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Sun Joins Mac Open Office Development
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu May 03, 2007 09:18 AM
from the bye-bye-X11 dept.
from the bye-bye-X11 dept.
widhalmt writes "In a blog post, a developer at Sun Microsystems announces that Sun will help with porting Open Office to Mac OS X. The open source office suite is well known on Linux and Windows, but does not have a native version on Mac OS. For a long time Sun did not want to join the development of that port but now they will actively push it."
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Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Informative)
NeoOffice is an independently developed version of OpenOffice.org 2.1 which runs on Mac OS X natively and without the need for X11. I've been using it for years.
Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll admit, I recently d/led the newest version at work, and it does seem to be an improvement. Still not as fast as a normal app, but not head-bangingly slow.
Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Insightful)
I must be doing something wrong, since my NeoOffice (2.1 patch 3) takes about 10 seconds to start.
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Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Given its heavy use of Java I think the 'native' qualification is debatable. Some aspects are native (e.g. font management), which is certainly a major plus.
Unfortunately, though, this application gives new meaning to the words 'slow' and 'bloated'. The author has also chosen to make its license (GPL) incompatible with OO.o's (LGPL) so that his porting efforts cannot be contributed back to the main project. That makes NeoOffice a very hostile fork. What's more, he is trying (against the terms of the GPL/LGPL) to limit free distribution [neooffice.org] by using the trademark loophole.
So, I would say that while a port exists, it's both low quality and under bad management, and I welcome this new effort to do it properly.
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Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, though, this application gives new meaning to the words 'slow' and 'bloated'.
Well, it's not snappy, but it's certainly better than the "nothing" that OpenOffice has been offering in terms of native OSX ports.
The author has also chosen to make its license (GPL) incompatible with OO.o's (LGPL) so that his porting efforts cannot be contributed back to the main project. That makes NeoOffice a very hostile fork.
I'd probably be hostile, too. IIRC, the backstory with NeoOffice was that they were trying to work with OOo on a native OSX port, and not only did Sun refuse to help, but they basically sabotaged their efforts. Rather than give up, these guys split off and started their own project, and because of that, OSX users have had a very functional free office suite for OSX for a couple years now.
What's more, he is trying (against the terms of the GPL/LGPL) to limit free distribution by using the trademark loophole.
Protecting your trademark is not a "loophole". All sorts of projects, whether they're commercial (Redhat) or not (Mozilla), protect their trademarks. Worst case scenario?-- you take the source and strip out trademarked graphics/names, recompile, and then you're free to distribute the results however you want (under the GPL).
I don't want to be misunderstood: I'm happy that Sun is finally porting OpenOffice to OSX. The result may very well be superior to NeoOffice, and if so I'll use Sun's version. However, they've been taking their sweet damn time, and in the mean time, the NeoOffice team has made a very useful bit of software. I don't think we should be belittling the NeoOffice team and their terrific efforts simply because they don't have the resources to perfect their port. They've been doing a lot with very little while OOo has been doing practically nothing with their bounty.
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Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Informative)
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We never used CocoaJava (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I am a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project.
Quote: and became an even worse idea when Apple deprecated the Java-Cocoa bridge
We never used the CocoaJava bridge at all. I guess you never bothered to read the source code. In fact, we use very little Java at all as is pointed out by the ohloh source code analysis [ohloh.net] of our open CVS. There's little Objective-C as we do most of the logic in C++ and call out to ObjC when required. There are some other stats there you may find intriguing as well like the estimated man-years and cost [ohloh.net] it will take to approximate our code.
Trust me, once any OS X port of OOo starts getting font handling and input methods correct, it'll slow down as well. This is true especially for Asian and other foreign languages. The bottleneck is in Apple's ATSUI and how it mismatches to the underlying OOo code. Has nothing to do with Java at all. Speed in a vaporware demo is one thing; carrying speed into a functional product is something different completely.
ed
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Re:We never used CocoaJava (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's true (and I don't doubt that it is), then putting that "/J" in the name was a spectacularly bad idea.
