvanED · 2004-12-20 05:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

It looks like they took the screenshots in Windows, so maybe in Linux they will look different.

Frankly, at least if they change it for Linux, I think a more Windowsish theme will help it's acceptance; it's closer to what people know and use now.

Native MacOS X support? by tji · 2004-12-20 05:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't see any MacOS X packages on their site, or any mention of improvements in that area.

Anyone have news on this? Or is Open Office effectively dead on the Mac?

Re:Native MacOS X support? by SuperBanana · 2004-12-20 05:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't see any MacOS X packages on their site, or any mention of improvements in that area. Anyone have news on this?
Also curious....because the OpenOffice team said OS X support was "never going to happen" in 1.x, not worth their time, wasted effort since 2.0 is around the corner, blah blah..."wait until 2.0".
MacOS X has been the most prevalent Unix desktop for a while now, and Apple's developer documentation is first class. Can we please get support for OS X? Pretty please?

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Please help metamoderate.
Re:Native MacOS X support? by Wordsmith · 2004-12-20 06:14 · Score: 4, Informative

FRom what I've seen poking around the site, native Aqua/OSX support didn't quite pan out for 2.0 the way it was supposed to. It looks like it still requires an X server, and still uses its own toolkit instead of aqua or a smart approximation.

Neooffice/J was the proof of concept to bring OO 1.x to the Aqua system. It looks like they made some progress - using Aqua widgets and controls in some places, but only a few, and doing away with the need for an X server. But it doesn't look like they've gotten much farther than that, or readied 2.0 to be aqua-native. That's a shame.
Re:Native MacOS X support? by Em+Adespoton · 2004-12-20 06:21 · Score: 3, Informative

Here's your answer: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/
Re:Native MacOS X support? by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 06:54 · Score: 4, Informative

Disclaimer: I am one of the members of the Mac OS X OOo team and a founder of the NeoOffice project

OpenOffice.org X11 on the mac is effectively dead because it is horrendously understaffed. There are less then 5 people actively working on it. Not good for an 8 million line + application.

While Apple's developer documentation may be first class, OpenOffice.org X11 is not built using Apple-specific technologies. It is built from the command line and is using X11 with its own internal widget toolkit. Oh yeah, and takes 9 hours to compile on a dual G5 2GHz. That hurdle is a bit too high for just someone to stroll on in and casually check out the project.

OpenOffice.org is a large and thorny Unix application. There are very few Mac OS X programmers that actually have X11 and Unix skills and the patience to deal with something of its size. Most developers come to the project and are like "can I build it in XCode" or "can I use InterfaceBuilder", find out they can't and then leave. The lack of a sufficiently large pool of skilled volunteer programming experts effectively killed OOo on the Mac from the start.

The native work has effectively moved to the NeoOffice/J project, which is 95% code identical to OpenOffice.org and uses Carbon and Java instead of X11. It still doesn't use Apple development tools directly, but it does have two of the original developers of OOo Mac OS X working on it continuously.

ed

Does it start any faster? by winkydink · 2004-12-20 05:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

A look at the new features page doesn't mention it. This is my major criticism of OO. It's frustratingly slow to open documents. With email attachments, it's a major PITA. I'll stick with abiword and gnumeric.

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"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

Re:Does it start any faster? by winkydink · 2004-12-20 05:38 · Score: 2, Informative

Goodness has nothing to do with it. MS Office is a de facto standard, whether one likes it or not. If one wants to interoperate with the majority of the civilized world, OO has to act like MS Office.
Further, if one ever hopes to convert the great, unwashed masses from MS to OS, they will expect to have an office automation suite that acts just like it did on their Windows box.

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"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Re:Does it start any faster? by rgsmith · 2004-12-20 05:41 · Score: 3, Informative

From the article:

Load speed is one area worth noting because of the improvements over previous releases. Launching the Office Suite installed on winXP Home SP2, with the program's "Quick Starter" feature disabled, produced the following results: OpenOffice Writer loaded in 10 seconds. The Spreadsheet (OO Calc) in 11 seconds. The Powerpoint-like presentations module (Impress): 9 seconds. OO Base (a new database program): 5 seconds. With Quick Starter enabled: OO Write: 3 seconds. OO Calc: 7.5 seconds. OO Impress: 6 seconds. OO Base: 2 seconds.

Re:is it just me by EvanED · 2004-12-20 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

I have a suspicion it will be changed by the time the final release is out. Right now it's just someone's idea of a joke.

Re:A more? by syrinx · 2004-12-20 05:30 · Score: 4, Funny

When fins brush by your heel
That's not just an eel..

That's a moray.

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Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

I tried it... by DamienMcKenna · 2004-12-20 05:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

I tried and and really, really..

* Liked the new installer, much easier to use and less klunky (on Winders).

* Loved the new interface, it is very clean and much more pleasant to use than v1.

* Loved the new features - the media gallery, etc.

* Hated how it wouldn't save embedded images. I spend half an hour working on documentation with embedded images, saved, reloaded, no images. Back to v1 for me.

I do plan on testing the heck out of the pre-releases (and sending it on CDs to all my friends), but once burned, twice shy for me.

