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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Software Apple

OpenOffice.org for Mac Delayed Two Years 139

Posted by pudge from the gnashing-of-teeth dept.
Athyra writes "According to their Mac porting page, OpenOffice.org will not release a native version of their software for Mac OS X (not counting the X11 version) until 2006. According to the project timeline, no real development can happen again until OpenOffice.org 2.0 hits Windows, Linux, and Solaris in 2005. Looks like Microsoft's got a cozy ride ahead on the Mac side of things for a while."
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OpenOffice.org for Mac Delayed Two Years More

OpenOffice.org for Mac Delayed Two Years

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  • 1 Word (Score:2, Funny)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 )
    Crap.

    • Re:1 Word (Score:3, Interesting)

      by catwh0re ( 540371 )
      Powerpoint - Keynote Word & Excel - Apple Works Access - Filemaker Pro Next V Exchange - 10.3 + iCal + Mail.app i think someone else is getting the bases covered..
    • Surely the X11 version should be fine for 99% of Mac users? BTW, if you haven't tried OOo 1.1 yet, you're missing out on something great. Go fetch an RC now and try it out!

      • Re:Errr... X11 on OS X is really that bad? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gerbache ( 540848 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @08:05AM (#6772446)
        Personally, I find it really obnoxious to use X11 apps while using Aqua apps. The difference in look and feel is rather distracting, so it's honestly not worth it to me to use OOo until that make it native. Granted, part of that is the fact that I get really cheap software by being a student, so I don't have to pay the outrageous prices for Microsoft Office, but still, X11 is fine for people who are used to using some variety of unix, but for anyone who is used to the look and feel of the Mac platform will be disappointed by it.
        • OpenOffice's UI doesn't really match the native look and feel of any platform (I run it on Win2K, FreeBSD and Linux). For my uses OpenOffice under X11 would be fine, since I use LaTeX for anything longer than a short letter.

          On the other hand, the nicest UI in an OfficeSuite that I have used was ClarisWorks 1.0 (I never used any of the later ones). Even if AppleWorks has simply maintained this standard, then it would be well worth the price that they charge for it (which, let's face it, isn't much).

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tempermental ( 700662 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @12:44PM (#6766834)
    I don't think Mac has field tested enough viruses yet for OpenOffice to properly develop security on their platform yet...

  • Timelines are always subject to change (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nortcele ( 186941 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @12:48PM (#6766885) Homepage
    But if enough people buy OSX Macs and then start helping out on the OpenOffice 2.0 project, then it could come out first on the Mac. Two years is a lifetime in this industry. And I expect SCO's life to be up right around then...
    • Sun is the main investor in time and money behind OpenOffice. They're going after the IA32 market, not the PowerPC market.

    • But if enough people buy OSX Macs and then start helping out on the OpenOffice 2.0 project, then it could come out first on the Mac.

      And if pigs had wings, they could fly. There isn't an infinite supply of volunteer labor for open source projects, and very few such projects are sustained primarily by it. Like most, OpenOffice.org gets most of its resources from a company with a vested interest in seeing it happen -- in this case Sun. The low priority for the OS X native version was probably dictated by a

      • There isn't an infinite supply of volunteer labor for open source projects, and very few such projects are sustained primarily by it.

        While it is true that OpenOffice.org is developed mostly by Sun, I don't think this statement is correct. Of all of the major open source projects, I can only think of two that are developed primarily by corporations, and the other one has just been dropped by its sponsor. Of course, most major OSS projects have full-time developers in the employ of interested companies,

          • Netbeans - Sun
          • Eclipse - IBM
          • Zope - Zope Corp
          • Python - PythonLabs, part of Zope Corp.
          • GCC - Cygnus, now owned by RedHat.
          • Ghostscript - Alladin
          • JBoss - Jboss group
          • mysql - MySQL AB

          Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Am I just focused on a particular aspect of the open source landscale? or are there fair number of open source products owned by a corporation with a vested interest in its direction?

