OpenOffice.org Team Releases Version 1.0 427
DenialS writes: "Congratulations to the OpenOffice.org team! Version 1.0 of the open office suite has been released. I'm downloading it now; I've had good luck with the previous stable builds. Release notes haven't been posted yet, so I can't say what the major differences are between 1.0 and the previous stable build, 641d, but I'm looking forware to finding out!"
I showed my windozw friends... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I showed my windozw friends... (Score:5, Informative)
There are I believe paid Sun hackers still working as the core team of the project and there are also Boeing (as in big things with wings) hackers whose programming time for the project has been donated by the company. There are I believe a large number of volunteer hackers working on the project but they are all gaining marketable skills, CV entries and maybe just having fun. Everyone gains (including Sun in its object of reducing M$ control on the desktop). As an oo user I would like to thank all who contributed to its development.
Re:Which commercial product is next? (Score:2, Insightful)
your quote doesn't prove that most people who code write commercial software. but it does say that people who write commercial software are included in the largest group of professional coders, the computer and data processing services industry. this could also include tech support, firmware, and companies like SAP that basically write customer specific code for each application. so there is both consumer and corporate level programming in this "largest concentration."
i think the fuss about MS Office is that it is very expensive ($500.00 to buy it outright - not the upgrade). it is expensive because most people in the business world have to use it. if your software is not compatible, you have deviated from the standard in the business world. demand increases value.
also, Sun does plan to make money on this. Sun will soon be releasing Star Office 6.0. Star Office will cost money. though there was community input into Open Office, Sun also paid people to work on it. Sun is paying people to write the extra code going into Star Office. this strategy builds community support, gives you a great free alternative, and produces a quality commercial product. it may not be perfect, but it is a fairly elegant compromise of making money and supporting open source and the community in general (even outside open source).
Re:I showed my windozw friends... (Score:2)
Industry benefits a lot more from research than researchers, I'll give you that. I wonder if the post you replied to would be all for patenting an aids vaccine or something and making a crapload of money off of it rather than giving away 'the source' for free? After all, if you give it away for free, some big drug companies will pick it up and market it and make craploads of money off of it. A whole lot more than you ever will.
Great news (Score:2, Insightful)
[1]For high-accuracy nuclear bomb simulations, particle interactions, that sort of thing.
Re:Great news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great news (Score:2)
Re:Great news (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, something that is easily accessible from virtually any programming language on any platform. Something that can be easily implemented, assuming no pre-existing implementation exists. Such a standard would be great for shuffling data between disparate and otherwise incompatible programs.
Wait a minute... it's called CSV [google.com] :-)
Re:Great news (Score:3, Funny)
Whoever sold Excel to you may have violated the M$ EULA...
You specifically agree not to export or re-export the SOFTWARE PRODUCT:
(...)
(ii) to any end-user who you know or have reason to know will utilize the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or portion thereof in the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons
I hope you are careful (Score:4, Informative)
Good Stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
It avoids the piracy issue, promotes open source, and avoids another Microsoft Tax.
Winners all around
Just need to go through the application and set the defaults from Metric to English, changed the default fonts to arial and times roman instead of the default Thorndale, etc. just for document compatibility. Also set the document save default to MS , since most folks will get caught by surprise otherwise first time they try to share a doc.
Re:Good Stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a converter/plugin for Word (latest versions also) that goes the other way?? ie, Save em in the nice xml star/openoffice format, and when folks say they can't open em, post em the filter.
Subvert the dominant paradigm and all that guff.
Re:Good Stuff (Score:5, Funny)
Or...maybe not.
Re:Good Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward 5 years. MS-Word has dethroned the King and reigns as Usurper. Now Word will only write to WP format with 90% accuracy, while suddenly WP can write to MS-Word format 100%.
And if you think about it, that is the only way it can work in a competitive environment, particularly with publicly-held companies. There is negative incentive for the leader to be able to write to the challengers' formats.
Now, we could talk about an entirely open standard for document formatting... Oops, we already have SGML and TeX. Oh well...
sPh
[1]This argument extends back to PFS:Write and Electric Pencil as well of course.