One thing I would personally really like to see is a command line utility to automatically resave v1 files (or indeed any other format) in the v2 format. Run that over a directory of your files and never (in theory) have file problems again.

Damien

Compatibility by Wordsmith · 2004-12-20 05:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

Here's my completely subjective, indicitive-of-nothing compatibility test.

I have an old version of my resume I drafted in Word some time ago. It's not very complicated - just a few boxes of text and a table for the main content. It's been edited, exported to different formats, reimported and mucked up all over the place a few times over. The last version of it opens just fine in any version of Word, and looks good, but I can only imagine the leftover crud from several edits and imports/exports sitting around in the file.

So far, I've yet to come across another office suite that renders the documents the same way word does - although late builds of OO 1.x have come close. I downloaded the 1.91 preview version, on a FC3 system with the msfonts installed, did an almost-perfect import. One line that sits at the bottom of the document in word gets pushed to the next page in OO 1.91. Other than that, it's a faithful reproductoin of the special characters (bullets and a few accent marks) and hand-adjusted spacing in the table. The fonts all match and the lines break in the same place.

I think "opens Lou's resume pretty well" should be an advertised feature in any Word competitor.

Re:Compatibility by BagOBones · 2004-12-20 05:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

I would say its more important that My resume created in OO renders exactly that same in word.

Since you as the the resume author are the one with OO and your potential employer is the one most likely running MS office.

I haven't grabbed the latest version of OO but I do know that all older versions do not render my resume the same way that MS Word does.

--
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Re:Compatibility by Mr.+Slippery · 2004-12-20 06:01 · Score: 3, Informative

I would say its more important that My resume created in OO renders exactly that same in word.

Why are you sending resumes in Word format instead of PDF or RTF?
I have never had my resume available in Word format - and it's never caused me any problem.
If they want it for printing or viewing, send a PDF; if a recruiter needs to massage it to their own format, they get the RTF or HTML version that they can import. (Send an RTF and most people won't even understand that it's not "Microsoft Word format".)
This not only avoids promoting the use of software and proprietary data formats from a criminal corporation notorious for poor quality, it has the very real practical advantages of reducing version incompatibilities ("Office XP? Sorry, I only have Office 97...") and the risk of spreading viruses.
It's the right thing to do, and the tasty way to do it.

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Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:Compatibility by failedlogic · 2004-12-20 06:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

I've had an opposite experience to yours. When looking for a job last year, I forwarded my resume in PDF format to many different companies: high-tech, government, employment agencies, other businesses.

Several HR people called and said "Sorry, I can't read your resume in that format. Please forward it as a Microsoft Word document." (Yes, they specifically "required" Microsoft Word. Having Word on my computer, I obliged. I was lucky they actually called. Several never called (I wonder if they were able to "read" it). The problem of course is what if you save the document in OO and don't have Word? How can you be sure it will be formatted properly?

Funny thing to me is that since (AFAIK), there are no viruses for PDF files. With the risk of macro viruses in Word, I would have thought PDF more widely accepted - at least for security reasons.

Is it faster? by ajs · 2004-12-20 05:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Site's a bit slow right now. Does anyone know if the new release is trimmed down at all? Initial startup times for me can range from 10 to 30 seconds, and perhaps I'm just spoiled, but even celestia (a program that plots the locations of millions of stars, galaxies and other celestial bodies and displays them using OpenGL) starts up faster than that!

I like the feature-set of OOo, but I keep using Gnumeric and AbiWord for performance reasons. :-(

Very glad! by erroneus · 2004-12-20 05:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

For those who follow my own line of comments, you already know that I've been pressing for the use of OSS in my company from day 1... well more like from month 2 or 3 but my sentiments were knowns since day 1. :) In any case, so far I have experienced little to no resistance and a lot of welcome applause for it. In this office, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla/Firefox and The GIMP have been deployed with good reception. We're not yet at 100% but that change is just around the corner.

A little background: My company is REALLY unhappy with Microsoft after a BSA audit started after a disgruntled employee left here. We didn't have much in the way of compliance problems, but the nazi-like BSA left a really bad taste in their mouths.

Re:Very glad! by killjoe · 2004-12-20 06:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

We really should encourage all ex employees to contact the BSA. I have never worked anywhere that didn't have at least one or two desktops with much stolen software.

People who steal software must be punished. It's good for everybody. It's good for open source, it good for makers of proprietary software.

--
evil is as evil does
Re:Very glad! by Lumpy · 2004-12-20 06:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

the BSA is the friend of disgruntled employees... just like OSHA.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Very glad! by Lumpy · 2004-12-20 08:42 · Score: 2, Informative

We had a really pissed employee call the BSA and OSHA.

both of those groups will not leave without issuing a fine, even if you are 100% perfect they will find a way to extort money out of your company.

we would intentionally pull lamps out of an Exit sign, or take one down so that it was easy for OSHA to find a fine for us.

trick for that, NEVER do the same thing twice, they will fine you hard for that.

so if you think you are squeaky clean and looking at a possible BSA audit? set up something cheap for them to find and fine you on... it makes them happy and makes them go away fast.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:is it just me by sulli · 2004-12-20 05:33 · Score: 4, Funny

It's a PRE-RELEASE build, of a FREE package. WTF do you want with it, nuts and a cherry?

