I'm a big fan of KDE and their products, but KOffice is a very different beast than MS Office and OOo. To some that is a very good thing, but it isn't going to replace OOo for me, despite being lean and mean. I'm not entirely sure it is meant to compete in the same arena.
However, run it for yourself and make your own determinations. Pull the packages in your distro if you're on Linux, or grab them here on Windows.
I recommend to everyone to use Novell's fork/not-fork located at go-oo.org as it is. It uses less memory, provides more features, runs faster, etc. Yes, Novell signed a deal with the devil, but they're putting out a good product for free, so using it isn't supporting Novell. It is just using the superior product.
And precisely why I ditched Acrobat Reader for FoxitPDF which is small and fast.
OpenOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office if you want open formats. OpenOffice is also fairly feature-rich. However the app does take considerably longer to start (cold or hot) than MS Office on the same hardware.
That complaint is not only valid, but one share by many OOo devs who complain themselves at the performance. OOo's codebase is mammoth (comparable to the entire KDE codebase, including Koffice) and ancient. It is also very monolithic, as the suite exists as one huge app. Throw in the occasional Java feature that forces users to wait for Java to fire up, and they're just not going to be happy with performance.
I believe that OOo provides all the features that 95%+ of the users will want. Really I'd like to see Sun/Novell/Whomever to focus on stripping legacy code, making OOo more modular (don't load every aspect of the program unless it is needed at boot, move some features/aspects into libraries that can be loaded later if needed) and improve the interface.
I don't believe copying the MS Office 2007 ribbon is the way to go, but a more intuitive, clear and attractive interface would go a long way towards winning over more users.
Derivative works like Red Office and Symphony have nicer UIs. How come OOo's UI has remained so static over the years?
I was this close to just building an all AMD/ATI rig in the spring. ATI was opening up their drivers. The OSS drivers were working well, and Nvidia wasn't doing anything. Nvidia addressed their horrible Linux XRender support, and now this. I may just have to stick with Nvidia in the spring.
All I'm wondering is why it took so long? They are in the business of selling hardware, and if we can find a new use for it, then we're more likely to purchase AMD/ATI's hardware.
When did they ever say that DirectX would work on Mac and Linux?
As for Silverlight, they've already paid to help Mono developers make Moonlight and said they'd offer free support to web developers trying to get Moonlight/Linux to work with their web site.
MS Office 2007 has a Sun developed plugin that allows ODF support, but even better, the next service pack from Microsoft is adding native ODF support without a plugin.
I never bought into the hype for all these years that we'd give up desktops and do most of our computing on mobile devices. The screens were too small, they all had unique software, didn't operate with another, and couldn't perform the tasks I need.
However I can take a Nokia i810 tablet, install KDE 4 and have a modern, fully function OS on it that can do anything my desktop can do, and interoperate with my desktop.
Seriously, now we're talking. Give me a slightly better tablet with 1 gig of memory and then I'm not sure I'd look at a laptop again.
The Front Mission series is incredible. Not to mention that I'm more interested in the developer than the publisher when it comes to experience and game design.
I agree. These days I'm not sure an advantage truly exists going with.DEB over.RPM or vice-versa. I also don't believe that Ubuntu is any better than other distros. I too credit Shuttleworth's fantastic marketing skills.
My point is that while the LSB is a great idea (that I'd like to see gain more support) but I'm worried that the LSB will become less important as major distros like Ubuntu (and its derivatives) ignore it.
The LSB still doesn't make much in the way for accommodations for source-based distros. And while I laud its efforts, the LSB also states that distros should standardize on RPMs where as the one distro taking off like a rocket is DEB based and unlikely to ever move over to RPMs.
Ultima Underworld (which was a truly pioneering game) wasn't really done by Garriott, but by Warren Spector who later worked on Wing Commander, Thief, Deus Ex, etc.
Rowling sued the book before ever seeing a single rough draft of it. Her lawyers insisted it copied verbatim without rewriting any passages based off the web site.
The book's publisher claims that those entries were largely rewritten for the lexicon.
Given that neither of us have read the lexicon (as it is not published) we are left to believe one side or the other. What I find curious is how Rowling was so sure of her side of the story without having read the book herself.
The lexicon was made available to her during the trial, but most of her claims came before then.
She has also threatened law suits at cases clearly covered by parody. I don't think she is evil, so much as she is strongly attached to the world she created. She said it physically pained her to kill off her characters. That being said, for the purposes of legal precedent, I think reference works should be protected and fair use preserved. There are plenty of lawyers volunteering on the side of the lexicon by people who have read it and insist it should be covered by fair use. I can't imagine they would volunteer their time to protect a work so full of plagiarism. It just doesn't make sense.
Violating anti-trust laws does constitute breaking the law. They have a bevy of vendors testifying against them, and a mountain of evidence that says they broke the law. They have already been found guilty in other countries.
Who cares if it stands the test of time? If I enjoy it now, and it is cheap, isn't that a winning combination? It isn't like I'm paying $60 for Mega Man 9 and expecting it to stand up against Gears of War.
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I'm a big fan of KDE and their products, but KOffice is a very different beast than MS Office and OOo. To some that is a very good thing, but it isn't going to replace OOo for me, despite being lean and mean. I'm not entirely sure it is meant to compete in the same arena.
However, run it for yourself and make your own determinations. Pull the packages in your distro if you're on Linux, or grab them here on Windows.
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation
There should be native packages for Mac and OpenSolaris as well.
I recommend to everyone to use Novell's fork/not-fork located at go-oo.org as it is. It uses less memory, provides more features, runs faster, etc. Yes, Novell signed a deal with the devil, but they're putting out a good product for free, so using it isn't supporting Novell. It is just using the superior product.