Re:Good Stuff (Score:2)
In theory, it should be poss to do transforms between xml formats
Re:Good Stuff (Score:3, Informative)
When you do so it will ask you for the original Office 97 CD (which must be exactly the same version). Since you have touched the original CD, don't forget to reinstall all Office and operating system service packs in the correct order when you are done.
Now the fun part is figuring out how to rerun Setup if you didn't install the Office tool bar, since the tool bar is the only organic location to start Setup, and you need to run Setup to install the tool bar :-).
sPh
Excellent! - Hoping for real save as PDF in 1.1 (Score:2, Interesting)
By far the number one feature I would like to see added is a "save as PDF" which is as efficient as Framemaker. When I try the procedure outlined for windows (download a Postscript driver from Adobe, print to file, and use Ghostscript to convert), I get unbelievably huge files, as opposed to smaller files. It would also be nice to have a PDF target with links which is impossible going through
What is everyone else's number one requested feature?
Dara (hmmm - have to learn how to start a new thread)
Re:Excellent! - Hoping for real save as PDF in 1.1 (Score:2, Informative)
Here's hoping slashdot doesn't fuck up the link.
If you're running a linux workstation, it's even easier but if you happen to have a linux firewall or just one on your network, it'll get the job done.
Re:Excellent! - Hoping for real save as PDF in 1.1 (Score:3, Informative)
check out http://www.pdf995.com [pdf995.com].
This is a free pdf file producer.
read the docs, requires the Apple Laser II NT printer driver.
Re:Excellent! - Hoping for real save as PDF in 1.1 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good Stuff (Score:2)
I have given out almost a hundred copies of the stable beta... I guess it's time to start making CD's for the next round of installs.
Re:Good Stuff (Score:2)
Bunch of links (Score:5, Informative)
Screen shots [openoffice.org]
List of changes [openoffice.org]
Marketing flyer [openoffice.org]
From Q&A section:
Q. Is OpenOffice.org 1.0 100% Microsoft Office file compatible?
A. As Microsoft rarely publish their file specifications, no-one can answer that question. However, there are plenty of users who regularly edit and exchange documents, spreadsheets, etc with Microsoft Office users without any problems. Indeed, some users claim they've seen bigger compatibility problems moving between versions of Microsoft's own products.
Q. I've just saved a file from Microsoft Office in OpenOffice.org format, and it's much smaller - yet it hasn't lost anything?
A. Good, isn't it?
Q. Has this suite got that annoying paperclip?
A. No. Never has, never will. No. No!
Testimonials [openoffice.org]
Timeline [openoffice.org]
Credits [openoffice.org]
Re:Bunch of links (Score:2)
Indeed, some users claim they've seen bigger compatibility problems moving between versions of Microsoft's own products.
Considering the hassles users experience thrashing between versions of Word (and exchanging Word documents between platforms), that's not exactly a ringingly strict infimum of compatility.
But hey, it's probably a whole better than catdoc, so I won't complain too loudly.
Re:Bunch of links (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can see as an OOo outsider, the solver is the object files (+ source?) so that if you're hacking on one specific part of OOo, you can compile, link and test without having to recompile the whole suite overnight.
If all you want to do is play with the "finished product", just grab the installer.
--
Does it support printers now? (Score:2, Interesting)
If so, what printing systems does it support? CUPS?
Re:Does it support printers now? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Does it support printers now? (Score:3, Informative)
Printcap
if your
Re:Does it support printers now? (Score:3, Informative)
so far it has been printing great. I even used it tp type up a 10 page report yesterday for school, and I was very impressed.
Re:Does it support printers now? (Score:2)
If it does, then you should have no problem. RedHat has a very easy default ghostscript setup. Other popular systems should have something similar, or you can just roll your own ghostscript command line. Or you can buy a PostScript printer; they are pretty inexpensive now-a-days.
With ghostscript you can also print PostScript on Windows, so you can keep a consistent system going across platforms.
Re:Does it support printers now? (Score:2, Informative)
I've created a printer who's print command is "kprinter" (if memory serves). Whenever I hit "print" it pops up the nice KDE print dialog with all of the neat features it offers.
Best regards,
David
Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)
here [dmoz.org]
and
here [sunsite.dk]
Here's some characters to get past the filter. And some more. And some more.