--

sulli
RTFJ.

Apple where art thou? by tentimestwenty · 2004-12-20 05:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hopefully Apple will adopt this lost child and popularize the world's first open standard for office documents a la USB, FireWire, Rendezvous

Re:Apple where art thou? by ViolentGreen · 2004-12-20 07:10 · Score: 2, Informative

A sticking point is that Apple probably can't get a perfect .doc file importer (nor can MS) and Apple really really likes to have everything work flawlessly or not at all.

I believe that TextEdit will open .doc files as it is now. I haven't tried to open anything complicated in it so I can't say for sure how well it handles it. They would at least have a starting place.

--
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Re:Apple where art thou? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2004-12-20 07:18 · Score: 2, Informative

believe that TextEdit will open .doc files as it is now.

Yeah, it is built in the OS, and can be enabled for text anywhere. It is still pretty basic (last time I looked). The problem is that there are just too many problems with all the different .doc versions. Apple can certainly make a good run at it, perhaps as good or better than MS, but unlike Windows users, Apple users will have a problem with the bugs in the reader. They are used to things just working and Apple really wants to make products that do that. I fear they will can it before they release something that is not close to perfect. I'm keeping fingers crossed though.

Access clone.. by EightBitHustler · 2004-12-20 05:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Access clone doesn't appear to open access mdb files. Hats off to OO for making the clone, but it's useless to companies that already have bunch of access stuff already.

I'm in the process of rewriting an Access DB that grew out of control for a few years. Remodeling the database has been a nightmare. The new app will use MySQL or Oracle instead using all SQL92 syntax. We're using a java web MVC framework for the interface.

Re:Access clone.. by YrWrstNtmr · 2004-12-20 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Access clone doesn't appear to open access mdb files.
No, it doesn't open an mdb natively with all the forms & reports. But you can ODBC in, and CRUD all the tables, data, and queries.
useless to companies that already have bunch of access stuff already.
Those wishing to move their inhouse apps off Access can use this to create new OOo front ends, using their current data, in its current location in the MDB.
Then, later, move the data out of Access, and retain the new, OOo based, frontend.
Remodeling/rebuilding a database is only a nightmare if the first one was built shoddily. Neither OOo, Access, Oracle, MySQL, or any other db tool can prevent that.

Getting better but... by SimURL · 2004-12-20 05:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

The work being done with OpenOffice is very much appreciated. However, there is still a great deal to be done. For example, the article reports of a load time of 10 seconds for Writer. On my laptop with a slow 4200 rpm hard drive AbiWord takes about 2 seconds and MS Word takes about the same.

The bundling of all the Office components into one mega-app appears to make for a sluggish suite and that is going to take time to fix.

Re:Getting better but... by MikeCapone · 2004-12-20 06:12 · Score: 3, Informative

On my laptop with a slow 4200 rpm hard drive AbiWord takes about 2 seconds and MS Word takes about the same.

Abiword is very lightweight and far from being as feature-full as OO.o . If it does everything you want, you might as well stick with it, though.

As for MS Office, it loads that fast because it pre-loads in RAM at startup. You can do the same trick with OO.o and it'll load in a second. The loading times in the original article were WITHOUT the pre-load.

--
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!

Tendlines? by warmgun · 2004-12-20 05:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

I use Excel for simple number crunching and data analysis. The most complex thing I do is add polynomial regressions of varying degrees onto sets of data. Now with Excel, I'm able to do this with several clicks of the mouse. With Calc 1.x, I had to manually perform the regression, which is a longer, tedious process. I read that the guys a OO.o were going to streamline this process in 2.0. Is it in this beta release?

Version History by managementboy · 2004-12-20 05:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Pretty easy, Sun bought StarDivision a German company a few years back. That company had an Office like Suite called StarOffice, at that time in version 6.1

A few months after buying StarDivision, Sun opensources the commercial application under the brand OpenOffice.org (notice the .org) and keeps a supported, shrinkwraped version with the same sourcebase as StarOffice. The two applications start in Sun's world as StarOffice 7 and OpenOffice.org 1.0 respectively.

Now it is logical that the StarOffice versioning keeps keeping pace with OpenOffice, as it is basicaly the same application minus templates and support. From a marketing point of view keeping two brands makes sense.

There is much more history to StarDivision than this, but that is another story.

Cheers!

Paintbrush AKA "Format Painter" by cuban321 · 2004-12-20 05:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

I wish OO Calc had the Format Painter feature Excel does. I love using it to clean up the format of a spreadsheet.

Re:is it just me by dustym · 2004-12-20 05:39 · Score: 5, Funny

No, I'm pretty sure the parent is correct. The oo people obviously are horrible UI programmers (being open source programmers and all) and this is really a genuine effort at an updated splash logo. In fact I'd go as far as to say that's probably what we'll being seeing in Feb or Mar. when it goes 2.0.

