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Sun buys maker of StarOffice
Anonymous Coward writes "CNet reports that Sun has bought Star Division-
the maker of StarOffice for Linux and other OSs.
" Purchase price unknown, but it fits into Sun's strategy quite nicely.
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Even /.'s venerable C=commodore 64 server cannot withstand the /. effect.
All things considered, seems like it has been remarkably stable. Very unlikely that the "outage" had anything to do with bugs or instability in Linux or Apache.
I'm pretty sure Sun has had a strong presence at StarOffice for a few years now. As in "Driving Force".
Staroffice is more than an office suite, it's a whole environment that essentially becomes your system GUI. At least that's what it feels like to me. When I tried it, I was a little uncomfortable with how "pervasive" it was.
Netscape appears frozen. There appears to be nothing coherent RE: a Linux strategy, like there used to be. The Sun/Aol/Netscape merger, if anything, appears to have had a negative impact on Linux support.
Of course, like so many are fond of saying:
Don't like it? "Go Build Your Own Computer, Write your own OS, Write Your Own Apps" Yeah Right.
There was a time when a pervasive hardware startegy -- like the one used by Mac, SGI and Sun -- worked well. Very well. I hope all these (essentially) hardware vendors will:
1) Back off their closed OS's (SGI is doing this)
2) Make ATX-style mobo's that use industry style RAM, etc.
3) Come up with some cool cases, in the spirit of the iMac, to put the industry standard parts in.
Who wouldn't want a case designed and built by SGI, loaded with a motherboard designed by Sun, and running an OS that was as robust as Solaris and as easy to use as MacOS?
Sun will probably ditch the Linux ports. Or all ports except Windows and Solaris. This could be VERY good news for Corel when they have their Linux office package finally ready to go out the door. There won't be any competition except the free stuff.
Sun is the #1 Unix vendor in the world, and they are quite vulnerable to Linux-on-Intel. Note the lack of announcements this year from Sun about the Linux bandwagon. Sun may plan to support the Windows and Solaris versions of Star Office and that's it.
Can someone get in touch with those mongies over at sun, and try and get a straight answer out of them id hate to see StarOffice (linux) go the way of the DODO.
next to gnomehack, for no reason, next to my WindowMaker DockApps.
Linux is a smorgasbord!
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Slashdot is further proof that you can make money with a crappy product. Just like Linux really.
according to the /. uptime meter, its been up for 4 and a half days. So the last outage was obviously due to something other than the OS.
I don't think StarOffice will be absorbed into the Java Platform, being that the platform (at least the JavaOS part) just took a bullet.
Maybe they'll finally kill that fat bloated pig (StarOffice.) I can't imagine rewriting it in Java would slow it down much more if they decide to do that instead. They can't speed it up -- principle rule of software development is that software never gets smaller or faster (That software is faster is only the result of faster hardware.)
Will Corel Office ship on more than Intel?
All the news that is fit^H^H^H to print!
Whether Sun cares about StarOffice for Linux or not, it's nice to have a company who will do things solely to spite Microsoft behind such a useful application. I just hope the development methodology isn't changed too much. No matter what they say now, it's a given changes will occur...
I guess that all the mp3 and vcd pirates out there on the net don't feel so invincible anymore. From the way I interpreted the story, this guy who was caught was just a regular guy like everyone else doing what a lot of us... ahem, YOU... do regularly. It seems harmless to host an ftp server with a couple hundred mp3's on it until someone gets fleeced for doing it. The worst part is that many of us justify such behavior by saying that the corporations are ripping us off and that the artists benefit rather than lose out. But none of those excuses are going to save this guy from what looks like a hefty fine and possibly jail time. What's this guy gonna tell job interviewers in the future... "it was just an mp3 server?"
apparently they're in the works.. nothing official yet. Either way it sucks. Another big company buying up small company. Nothing new, but the frequent merge and buy that big boys like.
I hope they will atleast keep all platforms going, would really be a stinker if they dropped the linux version.
This is a Good Thing(tm). Now that there's a company like Sun backing them up, it'll go a lot further. With Linux office suite being the only missing piece of the puzzle, hopefully Sun can get things moving.