Re:Mirrors (Score:2)
Googlecache here. (Score:3, Informative)
Or just click here. [216.239.51.100]
Call it karma whoring if you like, I just think that the more people that use the mirrors and get this great Office app the better.
.haeger
Re:Googlecache here. (Score:2)
Beautiful! Whore-away, big guy! That link just got me to a mirror close by with 1.0... Nice. I wouldn't have thought of it myself at all.
Downloading now...
-Russ
my mirror (Score:2)
i made/in the process of making a mirror here:
http://sage.che.pitt.edu/linux/sunsite.informatik
i believe i have the linux files. the sun and windows will be there shortly.
enjoy
Mac OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't wait to see it.
I use Mac/Win/Linux machines and a real cross platform office suite would be a great improvement!
Re:Mac OS X (Score:4, Informative)
I tried compiling gcc 3.0.4 the other day, and it doesn't. All in all, a large amount of patience is appropriate for Mac platforms.
Re:Mac OS X (Score:2, Informative)
DAMN! Never submitted... (Score:4, Informative)
Log in on Terminal Server, and let the 'quickstart' come up (the butterfly by the clock).
Log in ANOTHER Session (with the first one still up), and you will not be able to start OpenOffice in that session. Every OO componant you start will appear in the first session. Not being very useful if you left a session open at work, and are logging in at home.
But hey, it's free, and it works!! So I'll just kill the first session, because I'm administrator. :) (but that should be verified because end-users wouldn't be able to do anything about it.)
Re:DAMN! Never submitted... (Score:2)
It's works just fine, just treat it like the workstation it is.
Actually I have one at a customers site that's also a PDC. And after working with NT, I'll gladly pay for Netware.
List of mirrors (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Vzn
OSX ???? (Score:4, Interesting)
With all the new Apples shipping on OSX wouldnt this be a great product for them ?
Every person I know that is/has bougth a iMac G4 whatever has also purchased MSOffice X.
It cant be that hard to port, can it ???
Re:OSX ???? (Score:2)
I've a Mac OS X machine being built for me now (can't wait!). For work reasons I'd need some sort of way of producing Word/PowerPoint - just because that's what all corporate offices use. I'd planned on trying OpenOffice - Mac OS X support would be nice.
However, if it's not there, I'll use Linux instead. *shrug*
Re:OSX ???? (Score:3, Informative)
But they also cost $460. That's a pretty steep price for someone who may just want a general suite.
Even AppleWorks (which is very funtional) costs $129.
Re:OSX ???? (Score:3, Informative)
Note that there is a PPC Linux build available at the Yellow Dog Linux site.
Re:OSX ???? (Score:3, Informative)
This may be a case where we want to just use the Linux port as a basis and use an X11 front-end, the way many are doing so for GIMP.
Course, we need a lot more coders before we make that happen.
Re:OSX ???? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OSX ???? (Score:2, Informative)
actually, i guess it is:
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac [openoffice.org]
os x makes a distinction between a shared library and a loadable module ( "plugin" ). It's quite a different platform to target. the open office team would love people familiar with it to help out.
read the macslash discussion on this topic here [macslash.com]
It's good (Score:5, Informative)
It renders my old MS Word 2000 files correctly, even with some pretty advanced tables and stuff. I'd say the import filters are certainly good enough for 95% of all users out there.
Load time (measured with clock in hand): 5 seconds (without the program preload and that tray stuff), on my Thunderbird 800Mhz, 256MB machine. It still wants a lot of memory, but otherwise it's in a completely different class than the old Star Offices, performance wise.
It's free, it's good, it has a quality spell checker, what more could I possibly want?
GNOME 2.0, KDE 3.0, Mozilla 1.0, Open Office 1.0 (or SO 6.0), it's all coming together nicely IMO. And you can't beat the price.
Re:It's good (Score:2)
Bloody good point. What is the Access replacement of choice lately. And don't say SQL Server!
Re:It's good (Score:2)
Has anyone developed a file based database whichc an read access files?
And don't say SQL Server!
You could get similar functionality from an SQL front end. Again, not sure if anyone has yet written one.