    • > if enough people buy OSX Macs and then start helping out on the OpenOffice 2.0 project

      Yes, because it's PARTICUARLY the developers that are flocking to the Mac. Its rabid popularity amongst the Slashdot crowd notwithstanding, it's still mostly the non-tech types that buy into the OTHER evil empire.
      • Apparently James Gosling [apple.com] and a whole lot of developers at Sun are flocking to Macs. You'd think that would help spur on a native port of Open Office to Mac OS X.
        • Unless of course they know something we don't. Keynote is already out there. What if Apple is developing its own Office Suite? Apple Works X? And Open Office would just not be able to compete in its current form?

          I use the under-X version irregularly, because it can open Word documents that Word cannot open, and Excel documents that Excel can't open from other people in my company using Office 2000 or 2002. It is ugly to use, and nowhere near as easy for the sort of documents I have to write - lots of st

        • As a developer, I don't care so much about office productivity apps. I use primarily an IDE, a text editor, an email client, a web browser and a command shell. On the rare occasions that I need to create a spreadsheet or a presentation, the X11 version of OpenOffice is more than sufficient. Gosling probably does more presentations than me, but there's always Keynote for that and I'm sure he's even more comfortable with the X server on his machine than I am. I don't see where he or any Sun developers have su

    • This is the problem with all cross-platform apps.

      Most open source developers are using IA32 unix-like OSes (read: fancy way of saying Linux and *BSD). Many of those are dual booting in to Windows for one reason or another. They want to use the same apps on Windows, so the demand for ports is strong.

      Most other platforms don't have this situation. PPC Linux and the BSD base of OS X brings some of this to the Mac platform, but with a much smaller impact.

  • good news for Apple's products, though (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @12:51PM (#6766912)
    Rumour has it they're enhancing their own products, so this may turn out well in the end, after all. Just not via Open Source products...

    • Open Source based? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ek_adam ( 442283 )
      Or have they heard something about Apple using OpenOffice code to come up with their own office suite? After all, Safari was built on top of Konqueror code.

      An NDA might keep them from talking about it directly, but it might not keep them from changing their public schedule.

      For now, I'll continue using OpenOffice in Mac OS X with X11.

      • Re:Open Source based? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Clarification: Safari has NO Konquerer code in it. None. Zero. KHTML and KJS are the extend of it.

        There is no Open Office work going on at Apple. Open Office is, to put it mildly, not good enough. Take a look at Keynote and you'll see the direction that Apple wants to take business applications.
      • There is a move to port KDE to Aqua so that KOffice will run native. I believe they still have a fair ways to go though.

        Native KDE Info [kde.org]

  • aaaaaaaaaag!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @12:53PM (#6766926) Homepage Journal
    This is a big shame. OpenOffice is often held up as the 'solution' to MS office, but it just can't be without a nice native mac implementation.

    With the way that Apple has been swinging recently I wouldn't be surprised if they released an office suite of their own for OSX. They already have a powerpoint replacement in Keynote. In panther you will be able to read/write MS Word files with cocoa text apps. They have a simplistic email client in Mail.app, but it could easily be buffed up into an outlook like app, using iCal for calendars, etc.

    Apple has shown that they can make seriously kick-ass software, so wouldn't it make sense for them to make a seriously kick-ass word processor already???

    Even if they don't, I think that cocoa's newfound ability to read/write MS word files will probably spurn the development of some nice third party office apps.

    Ack, the silly lameness filter says that I have too much repetition, so forsooth fair lassy, may thine future be full of ripe cheese and bountiful eggplants!!! Godamn it! Fuck you you stinking lameness filter, accept my post.

    • my personal guess, you silly canadian (silly and canadian, and a silly canadian ;-) ), is that Keynote is the first of 1...2...3...4... Apple office apps. Appleworks hasn't really been upgraded in about a thousand years now, and the people working on that have to be doing something.

      Keynote PPT
      ??? Word
      ??? Excel
      MySQL + Enterprise Objects Framework or something Access
      Mail+AddressBook Entourage/Outlook

      • Re:aaaaaaaaaag!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @01:40PM (#6767372)
        > Keynote PPT
        > ??? Word
        > ??? Excel
        > MySQL + Enterprise Objects Framework or something Access
        > Mail+AddressBook Entourage/Outlook

        PowerPoint = Keynote
        Word = Appleworks wp (rumoured to be under dev)
        Excel = Appleworks ss (rumoured to be under dev)
        Access = Filemaker Pro (rumoured to be taken back in-house, though that may have been debunked recently)
        Outlook = Mail (being upgraded in Panther)

        Really, the only 'missing' components are a good word processor and spreadsheet, at this point. We'll see what's missing in the Panther version of Mail as far as how well it compares to Outlook. It may be more of an Outlook Express class app than an Outlook class one.
      • What I really think Apple should do is take some of that 4 quallizion dollars they have and put together a real business team. Continue with all the consumer wooing but add a real push into businesses. With OSX they have a very nice offering. Add that with some volume discount on G5s and a real office suite and booya!

      • Re:aaaaaaaaaag!!! (Score:4, Funny)

        by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @02:16PM (#6767664) Homepage Journal
        Plus I should say that any while us Canadians are quite silly (as can be seen from our prime minister Jean Poutine) it's a big step up from all the fascist americans we've been hearing aboot, eh.

        I like to think of Canada:USA as approximately equivalent to Mac:Windows.

        There's less of us, we're more user-friendly, the 'others' don't even remember about us most of the time, and the form factor is often easier on the eyes.

        In conclusion I invite all the sane macusers out there in /. land to move your asses to Canada already. It's just like a mac: once you try it out for a while you'll never go back.

        • yeah, but at least our toothpaste only comes in english!

          Also, Jean Poutine? I thought the Canadian PM was Jean Chretien (sic?).
        • I would gladly move to Canada except

          1) Thanks to that sumbitch George "Government do take a bite, don't she?" Bush, I can no longer afford to move (anywhere).

          2) It get's COLD up there. I don't mean just cold, I mean cut-through-the-bone painful cold. At least I won't have to worry about a cooling system on my PC, I guess.

          3) Quebec.

          4) I secretly suspect that the US is just waiting for an excuse to invade Canada. OK, that one might be a little off in left field.

          5) Did I mention Quebec?

          6) No Tex-Mex food
          • I'm a Canadian (oh uh... eh? That's what you wanted me to say right?) so I'll respond as best I can.

            1) Thanks to that sumbitch George "Government do take a bite, don't she?" Bush, I can no longer afford to move (anywhere).

            Yeah, I hear he can be a dick.

            2) It get's COLD up there. I don't mean just cold, I mean cut-through-the-bone painful cold. At least I won't have to worry about a cooling system on my PC, I guess.

            It's pretty cold, its true, but many parts are warmer or the same as the states.. don

            • Well you've got that right - Newfoundland is basically the area surrounding the highway between Quebec and Nova Scotia. :)

              Sorry if I missed the sarcasm, but are you serious? There is no part of Newfoundland anywhere between Quebec and Nova Scotia. The highway between Quebec and Nova Scotia goes through New Brunswick. If you wanted to go Nova Scotia from Quebec via Newfoundland you'd have to go way the hell up by Labrador, take the ferry across to Newfoundland, drive all the way across the island, and then

      • Re:aaaaaaaaaag!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by gerardrj ( 207690 ) *
        Interesting view. Where did the AppleWorks coders go? Did Clarus eat them?
        You did leave out the "Safari Internet Explorer:, though that isn't technically part of Office.

        I'm REALLY waiting for Apple to get on the ball and do something with MySQL at the core of the system. Instead of storing all preferences, playlists, etc in all those small files that they keep coming up with new file formats for, they could just throw everything in to databases. There's little more work involved with getting the XML plist

    • Re:aaaaaaaaaag!!! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, it does not make sense for Apple to release a kick ass Word processor, although it does make sense for it to be developing one. Why? Apple cannot afford to lose Microsoft's support in developing Office for the Mac. Many WIndows users who switch to Macs insist on using Office. COmpanies want flawless intercompatiablity between Windows OFfice and the Mac version of Office. Quite frankly, I think Office is the best Office suite out there.

      This is one case where it is OK for OpenOffice to come out for the W

  • itch to scratch? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by kiwaiti ( 95197 )
    Apparently, there is a version that runs on it (there is a screenshot showing the familiar OOo environment in an X window on an Aqua desktop).

    If enough people really want a native Aqua version, they can create it. It seems OO.o couldn't find them.

    Kiwaiti

    • Re:itch to scratch? (Score:2, Informative)

      by oo_waratah ( 699830 )
      It is all about time. There are three very active Mac developers working on Mac stuff. They have had to fight bad compilers from Apple and have some a long way in an incredibly short time. There is a lot of people interested in the aqua port but few willing to scratch the itch in coding support. If you are volunteering I will see you on porting@OOo :-) On the Mac port. The X windows for 1.1 is progressing nicely. The main porters get a lot of support from Sun in terms of answers but no other real sup
  • this sucks - the OOo thing anyway. I got jumpy on the postin. I would like to help out, but I couldn't program my way out of a brown paper sack.

    Slow Down Cowboy

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  • The point is moot... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Apple has announced that X11 will be installed as part of Panther. So what's wrong with the X11 version?

    • Re:The point is moot... (Score:5, Informative)

      by russellh ( 547685 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @01:12PM (#6767113) Homepage
      Apple has announced that X11 will be installed as part of Panther. So what's wrong with the X11 version?

      Fonts. Dock. drag & drop. etc, etc, etc.

      this is good news for Nisus though.

    • I'm confused. Is the XDarwin considered the X11 emulator for OS X?

      I'm trying to get my girlfriend to use OpenOffice on her IBook, but the XDarwin interface is annoying. I mean, when will she ever need the console windows that pop up?
      I sincerely hope it takes less than two years for a native port!

    • What's wrong with the X11 version? (Score:5, Informative)

      by HTH NE1 ( 675604 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @03:28PM (#6768393)
      So what's wrong with the X11 version?

      With the time I wait for X11 to start up, I might as well be running my paid versions of Word 5.1 and Excel 98 under Classic.

      Have you used the spreadsheet? Full-screen redraws for something that causes cells to recalculate. Actually, half-screen, then full-screen.

      For those of us using third-party USB scrolling mice, scrollwheeling scrolls twice for every ratchet of the mouse, and the redraws are so slow you find it's buffered your impatient scrolling and you're pages from where you wanted to be.

      Inserting/deleting rows occurs on the row with the selected cell, not on the row you right-clicked. And slow full-screen redraws as you do it, undo it, and do it again.

      And each time I open it, the window gets taller. Eventually it gets so tall that the resize widget is off the screen. I just had to scale it down manually again yesterday as it was getting too close to the edge of the screen.

      Did I mention the redraws are slow? Quartz Extreme must be amazing if that's tolerable with it enabled. My system is PCI-based, not AGP.

      I also have no idea if 1.1 is going to fix these problems because they don't promote builds for 1.1 RC3 for Mac X11--the links from the download page for 1.1 RC3 for Mac go to the 1.0 page--and attempting to download what looks like it could have been the 1.1 build (only 79.4 MiB) failed to complete overnight (over DSL).

    • Re:The point is moot... (Score:5, Informative)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @03:45PM (#6768590)

      Apple has announced that X11 will be installed as part of Panther. So what's wrong with the X11 version?

      Well, let's see...

      • The UI is ugly by Mac standards, and the fonts are even uglier. Both are big no-no's.
      • The damn thing takes a good 45 seconds to 1 minute to start up on my Mac (dual 1ghz G4s). For comparison, I installed the trial version of MS Office. Word, Excel, et al start up in less than 10 seconds on the first launch, and much quicker after that. Separating the components of the suite is a definite plus here.
      • OO is very crashy on the Mac. I've had freak crashes while doing simple stuff such as selecting cells in a spreadsheet. This, combined with the long startup times, is hard to swallow.
      • PC keybindings out the wazu. Having to use Ctrl for all the key combos is decidedly un-Macintosh, and would be really frustrating for the average user.

      Don't get me wrong - OpenOffice is a great product... Just not on the Mac. I've used OO a lot on Linux, and it works great there. But on the Mac, it's not good enough that something "mostly" works. If it doesn't walk like a Mac app (key bindings) or talk like a Mac app (open/save dialogs, print dialogs, etc.), it ain't a Mac app. Until there's a native version that integrates nicely with the rest of the OS and its apps, even power users such as myself will have a hard time justifying the use of it - free or not.

      As a slightly off-topic aside, I will say that there are things I don't like about MS Office on the Mac as well. Take the key combos, for example. In every other Macintosh program holding the Command key and hitting the left or right arrow will take you to the start or end of the line. But in Word, this just takes you back or forward one word. Very annoying.

      • Take the key combos, for example. In every other Macintosh program holding the Command key and hitting the left or right arrow will take you to the start or end of the line. But in Word, this just takes you back or forward one word. Very annoying

        You can change those though. I believe MS kept the same bindings, where possible, with the Windows version of Office. I should say I prefer this. Some things on the Mac are very frustrating. i.e. why on earth do Home and End take you to the beginning and end

      • In every other Macintosh program holding the Command key and hitting the left or right arrow will take you to the start or end of the line.

        Hmm. While yes, most things (I tried Mail, Stickies, Sherlock and TextEdit) in OS X are that way, both my Photoshop and InDesign are word by word (Adobe's choice?)

        In OS 9, I tried Quark, Word, Photoshop and Entourage; all go word by word.

        Maybe MS is just trying to stick with familiar conventions (if they even noticed them). I, for one, like word by word. By Command-S

        • I'm still used to the old Claris conventions. Option to move a word, command to move to end of line, shift to select in that fashion. And up and down worked too. It was great for manipulation text from the keyboard. I really should file a Mozilla bug about this.

        • Maybe MS is just trying to stick with familiar conventions (if they even noticed them). I, for one, like word by word. By Command-Shift-Arrow'ing, I like that I can take out several words at once with a couple key taps.

          Or maybe it's just laziness on the part of developers porting products from the PC world. :) It's not that you can't go word-by-word (that's what the Option key is for), it's that when I press Cmd-LeftArrow in pretty much every program on my system, I know that the cursor will go to the st

  • What is wrong with X? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by forsetti ( 158019 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @01:10PM (#6767094)
    While it may seem more *elegant* to have a native version, what is wrong with the X version? It runs great for me -- would there be better functionality from a native version?
    • eye candy.
      Sure it works, but It looks so ugly.
      Not everything is about functionality.
      What is wrong with caring about something looks?
    • Nothing really.

      I don't mind using X11, and it will get better when Panther is out.

      This would matter more if I used a Mac at work. At home, my office suite consists of Safari, Mail.app, BBEdit, & Python. When I need to bang out a quick spreadsheet or a nice looking letter, I use AppleOffice.

      The only thing which bites about AppleOffice is the dreadful (and I mean dreadful) Presentations module.

      Which is just as well. The world needs less presentations. Here's a made-up statistic which feels true: 90% o

    • Re:What is wrong with X? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by scottblascocomposer ( 697248 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @02:34PM (#6767896) Homepage
      My biggest problem is that I'm new-ish to Unix, having been raised as an MS user and converted to Mac 5 or 6 years ago. I'm learning, but slowly, and I don't have a lot of time to devote to getting down and dirty with X11 and Unix-y stuff.

      On their site, OOo says the X11 version is for the "Unix-Savvy" user, and I thought that maybe I was savvy enough a while back and tried it. I couldn't even get all the components installed correctly, which told me that I probably should be messing around as root in X11, lest I royally screw my machine.

      The point it, I could make very good use out of a native version of OOo (wouldn't it be nice to abandon MSOffice completely!), but am simply not l33t enough to safely and comfortably get around in X11 and run that version.

    • Re:What is wrong with X? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The X11 version are not quite so MacOS X / Aqua user interface and user experiance aware. Drag and drop problems, click and open documents, filesystem seen when saving and opening. As an isolated application it work fine, but it's separated from the rest of the Mac OS X from a functionality and usability point of view...
    • but give your mom/grandma/etc an install cd of MS Office and a download of OO, and see which gets running faster. As someone mentioned about the saving and graphics conventions, if Mom got both installed, which do you think she'd like to use more?

      Not that OO isn't functional in X, but the whole point of why Apple's own software, and much of the major third party software is so great, is that it is incredibly consistent.

  • What happens to Panther with MS Office 2k3? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shenkerian ( 577120 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @01:37PM (#6767333)
    Cocoa in Panther can handle simple Word document formatting natively, and will be publicly available around September. Various folks (in this thread and others) have pointed to that feature as a precursor to either Apple or 3rd-party Word-compatible apps. But what happens when, one month later, MS Office 2k3 comes out with its new "XML" document format? How quickly can Apple release a Cocoa patch that handles it?
  • While it is a shame that there isn't going to be an Aqua version of OOo 1.x the X11 version works, it is basically the same as the Linux version which Linux users seem to be happy with. Slow to start, granted, but X11 is now a standard feature of OS X and it did allow the code to work on the platform.

    Hopefully with 2.0 they will get to the point of having code that is truely portable rather than the current situation. It would also be nice if OOo for X11 used Gnome themes, maybe they can get that into 2.
  • This would be a good time for Apple to help with a native port of OpenOffice to OSX, and forget once and for all about AppleWorks.

  • Why this is happening: (Score:5, Informative)

    by fault0 ( 514452 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @02:23PM (#6767753) Homepage Journal
    (to start out with, the development of the next-generation graphics/userinterface/toolkit stuff doesn't go on in the normal OpenOffice mailing lists, but rather at http://gsl.openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org])

    Currently, OpenOffice's interface is based on two different subsystems: UNO and VCL. UNO (Universal Network Object) is the component model that OpenOffice uses. It is roughly comparable to Microsoft's COM. Unlike popular thinking, UNO is NOT COBRA-based, although it does use a COBRA-like IDL. VCL (Visual Class Library), is how OpenOffice draws it's interface. VCL is cross platform, and is designed to maintain a common look and feel in all the platforms that OOo runs on (mainly, Windows, OSX-X11, and non-OSX-X11..)

    Now, the problem is that VCL doesn't interface with native widgets that well. There are some crude hacks to try to integrate OOo slightly better, such as Ximian's OOo, but they arent' as effective as using native widgets. It'll take quite a lot of work to make VCL do this, and won't happen before OOo 2.0. The current plan is to reimplement VCL to make it a very abstract library that eventually calls native functions.

    Now, there are several ways that this can be done, and it hasn't been decided by OOo developers which course to take. First, there can be a mapping of controls themselves to native controls. For example, OOo could tell Cocoa/Carbon to "draw a button at 300,100", etc.. Another approach is to map windows and dialogs as a whole with native windows and dialogs. This would be akin to OOo asking an Aqua frontend to "display a print dialog". The final approach is to make VCL a simple UNO interface and make each OOo frontend "do their own thing". This is how existing applications like Abiword. Thus, each OOo frontend could look completely different.

    There are several OOo frontends that are planned for OOo 2.0. A Win32 frontend, being the most important platform that OOo runs on, is a foregone conclusion. Also planned for certain is a Java-interface for platforms that don't have a native frontend yet. A native OSX (using Cocoa or Carbon) frontend is also likely to happen. On X11, there has been a strong commitment as of late from OOo developers not to focus on one toolkit, but to support several. A gtk+ frontend is a very certain frontend. It looks like there might be a Qt frontend too. Less likely is a wxWindows frontend.

    Now, there have been many people who question why OOo just doesn't use a multi-platform toolkit like wxWindows, gtk, or Qt. The answer is that the OOo developers don't want to focus on any single one. Additionally, there are problems with certain toolkits, such as wxWindows, which lacks a significant amount of accessiblity support.
    • I think the mentality of the OpenOffice.org project is part of the problem here. If wxWindows lacks accessibility, why not help add in support to wxWindows rather than producing yet-another-toolkit? It would be great if OpenOffice could be simplified by using other existing open source projects rather than the current setup where it is made out of multiple projects in its own right. And it would make learning to develop on it much easier Anyone keen to start SimpleOffice?
      • wxWindows on OS X X11 is stable, yes... but then you will still have X11? Just with yet another layer in between.

        -sigh-

        wxWindows for Native OS X is currently in a mess... it's still VERY broken. I've been using it in conjunction with boa-constructor (SourceForge project) and it is barely working.

        If that was not the case then perhaps wxWindows would be a viable alternative..

        • Re:Why this is happening: (Score:2, Informative)

          by VZ ( 143926 )
          wxMac (the native port of wxWindowws to Mac) has made huge progress recently, just try 2.5.0 release when it is out in 2 days. I do know of several problems in it but I wouldn't call it a mess.

      • Re:Why this is happening: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by VZ ( 143926 )
        As one of wxWindows developers, I also find it very sad that OO people have never even tried to contact us directly. I did see a discussion about using wxWindows to port OO to Mac on OO dev list and there were some things which were just false there -- and we could surely explain it if only we were asked.

        Unfortunately this never happened and I really don't know why. We'd certainly be eager to help. The particular point about accessibility is a very good example of why collaboration between wxWindows and OO

  • Can Apple help? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @02:25PM (#6767776) Homepage
    It seems like it would be in Apple's best interest to donate to, or fork, or assist the OpenOffice project. The payoff should be excellent since the product is already mature, and they've had good luck with open-source in the recent past (OS X). Why not? Is it politics?

    • Re:Can Apple help? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Meowing ( 241289 )
      It's probably plain old fashioned competition. Apple does have its own answer to PowerPoint in Keynote, and still sells AppleWorks which might not be an Office killer, but still holds its own against OpenOffice.

      OS X also differs from the other Unix-like platforms in that it has a native Office port, so there really isn't an urgent need to produce an substitute.

    • Help out OOo and Reap the Whirlwind (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ablair ( 318858 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @05:38PM (#6774926)
      Yes, it's business politics (also known as 'competition'). Apple would have to have major chutzpah to actively & publicly contribute to OOo on MacOS. Knowing their track record and specific software strengths, how good would an Apple-ized version of OOo turn out? It would be kick-ass, and immediately popular (see: Safari, iTMS, etc). In the ensuing paid office suite market meltdown, MS would drop Office for the Mac market faster than you can say "legally definsible reasons for doing so - Thanks Apple!" How would this then bide for Mac market position? Cue waves of articles with words like 'beleaguered' and 'abandoned', and this time they may have some merit.

      That's not to say that the company isn't savvy, and could wisely be working on an Office replacement (OOo-based or otherwise) just in case MS decides to throw down the gauntlet one day. They have done this in the past (eg. Marklar), but you'd never hear them announce projects such as these publicly.

  • Less of a problem than realized ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zangdesign ( 462534 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @02:25PM (#6767781) Journal
    Actually this is not so big a deal - it didn't work natively under Aqua/Quartz, so we haven't lost out on much.

    That being said, there are existing commercial non-Microsoft solutions. Mariner Software [marinersoftware.com] has decent word processor and spreadsheet software available for a reasonable price. Redlers [redlers.com] has a nice little word processor for a shareware price.

    The thing is, Mac users have (or used to have) a tendency to monitor what's available for their platform. It comes from being treated like the bastard stepchild of the neighboring axe-murderer by the rest of the computer community.

  • Initially I thought this was really bad news. And it is bad news that the OpenOffice 1.* series isn't making it to OS X.

    But it might reflect honest difficulties in porting to a whole different windowing system that may be too clunky to retrofit onto the OOo 1.* codebase.

    Now if Apple were to put a few engineers into accelerating the OOo 2.0 release schedule, things might look better.

    If I know my Mac users, they'll be pressuring for better free fonts, too, which hobbles the practical effectiveness of curr

  • Please Apple! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22, 2003 @03:02PM (#6768155)
    Anyways, its a shame that OOo isn't ready for the Mac. My wife who does the church bulletin has been using MS Office 97 (she tried OOo 1.0.x and it didn't cut it) just tried out OOo 1.1 and was very impressed. Starting soon she plans on switching over.

    My wife and I have been using OO for about three years for my university work and our Sunday school work. It has worked brilliantly and the new version with export-to-PDF is fantastic.

    I just imported the entire FreeBSD online HTML manual (copied and pasted from Mozilla) and about 834 pages later I have a beautiful document with all FreeBSD's original formatting intact and it looks great. As the owner of an iBook (donated from mother-in-law), I would love to see Apple put some $$$ into porting it. It is one app that would stop me buying a Powerbook at years end.
    • It is one app that would stop me buying a Powerbook at years end.

      Let me get this straight - you want Apple to invest time and money to port OpenOffice so that it uses the native GUI in order to prevent you from buying a PowerBook?

      Somehow, I don't think this argument will be very persuasive, you know? ;>
    • Three things:

      First of all, any Mac OS X application that can print can export to PDF. This isn't anything that has to be supported by the application; it's a button that's in the print dialog that every application uses. