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OpenOffice Online Goes Beta

Posted by kdawson on Mon Dec 17, 2007 08:44 PM
from the at-your-service dept.
Software The Internet
Stony Stevenson sends word of the beta availability of a software-as-a-service version of OpenOffice 2.3, brought to us by Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval. According to Ars, this package "easily offers the most features of any online office suite," though it "lacks the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace." "To create this feature-rich environment, Online OpenOffice.org requires a modern browser with JavaScript and the Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.4+ plug-in. The setup has been tested in Firefox 1.5 and above, IE6 and 7, and even Safari, though Ubuntu users are specifically warned that they must be using the Sun Java (Sun JRE) plug-in or the current implementation of Online OpenOffice.org won't work."
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Submission: OpenOffice online now available for beta testing by Stony Stevenson (954022)
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  • Why would Ubuntu users care? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SanityInAnarchy (655584) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Monday December 17 2007, @08:47PM (#21733740) Journal
    I mean, good to know, but Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice.org anyway. Without document sharing, I really don't see the point of this...

    • Re:Why would Ubuntu users care? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by athena_wiles (967508) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:04PM (#21733844)
      The one major advantage that I find to online systems even without document sharing is that it makes it incredibly easy to access my documents from multiple computers. As a college student, I often find myself working on a document (whether a paper, a to-do list, etc.) that I need to access from my computer, from my lab computers, and from kiosks in the library.

      While I can put my file on my flash drive, some web kiosks on campus don't have Office or OpenOffice installed and thus won't open my documents. As such, I find it much easier to put simple documents that I need to open from many locations into my google docs account, and then I don't have to worry about the portability thing. For people like me, online systems really can be useful even if they don't include document-sharing capabilities.

      • Re:Why would Ubuntu users care? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dgatwood (11270) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:20PM (#21733918) Journal

        That's why you carry OOo on the flash drive, too.

        :-D

        • Re:Why would Ubuntu users care? (Score:5, Informative)

          by mysticgoat (582871) on Tuesday December 18 2007, @01:26AM (#21735674) Journal

          That's why you carry OOo on the flash drive, too.

          And here's the link to do it: PortableApps.com [portableapps.com]. I've put about 100 512MB and 1.0GB flashdrives into the hands of not-so-savvy persons, loaded with OOo, Firefox (with a specific set of bookmarks and extensions), and a couple of other goodies. These have gone to job seekers who have been through our "Work Place Basics" and similar courses. Haven't gotten any meaningful amount of feedback yet, but that suggests that at least the program hasn't flopped right out of the starting gate.

          Figure that loading a USB drive with OOo and Firefox will eat up about 300 MB. If you add a portable XAMPP, as I did so I can work on some web development, that would be another 300 MB. Worth it though, at least on my 80GB WD Passport.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by j0kkk3l (778886)
          Well, this only works if you just use Windows Computers. I regularly visit different labs at uni: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. If I installed all the Software I need, I would fill up my flash drive so fast, there won't be any room for files.
      • I really could have used this stuff during college! I hope to be a freelance nomad sometime... definitely will be fuckin' prime choice in the near future (hopefully). (What if my laptop were stolen??!)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bombula (670389)
        I'm trying to visualize the end-game for online office applications. In the old days, dumb terminals accessed more powerful computers in order to provide more feature-rich functionality. Later, as personal computers got more powerful, feature-rich apps have moved onto users' machines while online apps have become 'lite' versions because of bandwidth and processor limitations. Now that processing and memory capacity are already so massive that virtually any device has enough power to run virtually any off
        • I imagine (hope) it will get to the point where you just walk around with your entire computer on a flash drive. Where ever you go, you can just plug it into (or use wireless) the existing computer that's sitting on the desk at work, school, or coffee shop. Kind of like a laptop, but in this case, you would only need to carry the data, and just start up the computer with your personal drive in the computer. I see the net being used more as a backup service, to sync your drive to in case it breaks, but I

          • Some of us are already pretty much working off our USB drives. Granted, I'm using a portable hard drive (80GB, at a cost of about 1.00USD/GB). I back up to my home machine, and to my piece of a network drive at work, but I've come to regard the USB drive as my working drive. The bennies outweigh the few drawbacks.