Re:It's good (Score:4, Informative)
They are reading both access 97 and access 2000 mdb files successfully.
http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/
basic scripting (Score:2, Interesting)
It's pretty good, although the documentation could be better.
Oh well, just look for examples on the web.
Re:basic scripting (Score:5, Funny)
If not, it doesn't truly replicate the "Microsoft Experience."
(Note to moderators: Laugh, it's funny!)
Dude, OpenOffice Is Smooth (An Impress Review) (Score:5, Informative)
Until recently, I had been running Win2k on my Toshiba laptop due to a need for good presentation software (heck, when you work for the US Air Force, it is either Powerpoint or you don't do your job...). Well, the need to do some web/sql development pushed me to put Source Mage Linux [sourcemage.org] on the ol' workhorse. Needless to say, I needed some presenation software.
Enter OpenOffice. I had looked at Koffice, but I didn't want to run a full blown desktop environment (currently, I am running X 4.2 with E) and the dependencies to get Koffice up were huge. I had read about OpenOffice and was pretty pumped that would be the solution. I had no idea.
As I said above, Powerpoint was my main concern, but to a lesser extent, Excel since I import a lot of spreadsheet activity into my presentation. So, I get OpenOffice installed and I pull out my last ppt file from a recent meeting and go to work. First thing I noticed is that it takes OpenOffice a while to start. I am not quite sure what to contribute this to, as my system is a Celery 650 with 192 meg of ram. Once it has been loaded, though, it appears to be cached since it starts very fast there after. Next, it loaded my Powerpoint file, something from Powerpoint 2000. It takes a little while, something that doesn't really surprise me since I have quite a few Excel tables imbedded in the show. After about 25 seconds, it is up.
The first thing I notice about the presentation is that it looks great! In presentation mode, the slides are clear and the text is even anti-aliased. Doing a side by side comparison with my XP machine, I was actually more impressed by the Impress display. Great job there. Next, I went to one of the many Excel objects and double clicked it. Boom, it loaded the Calc object in the presentation and I was able to edit the spreadsheet like Powerpoint/Excel. Too damn impressive.
What else do I like.... hmmmmm:
- I like the fact that what ever OpenOffice app you are in, you can open up any document. Very cool
- My Word documents look as good in OpenOffice. Very nice.
- The desktop thing is gone. Thank God...
- I am sure there is more, but I have just started playing...
If you can, go and help out these people. It is good stuff...Get yer mirrors right here (Score:5, Informative)
Sunsite.dk HTTP, Denmark [sunsite.dk] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Qkaka HTTP, China P.R. [qkaka.com] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Utwente HTTP/FTP, Netherlands [utwente.nl] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Planet Mirror HTTP, Australia [planetmirror.com] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
VLSM HTTP/FTP, Indonesia [vlsm.org] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
E4A HTTP, Italy [e4a.it] -
English and italian binaries.
Edumail HTTP, Belgium [edumail.be] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Giganet HTTP, Hungary [giganet.hu] -
Mirror with sources, binaries.
GD TU Wien HTTP/FTP, Austria [tuwien.ac.at] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stud FHT-Esslingen FTP, Germany [fht-esslingen.de] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
3Way FTP, Hong Kong, China P.R. [3way.com.hk] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
RWTH-Aachen FTP, Germany [rwth-aachen.de] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
PWR Wroc FTP, Poland [pwr.wroc.pl] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Sunsite Cnlab-Switch FTP, Switzerland [cnlab-switch.ch] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
CHG FTP, Russia [ftp.chg.ru] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Mirror AC HTTP, United Kingdom [mirror.ac.uk] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Unam FTP, Mexico [mirrors.unam.mx] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stardiv FTP, Germany [stardiv.de] -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
Thanks OpenOffice team!
Re:Get yer mirrors right here (Score:2)
Brainstorm for OpenOffice (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem:: One of the big complaints about moving to OSS is that people insist that they need to be able to exchange MS Word documents with other people around the country. Now, I hate sending or receiving Word docs when typing the text in the email would work just as well, but some people seem to only communicate by sending Word docs as attachments. Of course, OpenOffice can read from and write to Word format, but natively it writes to its own open format, and its a hassle to constantly save-as just to send a document as an attachment.