I'm not saying that StarOffice is a perfect product - it's still a little rough around the edges. But it'll be a whole lot easier to pitch this to the typical PHB now that there's a billion-dollar company behind the product. `
please delete the previous post... attached to wrong article
What's going with /.
.)
For a while I was getting broken HTML ( basically HEAD and TITLE tag and not much more
This site is quickly becoming one of the last stable ones on the net.
Let's hope that Sun won't kill the OS/2 version of StarOffice. It is so nice! Rene Pawlitzek http://www.pawlitzek.halifax.ns.ca
Besides Applixware, there's also StarOffice, plus there's a suite coming from the KDE folks.
But hey, if Sun wants to make some folks in Redmond to start packing their shorts, this is a definitely a way to do it. Imagine what pumping a few million dollars worth of R&D into StarOffice would do? Heh, heh...
--
Sun hates Linux, and Linux is slowly growing to hate Sun. I'd say we can expect to loose the Linux and OS/2 ports quickly, and then watch the suite die a slow and bloody death at Sun's hands, as so many other packages have before. Sun has no real strategy right now, so I don't see how this "fits in."
No. Unixland is more like : startx, xterm,xterm,xterm,xterm, netscape ( wait 5 minuts),kill netscape(DNS lookup hanged again),
..
xterm"
That's pretty much it
Sun is bringing a well needed balance to the computer industry. Largely with the success of Java and Linux, Sun is riding a wave that will likely continue. It is unfortunate to see the Slashdotters (younger every day) rip apart Sun for fighting for choice in the computer industry.
But then again, it is unfortunate to see the rapid consolidation in this and other industries which create great giants that endanger the smaller companies which create for great diversity and innovation. M$ and Sun, Wallmart and Amazon and the others should be held to a high standard, because we are learning that Big Brother is not government.
And yet heartening is the Linux success. Created by technical vision and prowess, through a distributed and virtual community, Linux represents the power of a grass roots effort to level the playing field.
Today Linux represents the strength of the people over the corporations. Tomorrow Linux will be the server platform of choice the Internet. Sun will eventually stop competing with the people and replace Solaris with Linux in it's formidable hardware products. And they will ensure that their Java software platform is the Internet language of choice, competantly hosted on Linux to service the array of consumer devices, including Windows.
The Open Source community is wise to remember that it is freedom of choice, the abillity to innovate, and openness that is our passion. Linux is our finest offspring, which has now grown and is ready to live a life of it's own, in a corporate world. It is time for us to build upon it, but more importantly to relentlessly drive forward creating new technologies that are socially functional by empowering individuals and communities.
OPEN SOURCE JAVA! IF they won't open source it, let's write something better!
OPEN SOURCE SLASHDOT! FREE THE LATEST AND GREATEST CODE! Open source, Freedom of Speech and the Right to gather are more important than Slashdot.
StarOffice would be attractive to a cashed-up Red Hat. Not an option now.
If they do it right, Corel is going to cream Red Hat in the desktop space. Red Hat need to find _something_ to generate revenues. It ain't gonna be software sales...
No. You are not being paranoid.
...
Sun is really afraid of Linux. Not for their high end products but rather for middle-range ISP type stuff. Think about this: there are lot of shops with aging SUN boxes and being UNIX shops they are much more likely replace these boxes with Linux or SUN and not NT . So SUN has new competition in the market where they didn't have one before
Microsoft is not scared of Linux taking over workstation market. That won't happen anytime soon for the simple reason that Linux is complete mess on that level. MS is little bit scared of Linux competing against NT but it is SUN who really should prepare for onslaught of both NT and Linux pressing into markets previously claimed by SUN.
I hope sun will improve the memory usage and improve the conversion of Word Documents to StarOffice docs. I wonder if they will open the source?
Sun is big company but it's propietary OS (Solaris7) it's not at the same height has linux. If solaris has to survive it has to compete with Linux, and one thing Sun can do to make people use Slowaris7 is to buy stardivision and to stop the production of it's linux line. Same they're doing with Netscape.. so to me this sounds more than a dangerous thing than a good one.