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Re:Not true! NeoOffice! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here's some oblig. links:
NeoOffice: http://trinity.neooffice.org/ [neooffice.org]
OOo: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/index.h tml [openoffice.org]
Re:NeoOffice is not 'native' in a sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you appreciate the irony of that statement.
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Re:nagware, opens browser windows to author homepa (Score:4, Informative)
Err, that's rubbish. NeoOffice opens the default browser when there's an update. The update page happens to have a donation message on it, but the main thing is to inform you that an update is available!
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Simple solution: email Steve (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
Will they unarchive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Improv (Score:4, Interesting)
Having Improv back would be wonderful. The best spreadsheet I've ever used - using Improv made using Excel or other grid based spreadsheets painful.
But then too, there was also this oddball thing called (I think, its been some years) "Advance", I only had a couple weeks to play with a test copy. Very powerful, rather strange. I'd like to have that back to play with too.
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Best intentions, but still... (Score:5, Informative)
From the blog:
The problem has always been that OO.o makes assumptions about GUI development that are well-suited to X11 and Windows, and not well-suited to Aqua. The question is, can someone who's learning Mac development as he goes push changes back to OO.o to make it more suitable for Aqua and other GUI toolkits? Can he do it before Sun changes their mind and de-funds the Mac port? Sun has a habit of funding things for about six months and then getting cold feet.
Which reminds me: I should throw some money at Ed and Patrick for their continued work on NeoOffice [neooffice.org], which uses Java as a GUI adapter (!) to get OO.o tolerable on the Mac
OO has been on OS X since 10.0 (Score:3, Informative)
Port it all you want... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I am complimenting Microsoft -- I am sure I'll be flamed for it. But frankly, they make the best office suite, and since theirs is the standard look and feel (although the new Office is a departure), the other guys have to play catchup.
I would love to use OpenOffice, I just hate the look and feel and have always been more comfortable in Microsoft Office.
Re:Port it all you want... (Score:4, Insightful)
- Keeping an informal "database" of crap in Excel or Calc - Both will sort the list by whatever column your highlighted cell is in if you hit one of the "A->Z" or "Z->A" buttons. But Calc will treat the column headings as data and sort them into the middle of the list! Excel knows that the first line is not data if it's a different text style from the rest of the list. Polish.
- Printing in Excel or Calc - Having a sheet loaded and trying to print will print the whole entire freaking spreadsheet, all sheets, all ranges in Calc. That's just stupid. Excel will (for obvious reasons) default to printing only the sheet you're on. More polish.
- Mail merging in Word or Writer - Trying to get Writer to realize that "mail merge" doesn't necessarily mean "i'm writing a form letter and want to import addresses" is like pulling teeth. Word has no problem with just binding whatever data to a form. Polish(x1). Also, Word doesn't force you (or confuse you) into creating an Access database when you just want to import an informal list of crap from Excel. Writer DOES try to get you to make a Base
Now, none of these are absolute deal-breakers, nor do they show that OO.o is somehow unworthy of attention. On the contrary, it shows that OO.o needs more attention, and from people who actually use the features they're coding. MS Office will only get better if there's pressure on MS to make it better, and OO.o is probably the best hope for applying that kind of pressure. I just think that MS really deserves some credit for making Office a decent app suite. They've done far more than most
Just to clarify, none of this applies to the Windows vs. Linux debate. I want Windows to just go die in a fire. It really needs to be flushed like all the other turds.
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Exciting! Can't Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
So I say, bring it on! I think that getting a good implementation of OOo running natively under Aqua is key in the cause of reducing reliance on Microsoft. People switching to Linux obviously are going to use OOo or some other open format, but still too many people switching to Mac are relying on Microsoft. It'll be curious to see whether they take Firefox's approach to have the interface be consistent across the board, or if they try and take advantage of OS X's toolkits and design guides to make it a true Mac application.
Re:But... (Score:4, Funny)
Huh? Read the summary? This guy didn't even read the title!
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