Solution: develop a mail server module that uses OpenOffice. When a mail going out of the network has an OpenOffice word processing document attached, the module automatically creates a version of the document converted to MS Word and adds it as an attachment. Conversely, mail coming into the network automatically converts Word->OpenOffice adds the attachments. By default, documents sent internally in the network (for some flexible definition of "internally") are not converted. A nice added touch would be to allow users to have their own settings on when conversions should be done. They could set users or entire domains who don't get conversions, choose to have documents substituted instead of added, etc.
Re:Brainstorm for OpenOffice (Score:2, Informative)
Have the installation program ask you what you want as your default save formats.
if you do not mix with Ofice folk, then you can use OO files, if oyu do, then you can use MS files.
Convert to RTF (Score:3, Interesting)
I would love to have a filter that watches for Word documents, checks to see if they use any of the weird features that RTF doesn't support, and if not, converts them to RTF.
(*) RTF: "Rich Text Format"
SOTO office effect (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
- StarDivision, for creating StarOffice in the first place.
- Sun Microsystems, for buying StarDivision and opening the StarOffice source code.
- Everyone who worked on the development of OpenOffice, coders, testers, web admins, and so on.
- All the government, business, and educational facilities out there who continue to mirror the files for us all to download!
These people have done a great job providing the open source community with one of the best apps out there. No matter how much we bitch, moan, and flame, remember that we only care because we love what you do so damned much!
Is there... (Score:2)
damnit!! (Score:2)
hate when that happens.
Pre built Linux boxes with mozilla Open Office (Score:2, Interesting)
pre installed linux pc's with Open Office already installed on second user equipment for little more than the cost of the Microsoft Office 'tax.' I'm sure stuff like this really sell Linux to joe public now...
Configuration tips: margins (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what version 1.0 is like. I hope that what I said helps you guys.
Talk about coincidence... (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks to Slashdot for the links.
More mirrors (Score:2, Informative)
Here's what looks like a more authoritative list [216.239.39.100], from Google's cache of the 641d build page:
Australia FTP/HTTP - http://planetmirror.com/pub/openoffice/
Austria HTTP - http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/office/openoffice/ (de, fr)
Austria FTP - ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/office/openoffice/ (de, fr)
Belgium FTP - ftp://openoffice.vosberg.be (de, nl)
Belgium HTTP http://www.edumail.be/index.php/static/openoffice (de, nl)
China P.R. HTTP http://office.qkaka.com/ (All listed localizations)
Denmark HTTP http://mirrors.sunsite.dk/openoffice/(da)
Denmark FTP ftp://sunsite.dk/mirrors/openoffice/ (da)
Finland HTTP http://www.kongogroup.com/openoffice/oo.asp (fi-only?)
Germany FTP ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openoffice/ (de)
Germany HTTP http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openoffice/ (de)
Germany FTP ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packa
Germany FTP ftp://openoffice.tu-bs.de/OpenOffice.org/641c/ (de, fr)
Germany FTP ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/ftp.o
Germany FTP ftp://ftp.stardiv.de/pub/OpenOffice.org/ (de, fr, es, sv, pt, zh-cn, zh-tw)
Hungary FTP/HTTP http://office.fsf.hu/letoltes.html (hu)
Iceland FTP ftp://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/OpenOffice
Iceland HTTP http://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/OpenOffice
Indonesia HTTP http://sapi.vlsm.org/openoffice/win32split/
Indo
Italy FTP/HTTP http://openoffice.e4a.it/ (it)
Mexico FTP ftp://mirrors.unam.mx/pub/OpenOffice/
Netherlands FTP ftp://borft.student.utwente.nl (nl)
Netherlands HTTP http://borft.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/ (nl)
Netherlands HTTP http://niihau.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/ (nl)
Poland FTP ftp://ftp.openoffice.pl/ (pl; NOTE: please use an FTP client program if your browser doesn't download the files)
Spain FTP ftp://ftp.cyberfenix.net/pub/openoffice(ca, es)
Spain HTTP http://ftp.cyberfenix.net (ca, es)
Spain HTTP http://ftp.rediris.es/ftp/mirror/openoffice.org/ (ca, es)
Spain FTP ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/openoffice.org (ca, es)
Sweden FTP http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Office/OpenOffice.org/ (sv)
Switzerland FTP ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/OpenOffice/ (de, fr)
U.K. HTTP http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ny1.mirror.openoffi
U.S.A. FTP ftp://ftp.mn-linux.org/linux/openoffice(Linux only)
wtf? ugly fonts? (Score:2)
What is the deal with the fonts? They are friggin ugly! I assume it's just my system, but I'm using the default XFree86 fonts. Does it simply look like crap with the default fonts?