        • ***what I want to know is what will happen when bandwidth is no longer an issue.***

          Good question. Leads to two more.

          • When, if ever, will bandwidth no longer be an issue?
          • What about security? Will security that works constrain where, when, how applications are run?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nine-times (778537)

      I'm not sure why anyone should care very much. Anyone can install OpenOffice for free, so I'm not sure what's gained by actually having it execute online. Maybe I'm missing something, but couldn't you get equivalent results by using OpenOffice locally and having some sort of syncing online? Or maybe figuring out a way to mount a remote volume and open/save documents directly to it?

      I have no specific objection, but I'm just not sure I see the advantage. Well, the only advantage I can see is that not all

      • It's like firing a salvo across the battleship msoft's bow. Might be firing arrows, and in a house of mirrors, but it's still firing shots. With an arrow, a leader can still be maimed or killed. Shatter the mirrors, and somebody's vision is jarred.

        Hopefully Mandriva has vision-correction lenses to make up for all the spider webs that will be generated. But, hopefully, thar be toxins on zee arrows, maytes...

        --------
        http://www.anapsid.org/resources/plants-hn.html [anapsid.org]

        Harmful & Poisonous Plants: H-N
        Mandragora officinarum (MANDRAKE); nervous system affected by the toxins hyoscyamine and mandragorin. MANDRAKE (Mandragora officinarum); nervous system ...
        www.anapsid.org/resources/plants-hn.html - 60k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

        --

        Captcha: convoke

        • Block that metaphor (Score:5, Funny)

          by xant (99438) on Monday December 17 2007, @11:04PM (#21734540) Homepage
          Let's see we've got a battleship/salvo thing. That's pretty normal.

          Then it's an arrow.

          Then it's in a house of mirrors.

          Apparently the leaders are inside the house of mirrors. Wearing.. wait, breaking the mirrors makes it
          harder to see? The mirrors are there to confuse people. Seems like breaking them would be ok.

          Then.. oh god, spiders and glasses. Are the spiders wearing the glasses? Are they just climbing on peoples' eyes?

          And we're back to the arrows, now poisonous. (Would the poison make it harder or easier to break the mirrors?)

          And the poison is Mandrake--way to bring it back around!

          I've seen some fucked-up metaphors on here, but you win the blue ribbon for attendance by technical knock-out.
        • [[obligatory]]
          friends don't let friends post drunk ..

      • I'm not sure why anyone should care very much. Anyone can install OpenOffice for free, so I'm not sure what's gained by actually having it execute online.

        For home users, you're probably, mostly right. For some organizations, however (like schools) this can be a big plus. With OpenOffice you can already give students a free copy for home, but the Mac version is pretty lousy and a real performance dog. The advantage this brings is that you can also host an online service version for users who have a really old, second hand computer at home, or a three year old Mac ,or do their homework on public terminals at the city library. This means they can also access

      • I'm not sure why anyone should care very much. Anyone can install OpenOffice for free, so I'm not sure what's gained by actually having it execute online.

        Hi, sysadmin here. The reason I care? Installing and maintaining one application server is far less hassle than installing and maintaining the app on dozens/hundreds of workstations.

      • Maybe I'm missing something, but couldn't you get equivalent results by using OpenOffice locally and having some sort of syncing online? Or maybe figuring out a way to mount a remote volume and open/save documents directly to it?

        That's what really gets me: the technology to do this was old news in 1998. URL wrappers has been working well for eons. It would be *NOTHING* to include native support for webDAV style functionality into OpenOffice, (EG: you don't have to "mount" the DAV directory locally) and it s [openoffice.org]

      • What more do you want?

        Well, that gets offtopic, but what more I want is the ability to run my own server instead -- and to be able to interoperate/share with the people on the "official" one.

        I've only really seen this happen once in recent years -- GTalk. It's Jabber, which means I can always set up my own Jabber server and still be able to chat with people on GTalk -- yet it doesn't diminish, in any way, the value GTalk gives actual Google users.

