KOffice 2.0.0 Now Open For Firefox-Like Extensions

jakeb writes "After a massive three-year development effort KOffice 2.0.0 has been released (packages for Kubuntu are available) aiming to be a lightweight, cross-platform office suite that supports third-party apps and extensions. With its new design (everything, including the core components, is a module) and bindings, you don't need to know C++ to hack on KOffice, as extensions can be written in Python or Java, among others. TechWorld has an interview with KOffice marketing coordinator Inge Wallin about the vision for an easy-to-use office suite that supports click-to-install extensions like Firefox. Will this be the key to KOffice rising above all other free office suites? The KOffice devs think so. An online repository of extensions, templates, and content for KOffice? I like the sound of that."

Comments

KDE 4.0 once again...

[xtracto]

From TFA:

Our goal for now is to release a first preview of what we have accomplished. This release is mainly aimed at developers, testers and early adopters. It is not aimed at end users, and we do not recommend Linux distributions to package it as the default office suite yet.

Why don't they release this version as KOffice 2.0 BETA? Funny that they put the 0.0 number to kind of "inform" that it is the very very first version...

It seems to me that it is official, Open Source .0 versions = beta

Re:KDE 4.0 once again...

[Thornburg]

Not sure where you got the impression that a .0 version is a final "please use this for your mission critical work". That has never been true and nobody every claimed it to be the case. Remember Windows 3.0 ? I don't. I do remember 3.1

Unless you use a special versioning system (like the Linux kernel), any release that isn't marked "Beta" or "Release candidate" should be ready for prime-time... unless the first number is a 0 (i.e. version 0.6.5 is understood to be "Beta" or "unstable"). OTOH, 2.0.0 should be ready for regular use, unless it's 2.0.0 BETA or 2.0.0 RC1.

I agree with the GP, labeling a release 2.0.0 (without saying "Beta" or "RC") and then saying it's not ready for daily use by end users is kind of stupid.

You give Win 3.0 as an example... OK, Win 3.0 wasn't around much, but what DOS versions do you remember? I mostly remember 5.0 and 6.0. How about Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari? Sure, they had "minor" versions, but Firefox 2.0.0 and 3.0.0 were both considered "ready for use", likewise with IE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0. Opera 9.0, etc. A .0 release DOES NOT signify a "BETA", it signifies a milestone. If it isn't ready for public consumption, it should be market beta, release candidate, testing, or unstable.

Re:Color me not impressed

[salesgeek]

I don't think anyone is expecting KOffice to take over the world. That's really not the point. What the KOffice team has accomplished is creating a set of tools that some people will use and others will extend, and the extensions will bring more users. Making creating useful extensions easy is critical for an open source application - it's how you allow the community to implement needed features without central planning and control. That the KOffice team gets it doesn't need to be derided, they should be congratulated, and now that I have a word processor & spreadsheet I can extend, I'm going to have some real fun. Oh, and saying there is nothing novel here, well, you need to go read up a little. The KOffice team has done a yeoman's job on this one.

Re:Color me not impressed

[kimvette]

Bloat for you and me is a necessary feature for someone else, and vice-versa. The real issue is this: is the interface intuitive enough to not overwhelm the user, and is it spaghetti code or modular enough that unneeded/unused parts do not have to be loaded into RAM at run time?

Re:It's the document formats, stupid

[Risen888]

(Not the GP, but...) I can't argue with your first paragraph. KOffice's implementation of ODF, while improved dramatically in this release, is not fully compatible with OOo, and that's a pain in the ass.

Having said that, though, I'm really glad that KOffice isn't "joining the club with .doc and .xls." OOo seems to concentrate entirely on interoperability, and in a way they suffer for it. Whatever else OOo is, it ain't "cool" or "fun." KOffice, OTOH, has been focusing this development cycle on some pretty radical changes, both in the interface and the codebase itself. You know, actually developing software. I know this is a radical concept wrt office suites, but it's true.

If you haven't used the 2.x branch yet, you should at least have a look. It's unlike any other office suite. I don't like all the changes, it might not be your cup of tea, and it's a work in progress, but for cryin' out loud, at least somebody's trying. God knows it's not OOo.