That's a great analysis of the whole Sun/StarOffice situation. Your absolutely right, moderators, please moderate up the post above to Score:4, Insightful.
At least until there is a MacOS or MacOS X version of it. Seriously, there is NO SINGLE APPLICATION that would make me switch to Linux or WinBlows. If anyone want my money, they have to be on the Mac... And thats the way it is.
Not that really has much to do with StarOffice or Sun. It would be nice to see a Mac version. Currently there is no office suite that runs on all platforms. There is only MS Office (which is pretty cool) for Mac and AppleWorks (which rocks).
Another one would be nice, but if I cant run it... I dont want it. Simple.
That goes for all applications/games/whatevers. It may be the bast program in the world, but I could not give a damn if it is not for the mac.
Thats loyalty for ya.
If you are wondering why I love the mac so much, it is because the Mac has saved my company literally tens of thousands of dollars on support costs compared to windows.. let alone Linux.
you have some valid points there.... i hope Sun keeps all the editions, especially the solaris one as we can't survive with applix and framemaker. It will be THE office package of choice since it runs on most major platforms and it's free for non commercial use. Sun will probably delegate responsibilities (marketing) to different groups (ie. thin client handles java edition) but will keep core devlpt in germany. This will mean more marketing and financial resources to staroffice. It might not displace msoffice anytime soon, but if Sun keeps it all free - it will be a solid contender in the office market. Use microsoft's own strategy to get them: give away for free what they charge for. They killed Netscape this way, they killed Borland this way. Now Linux is doing it to them...
hopefully this is a good thing..
So if Sun "hates OS specific stuff" as you say in your subject, why did they buy Star Div? Star Office runs on Linux, Win 9x and NT, OS/2 and Sun's own Solaris. That doesn't sound too OS specfic to me...
Because Linux competes with Solaris, most people seem to think that there is a high chance that Sun will drop the Linux port of StarOffice. But, that's not the only interpretation on the cards.
Linux also promotes the case of Unix versus NT, so it's good for Solaris and hence also for Sun. Following this logic, Sun could well give themselves a shot in the arm at the bottom end of the market by adopting the Linux port for Sparc and selling their workstations and servers with it preloaded, at less cost than with Solaris. This would create a loyal following of Linux/Sparc users, some of whom will promote the case of Sun equipment in their companies, so there is definitely a plus side to Linux in the Sun portfolio.
Sadly, because there are two sides to this coin, there is probably a massive political argument within Sun about it. Sigh.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I think the point about COM is interesting. Does StarOffice use CORBA? Is there a standard IDL interface defined for things like word processors, spreadsheets, email programs? I know that Sun has worked on this for years starting with Project DOE (Distributed Objects Everywhere). It would be really nice to see all the Unix application vendors unite to create and support a common interface so that us users can pick and choose the applications we want to use. (of course Emacs will implement them all :))
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
If Sun is going to take away Star Office, we better darn well react.
But the Mac interface severely limits the power user.
Check out the research article at
http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm .
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The q is, is
Slash seems a little unstable. MySQL has been blamed, and also Rob's code (at least on slashnet).
Does this mean Linux is unstable? No, of course not.
The reason many of us dislike m$ products in the underlying operating system and security model is so shithouse. It is poss to write crap programs on any operating system. It is difficult to write good, reliable software when your operating system cannot be relied upon. It does not follow that
It does follow that windows is unstable, therefore ANY program running on windows is unstable.
-- Reverend Vryl
First of all... according to Netcraft, Slashdot runs Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_perl/1.20 on Linux
;-)
I suggest you check it out at www.netcraft.com
Next... I find it amusing that some of these entries are traced back to Microsoft employees.
Definately to MSN.com... Give it up guys.
You've already lost. Star Office kicks Office 2000 but with no inherent vira breeding ground.
Take your DOS and go home. You guys must be really desperate to post here. Also, I still get that stupid Microsoft Solutions Provider magazine.
(yes were are licensed although we rarely use it)
And the front cover reads.. "The Linux Threat."
