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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.
only a bit better than linking to their direct download links...
http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/ torrents for Linux, Solaris, and Windows.
A Mac OS X version of 2.1 does not seem to be available yet.
hackers of the world unite!
I knew the compile would take a long time, but months sounds excessive!
I teach physics lab courses at a community college. In the past, we'd had a lot of problems where students made a graph in Excel at school, took it home, and were unable to open it in Excel at home because it was an older version. I figured this was a natural situation in which to evangelize for open source. I got OOo installed on all the Windows computers in the labs, added instructions in the lab manual, and urged my students to use it, explaining the reasons.
Well, basically it was a failure. Given the choice, they all use Excel. In fact, even the ones who don't know how to use a spreadsheet already have generally chosen to use Excel rather than learning OOo. It doesn't matter that I go out of my way to try to help them if they show interest in OOo. In fact, many of them seem to read the OOo instructions, but apply them to Excel -- which works, most of the time, since OOo is such a total monkey copy of Office.
I would like to be able to say that their behavior was just irrational, but honestly I don't think it is. Actually there are at least two common graphing tasks that are extremely difficult to do in OOo. (1) Adjusting the scales on the axes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, no matter how many times I click on the right place, it doesn't work. (2) Fitting a line and displaying the equation. This is dead easy in Excel, but unless they've improved OOo recently, it requires a mystic incantation (typing two different non-obvious, complicated formulas).
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.
Find free books.
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!
"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.
evil is as evil does
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.