I commend the parent for catching this fault and letting the world know that all of those millions of lines of code are cheapened by a stupid mspaint splash logo in preview release. The open source world needs more UI experts like him to show us our faults and where we need to focus our attentions to "make it" in the real world.

Broken record… by shic · 2004-12-20 05:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

Any news about a grammar/style checking tool?

Re:This just makes maintenance harder. by pbailey · 2004-12-20 05:43 · Score: 2

"Microsoft already makes a good office suite that doesn't cost much" - well I would beg to differ. I think Office is quite expensive, specially if you have a lot of desktops. If you are in a position to just get rid of those MS licenses and switch everything over to OO, cost savings are significant, specially down the road when you don't have to add hundreds of dollars for every new box you bring into the company. And, your maintenance issues will not be impacted longterm because you will have one open source product to support instead of a closed proprietary one.

Obviously there is some cost to switching over on the training side etc. But once you have that under your belt, think of all the cool things your department could spend those dollars on instead of giving them to M$.

Re:Visio/Dia program? by Reducer2001 · 2004-12-20 05:49 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes. Dia.

--
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!

Re:This just makes maintenance harder. by Mathiasdm · 2004-12-20 05:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

[i]Microsoft already makes a good office suite that doesn't cost much and runs on PCs and Apples.[/i]
Wait, did I just hear you say that?
Let's see...
Office 2003 Standard Edition: $399 ($239 if you're upgrading from another version) for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook.
If you would also like to get programs like Access (included in the Professional edition: $499 ($339 if you're upgrading from another version).
Now, let's see... OpenOffice...
Oh, look. It's free!

[i]The upside is you "save" a little on price. The downside is you lose on maintenance costs and you'll probably get fired for not going the safe route. Just stick with Microsoft.[/i]
Maintenance cost... You mean like in maintenance when fixing your computer because Outlook let a virus slip through?
Or like with macro's in word?

--
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de

PDF, grasshopper by Gothmolly · 2004-12-20 05:50 · Score: 2, Informative

If you want to make sure your resume comes through clean, PDF it. No subtle MS-Office compatibility issues, you can use whatever you want to create it (OO.o, SO, LaTeX, etc).

--
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.

WordPerfect import by jridley · 2004-12-20 05:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

PLEASE!!!
My wife and our church both used WordPerfect for years, and have thousands of documents in that format. Existing conversion utilities, particularly free ones, really don't work well at all.
At this point we'd be happy just preserving the text and the basic formatting. Having images and complex formatting import properly would be nice, but at this point we're really just looking for a way out of WP-land.
It's kind of hard to believe that it's that hard to read a file format.

Re:WordPerfect import by managementboy · 2004-12-20 05:57 · Score: 4, Informative

This might answer some of your questions:

http://wp.openoffice.org/

64 bit? by scharkalvin · 2004-12-20 05:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Now if they will only fix the source code so it
will compile as a 64 bit application under
AMD64 based Linux. The currrent source is VERY
badly broken in 64 bit compatibility.

Re:64 bit? by Isbiten · 2004-12-20 06:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes Im sure you need all that extra access to memory for a word processor

--
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
Re:64 bit? by amorsen · 2004-12-20 07:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's annoying to have to install lots of compatibility libraries because just one application is stuck in 32-bit-land. Also, 64-bit applications are faster on x86_64 than 32-bit applications, contrary to just about all other architectures.

--
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?

They Canged the Icons... by Socrates+Demise · 2004-12-20 05:54 · Score: 2, Informative

...Now I have to change them in Google's Desktop Search again.

--
I hate stupid rules... Rules that make sense I don't mind... But the stupid ones just really bug me!

Re:still.. by rscrawford · 2004-12-20 05:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Until it has a "reveal codes" function like WP, it still ain't imitating "the best". ;-)

--
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.

You know you've been on slashdot too long.. by Kjella · 2004-12-20 05:58 · Score: 4, Funny

* Loved the new interface, it is very clean and much more pleasant to use than v1.

..when you read the above as "more pleasant to use than vi."

Kjella

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

Re:What is the database exactly? by flacco · 2004-12-20 05:58 · Score: 2, Informative

hsql

--
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.

Re:is it just me by technothrasher · 2004-12-20 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

The ugly splash screen is there on purpose. From the latest release notes:

this release will install as OpenOffice.org 1.9.65, it comes with ugly hacked splash screen to make clear, that this is not the final 2.0 build.

MS Access by tacocat · 2004-12-20 06:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

I read from the article that they intend to have an application that mimics MS Access.

I hope they do a really bad job at this. A full featured mimic of MS Access would introduce a variety of really bizarre errors, instabilities and WTfs into their feature set.

Actually, I'm surprised they didn't just roll off something that ran on a database plug-in. And that plug-in would support MySQL or Postgresql. By supporting both you avoid the flame wars and by supporting a real database you get some real capabilities.

Re:Impress font sizing issue by advocate_one · 2004-12-20 06:05 · Score: 2, Informative

If you have to resize your text to get all the bullet points to fit on one slide then there's something very wrong with your presentation.

I do believe there's some maxims that should be applied to presentations... one of them is never have more than 6 bullet points on each slide.