Man are you guys ever scared or what? What until the Corel version of Linux and the next version of Mandrake come out. Linux on the server is already a done deal. Next is Linux on the desktop.
Time Frame: 9 Months
By the way, my company just sent the K-Office people around $6,000.00 worth of hardware for their efforts.
Having fun, Running Linux, Being happy!
Linux... Because a GPL is WAY better than a GPF!
Nicholas
If SUN had any sense at all they would drop their S-L-O-W-A-R-I-S and adopt Linux. Sun makes decent hardware, but their OS offerings are just terrible. After using Linux and then being exposed to Solaris 2.6 on the Ultra E450, I can honestly say that Solaris is stone aged stuff compaired to Linux. Sure Linux has some missing pieces like a Journaling file system and Linux doesnt scale as well as Solaris, but ultimately this will change.
It's inexcusable that SUN ships Solaris with the stone aged tools provided with it. Working in the the a CLI on a sparc box is ten times less productive than doing the exact same thing on a Linux box. You'd think Sun would get their heads out of their asses and clean up Solaris and update it to something closer to the year 2000 instead of the early 80's. I had to spend at least a week downloading GPL'd software and compiling it with gcc under Solaris just to get the damn thing even marginally functional. So yeah, SUN has every reason in the world to shit in their pants over Linux. It's kicking everyone in the seat of the pants. SUN would better serve themselves by just getting out of the software business completely and sell hardware. Embrace Linux on all SUN hardware and be done with it. So I have no idea just what SUN has in mind by purchasing Star Division. It puts them in a unique position in the software world, but I doubt they will even take advantage of it. It's clear to me after using Solaris the past 3 months that SUN has fallen asleep. A pity we have to spend 55k for SUN hardware and have it ship with such amatuerish crap like Java and CDE. Come on SUN. Get with the program.
You have been assimilated.
Man, you know nothing about solaris. Whenever anybody equates the addon tools and window manger provided with the OS, they know shit about the OS. GNU and its whole package was around way before there was a Linux. It is up to you what you want to run. Some people run the gnu version, some runs the xpg4 version for for IEEE cross platform compatablity. As Linus himself says, his sole concentration is on the Linux kernel, since that is what defines the OS and is the most important thing of it. Go read the internal architecture of solaris and Linux, learn about single system image, doors, dynamic domain, alternate pathing, dynamic reconfig, board drain, turnstile, kthread, paging algorithm implementation, scalabilty ot 64CPU w/no kernel mutex contention and stop yapping about the window manager and how you could get "ls" in color. You are just 1 step away removerd from a 'doze user.
- Maybe they just want leverage over Linux and are smart enough not to walk in shooting. So the Linux specific port lives on a while with Sun's sword dangling over it of course. And they will thereby accelerate Linux JRE development because of all the people who will thinik, what if Sun...When, in their opinion, the JRE is good enough, OS-specific StarOffice dies.
The temptation for them to try to use StarOffice as a Java showcase sooner rather than later will be strong, so rational guesses about what they will do are no good really. Understanding this in their guts, many people just cannot help but fear the worst.I hope that StarOffice doesn't disappear, its programmers reassigned to writing an office suite in Java.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
I really like how Star office runs currently -- i just hope that Sun doesn't do the same thing that AOL/Sun are doing with Netscape -- it would really put them in at a disadvantage.
hafnium
I needed a decent word processor for my linux box and downloaded StarOffice. I was less than impressed with the 1 minute load time. I'm running a pentium 233 with 32 megs ram. Having to go and get a snack while my documents load is not acceptable. Star Office is a real bag, and I doubt Sun is going to do much about it. Abiword is much better. It takes about 2 seconds to start as opposed to a minute, and has a suprising amount of features for an open source project. Its also 3 megabytes instead of 100+. Check it out. This project deserves some more developers.