        (At the risk of getting even more offtopic: Oh, how I wish

  • Looks like the program is projected over a VNC, Remote X, Citrix, or some other remote GUI session. The good news is that such a design makes the software as interactive as a desktop application. The bad news is that it's a sign of minimal changes, which can sometimes mean a poor-quality product. (e.g. The complaints about lack of document sharing.)

    I'm a big fan of delivering software over the web, but simply remote GUI sessions aren't going to do it. Consumers may not know *why* the software acts the way it does, but they will see through the ruse to something they can get for much less than the asking price. Heck, setup a Unix server or Windows Terminal Server and you can push out the app just as effectively.

    I'll give them an B+ for effort, but a D- for execution. Let's hope they customize the app a bit more in the future, and close the gaps to become a competitive product.
    • I should read a little more carefully. The article says that it's VNC. Soo... now you know. And you don't even have to RTFA. :-P

    • Heck, setup a Unix server or Windows Terminal Server and you can push out the app just as effectively.

      Oh sure, I'll just get my Grandmother right onto that. Apart from sysadmins for a company, who is really going to bother? And would you pay for a Citrix or Terminal Server license? I have the technical skills to do all of this but there is no way I could be arsed doing it for my own personal use.

      This takes something that used to be reserved for the Enterprise environment and makes it available to the every day joe.

  • so they have a server running Office and allow you access via VNC

    bad things : server Load is large and screen refresh means large bandwidth both reasons why the consumers are going to be frustrated

    good things : easy to achieve and fully working (unlike google doc's + others which are basic and I dont trust floating point number rounding to a browser javascript engine )

    my personal thing : if I wanted to use VNC / Citrix / MS Remote Desktop / backtomypc / webex I would But I do not I have a nice PC for that

    • I dont trust floating point number rounding to a browser javascript engine

      Nearly all Javascript engines use IEEE 754 numbers. The rounding errors have more to do with the engine than the underlying platform. I found that out the hard way when I imported a spreadsheet into GoogleSheet with computations that resulted in very small numbers. GoogleSheet truncated the number to two digits for display (somewhat okay, though I would have preferred if it kept the original formatting) but then based all further comp

    • Maybe your version will highlight your lack of punctuation I can't read your message I find it hard to know when things end or begin I am not one of those grammar or spelling Nazi's I just noticed that somethings ran together I couldn't understand what was wrong with my brain

      I like starting sentences with "I" also because it's always capital (and I like that the Firefox spell check yelled at me for not capitalizing Nazi)

  • First post! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Monday December 17 2007, @08:55PM (#21733802) Homepage Journal
    ...I wrote this with a web-based editor.

  • links (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikee805 (1091195) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:01PM (#21733836)
    Since neither the article or the summary provide links:

    The company:http://www.ulteo.com/ [ulteo.com]
    Online OOO:http://www.ulteo.com/home/ooo [ulteo.com]

    And if you dont want to register just to see it. Bug me not works for now.
  • The FLOSS vs. Google battle begins? At least a skirmish...

  • A first step (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gordgekko (574109) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:15PM (#21733902) Homepage
    This looks to me like a proof of concept, that they could get an online version of OpenOffice working and were satisfied with that as a first step. The problem is that other online services are past this point.

    That said, I'm still not sure why online office suites really need to exist. Commercial and FOSS versions exist that scale or shrink to most needs.

  • OpenOffice doesn't face any competition from web-based editors. The entire point of web-based editors is that they provide a free lightweight alternative to full-featured office suites. OpenOffice is a full-featured office suite that also happens to be free. Frankly, I think OpenOffice's open formats and standards allow it to be complemented by web-based editors. I can use full featured OpenOffice when I'm at home, and I can use a web-based editor that outputs to ODF when away from my computer.

    Ideally,

  • Please update: It has collaborative feature ! (Score:4, Informative)

    by thierryk (1202077) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:34PM (#21733994)
    There is already a collaboration feature implemented: work online with others fully dynamically, much better than any other online productivity suite. Also, if the host of the session prints a document, it prints for all other guests of the session. Just click "share desktop" and invite people to work with you on any OpenOffice.org app (in read only mode or active mode). You can invite as many people as you want (careful not to give active role to too many people or it will be hard to manage ;-)). So you can already update your post on that point.

