'Violating the spirit' - great rhetoric. But the pragmatics of the situation are in another universe: so you're someone with an intel mac, and you want to use NeoOffice, and you want it right now. What are your options?
Well, you can compile your own binary from the (always was, still is, always will be) freely available NeoOffice source code - the intel code is there right now, go for it. You don't want to do that? What are your options?
Well, if you can bear to wait a couple more weeks you can download a binary for free from the developers.
And why is it there in the first place? Because people have made sufficient financial contribution to make it actually possible for the 2 guys to spend 60-70 hours a week between them making the code work for you. You don't want to wait that long? What are your options?
well, you can pay $25 for a binary compiled on your behalf, thus along the way helping to make it possible in the future for there to actually be a beta release with better functionality, aquafied widgets and all that, and eventually a full release of the app.
These are all options. They're all GPL-friendly. It's completely your choice whether you compile now, make a financial contribution now, or bear a 2-4 week wait for something that wouldn't be there at all without some people's financial contributions. The developers tried 'voluntary donations' and it didn't work, that's the reality. This way, NeoOffice v2 for PPC and intel exists right now, that's the reality. Waah, waah, it's not fair, they're not playing by the rules... you want NeoOffice or not?
I have to say I find it just deeply infantile, people harrumphing because something they want isn't immediately available to them for free. When you say you want something for free, what you really mean is 'I want someone other than me to pay for it'. In opensource, someone (individual or collective) is always paying, in time, experience, and actual money in order that the wider user community doesn't have to.
NeoOffice: 2 guys working hard to make a more OSX-friendly (and therefore more useable) version of OOo available are spending their time, experience, and money to do this. Now they're asking for help doing that, because it's a project worth keeping going, and it's not sustainable without help, some of which needs to be financial.
If you want the Intel version of the Alpha 3 for free, wait 2-3 more weeks until it's available for free - the people who do choose to support the project by paying a little money to get the releases a little early (and therefore be the bug-testers) are contributing towards keeping this great project going. How would bittorrent piracy be contributing?
If you want the release bad enough to want to pirate it, that ought to mean you appreciate it enough to see that the project that makes it possible needs supporting, not undermining. Grow up.
Okay, Neo/J's functionality is restricted to OpenOffice.org's functionality, and one thing that is missing built-in is a good word counter. But as another poster pointed out, there is a great 3rd-party macro available http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=87718&package_id=98079here - which you only have to click on a button in the doc to install - just assign the Wordcount macro to cmd-K and it'll display word/letter/para count for the whole doc, plus word/letter count for selected text (plus the former less the latter for good measure).
NeoOffice/J is NOT a java app - most of the coding that makes this port of openoffice.org work on the mac without needing X11 is written in c++ - the java (such as it is) is there for carbon integration. This was the quickest way to get this up and running stably. The look of it is - so far - entirely the OOo code's fault, you can blame the OOo developer community (who are almost entirely developing that for win/linux) for the looks. The NeoOffice/J team have had a load of hard work to do getting what native stuff they already have into Neo/J - OSX printing and fonts, never mind the menu bar (oh, and nice maccy icons for the toolbars are on the way too).
The point was to get something out there that really worked, and was stable, and then concentrate on the continuing aquification, and the move up to v2 code and away from java 1.3.1 dependency. It's a process, innit.
repeat: this is NOT a java app, any more than OOo on its other platforms is.
" But if they are gonna stay retro..." they're working on the rest of the UI aquification, but it's a lot of work for not many people to do. Be patient - and what wrong with being grey anyway? Are you a chromophobe?
"Mac People are..." - I'm a mac person and I don't have any problems with NeoOffice/J's interface - it works. It's very easy to customise the buttonbars if you personally think there are too many buttons. You can even add more. Let's be subjective about this....
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Yeah, vout...
Well, you can compile your own binary from the (always was, still is, always will be) freely available NeoOffice source code - the intel code is there right now, go for it. You don't want to do that? What are your options?
Well, if you can bear to wait a couple more weeks you can download a binary for free from the developers.
And why is it there in the first place? Because people have made sufficient financial contribution to make it actually possible for the 2 guys to spend 60-70 hours a week between them making the code work for you. You don't want to wait that long? What are your options?
well, you can pay $25 for a binary compiled on your behalf, thus along the way helping to make it possible in the future for there to actually be a beta release with better functionality, aquafied widgets and all that, and eventually a full release of the app.
These are all options. They're all GPL-friendly. It's completely your choice whether you compile now, make a financial contribution now, or bear a 2-4 week wait for something that wouldn't be there at all without some people's financial contributions. The developers tried 'voluntary donations' and it didn't work, that's the reality. This way, NeoOffice v2 for PPC and intel exists right now, that's the reality. Waah, waah, it's not fair, they're not playing by the rules... you want NeoOffice or not?
I have to say I find it just deeply infantile, people harrumphing because something they want isn't immediately available to them for free. When you say you want something for free, what you really mean is 'I want someone other than me to pay for it'. In opensource, someone (individual or collective) is always paying, in time, experience, and actual money in order that the wider user community doesn't have to. NeoOffice: 2 guys working hard to make a more OSX-friendly (and therefore more useable) version of OOo available are spending their time, experience, and money to do this. Now they're asking for help doing that, because it's a project worth keeping going, and it's not sustainable without help, some of which needs to be financial. If you want the Intel version of the Alpha 3 for free, wait 2-3 more weeks until it's available for free - the people who do choose to support the project by paying a little money to get the releases a little early (and therefore be the bug-testers) are contributing towards keeping this great project going. How would bittorrent piracy be contributing? If you want the release bad enough to want to pirate it, that ought to mean you appreciate it enough to see that the project that makes it possible needs supporting, not undermining. Grow up.
Okay, Neo/J's functionality is restricted to OpenOffice.org's functionality, and one thing that is missing built-in is a good word counter. But as another poster pointed out, there is a great 3rd-party macro available http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=87718&package_id=98079here - which you only have to click on a button in the doc to install - just assign the Wordcount macro to cmd-K and it'll display word/letter/para count for the whole doc, plus word/letter count for selected text (plus the former less the latter for good measure).
NeoOffice/J is NOT a java app - most of the coding that makes this port of openoffice.org work on the mac without needing X11 is written in c++ - the java (such as it is) is there for carbon integration. This was the quickest way to get this up and running stably. The look of it is - so far - entirely the OOo code's fault, you can blame the OOo developer community (who are almost entirely developing that for win/linux) for the looks. The NeoOffice/J team have had a load of hard work to do getting what native stuff they already have into Neo/J - OSX printing and fonts, never mind the menu bar (oh, and nice maccy icons for the toolbars are on the way too). The point was to get something out there that really worked, and was stable, and then concentrate on the continuing aquification, and the move up to v2 code and away from java 1.3.1 dependency. It's a process, innit. repeat: this is NOT a java app, any more than OOo on its other platforms is.
" But if they are gonna stay retro..." they're working on the rest of the UI aquification, but it's a lot of work for not many people to do. Be patient - and what wrong with being grey anyway? Are you a chromophobe?
"Mac People are..." - I'm a mac person and I don't have any problems with NeoOffice/J's interface - it works. It's very easy to customise the buttonbars if you personally think there are too many buttons. You can even add more. Let's be subjective about this....