A while ago Sun has bought lighthouse design. I wish they would use their expertise to built a new office suite. Lighthouse had really nice business applications after all. And I must admit that I personnally don't really like Star Office. It is complicated to use and looks way too much like windows. Really if you make an brand new office suite you should bring something new and more usable than microsoft products.. Lighthouse had that I think. Their products were inventive, elegant and easy to use... and they were powerfull too... So In short, I don't see that as a really good news.. SUn seems to be just wasting ressources. (Lighthouise has been bought because of their JavaPlan product and their expertise in OOP)
I can see it now... in a couple months, Sun will buy Moon and then they'll have the Sun, Moon and Stars.. :-)
:-)
(sorry it's early saturday morning for me)
Another innovative young company swallowed by an American dinosaur...
And considering SUN's recent anti-LINUX actions we can assume SO for Linux will die a painful death.
And keep in mind the US privacy laws are non-existent, so you better not register with your real address in the future...
In the meantime, the Java thin-client front end to the Unix version fits well into Sun's thin desktop roadmap.
If sun lets star office/linux die, the only
effect will be that the people at Corel (and abisource) will be very happy. Thats all, this isn't dangerous.
Get real, nobody will buy Solaris in order to
run an office suite. It's clear that nobody will
get a food in the desktop market against ms unless
he gives away at least the os for free.
Hope sun knows this.
And as I posted above, linux is the only chance
for sun to fight against the ms-stronghold of
proprietary desktop "features" demanding for an
proprietary server os. Let's spread the word to
sun, just in case they don't know.
I've been saying this is going to happen for months. Sun is buying Star Division, Star Division makes a multi-platform office suite comparable to Microsoft. Sun also has some knowlegable Java programmers. I say Sun is going to revive their home thin client idea. Why are they reviving it? Because of the recent trends towards closed set top boxes and the like. Most people don't need an entire PC, they just want to surf the net and write e-mail. Sun is going to add an office suite into this so people can be a might more productive. If they decide not to go into home, inexpensive thin clients in an office would work nicely, especially since companies are shelling out thousands of dollars on Wintel boxes that will be obsolete in two years. Why pay upwards of 1000$ for a system when you could pay under 500$ and have all your software incliuded? Sure you can go the cheap PC route, but it's likely that those systems are already obsolete and aren't worth the money you paid for them.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
pay attention, idiot.
Sun's largest markets are in the high-end server and high-end engineering and animation workstation markets. Sun is also primarily a hardware company, not a software company.
While Linux certainly has the ability to run on high-end hardware, most folks buying Sun hardware are going to be running Solaris. Linux has some scalability and other problems in this market.
For instance, one of the more popular engineering applications is Unigraphics, which is used extensively in the automotive and aerospace industries. UG will probably never run on Linux, especially considering Unigraphics Solutions' recent NT port. Currently HP and Sun have the market cornered on UG workstations.
Also, consider high-end server usage. Linux has no support for a journaling file system. Filesystem redundancy on Linux is lacking in general, in fact (ie Linux has support for software RAID, but only a handful of hardware RAID drivers exist...on a busy server, software RAID is practically useless due to its much slower speed.)
So all of you who are concerned with Sun destroying Linux need not be. Its not going to happen. Sun does not picture itself to be in the low-end of the market (Java was created to sell servers).
My journal has hot
Man, you need to get out a little more. There's more to life than netscape and xterm. Either your post was sarcasm or your one of those people who learn something real well and never learn anything else for the rest of your life....
Steven didn't verify his notes... Star Office is NOT available for the MacOS. Unless you count "Java" as MacOS support, in which case it probably runs on a toaster, right? :-/
Most of the companies I worked for were Windows-based on the desktop, but always had a few diehards running old Macs (albiet one that hadn't been upgraded by anal, hostile IT department in years..).
Thanks to Star Office not supporting the Mac, those users will continue running Microsoft Office, as will I. I had to throw 196 MEGABYTES of RAM into my G3 to get any appreciable performance running MS Word 98, but it's the only word processor I could realistically use on the Mac (Word Perfect on the Mac isn't well supported and runs poorly under System 8.6). If Star Office even ran on PowerPC Linux I'd consider it...