Every other program I have looks just fine, but with OpenOffice all the fonts look terrible, the menus are nearly unreadable.
Available on Kazaa (Score:2)
Windows will be available first, mainly because my work machine runs Windows, and I'll be using it first.
My default file associations at work and home are to open Word and Excel docs in OpenOffice. I don't even use MS Office unless I need to run some VBA macros embedded in the file.
This means I can open e-mailed Office files with impunity! Mwhahahaha (And yes, I do know how to tell the difference between real Word files and files with a myfile.doc.exe style filename)
Here are the MD5sums (Score:2, Informative)
OpenOffice.org MD5sums
2002-04-30
24b64e79509f4e6b4e458fe35f82c762 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
4e64260ed39c81e895551364e25d3258 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_LinuxIntel_solver.tar.gz
f29b608ebc5512401f3c315475f4593c 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_Win32Intel_install.zip
67bf15ac86aaf3a09e334661d4cbe49e 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_SolarisSparc_install.tar.gz
f5dbcf74a3b025280a2afd3e5913da16 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_source.tar.bz2
e40dfc192a7b963ea998619425316057 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_source.tar.gz
6e96524d13a76e612715ab95f9607b68 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_SolarisSparc_solver.tar.gz
a1b2339eeb66f0cacdbf878464c05628 1.0.0/OOo_1.0.0_Win32Intel_solver.zip
How much contribution from outside? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be really interested to know more about this. If anyone from OpenOffice can comment I'd love to hear you.
How many external contributors actually make significant contributions? How many people (that don't work for Sun) are paid by their employers to contribute to this project? What proportion of new code (or documentation or whatever) comes from non-Sun people?
I personally believe that Open Source represents a much superior development model to the way Microsoft uses, but I would like to hear how effective it is on this project.
Mail (Score:2)
a small step.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Having an office suite that can read 95 percent of all Word documents is the first small step in overcoming this monopoly, but it is not enough. Even 99 percent compability is not enough. The cost of Office is high, but not so high that you risk having some of your documents destroyed.
The
Here is the only way to brake the monopoly(that I can think of):
* Attack the weaknesses of the
* Develop 1 - one - XML-based document standard. Here is the most important small step that OO is taking. Now we have to convince AbiWord, KWord ++ to use the same format 100 percent.
* Start making plugins for Word that reads this format. Plugins that can be installed with one click if somebody recieves a document in XML. And plugins that allows the administrators to decide that this XML-based format should be default instead of
Then you can introduce other programs that reads this format perfectly.
Describing OpenOffice (Score:5, Insightful)
When talking about OpenOffice with Joe Public, be sure to use appropriate descriptive words.
"I see you're still using traditional software on your computer, Bob. Don't you know that stuff is susceptible to Microsoft Outlook viruses? Have you tried Openoffice? It's free! It's free because it is developed using a leading-edge development method that's superior to the old-fashioned way that Microsoft develops software. Microsoft software is expensive because the conventional methods they use to create it are inefficient. That's why there are so many Microsoft viruses around. There aren't any OpenOffice viruses. Why don't you give it a try?"
Text in the default save format (Score:2)
It's *still* missing two things (Score:4, Insightful)
Granted, when compared to Outlook, it's only missing one thing, but still
Okay - so I don't need to have those two functions embedded into the office program, but I would rather not be without them, and I'm somewhat sure, that the rest of my office wouldn't either.
Here's what I need:
1) A calendar function comparable to Outlook, preferably one that isn't dependant on a specific platform (ie. Windows, Linux, Mac OS et al). This means the ability to include/invite other people in/to meetings and to view other peoples calendars.
