OpenOffice.org 2.1 Released With New Templates

Several readers wrote in to mention the release of OpenOffice.org 2.1. It includes support for 64-bit Linux and a number of other improvements, including multiple monitor support for Impress, improved Calc HTML export, and automatic notification of updates. Also, all of the templates and clip-art that were submitted for the template contest are available to download.

Comments

My Suggestion to OO Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Make it stable on primary platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX)
2. Make native binaries on Linux AMD64 and Mac OSX.
3. Increase compatibility with all version of MSOffice.
4. Make it less memory hungry.
5. Make it speedier.

Everything else can wait.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[nine-times]

You make it sound like that's a small list that doesn't encompass much. I don't know, though... I don't really have huge problems with stability. MSOffice compatibility is pretty good, and seems to be getting better all the time. Plus, I somewhat blame Microsoft for the problem, so no point in telling the developers about it-- they know.

By your complaint about OSX-native binaries, I assume you mean a version which doesn't require X11? If that's the case, you should at least check out NeoOffice, which is an attempt to bring a native port of OOo to OSX (including Aqua-fying the interface). It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good considering their lack of resources. Last I heard, it was a two-man operation. Still, it would be nice if the OOo people would either support the NeoOffice guys, help out, or make some effort toward bringing their own port to OSX.

So I guess we're really left with making it faster and lighter. I can't say I disagree, but it does seem like that might be a difficult task. Someone involved in the project might be able to tell me, would it make the whole thing run faster and use less RAM if you broke the thing out into separate applications? Personally, I can deal with the increase hard drive space, as well as the increased overhead of running multiple concurrent executables, if it means that any given executable can be launched more quickly and with less overhead. But maybe that's just me.

Either way, yes, I'd like to see OOo faster. Also, if I could add to your list, I'd really like to see the whole thing be prettier. I know, it seems like a minor thing, but it's easier to sell people on an application if it's pretty, and I do occasionally try to convert people to using OOo. I guess it'd be more accurate to say, it'd be nice if the Windows and OSX versions of OOo were to blend in better with their perspective operating systems. Running on X11 in OSX is a bit silly, and the icons and toolbars tend to look a little "off" in Windows. They just don't quite fit in with native applications. In Windows, it's a very minor complaint, but a complaint none the less.

Otherwise, I wouldn't want to end the post without being thankful and happy at OpenOffice's continued development. It's a fantastic application, keeping me free from needing Microsoft for most of my day-to-day tasks. And you really can't beat the price! So, if any OOo developers managed to read through all this, and didn't feel like beating the crap out of me for my nit-picking, thank you very much!

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[melikamp]

The OO development is driven by a community, as far as I know. It means that the community actually sees merit in having a free (as in freedom) MS Office clone. In my opinion, they are right. There are already free products which provide different functionality, like AbiWord, Gnumeric, LaTeX and etc. (I, for instance, stopped using word processors altogether after I've discovered LaTeX; does it mean that everyone would benefit from making such a move? I don't think so.) These are all excellent products, but their existence does not alleviate the perceived need for core MSO functionality, and hence we have OO.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[h4rm0ny]

Amen to that! No more new features. No more wizziness. Stop it freezing and crashing (especially base on Linux which is close to unusable), and make it work. It may not be as exciting as adding on another widget, but it is what OO really, really needs.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[killjoe]

"Maybe open-source is doomed to try to emulate Excel?"

A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. Excel was trying to emulate quattro pro and lotus 123, lotus 123 was trying to emulate visicalc.

What else do you want from a spreadsheet?

Personally I think spreadsheets are the most dangerous software on the market. At my last company we routinely lost millions of dollars because know nothing sales people used spreadsheets without understanding the math or the relationships between the data and gave wrong prices to customers. Eventually (I am not kidding) the CIO forbade the use of spreadsheets by the sales people and made them go through accounting instead. Eventually he had the IT staff write a custom app to do the pricing so that business rules could be enforced properly.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[melikamp]

You are right when you say that Gnumeric is a clone of Excel. But my original point was that it is not a clone of MSO, because it tries to accomplish a slightly different goal (what the root poster wanted OO to do, with no good justification).

I also agree with you if you are implying that Excel kicks ass, and there does not seem to be a better way to program a spreadsheet application. That may well be true, but there is no shame in trying to emulate it. Who cares if Microsoft came up with an idea first? If it happens to be exactly what the community needs, then let us agree that Microsoft did a good job for once and make our our free clone.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[massysett]

I do agree that Excel kicks ass--or at least that nothing else has come close to it. Every other spreadsheet I have used for Linux is inferior.

But I think it's futile to try to create an Excel knockoff. No one is going to beat Excel at its own game. Look at all the top-notch Linux and open-source software:

* text editors, like Vim and Emacs. These both come from a long Unix tradition. They're not trying to mimic a proprietary app. Both have unique features you can't find anywhere else.
* Firefox. It didn't try to mimic IE. It introduced tabbed browsing (before IE did, anyway--yes, Opera had it first) and has a thriving extensions scene (which Opera and IE do not.)
* Apache. There was and is nothing comparable.
* text procesing, like LaTeX. Has a long Unix tradition; isn't trying to mimic anything.
* X. I know of nothing else that has its robust network transparency. That certainly isn't mimicking Windows.

Now, what top-shelf open source programs got there by trying to emulate a dominant proprietary application? Maybe Samba. Any others?

If Gnumeric, OOo, and Kspread are any indication, cloning Excel is a futile exercise.