Corel WordPerfect Office for Linux is due out in January. Corel has already announced deals for ports to the forthcoming Amiga platform (non-i386 platform) and the Netwinder (StrongARM platform). Corel engineer posts to WineDevel listserv indicate that Corel is also working on ports to the Mac PPC and SPARC/Solaris platforms. Also, at least the WP Office for Linux version is going to be thin-client enabled using Graphon GoJoe technology and Corel is already announcing deals with ASP software providers for it, so the web-enabled version will run on any platform that supports a browser.
pem@televar.com WordPerfect Linux Links
Man, you know nothing about solaris. Whenever anybody equates the addon tools and window manger provided with the OS, they know shit about the OS. GNU and its whole package was around way before there was a Linux. It is up to you what you want to run. Some people run the gnu version, some runs the xpg4 version for for IEEE cross platform compatablity.
Get a clue. I was referring to the stone aged tools that SUN so conviently ships with Solaris, more specifically the lack thereof. Oh unless you consider their bloated java as anything useful beyond chewing up a hell of a lot of ram.
Go read the internal architecture of solaris and Linux, learn about single system image, doors, dynamic domain, alternate pathing, dynamic reconfig, board drain, turnstile, kthread, paging algorithm implementation, scalabilty ot 64CPU w/no kernel mutex contention and stop yapping about the window manager and how you could get "ls" in color. You are just 1 step away removerd from a 'doze user.
Considering the fact our company has spent well over 55k for this E450, and considering the fact the fucking thing has yet to run a full week without crashing, and condidering the fact that SUN and or its service representatives cannot seem to identify and fix the problems, and considering the fact that SUN has replaced this E450 not once but 2 times, I think that is good enough indication to me that Solaris is just a stone aged piece of shit. Interesting our Linux boxen *NEVER* ever crash period running the same Oracle Software, yet the E450 has been nothing but trouble. I'll let you draw your own conclusions: HINT: If SUN Engineers cannot fix it then it doesnt seem likely anyone else can.
top yapping about the window manager and how you could get "ls" in color. You are just 1 step away removerd from a 'doze user.
Oh I was being nice. You've got the real scoop now. Obviously you are a Troll. What else could it be? In terms of being 1 step away from a doze user, I wager the 25+ years of HW/SW experience under my belt would show you to be more clueless than even a MAC user. Get a life. See thats the whole problem with SUN. Their own people take the same stone aged attitude you have shown here. Little wonder SUN is in deep shit up to it's shoulders. I'll place my bets with Linux. At least Linux developers do not seem to have their heads shoved into the sand or their bungholes either for that matter.
You have been assimilated.
Isn't this the same Sun that bought Lighthouse after Lighthouse bought up their competition?
Lighthouse made a suite of products for NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP.
I'm worried Star Division's suite will vanish, at least the free for non-commercial use licensing. I'm concerned the UI oddities won't be fixed.
Sun probably wanted to get ahold of Star Division's cross-platform technology to steal for the JDK.
IBM was interested in Star Division years ago but when the bought Lotus they had to back off because they were inhereting a software suite from Lotus.
Way back, when Sun-Netscape-AOL was the hot news item, didn't someone here mention that StarOffice or Applixware would be the next logical software that they would aquire.
Just think, with the backing of Sun, more Unix on the desktop! It's a good thing, software choices are better in a Unix shop.
Microsoftland: Q. "Which email and productivity packages do we use?" A. "You'll only come close to the capability that you paid for if you also buy this, and This and THIS. And then pay for the upgrade for this, and that. Remember: Everyone is using this stuff--it must be good."
Unixland: Q. "What email and productivity packages do we use?" A. "Use any one you like, but one is already included. If you don't like the way something works than change it. Since most I/O is standardized (everything is a file) you can change the behavior and output to suit your needs. The computer comes with all the tools you need to set up anything you want. Go forth and be happy!"
And once you have a Unix shop it doesn't matter as much which Unix like OS you use.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
I think this is great, the more competition in the office suit market the better! I've been chained to MS office waaaay to long, you know how corporations are.