Another is that if the text for a bullet point spreads over more than one line, then it isn't very pointlike now is it and should really be examined to cut it down.

--
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.

Re:Visio/Dia program? by EvanED · 2004-12-20 06:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Okay, now one that doesn't suck in a Gimp-like "let's have have 27,000 different windows that aren't connected so if you change to another program you have to activate all of them in order to keep working again" way?

Or a way to fix the above problem?

Re:When will OO.o take out an NYT ad? by harlows_monkeys · 2004-12-20 06:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Perhaps an NYT ad would do the trick - let people know that there's a cheap alternative to Office, with builtin PDF support for instance

It's not really the same as the Firefox situation. Firefox is simply a better browser than IE, in almost all ways. Basically, the only reasonably acceptable reason for not using Firefox over IE is that you haven't heard of Firefox. Thus, the NYT ad makes sense.

OpenOffice, on the other hand, while getting very good, is still not as good as Microsoft Office in many ways. If you are on a platform that can run either, and you aren't picking based on philosophy (e.g., you simply hate Microsoft, or insist on open source software) or price, then MS Office is still the better choice.

So, any money that could be spent on an ad would be better spent on development and documentation, to try to close the gap with MS Office.

An amazingly nasty bug by civiltongue · 2004-12-20 06:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

I bought a cheap computer with WinXP but didn't feel like shelling out $hundreds for MS Office. So I happily installed OO and used it successfully for months.

But then I found that in one of my not-very-complex spreadsheets one cell just did not get updated (worked fine in Excel). This is in a tax reporting format that must work correctly! And it was only a lucky break that I noticed it at all. To me this is a killer (and not in a good way) -- features are pointless if the answers aren't right.

I pored over it for days, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Then I found that this is a known bug in their bugtracker database. I submitted my spreadsheet as a repeatable example (they didn't have one before). But so far no bug fix.

I'm hoping that it got fixed in 2.0 (but it's still in the bugtracker).

Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 06:34 · Score: 5, Informative

Disclaimer: I am one of the community members of the Mac OS X OOo "team" and founder of the NeoOffice project

It will probably be a while before you can even see X11 support for 2.0. Eric just got the 2.0 X11 based code to *compile* for the first time yesterday and it won't even run as setup crashes.

Part of the problem is that OpenOffice.org really isn't a "team"...it's primarily Sun Microsystems. Sun has four priorities: Linux x86, Windows, Solaris, and Solaris x86. Sun pays no one to work on Mac OS X support. Since it isn't one of their priorities, they frequently code without keeping the special needs of Mac OS X in mind, doing stupid things like hard-coding shared library extensions to only be ".dll" or ".so", neither of which are used by Mac OS X. They can't claim ignorance since folks have been trying to write Mac OS X code for over three years now, but yet they still don't even keep simple compatibility needs like that in mind.

Getting true native support for OOo without X11 on Mac OS X is most likely not going to happen within the OpenOffice.org project. All of our native work has been going on in the NeoOffice/J project. It uses a mixture of Carbon and Java to run using ATSUI for native fonts and Quartz for native drawing and printing. We also use full GPL licensing so we can incorporate the good work of contributors who can't get their translations and patches into OOo due to licensing and politics.

The process of giving it Aqua widgets has already begun. The latest 1.1 Alpha patches use native Mac OS X menubars. Aquafication is slow, though, because our first priority is to make it functional first, then make it pretty second. It doesn't matter if it looks pretty if it crashes after 5 minutes!

For what it's worth, it's already taken over two years just to get NeoOffice/J to the point where the native Mac OS X support is functional. By functional I mean that it can copy and paste both formatted text and images with other Mac OS X applications, has correct fonts and font layouts, functions with most all of the Mac OS X printer drivers, launches properly from the finder, works with the scrollwheel on those funky mice some Mac users have, has an integrated WordPerfect filter, uses the Apple Installer, has automatic upgrade notification, automatically translates the interface based upon your preferred language in the System Preferences language pane, etc.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 X11 has no native non-X11 support in it, much less the level of integration with Mac that we've achieved with NeoOffice/J. It's taken two years of some really dedicated engineers (namely, Patrick) to get NeoJ up to that stage. Replicating all of that work within OOo will probably take nearly that long and perhaps longer if the experts aren't there to help.

NeoOffice/J is in fact OpenOffice.org 1.1.2, and is 97% identical on a source code level. It's even got bug fixes that aren't in the OOo GM (such as functional JDBC support). This week we're going to be taking NeoOffice/J to 1.1 Beta after all known crashing and deadlocks have been fixed. And...

NeoOffice/J 1.1 Beta will be based off of OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, which isn't even available for Mac OS X X11!

Just keep up to date on the latest Mac OS X porting news on trinity instead of the infrequently updated OOo pages. RSS feeds are available too.