And precisely why I ditched Acrobat Reader for FoxitPDF which is small and fast.
OpenOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office if you want open formats. OpenOffice is also fairly feature-rich. However the app does take considerably longer to start (cold or hot) than MS Office on the same hardware.
That complaint is not only valid, but one share by many OOo devs who complain themselves at the performance. OOo's codebase is mammoth (comparable to the entire KDE codebase, including Koffice) and ancient. It is also very monolithic, as the suite exists as one huge app. Throw in the occasional Java feature that forces users to wait for Java to fire up, and they're just not going to be happy with performance.
I believe that OOo provides all the features that 95%+ of the users will want. Really I'd like to see Sun/Novell/Whomever to focus on stripping legacy code, making OOo more modular (don't load every aspect of the program unless it is needed at boot, move some features/aspects into libraries that can be loaded later if needed) and improve the interface.
I don't believe copying the MS Office 2007 ribbon is the way to go, but a more intuitive, clear and attractive interface would go a long way towards winning over more users.
Derivative works like Red Office and Symphony have nicer UIs. How come OOo's UI has remained so static over the years?
Here is to hoping that Wayland addresses some of these issues.
Perhaps a dumb and semi-unrelated question, but who has the better SLI/Crossfire support in their Linux drivers right now, ATI or Nvidia?
I was this close to just building an all AMD/ATI rig in the spring. ATI was opening up their drivers. The OSS drivers were working well, and Nvidia wasn't doing anything. Nvidia addressed their horrible Linux XRender support, and now this. I may just have to stick with Nvidia in the spring.
They're produced outside the US and the technology to produce processors isn't exactly some US trade secret the rest of the world doesn't have.
But you keep up that baseless paranoia.
Apple has a far greater market share than Linux desktops, but you can't completely ignore that Linux has been pushing IPv6 for some time.
...welcome our new GPGPU overlords.
All I'm wondering is why it took so long? They are in the business of selling hardware, and if we can find a new use for it, then we're more likely to purchase AMD/ATI's hardware.
When did they ever say that DirectX would work on Mac and Linux?
As for Silverlight, they've already paid to help Mono developers make Moonlight and said they'd offer free support to web developers trying to get Moonlight/Linux to work with their web site.
Mod parent up, repeatedly.
Actually yes.
MS Office 2007 has a Sun developed plugin that allows ODF support, but even better, the next service pack from Microsoft is adding native ODF support without a plugin.
Honestly, MS Office is faster than OOo, effective and good.
The problem with MS Office is proprietary formats.
I never bought into the hype for all these years that we'd give up desktops and do most of our computing on mobile devices. The screens were too small, they all had unique software, didn't operate with another, and couldn't perform the tasks I need.
However I can take a Nokia i810 tablet, install KDE 4 and have a modern, fully function OS on it that can do anything my desktop can do, and interoperate with my desktop.
Seriously, now we're talking. Give me a slightly better tablet with 1 gig of memory and then I'm not sure I'd look at a laptop again.
The Front Mission series is incredible. Not to mention that I'm more interested in the developer than the publisher when it comes to experience and game design.
I agree. These days I'm not sure an advantage truly exists going with .DEB over .RPM or vice-versa. I also don't believe that Ubuntu is any better than other distros. I too credit Shuttleworth's fantastic marketing skills.
My point is that while the LSB is a great idea (that I'd like to see gain more support) but I'm worried that the LSB will become less important as major distros like Ubuntu (and its derivatives) ignore it.
The LSB still doesn't make much in the way for accommodations for source-based distros. And while I laud its efforts, the LSB also states that distros should standardize on RPMs where as the one distro taking off like a rocket is DEB based and unlikely to ever move over to RPMs.
Garriott should buy back the rights to Ultima single player games and develop remakes of the Ultima series.
Ultima Underworld (which was a truly pioneering game) wasn't really done by Garriott, but by Warren Spector who later worked on Wing Commander, Thief, Deus Ex, etc.
Here is the problem.
Rowling sued the book before ever seeing a single rough draft of it. Her lawyers insisted it copied verbatim without rewriting any passages based off the web site.
The book's publisher claims that those entries were largely rewritten for the lexicon.
Given that neither of us have read the lexicon (as it is not published) we are left to believe one side or the other. What I find curious is how Rowling was so sure of her side of the story without having read the book herself.
The lexicon was made available to her during the trial, but most of her claims came before then.
She has also threatened law suits at cases clearly covered by parody. I don't think she is evil, so much as she is strongly attached to the world she created. She said it physically pained her to kill off her characters. That being said, for the purposes of legal precedent, I think reference works should be protected and fair use preserved. There are plenty of lawyers volunteering on the side of the lexicon by people who have read it and insist it should be covered by fair use. I can't imagine they would volunteer their time to protect a work so full of plagiarism. It just doesn't make sense.
Seriously, everyone in the Slashdot crowd needs to read Wired. It is a fantastic magazine, which wrote about this like two months ago.
Vista uses a few gigs for the install as opposed XP, and the recovery partition for Vista adds another few gigs.
Violating anti-trust laws does constitute breaking the law. They have a bevy of vendors testifying against them, and a mountain of evidence that says they broke the law. They have already been found guilty in other countries.
Who cares if it stands the test of time? If I enjoy it now, and it is cheap, isn't that a winning combination? It isn't like I'm paying $60 for Mega Man 9 and expecting it to stand up against Gears of War.
Toggle switches were fine for Scotty and Sulu. They're good enough for me.