Star Office is a bit slow (seems faster on Win32 to me), it's innovative enough to grab some attention and hopefully marketshare.
well i just hope is for the good of the ... final finished product. w/o a doubt StarOficce is the office production program for linux and it gives the user a sense of "we can actually do some work here" *coming from windows users -work as admin so i know the facts. and is just nice program. at work i have for windows is just the same than in linux... tho.. it has crashed... along with the OS but well thats just another issue lets just hope all this is for the best
Remember this?
, 2303066,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422
The Register reported this on 07/26/99 but nobody listened. Then again, nobody ever listenes to the register :) I love it when they are right. http://www.theregister.co.uk/990726-000020.html
Have you checked out Zoid.com yet? Zoid.com
Look at what happened to Lighthouse Design software, the makers of a quality suite of applications for NEXTSTEP. Bought by Sun and quickly collapsed into JavaSoft, never to be heard from again. If Lighthouse's software was available for Mac OS X Server - woah! That would just kick.
Although a(nother) powerful company behind a popular Linux application definitely swings more momentum towards it, Sun's public persona seems to be platform specific - the Java platform, that is. Is there any (end user) software coming from inside Sun that isn't Java? Is there any that runs on multiple platforms like StarOffice does (other than the Java environment itself)?
Unfortunately, you know that old story - big company buys small company with the talent for getting quality things done quick. Getting absorbed into a gigantic infrastructure seems to take a toll on results.
So - I hope that Sun keeps Star separate, I hope that Sun doesn't trash everything that isn't Java, and I hope that quality software results.
Forget KOffice for now, AbiSource needs help with getting AbiWord working. I have used the BeOS and Windows versions, it is going to be very good.
---Got Coffee?---
Hey all,
Could someone please tell me quite what the problem is here ? As far as I can tell, Star Division is a smaller company that Sun... therefore being taken over is bad ? I like Star Office as it does everything that I require. Now that it has been taken on by a bigger company I'm sure that they arn't going to change it that much. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that they'll make it better because they can have more programmers working on it in exactly the same amount of time...
Sun has shown itself increasingly hostile to Linux and Open Source. Sun will kill Star Office for Linux.
This is way offtopic, but since it's already been moderated down, I see no reason not to respond.
You're referring to Costa Mesa in Southern California's Orange County, right?
Unfortunately, I fear that without illegal aliens, there would be nobody to empty your trash, wait on you in fast food restaurants or fix your car. (Most car repair shops I've seen are run by a english-speaking front man who hires spanish speakers to do the actual work).
Illegal aliens may not speak my language, but they're incredibly hard workers and deserve a chance at success. I support them in their courageous efforts to make a life in a new, bewildering country.
D
----
...have you ever used StarOffice?
KWord rocks and already works quite well.
It's just they are all working on KWord, KPresenter, and KImageShop. They need people to update things like KDiagram. These already work, but can use more features.
Does anyone have email addresses for sun employees who could be influenced? Maybe a flood of email from Linux users begging for continued development would make $ signs flash in their eyes...
Uh, what $ signs? True or not, the impression is that Linux users only like free software and aren't willing to pay for proprietary software. For example, look at all the folks defending piracy and warez over in another thread.
The reason for StarOffice's popularity amongst Linux users is because it is free for non-commercial use. How many have actually paid for it? Surely some have, but enough to be worth Sun's development/support costs? For a platform that competes with theirs? Scott McNealy wants to be the next Bill Gates, not the next Ghandi. Sun is in this for the money.
The bottom line is that if Linux users want commercial software for Linux, they need to vote with their dollars, not their emails.
This is good as long as Sun doesn't kill the product. They have already done this once.
Sun bought LightHouse Design-- the makes of an incredible suite of office productivity apps for NeXTSTEP/OpenStep. These apps were amazing-- often considered to be some of the best productivity apps ever written.
First Sun killed NEO-- so, the native Objective-C implementations died there. OK, fine, port 'em to Java!
Which, LightHouse DID! Not everything-- but large parts of certain apps were ported and, apparently, worked fine under Java.
BUT THEY KILLED THOSE TOO!!!
Why? Who knows....
I really hope that Sun doesn't kill this office suite too.