And don't let all of the politics and scare tactics of the OpenOffice.org denziens scare you either. NeoOffice really is the 'official' place for Mac OS X native OpenOffice.org and is where all of us core developers work (Patrick, Dan, and Ed).

ed

Re:Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by IamTheRealMike · 2004-12-20 07:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm not sure what politics and scare tactics you're referring to, but that thread seems to imply that they can't fold your patches back because of licensing concerns which is totally reasonable. They also said you'd forked the project, which also appears to be correct from reading your website.
What politics are you talking about?
Re:Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by JPyObjC+Dude · 2004-12-20 12:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ed,

The one thing I find depressing here is that Apple has not put some resources at this one. The benefit that Apple will get from having Native OOO is astronomical. The number of users who would be available to switch to OSX is much higher than people imagine.

Picture all those users who:
-- Don't want to pay for crazy Win32 OS prices
-- Don't want to pay for M$ Office prices
-- Are not sys admins (or capable of) and as such cannot, and should not, use linux
-- Who, rightly so, have an moral aversion to installing M$ software on a OSX box
-- Want stable enterprise quality office apps running on a stable system (OOO on OSX)

I know that the number of users that are above are in the millions globally. If OOO was native, all of the above could selling features of Mac OSX. I am not even thinking of the corporate possibilities here.

I know that many argue that M$ Office is available but it's way too unstable and the interface bites. Also programmability is poor.

Another argument against OOO on OSX is that apple has AppleWorks. But, apple has never and will never come close to the features programmability of OOO. Personally, I still consider AppleWorks a toy product not worthy of true enterprise Office hacking.

I am sure that Sun is aware of the benefits that Apple will gain by an native version and this is why they don't care to pay anybody to do the work.

Sad state of affairs :[

I am very glad that you have put in all the work so far and I will be glad to assist in the future in any of your 'forks' to get OOO 2.0 on OSX.

Keep up the good work!

JsD

[Looking forward to hacking python/javascript/... apps on top of OOO 2.0]
Re:Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by fiddlesticks · 2004-12-20 15:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

> Sun pays no one to work on Mac OS X support.

look, I know this is obvious and all, but since when has is it been one non-free OS company's job to support another non-free OS's software - even with the spirit of RMS blessing them (or not)

I'm sure you're doing a great job, but how's Apple's work on paying people to work on Dtrace?

Sun are doing a great job with the 4 (!) archs/kernels that you mention above. Maybe Apple could move some dev. time from, I dunno, fskcing widget extensions for OSX10.5.1.2.4.2 to chuck an engineer or two at OO.org on OSX?

--
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Re:Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by Ogerman · 2004-12-20 19:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Are not sys admins (or capable of) and as such cannot, and should not, use linux

Linux is just a kernel. There are some software distributions that utilize Linux which are difficult for non-sysadmins to use. There are also some which are nearly idiot proof today. (moreso than Windows, almost as good as OSX) Don't make silly generalizations about who should and should not use Linux.
Re:Not anytime soon from OOo...look at NeoOffice by Moofie · 2004-12-22 07:42 · Score: 2, Informative

Microsoft owned a small amount of non-voting stock, which I believe they sold at a tidy profit.

So, no, in no meaningful way does MS own a portion of Apple.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!

Re:In other words by YrWrstNtmr · 2004-12-20 06:36 · Score: 2, Informative

The one who makes an Access alternative that can CRUD an MDB will win

This version of OOo Base can do exactly that. The only parts of an MDB it doesn't work with are the forms/reports/macros. Tables (internal and linked) and queries are opened seamlessly.

Re:Pretty Neat by DrBobcf · 2004-12-20 06:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

I had trouble with Star Office doing that. I no longer use it after it ate my wife's obituary.
I have had no problems with the Open Office suite doing that. It also saves as a PDF file very nicely. Can't do that in word without a third party add-on.

All in all, for the price, its great - I have donated money to try and help. My programing skills ended with Q-basic & Pascal - dating myself (Hells-bells I'm only 51!!!)

I don't see myself ever going back to Word or any MS suite.

--
Don't mind me, I have more fun this way!

Re:Time to exploit the freedom of free software. by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2004-12-20 06:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

I fail to understand how any part of that response lies "on the other hand"--if anyone doesn't like what they get with free software, they have options. Two of those options are to learn to program and do the work themselves, or purchase the time and expertise of a programmer.

The "on the other hand" part is that they have valid issues to complain about, even if it is a free program. One of the reasons OS X is more popular on the desktop than Linux is that no one in Mac OS X forums ever tells you to learn how to program or RTFM. Learning to program for a non-programmer, or hiring a programmer are both pretty unreasonable solutions for most people. It is much cheaper and easier to just buy MS office (which is what most people do). There is nothing wrong with making polite feature requests. In fact it is very useful as it help the creators understand what people would like their software to do. On a very related topic, I'd just like to mention that I know a number of writers and artists who have expressed interest in helping out on open source projects. (Have you ever noticed how crappy the docs, help systems, and graphics are for many projects?) The response from the open source community has been profoundly negative. Polite offers of help and requests for information on what needs to be done have mostly been ignored and occasionally been flamed. The hostile and elitist attitudes of many open source zealots are really hurting the community. Perhaps you should be a little more understanding of non-programmers and you will find that they do have useful things to contribute, if you will let them. I know one open source game that lost the potential free services of one of the most talented graphic artists I know, simply because when he offered up a few sample textures and models for the game, he was flamed off the boards for offering them in the wrong format (something that could have been converted in about a minute if someone would have politely told him what format was used.) Comment like, "thats a windows only format MS-bitch" are not exactly going to win any friends. Now I'm not saying that you have been impolite, or that you are specifically causing a problem, but your attitude that non-programers have no right to make comments is just the sort of attitude that pushes talent away.

