Sun and Apple Team Up for StarOffice for Mac OS X 363
An anonymous reader writes, "CNET writes about Sun and Apple getting together to create StarOffice for the Mac OS X." Apparently, the Java-based OpenOffice app will be released before year's end (a developer release went out on Thursday), with a commercial StarOffice release sometime next year.
OpenOffice is not javabased (Score:1, Informative)
A have seen confusion with this before, probably just C-net and Slashdot that are wrong.
S.L.A.S.H.D.O.T.: Synthetic Lifelike Android Skilled in Hazardous Destruction and Online Troubleshooting
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
1) The relationship between Apple and Microsoft has been strained by the lackluster sales of Office v.X. Apple supports the porting of StarOffice because it doesn't want MacOS X to be cutoff from the ability to interact with the ever-important Microsoft dominated office file formats should Microsoft decide to abandon the platform.
2) Development hurdles that Sun must overcome are removing and redesigning X11 protocol specific code to work with Quartz 2D -- Apple's windowing API -- and redesigning the user interface such that it conforms to the Apple Aqua guidlines. (That's a tall order, especially considering that much of the Aqua guidlines are incomplete and still being formed.) Currently, StarOffice uses its own interface toolkit, built from the ground up.
3) The ever-pressing issue of how to make money by selling an essentially open-source product. Sun plans to do this not by merely offering support, but also adding special enticements to a commercial distribution that wouldn't be available in an open-source distribution. (An example is the bundling of commercial quality fonts with the software).
Re:Java is NOT the way to go (Score:4, Informative)
Open(Star)Office always had parts written in Java (Score:2, Informative)
So, the use of Java isn't really news, and any messaging around Java should just be seen as Marketing exploiting the fact that yes, indeed, parts are written in Java.
Re:There is a native version (Score:3, Informative)
I mean no disrespect to the OpenOffice people but that build is not a 1.0 release.
Re:Appleworks dead? (Score:2, Informative)
I think the idea that Apple might drop AppleWorks and try to replace it with the more robust StarOffice is definitely not without merit. Given the fact that StarOffice and OpenOffice share a common file format, and those suites together create a compatible document format across Solaris, Windows, and Linux (both x86 and PPC), Apple might be wise to join that group. If Apple and Sun create StarOffice for MacOS X, and Microsoft does pull the plug on Office for Mac, it will be Star/OpenOffice on five platforms versus MS Office on one. Star/OpenOffice would become the de facto choice for anyone not running Windows (or not wanting to spend $500 USD on a productivity suite).
If Apple decides to jump on the StarOffice bandwagon, I don't see them continuing to support AppleWorks. Everything I've seen about this indicates that StarOffice for MacOS X would be bundled for free with pro-level Macs (and most likely available for free or very little money for the consumer-level Macs). I don't see why anyone would choose AppleWorks if they could get StarOffice for less than AppleWorks or for free?
Java based OpenOffice app (Score:2, Informative)
OpenOffice includes support for Java but it is most certainly _not_ Java based.
Anyone who has not used OpenOffice really should take a look. IMHO is is a viable replacement to Microsoft Office at home while Star Office (based on OpenOffice) is a viable replacement for Microsoft Office at work.
Wish good luck to the OpenOffice guys and take a bit of time to wish Sun good luck with Star Office too.
Thanks.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OOo already themable. (Score:4, Informative)
In order to be in line with the Aqua UI guidelines, you have to implement them all, completely. You can't just get kinda-sort close, throw a pinstripe background behind your toolbar and some gummy window decorations, and call it a day.
You should read the Aqua HI guidelines [apple.com] sometime. (Also available in PDF [apple.com]. They just might open your eyes.
Re:Java *is* interpreted (usually) (Score:4, Informative)
In the case of Sun's current HotSpot JVMs (1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4, 1.4.1beta), however, the basic execution is bytecode interpretation. Only when the HotSpot profiler determines that a piece of code would benefit from optimization does is (possibly) get compiled into native code. Many other optimizations are also possible, of course. This is part of why there is still hope for Java on the client and why Java on the server actually works quite well. For long running processes, the HotSpot optimizer can (more accurately 'could') do a bang-up job optimizing the code.
As for your statement that there are optimizations that a Java compiler can do that a C++ compiler cannot, that is true. Of course the reverse is also true; the Java bytecode compiler cannot do as much type checking as a C++ compiler can, and it cannot do some of the optimizations that C++ can because until runtime it cannot know if they will be usefull or not. Java's compilation environment is, in some ways, more complex than C++'s, even though C++ is a much more complex language. Java has two compilers: one source to bytecode compiler run at "compile time", and one bytecode to native compiler than [may] run at runtime.