(wish I could have figured out how to reply to the main post rather than a reply to the main post) If Sun were to shutdown all development but the Windows and Solaris versions, this would actually be good for Applix. They would then have a virtual monopoly. StarOffice is slicker and probably a bit for feature filled. Several people have pointed out the slowness to load of StarOffice here. I have a pentium pro 200 and it loads in 30-45 seconds, it does seem long. I think Applix has a good product - the first thing they need to fix is the UI though. (probably should change to gtk) How do people think Applix will be impacted if Sun does not shutdown StarOffice?
Whether Sun hopes to make StarOffice a viable desktop contender with M$ Office depends on what Sun's long-term strategy for StarDivision is. What concerns me is whether Sun will continue to keep supporting and developing the Windows and Linux versions of StarOffice in the long run.
Yeah, I do. I also remember Baratz taking a shot at Mozilla, suggesting it would be better under their "community source" license. That license bothers me some too.
But, being hopeful, a Linux server is direct competition for their own servers. I don't really think they expect to take over the PC desktop. Ditching linux support for Star Office buys little and would definitely ignite a firestorm.
In addition to Applix, Star Office and KOffice,
don't forget Corel Office and the promised GNOME
office suite (the version of gnumeric that shipped
with RH6.0 just read in an Excel spreadsheet quite
nicely for me.)
If the lousy bastards don't try to rewrite the whole package in Java, it would supprise me.
Sun is the biggest bunch of impotent morons in the computer world. They've been at it for years, and they still need Linux to have a fighting chance of taking on Microsoft.
Very sad.
I think that Sun is scared to death of Linux.
With all of the server application vendors pushing Linux these days, and with the rather wonderful ability of Linux to make beachheads behind the risk-adverse managers' defensive lines (much in the same way that MS/PC infrastructures grew in corporate America 10 years ago), it's easy to see where Sun would be worried about future market share.
Sun wants to be thought of as the Computer Company for the Internet Age. Except for IBM's well heeled offerings, Linux is their only real competition for that title.
Sun doesn't have to kill the Linux versions of StarOffice to deemphasize them. Which will have better support? Linux or Solaris?
The Netscape Server example is cautionary. Who else is withdrawing software from the Linux market?
This could also explain Sun's insistence on pushing only Java. If Java succeeds, Sun could then make it increasingly hard for Java on Linux.
Maybe I'm being paranoid.
how pathetic, 25+ years of experience, and you end up in a world of where you are clueless on how to operate any unix besides Linux. Where were you before Linux? A abacus operator. If you were not in the Unix field before being reborn as a guru-wannabe, then you are just a neophyte. Of the 100+ E4500 and E10000 we have, we don't have hokey problems like yours, and we will diagnose all our problem. Kernel crash, system crash, driver bug, hardware failure. We don't have wannabees like you around in our company, guys like you would have been fired long time ago since you are clueless to what you are doing.
Would something like ALIAS or SoftImage count?
Maybe Industrial Light & Magic ought to really be running Win98 on PC's since the graphics and GUI is so much faster on Windows PCs.
I'm down here in Monterey at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (http://conferences.oreilly.com) and someone in one of the workshops said that Sun was going to release StarOffice as Open Source. I've looked on StarDivision's web site and Sun's, and the only info I can find is the above mentioned CNet article. I think since the deal hasn't even officially gone through yet, that this guy is blowing smoke. Has anyone heard anything similar?
you must be a dork if you can't keep an E450 up for more than a week. Out of the box it'll run until the power fails, so you must really have dorked it up.
Gee....it doesn't work...it must be the product. Lord knows, I'm such a linux genius that it can't be because I'm clueless...Hmmm, maybe loading all the gnu crap onto the system broke something...no, that couldn't be it because I'm an 3|173 d00d.
Considering how well they upheld Netscape's commitment to supporting Linux as a tier-one platform when Netscape got bought out, I can just see them doing the same thing to StarOffice and cutting all development on any further versions of StarOffice for all platforms except Win32 and Solaris.
I remember the days when Sun really was about open computing....