Re:is it just me by Elektroschock · 2004-12-20 06:55 · Score: 2, Informative

No, they just did it to indicate that it is a alpha. In Germany many IT newsmagazines published betas of OO 1.0 as "OO 1.0", so that has to be avoided. Users shall not get diapappointed by prereleases.

increasing Java dependencies a concern by jeif1k · 2004-12-20 06:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

It seems like the Java dependencies are becoming increasingly important. But if you have an open source office suite and it depends on a large, proprietary software product like Sun Java to function, then the freedoms you are supposed to get from using FOSS are not guaranteed anymore. Effectively, only the parts of OpenOffice that are usable without Sun Java are FOSS.

Let's hope that FOSS Java-like implementations (Kaffe, RVM, etc.) will become a drop-in replacement for Sun Java for OpenOffice so that all of OpenOffice functionality will be FOSS.

Yup, 512 MB recommended by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 07:15 · Score: 2, Informative

Although there's no "recommended requirements" section for it, 512 is definitely preferable. OOo X11 itself groans at running in 256, and using native windowing instead requires us to do some backing store tricks because some silly person decided that Quartz shouldn't have XOR drawing. The abstract drawing layer of OOo requires that XOR and isn't designed for any platforms that lack it. ed

open GUI standard by jeif1k · 2004-12-20 07:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Perhaps Apple should first embrace open GUI standards and integrate X11 into Aqua rather than treating it like a leper. Integrating X11 into Aqua would be far easier than what they did with Carbon, which is just as foreign to Aqua as X11 is.

Of course, Apple doesn't want to integreate X11 because they know full well that if they provided decent X11 support, 90% of the OS X applications would be X11 based, and that's not in their interest.

But, frankly, it's not clear that Apple wants OOo on their platform either--after all, they have a cozy relationship with Microsoft now.

Re:A more? by roystgnr · 2004-12-20 07:25 · Score: 2, Funny

When two patterns combine,
In a way serpentine...

That's a moire!

NeoOffice/J going Beta this week...2.0 plans by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 07:26 · Score: 3, Informative

Disclaimer: I am a member of the OOo Mac OS X "team" and a founder of the project.

NeoOffice/J isn't a prototype anymore. It got so good and stable that we decided to make it an official project. We just haven't changed the slogans and copy yet. NeoOffice/J 1.1 is going to be going beta this week, based off of OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 (not even available for Mac OS X X11). It will contain Aqua menus, too.

After we work out all the bugs and get NeoOffice/J 1.1 to final release, we're going to plow ahead with scrollbars and buttons and whathaveyou for a 1.5 release. We'll also be starting on the native work for 2.0 sometime next year, but that will take some effort, considering OOo 2.0 isn't finalized yet.

Our goal is to put out a final NeoOffice/J that is stable, well tested, polished, but most importantly, fully functional. It's generally our opinion that it's more important to be bug-free then pretty. It doesn't matter if it's got pretty blue buttons if it crashes after typing 5 words, and there are definitely testers and users who agree ;)

ed

yeah, this is nice but... by bcarl314 · 2004-12-20 07:31 · Score: 2, Funny

Do they have a "clippy-like" help system?

That's what I need! I mean, I'm running OOo 1.1.something (do minor minor versions really mean anything anyway?), and I just can't get that authentic MS feel without Clippy.

Re:yeah, this is nice but... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-20 08:14 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually, yes... there's that annoying little light bulb.

Read further on in the thread... by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 07:35 · Score: 3, Informative

Read further along for great comments like the disinformation in this which omits our 2.0 plans. There's other ones like this where the project is described as "harmful and destractive" to OpenOffice.org. And this was all in response to a user just saying he enjoyed NeoJ.

If responses like those are not politics and scare tactics, I don't know what is.

(and yes, we do have patches that we've relicensed and submitted that do not get committed back into OOo, such as UTF8 filename support).

ed

Re:Read further on in the thread... by IamTheRealMike · 2004-12-20 07:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

OK, look I want you to understand that I'm not doing your efforts down - it's great that you're actually writing code instead of whinging like so many others - but I read those emails and I have to admit I agree (for once) with Sander.
For starters, let's look at the so called "disinformation" spread here. I'm not sure what your 2.0 plans are, because neither of your websites (confusingly there are two, which look the same but aren't) seem to mention any on the front page or FAQ. So I don't know what your 2.0 plans are, but if you simply intend to do the work all over again for each major release of OpenOffice then sorry but I think that's nuts. It'd be a massive amount of work even for a full time team, and you only have volunteers.
The most likely outcome is that users of NeoOffice are constantly using an out of date version of OO and will be telling friends and relatives "oh, OpenOffice is OK but it's missing feature XYZ that I need" when that's actually been implemented in a later version. I can see why Sander thinks this would be harmful (though I would not have put it as bluntly).
Re:Read further on in the thread... by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 08:16 · Score: 3, Informative

