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OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X Alpha Released!
An anonymous reader writes "Nearly 6 years after announcing a Mac port, OpenOffice.org has released the first release of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X that can finally run without X11!! An alpha is available for download today, but a lot of help is still needed to make OpenOffice.org available for Mac OS X. The site is very blunt: 'WARNING: THIS SOFTWARE MAY CRASH AND MAY DESTROY YOUR DATA DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE FOR REAL WORK IN A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT. This is an alpha test version so that developers and users can find out what works and not, and make comments on how to improve it.' Currently missing functionality includes printing, pdf export, copy/pasting, and multiple monitors. That said, if you're interested in participating you can visit the Mac team to figure out how you can help today."
Look, I know I don't even have any karma to burn and this may start some flames, but... Why? What's the point of this? The Microsoft Office Student/Teacher edition can be purchased readily from Apple's online store for $149 for the full version of Office. If you can't afford $149 for your productivity either:
A) Your time isn't worth any money and you should reconsider what you're using it for
B) You can't afford it, so how can you afford the computer that you're using
C) You just have no desire to pay for software and/or hate Microsoft for XYZ reasons.
Obviously all of those items are problems, but for the price and how good Office is for the Mac, I think it's quite a value. Besides, "free" is relative, this is alpha software that's 5 years AT BEST behind Microsoft Office. I think that Google's Apps are much more promising as a Microsoft competitor than a buggy copy-cat of what you can already get for a relatively low cost.
Flame on.