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Sun Joins Mac Open Office Development
widhalmt writes "In a blog post, a developer at Sun Microsystems announces that Sun will help with porting Open Office to Mac OS X. The open source office suite is well known on Linux and Windows, but does not have a native version on Mac OS. For a long time Sun did not want to join the development of that port but now they will actively push it."
OpenOffice.org runs on Mac OS X under X11.
NeoOffice is an independently developed version of OpenOffice.org 2.1 which runs on Mac OS X natively and without the need for X11. I've been using it for years.
The OpenOffice developers doing the porting should send an email to Steve Jobs asking him to help end this outrageous and inexcusable incompatibility issue. It worked for Greenpeace and J. Maynard Gelinas!
First we get news that Microsoft was recently acting all Mac Happy, and now Sun is acting Mac Happy. My, my, my, but these coincidences of timing in the software world never cease to boggle the mind!
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
...that it's a Java application. Sun is pushing for a non-Java, non-X11 native solution. I like NeoOffice as well and it has replaced Office 2004 for quite some time for me, but it would be nice to get the Java part out of the mix.
Serving time in Aristotelean prison for violating laws of physics
Sun already owns the rights to Lighthouse Design's application suite. Since these were originally developed for NeXTstep/OpenStep, they should be relatively easy to migrate to Cocoa. I'd sure like to see an Improv/Quantrix like spreadsheet tool put a stake through the heart of Excel!
From the blog:
The problem has always been that OO.o makes assumptions about GUI development that are well-suited to X11 and Windows, and not well-suited to Aqua. The question is, can someone who's learning Mac development as he goes push changes back to OO.o to make it more suitable for Aqua and other GUI toolkits? Can he do it before Sun changes their mind and de-funds the Mac port? Sun has a habit of funding things for about six months and then getting cold feet.
Which reminds me: I should throw some money at Ed and Patrick for their continued work on NeoOffice, which uses Java as a GUI adapter (!) to get OO.o tolerable on the Mac
Even if Apple were doing this (which they aren't), they don't have a spreadsheet yet. Appleworks had one, but it was pretty crappy compared to Excel or OOo. Personally, a spreadsheet for iWork is EXACTLY what I'm waiting for - I've been waiting on buying it specifically because I don't want to have to pay for it again, and I'll definitely want the spreadsheet when they finally release it.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I use to have a dual G4 machine 5 or so years ago when OS 10 came out and it ran Open Office. I think the big problem is that it used the X interface instead of Aqua, so maybe that's what they're concerned about. But from a user perspective I had no problem using just the plain ol' X11R6 version. Think it was via Fink.
Having Improv back would be wonderful. The best spreadsheet I've ever used - using Improv made using Excel or other grid based spreadsheets painful.
But then too, there was also this oddball thing called (I think, its been some years) "Advance", I only had a couple weeks to play with a test copy. Very powerful, rather strange. I'd like to have that back to play with too.
I'd use it - I use Mac at work for Photoshop compatibility, and I've wanted a true port of OpenOffice. I don't care too much for NeoOffice - I'll agree that it's a decent product/port, but for some reason I just want some OpenOffice. Go figure.
Huh? Read the summary? This guy didn't even read the title!
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
But this native port of OpenOffice reminds me of a problem I'm having with the native OpenOffice build I have on Ubuntu (7.04 Feisty). The font rendering is hideous, and nothing - I mean nothing - I've done has helped solve this problem! I've tried tweaking settings, recompiling from source (takes forever btw), and even export LD_PRELOAD=/opt/openoffice.org2.1/program/filter/l ibfreetype.so.6.3.8 but none of this worked. Meanwhile the font rendering for the rest of my system is gorgeous, including AbiWord, which I am now using in place of OOo writer until I figure this mess out (I may never go back to OOo if I can't get good rendering out of it.) It's like having a layer of grease on the monitor.
This is an application that runs on an OS. It's as likely as saying that because Adobe was working on a "native" version of Photoshop for the Intel Macs, that they were planning a merger with Apple.
Unless you are smoking some banned substance or another, I can't imagine how this would fuel any speculation about an Apple / Sun merger.
NeoOffice is an independently developed version of OpenOffice.org 2.1 which runs on Mac OS X natively and without the need for X11. I've been using it for years.
It was useable until it started opening Safari on launch and close- loading a page nagging me to give them money.
The unprofessionalism of that is absolutely staggering. The only other application I know of that does this is Acquisition- probably the most nag-laden software ever written.
Please help metamoderate.
Your understanding of the term "native" is rather limited, as used today it tends to imply the use of the libraries and/or environments most closely associated to the platform.
.exe files running under Linux with Wine.
In general, people would not refer to Cygwin binaries as MS Windows native, nor
I definitely welcome a native port of Open Office. While using X11 works, it still sucks big time. You can't use all of OSX key combinations, it's slow ect. I hate the fact that I have to use Office for it to be usable. Actually that shows how bad the situation is, Office sucks big time on Intel Mac's, and it's still far more usable then Open Office.
It still pales in comparison to MS Office.