Well, he's not got any plans for 2.0 Mac OS X either and there are certainly no paid engineers working on native OS X support for OpenOffice.org. It's a shame when folks have to start talking smack citing their own vaporware, and this is even free software ;)

As to "do the work all over again", Neo/J isn't engineered that way. It's actually only over a meg tarball in size. It's so small that the source is actually included in the installer dimages. The way it works is that Neo/J first automatically downloads and builds OpenOffice.org X11. After that, it replaces the X11 components with its own. The X11 dependent components are actually quite small when compared to the largesse of OOo.

ed
Re:Read further on in the thread... by soullessbastard · 2004-12-20 08:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Thanks for the well wishes :) The good thing is that the patches are mostly to sections of code that are moderately stable. Most of the source tarball winds up being the new Carbon and Java code that's replacing the X11 code. As long as we can keep up with changes to the interfaces things will be good. The worst one for Patrick was adding right-to-left and vertical text support, but beyond that I can't imagine any other drastic unanticipated changes to how OOo expects to draw lines ;) ed

It's not necessarily deliberate by jesterzog · 2004-12-20 08:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

if the OOo-made document opens in Office 97, 2000, and 2002, but breaks in 2003, then it *IS* MS's deliberate attempt to break compatability.

Not necessarily. It's quite possible that the OpenOffice developers have reverse-engineered them incorrectly in a way that is only noticed by later versions of MS Word.

An easy comparison would be that many web browsers display malformed HTML, but that doesn't make it correct HTML and there's no guarantee that future browsers will continue to display it in the future. It's quite possible that anyone having to reverse-engineer HTML without access to the specifications might mis-interpret something and end up generating something malformed that would be displayed by some earlier browser versions but not later ones.

Undocumented formats suck, but I think it's premature to suggest that Microsoft is deliberately targetting the reverse engineers just because a later version of Word fails to open something that earlier versions will open. I'm sure that certain people running Microsoft wouldn't care in the slightest about this incompatibility, and it's most likely the effect they're after with the closed format. It's also possible that the Microsoft developers simply adjusted part of their document model that the OpenOffice team had semantically mis-interpreted.

outline processor by samantha · 2004-12-20 08:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

I cannot write anything long than a page without a real outline processor to organize my thoughts/blatherings. Word has one built in. It will be a great day when OO has one too. And no, building one in myself is not in my line of expertise.

Re:it's no Firefox... by Skjellifetti · 2004-12-20 08:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

I want 'em to do to OO.o what Firefox did to Mozilla: Split the package into multiple independent programs. I get mad every time I choose "Exit" on writer forgetting that it will also kill my spreadsheets.

--
FreeSpeech.org

Re:When will OO.o take out an NYT ad? by obdurate · 2004-12-20 08:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your points are well taken, however you have not considered that Explorer is effectively free, like Firefox. So, Firefox has to be _much_ better simply to gain any consideration. The fact that OOO is free while MS Office comes at a premium price will eventually be worth shouting from the rooftops. Still, I suspect it's too soon for any one-off ad to have much effect.

--

Nuclear war would certainly set back cable--Ted Turner

Intelectual Property and quips by cbr2702 · 2004-12-20 10:22 · Score: 2, Informative

The protection of quips is interesting; you might like to have a look at Copyright for Short Phrases.

Of course that article adresses only legality. For the morality of it, I would say that because we grant copyright to promote innovation and art, we should not protect short phrases in most circumstanses. People offer quips spontaneosly for the approval of the people around them and for their own enjoyment, so protecting them does not promote innovation or art. And the harms of restricting these phrases are great, as every time I want to print something, I need to check if someone else was inspired the same way. This is a far smaller risk for larger works, as the ways of expressing the same idea grow exponentially with the number of words allowed. So while I admire you generosity I think it may be misplaced.

--

This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.

Re:Time to exploit the freedom of free software. by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2004-12-21 04:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can see that you have missed my point. What I was saying is that people will pay for a finished project, but unless someone makes a huge effort to organize them, they will not contract someone to write/port one. Most users are just fine with MS Office, and are not looking hard for an alternative. If one was presented, they would consider it, and it would likely gain popularity, but hiring someone is just not going to happen. Open Source extremists do not run OS X. OS X is for people who want power, and ease of use, and don't mind paying money for it, and don't care if all the source is open, so long as it works. MS Office works (but is buggy), OpenOffice does not (it is somewhat functional, but not finished).

Personally, I don't use OpenOffice or MS Office except to test the compatibility of files. The reason I mentioned that I think the OpenOffice team should consider putting effort into it, is because it is a good strategic move to prevent MS from killing them with their proprietary format lock-in. I don't expect Sun to actually care that much about promoting open standards and, realistically, they have done most of the work to date.

I will continue to use OS X, thank you, and Windows, and NetBSD, and Linux. I don't imagine I will be using OpenOffice for much anytime soon, and I don't expect MS's .doc format will stop being the standard for home/office file sharing.

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