2) An email function comparable to Outlook, again, preferably one that isn't dependant on a specific platform. Support for multiple accounts and Usenet would be a boon.
No, the programs don't have to be free, neither as in beer or speech, they just need to work, be cheaper than Office and safer with regards to vira etc.
Preferably the two/three mentioned programs/functions should be integrated into one program.
Suggestions are more than welcome
Re:Is there any way to access Old ms Office files (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is there any way to access Old ms Office files (Score:3, Informative)
Have you tried just opening them?
does any one know of anything which would fit my requirments ? I looked at open office before and I do not think it does
In what way does it not?
Re:Is there any way to access Old ms Office files (Score:4, Funny)
Note he said he "looked at" OO - that's exactly what he did, he looked at it, saw the price and thought, nah, that can't be good.
Re:Is there any way to access Old ms Office files (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted already. Mirrors anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted already. Mirrors anyone? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted already. Mirrors anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
List of mirrors! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Its *not* written in java. (Score:2, Funny)
Working link (Score:2, Informative)
working link [google.com].
Re:Theme music for sites that are /. (Score:2)
Re:download install or solver? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Binary size: Linux vs win32 (Score:2, Insightful)
Flip to Linux-- there is a huge array of choices for window managers, printing, etc. So the developers have to choose between putting out several diffeent dynamically linked versions that use external library code, or one larger statically linked version.
I believe, in the interst of ease of support, maintnenance, and installation for the newbies, the binary is statically linked. Even if it weren't, there is a lot of code provided at the OS level in Win32 that you can't necessarily rely on in a Unix environment.
People who want the most efficient use of resources (disk space. et al) always have the option of compiling from source-- at least with Open Office they do.
Re:Star or Open? (Score:2)
Well, as SO6 and OOo are based on SO5.2, both have more features than the only widely available SO release. Further, since SO6 went gold a few weeks back (it must have done, in order for Mandrake purchasers to have something to download!), I would imagine that OOo has more bugfixes than the first release of SO6 when it turns up in a month or so.
That said, it's entirely possible that Sun's first release of SO6 will have all the fixes found in OOo 1.0.0 (i.e. it'll be SO6-SP1 or something).
Finally, SO includes a bunch of extras - clipart, fonts, templates and the like.
--
Re:Star or Open? (Score:2)
Has that changed? Did the Open guys come up with a checker? I don't suppose it would be that tough, but it seems like a LOT of grunt work...
Re:Star or Open? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Star or Open? (Score:2)
Re:great, but... (Score:2)
Re:Can I ask your help please? (Score:2)
Yes.
It works.
Yes, it is good, but I'm curious, if he can "get his hands on some MS Office CD's" then he's either paying a crapload so you all can have MS Office, which makes your first statement invalid. Or you will have pirated copies of MS Office, in which case, you might as well use pirated copies of MS Windows as well. You're better off getting legal copies of MS products or sticking with some Linux distro + XFree86 + some office product, which there are plenty out there..
And who modded this as offtopic? He is making an inquiry to the feasibility of his company making use of an Office product, I think that's related. Silly Moderators.
Re:OpenOffice v1 vs. SOT Office 2k (Score:2, Informative)
Get SOT if you want commercial support otherwise OOo will always be more up to date.
"Bugs and Issues" (Score:2, Funny)
I'm still going to grab the new version, but I'm not sure it's a good sign that their bug list has bugs
Re:Completing the Linux desktop (Score:2)
It might be, that in the long term, Open Office might be worse for MS than java (was it bad for MS at all?
Open Office is _not_ "only" about and office package, it's much more. It has a standardized, documented, cross plattform API (as far as I read) and bindings are beginning to get developed for different languages (I know of a python one). IIRC the name of the API is UNO.
What does that mean? It means that we (non-MS developers) now finally have a quite good possibility to do something on the server side which was quite difficult/impossible before.
Think content/document management systems, (MS) office integration for intranet publishing etc.
If the open source community gets to speed with this and integrates the open office API in products like zope, midgard etc., we will have an enormously strong contender against proprietary systems like SiteServer etc. "Oh, and our doc.management system will automagically convert your clobbert MS-Office documents in a fully open , future proof XML-standard compliant format."
And this is still an very interesting market