  • LyX (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lahvak (69490) on Monday December 17 2007, @09:39PM (#21734040) Journal
    Slightly off topic, but I always thought LyX would be a prime candidate for an online document processor. It already has a thin frontend and separate backend. Making the frontend an online application would free users from having to install TeX with all its packages and fonts, and all sorts of other LyX files. It would also let you manage all your templates centrally, for example an organization could have all their templates on a LyX server, and employees would just need to run a possibly browser based thin client.
  • It's not like RAM and HD space are heinously expensive. My drive works whether or not I'm hooked up to the Web, and it doesn't work faster or slower depending on my connection quality. So, where's the win for the consumer?

    Well...

    As far as I can tell: there is none.

    It seems to me this is just the kind of prep work MS and Adobe need done in order to remove their software from your drive and thus remove *just a little more* of the independence and autonomy of your desktop. Frankly, I think people who are helping this a long are working against their own best interests. I would recommend a boycotting of such research.

    RS

    • If you only use a home computer and compare it with that, you are right.

      Now think businesses, 50+ computers. Advantages of SaaS software: no need for installations, no conflicting installations, easier to use on remote locations, centralized data which can only be seen through the application (if desired), no versioning problems, ... Look it up: Saas [wikipedia.org]
  • It requires JRE? I have made it 12 years without it. Why would I need it now except for this? uhmm..thanks but no thanks.
  • OpenOffice is pretty slow compared to Microsoft Office, and VNC is slower than Remote Desktop. That's going to result in less than acceptable performance. If they hosted it on Windows just for the RDP performance boost, this idea may work better. Unfortunaly, licensing cost will eat them alive.
  • About seven or eight years ago, when StarOffice 5.x was still around, shortly after it was acquired by Sun, I remember some Sun/StarOffice guys showing StarOffice as a real client-server version implemented in Java, not as a remote-GUI (VNC) based "normal" app like the one in TFA. The server portion was running on a Solaris server, while the client app ran on any OS; I think they were showing it on OS/2 since the event was a OS/2 users' conference. They claimed to have implemented some kind of sophisticated load balancing between client and server. The functionality was the same as that of the ordinary office suite, the GUI looked not much different and evrerything seemed quite performant.

    For a very short time, German telco Mobilcom used to offer it to their customers as a web-based service.

    I wonder what became of it. The same what became of the vast and really useful feature set that was ripped out of StarOffice 5.x when it was crippled to become OpenOffice 1/StarOffice 6, probably.

    Cheers,
    d. d.
    • Very much a proof of concept but Corel/Caldera ported WordPerfect to Java and had it running in a web browser ten years ago. It was predictably incredibly slow but it worked. At the time I couldn't help thinking that they should have ported the DOS WP 5.1 code instead of the Windows WP 6 code.
  • This has one advantage that I can see. I don't really expect to do much word processing on line, and it's not a collaborative suite, so that's another missed opportunity.

    But this does give me the ability to send people ODT documents and when they complain "MS Word won't read this" send them to this site so they can read. Basically this gives me a justification to insist on sending people ODT rather than Word. Perhaps some of them will get tired of the website and decide to install OO.o on their own compu

    • mirror of http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9049898

      FRAME: [1] mainFrame

      Please visit [2] this link since your browser does not support frames.

      References

      1. http://www.searchmachine.com/index-null.html
      2. http://www.searchmachine.com/index-null.html

      I'm almost certain that's not the original article. Neat idea though. Maybe we need an elinkscache.com.

    • How is this different to what Thinkfree does? They have been doing it for at least a year.
      Getting a Thinkfree server for your self costs money.
    • Well, if you don't have Openoffice (or Microsoft Office etc.) then you can still open occasional documents without installing.

      So if I was sending an ODF file to someone I could include a link that would allow them to read the document online without installing software. That's actually a very useful feature and it could also be used to test how OOo parses Word documents without installing, if you were thinking of switching.

      Sometimes I find it simpler and faster to view Word/Excel documents on Google Apps ra

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