This is mostly offtopic and mostly pedantic, but, as a developer who uses several languages, I hate to see silly comments by language biggots go unchallanged. Always remember: All languages suck; some just suck less in a given situation than the others do.
KDE, Java, and PHP on Mac (Score:4, Informative)
I use my home x86 boxen for web development (php, mysql), with KDE/Qt for C++ development (and some Java).
Mac OS X out of the box includes extensive support for the Java platform [apple.com].
If you want to write KDE apps on the Mac, you're in luck: Fink [sourceforge.net], the most comprehensive distribution of free software for the Darwin operating system, now includes KDE [sourceforge.net]. Fink also includes PHP, Ruby, Python, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
Re:OS X on Intel/AMD last hurdle to World Dominati (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Apple Convert (Score:5, Informative)
I develop 4 open source PHP/MySQL utilities, and have moved development of all of them over to OS X. Project Builder is pretty good, or if you use Vim or Emacs you can install X11 (I did). KDE is now in Fink, and Trolltech has also release an OS X native version of Qt.
One recommendation: put in a lot of RAM. When I first got the iBook (700MHz) I though it was kind of slow, but now that I maxed out the RAM (640MB), it's very nice. Also, my wife has one of the 800MHz 15" iMacs, and it's really nice as well.
Re:AppleWorks goes all the way back to the IIe (Score:4, Informative)
You just referenced three different programs, each with entirely different codebases.
The first AppleWorks was text-based, in the days of the IIe. I associate the name Rupert Lissner with early versions of this; Beagle Bros. was involved in later versions, I think. I think there's also some connection to the early MSWorks team.
AppleWorks GS was an independent project, written by StyleWare, and originally to be called GSWorks. Claris bought StyleWare, and it became AppleWorks GS. This was a fairly typical module-based integrated app (i.e. mostly separate programs with a wrapper around them), but you would not believe the challenge of doing something like this with a color GUI on a 2.8 MHz machine. (One unusual feature was an integrated paint/draw environment: objects retained their integrity, but you could e.g. lasso or erase parts of them.)
Two of us from StyleWare (myself and Scott Holdaway) later left Claris, wrote what was to become ClarisWorks, and sold it to Claris. Comepletely independent codebase from AppleWorks GS, and a completely different design, much more integrated. (That's right, Claris was there long before ClarisWorks, although people sometimes say "Claris" when they mean "ClarisWorks" - always confuses me.)
Some subsets of the two of us and the other early CW developers worked on ClarisWorks through version 5. Most of this group was later at Gobe, writing Gobe Productive (originally for BeOS, now for Windows as well).
Eventually Apple dismantled Claris. What was left became FileMaker Inc.; ClarisWorks transitioned to Apple, renamed (confusingly) AppleWorks. None of the original ClarisWorks developers are involved with AppleWorks at this point.
Although I'm somewhat depressed at what's become of ClarisWorks, I'm hopeful that StarOffice will be good for the Mac. (Either that, or I'll have to go write another integrated app - I won't use MS software.)
Bob Hearn
Re:Java ? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, but who still uses the AWT? Swing has a JFileChooser which is loads better. Don't judge Java by the state it was in 4 or 5 years ago.
Re:Apple Convert (Score:5, Informative)
I got an iBook because I thought the hardware was sexy. I tought about installing Yellow Dog and a two button mouse. Guess what happened?
I ditched Linux for MacOS X but kept using my old apps, like mutt and so on. I kept writing C code with vi, et all
After 3 months, I found myself using the Mail app that comes with MacOS X, Project Builder, and Objective C.
Cocoa is wonderfull -- get the Hillegrass book, it's good beginning stuff.
I never intended to make the switch. It was the hardware that got me. Then, slowly I got hooked. I highly recommend the platform. I would never ever use a mac before MacOS X, but now I think of it as the NeXT box that I never got.
Sometimes I think of the non-free nature of the whole thing, but the fact that Darwin, gcc, and a lot of other stuff is Open Source/Free, it makes me feel a little better. Besides you can run Darwin, X and GNUStep.
Re:OpenOffice is not javabased (Score:3, Informative)
No. You'd don't need Java to run. It's only used for the integrated browser and the Java API to access OpenOffice stuff. Last time I installed it was optional on both Linux and Windows.
Claris did (Score:3, Informative)
The team that was behind ClarisWorks then created Gobe Productive for BeOS, & just recently Windows & Linux too.
I wonder how similar Gobe Productive for Windows is to the current version of AppleWorks for Windows?
Apple didn't purchase Claris (Score:3, Informative)
In 1998 Apple restructed Claris as FileMaker, Inc. to focus on its most profitable product, FileMaker. Apple killed the other Claris-branded software (Emailer and Home Page being the most notable) and returned the office suite known as ClarisWorks to its pre-1987 name: AppleWorks.