I think the best thing that might happen to all these programs is the new MS Office ribbons. If open source doesn't try to emulate ribbons, but instead goes off in a new direction, there might be hope. If they try to clone ribbons, we're doomed.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[massysett]

A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. Excel was trying to emulate quattro pro and lotus 123, lotus 123 was trying to emulate visicalc.

Yeah, but Excel and 123 both brought in new features that spurred their adoption.

Excel ran in Windows, a nice colorful interface with pretty buttons. It was the first spreadsheet to allow the user to select fonts. 123 was much faster than Visicalc.

123 and, later, Excel didn't take over exclusively because they mimicked the older competitor. Mimicry was part of it, but new features led to adoption of the new product. What new features is OOo bringing in that will spur its adoption? None. All it's got going for it right now is price. And current experience is indicating that this feature is not one that is making much of a difference.

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[mrchaotica]

First of all, NeoOffice lags behind OpenOffice. Second of all, NeoOffice just isn't "OpenOffice." I realize it's irrational, but it's important for public perception that there be an "official" native Mac version (i.e., one named OpenOffice).

Re:My Suggestion to OO Developers

[killjoe]

Price, no vendor lock in, open file formats.

Three big pluses.

Re:OpenOffice could use some innovation.

[urbanradar]

Well, the tasks an office software suite should perform haven't changed all that much over the years. I've got an old Macintosh SE standing around somewhere that runs Microsoft Word 4 - and it does essentially the same thing as MS Word or OpenOffice Writer do today. Of course, there are improvements and additional features, but nothing really really *really* major.

I think that basically, there isn't all that much room for real innovation if the software's tasks are that clearly set. Maybe some interface improvements here and there, sure. But there are only so and so many ways to insert a table, change a text's font or change a page's margins.

Re:my failed attempt to evangelize

[bob65]

My wife's reaction when I suggested trying OOo was that she wasn't interested, because she'd tried importing complex Word documents, and sometimes it lost some of the formatting. Well, actually, this is an extremely rational reason not to switch to OOo.

Actually based on my experience with even the latest version of OOo, importing very simple MS Word documents almost always never works in terms of formatting. And that's enough of a reason for me to not switch. Not saying that OOo should aim to support MS Office formats entirely, but people I work with use MS Word and send me MS Word documents. I have better things to do than encourage them all to switch to OOo.

Also, I have used MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel for years. I know how to do what I need to do in them, and I am too lazy to learn how to do the equivalent in OOo. I have a version of MS Office 2000 that works fine for everything I need to do, and I see no reason to use anything else. Heck, I'm reluctant to switch to newer versions of MS Office just because I don't want to learn a new interface.

Re:OpenOffice could use some innovation.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the beauty of FOSS - grab the source code and start your innovating and stop complaining!

Menu ribbon?

[edmicman]

When will OO get the menu ribbon? It sure is nice to have a good free competitor to Office 97 out there...

Re:Menu ribbon?

[Donniedarkness]

I think you're missing the point.

OO's point is to COMPETE with MS, not outright copy them. I think the lack of the menu ribbon will actually persuade some people to stick with OO.

Re:OpenOffice could use some innovation.

[PCM2]

OpenOffice in my opinion is simply a clone of MS Office suite. Instead of trying to mimic MS' product. It should innovate. Try things. Risk things. Experiment. Do something crazy. Remove all features that isn't useful or doesn't add to the experience and add features that rock. Don't let feature creep come in. Don't worry if the competitors got this many features. Until OpenOffice finally have a reason for me to use it(Such as killer UI or killer implementations of features), I will continue to use other word proccessor.

I agree about the need for innovation. I just recently started using Office 2007 and, though I thought I wouldn't like it at first, the new UI really is a breath of fresh air. But as far as feature creep is concerned, I think you're looking at the wrong problem. Joel Spolsky maybe said it best...

A lot of software developers are seduced by the old '80/20' rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies. Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%.

It's not a clone.

[Anonymous Coward]

It works the same way, but has a lot of advantages.

Just a few examples I've witnessed myself:

a) Oo.o opens files M$ Office won't -- I mean .doc, .xls, .pps, etc. It's better at M$ formats than M$'s own software! I've even recovered a bad file to save it and use it in Word.

b) It's more safe than Office software. I frequently use Oo.o to open files which might contain exploits, as I trust there are has far less viruses for oo.o.

c) It's better. Now and then I have to resort to Oo.o, even if I have Word/Excel at hand, simply because I know it will mean a lot less trying to make things work out right. With Oo.o, it's like 1-2-3-solved. With M$ Office, it's waddling through useless help files.

HTH.

Criticism Where Due - But Appreciation is Due

[Smackintosh]

I look at what's been done here...who knows how many endless hours of coding, several different platforms supported, an entire clone of the MS Office suite. What basically amounts to a very large commercial software product offering.

For free.

What's the benefit? It's FREE people! You don't have to spend a dime on it.

It'd be nice to hear a kind word or two in appreciation every once in a while instead of a bunch of ingrate whiney bitches.

widescreen presentations

[r00t]

Powerpoint can do 16:9 now.

Also common is 16:10. Some displays can rotate, so we need also need that: 3:4, 9:16, 10:16.

Arbitrary support would be good.

Let me say how to deal with mismatch: letterbox, letterbox-like but shifted up or left, letterbox-like but shifted down or right, stretched (with or w/o maintaining aspect ratio for images), cropped...

Also, don't crash when I try to force this via badly editing the XML. :-)

OOo light

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a stupid old idea (borrowed from what happened a few years ago, when Gecko started as a lightweight replacement for Netscape): has nobody yet tried to strip down OOo to the bare essentials (so it will look like NotePad!). Maybe this stripped down OOo gains some speed.