Yes, I am complimenting Microsoft -- I am sure I'll be flamed for it. But frankly, they make the best office suite, and since theirs is the standard look and feel (although the new Office is a departure), the other guys have to play catchup.
I would love to use OpenOffice, I just hate the look and feel and have always been more comfortable in Microsoft Office.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Sun's history and reputation on the Mac with things not related to the JVM is pretty awful. This has as much of a chance of seeing the light of day in a usable format as their version of Watson. Give it a year and by then Sun will have 'realigned their priorities' via reorg or a RIF will have wiped out the group that is working on this.
So I say, bring it on! I think that getting a good implementation of OOo running natively under Aqua is key in the cause of reducing reliance on Microsoft. People switching to Linux obviously are going to use OOo or some other open format, but still too many people switching to Mac are relying on Microsoft. It'll be curious to see whether they take Firefox's approach to have the interface be consistent across the board, or if they try and take advantage of OS X's toolkits and design guides to make it a true Mac application.
I'm not optimistic about an OO port to native Mac, regardless of who is on board with it. Why should I be, given the legendary code cruft of OO, the lousy relationship relationship dynamics between the Mac- and non-Mac developer leads on OO, the well-intentioned-but-ghastly-performance object lesson of NeoOffice?
OO is very decent office suite on Linux and Windows. So leave it there, where it is working acceptably. I think any effort to take that code base and reconcile it to an acceptable UI and functional level on the Mac will be the definition of a trip down the rabbit hole, taking years to realize and resulting in a UI compromise that annoys users on all platforms.
Time to cut bait on this, accept that it never will be workable on the Mac, and free its development team to focus on improving it in the Lin/Win world. Better to spend development time and effort developing a Mac-specific office suite that uses the various Open*** file formats as its native storage, while providing a real Cocoa-based UI experience that actually integrates into OS X the way Mac users expect an application to. Not that Sun will come within a mile of such an initiative, but it's a great opportunity for frustrated Mac developers looking to solve a real practical problem...
Wow, I'm downloading NeoOffice right now. Well, I was. Now I'm not. Guess I'll just put normal OO.o on that thing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just like Apple secretly was developing OS X from the beginning on Intel processors, I think its reasonable to assume that Apple has a contingency plan in place. They do have agreements with Microsoft for continued development for their platform, so they will at least have some warning if they do get cut off. This will give them enough time to leverage a secret full office suite development into full fledged distribution if need be. It may come in the next iWork, but that's anyone else's guess. It would be great if they took their iTunes approach, where they implemented AAC, and implemented the ODF spec for the rest of their "Office" apps.
Secretly? Mach and BSD are designed to run and scale on anything from a wristwatch to a Google datacenter.
As for developing a full Office suite, how hard is that exactly? It's not like they don't know how to produce quality software (usable, stable, cute, slightly lacking in customization). So that should not take that many years.
Oh, and, I seem to remember that Office2k4 was the last version and that the continued develoment agreement is coning to an end now. Is that right?
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Err, that's rubbish. NeoOffice opens the default browser when there's an update. The update page happens to have a donation message on it, but the main thing is to inform you that an update is available!
MS Office is Carbonized, so right there you know you that route is lame! VoiceOver users are desperate for something they can use besides TextEdit. Accessibility comes for free with Cocoa! It is a PITA for Carbon (so much so, that Apple only made iTunes accessible with the last 7.1.1 release).
Or is Carbon especially appropriate for legendary code cruft? (MS Office and iTunes are also a krufty mess.)
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
With the upcoming Cairo-based version of Gtk+, Gtk+ is turning into an excellent cross-platform toolkit.
I think it would do OpenOffice a world of good to adopt Gtk+ as the standard toolkit and gradually phase out its own internal toolkit. By sharing the cross-platform development with Gtk+, both OpenOffice and Gtk+ would benefit.
spreadsheet app. I do not remember its name, but about 3 years ago, I was helping my neighbor move to a bunch of OOS on his mac. Tried to move him to OOfice and that was a nightmare. Neo did not cut it. More importantly, moving off of his old app was going to be copy and paste time. Wicked.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Here Here!
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
I think it would do OpenOffice a world of good to adopt Gtk+ as the standard toolkit and gradually phase out its own internal toolkit. By sharing the cross-platform development with Gtk+, both OpenOffice and Gtk+ would benefit. No thank you. Gtk+ will not help make it more native on the mac. While gtk+ might look ok on linux or windows, it looks like crap on OS X.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Or is Carbon especially appropriate for legendary code cruft?
Finder is Carbon. Safari is Carbon. Any application not written specifically for Cocoa (or next/Open/GNUstep), or where the application can't be basically treated as a support library for a completely new user interface, pretty much has to be Carbon.
Here is NeoOffice's official statement.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Disclaimer: I am a founder of the NeoOffice project.
Quote: and became an even worse idea when Apple deprecated the Java-Cocoa bridge
We never used the CocoaJava bridge at all. I guess you never bothered to read the source code. In fact, we use very little Java at all as is pointed out by the ohloh source code analysis of our open CVS. There's little Objective-C as we do most of the logic in C++ and call out to ObjC when required. There are some other stats there you may find intriguing as well like the estimated man-years and cost it will take to approximate our code.
Trust me, once any OS X port of OOo starts getting font handling and input methods correct, it'll slow down as well. This is true especially for Asian and other foreign languages. The bottleneck is in Apple's ATSUI and how it mismatches to the underlying OOo code. Has nothing to do with Java at all. Speed in a vaporware demo is one thing; carrying speed into a functional product is something different completely.
ed
No thank you. Gtk+ will not help make it more native on the mac. While gtk+ might look ok on linux or windows, it looks like crap on OS X.
Right now, it does. Right now, OpenOffice and NeoOffice look like crap on OS X. The question is which one has a better chance of stopping to look like crap any time soon, and that is Gtk+, not OpenOffice's built-in cross platform toolkit that nobody else uses.
As for the general style of your response, you'd apparently cut off your nose to spite your face. People like you are a disgrace to the Macintosh community: you combine not knowing what you're talking about with being obnoxious and opinionated. People like you make me ashamed to be a Macintosh user or to produce open source software for the Macintosh.
One would hope that Apple, in its expansion of development staff and facilities, would acquire the guys who produce NeoOffice, or at least hire them as consultants -- as that's already 98% of the way toward what OpenOffice should hope to achieve in a Mac distribution -- and have them guide things, as they already know where the bodies are buried between OpenOffice and OS X.
Lord knows they deserve to get something out of their years of hard work making NeoOffice the svelte speedster it is today.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
I run OOo 2.x when stuck on a Windows box, and Writer, at least, is decent. While it may look and feel dated, I couldn't care less. It gets the job done.
What didn't work for me were the X11 and NeoOffice ports: sluggish, fussy on early 2000s-era PPC hardware. I even tried setting up a relative's business on NeoOffice on Mac Minis, and its lethargy and idiosyncracies drove the employees crazy. That led to a pile of new licenses for the Redmond mafia.
For myself, I demo'd the gamut of OS X word processors and settled, happily, on the low-cost and high-powered Mellel. It's one of the only apps I've never regretted buying.
++
,but not the least, I appreciate the work Neo-Office group have put towards giving us an office suite in the interim on their own time and effort. Thanks you guys!
Am in EXACTLY the same boat.
I have been waiting for iWork to get a spreadsheet to complete the office-suite.
Until then, I will use Neo-Office.
AppleWorks is crap. As a switcher, I was horrified when I tried to use it. I think I opened Appleworks exactly once before downloading Neo-Office.
And I agree with everyone, it is high time for a rock-solid and fast version of OO on Mac OS X.
And, last
actually, I like NeoOffice more. They support docx, while OOo still does not.
Do not. Touch. Down.
I'm sure I'm not the only person to have had compatibility problems with MS Office for Macintosh. I've had a clip-art logo image that worked perfectly in MS Office for Windows, OpenOffice.org for Windows and Mac, NeoOffice - but just messed up on MS Office for Macintosh. Bars across it, colours wrong.
Ditto for a new font, which MS Office for Macintosh messed up the metrics. This was a font that had been explicitly installed on both platforms, not a native one. On the Mac it simply didn't fit the space available, OK on Windows of OpenOffice.org.
Andrew Yeomans
I'd rather stick with NeoOffice than go gtk+,
I use NeoOffice as well; it clearly is better on OSX than OpenOffice right now. But the OpenOffice people want to do direct port of OpenOffice to OSX without X11, and the question is what the best way of doing that is: should they write a new back-end for their own internal cross-platform toolkit, or wouldn't their effort be better spent on other things? If OpenOffice adopts Gtk+ as their standard backend, not only would OpenOffice development get simpler, Gtk+ would also improve more rapidly on all platforms. If OpenOffice attempts to do its own "native" port, I Gtk+ doesn't benefit, and progress on the OpenOffice port for Mac will be slow, too, if it doesn't get abandoned altogether.
The native gtk+ port to BeOS did no good either... [...] Its not pretty, just functional.
Of course, Gtk+ looks ugly and doesn't integrate well with OSX right now. That's because not a lot of work has gone into making it work on OSX. The Windows version of Gtk+ shows that it can work really well as a cross-platform toolkit if people invest the time in a port. In addition, the Gtk+ graphics architecture has evolved to the point where a high quality Mac port is much easier than it used to be.
Gtk's theming and UI is very flexible. It supports Mac-style menu bars and themes that are nearly indistinguishable from Aqua. However, fear of legal reprisals from Apple mean that they are not widely distributed, not even with the Macintosh versions of Gtk+ applications.
In any case, the problem with the GP was not that the guy was saying that Gtk+ doesn't work well on OSX, it was the typical knee-jerk reaction against anything non-Apple. As long as people aren't willing to roll up their sleeves, put up with a little ugliness, and start contributing, tools like Gtk+ will not improve much on Macintosh.
sign here: http://www.petitiononline.com/laafs/petition.html
Madness takes its toll. Exact change please.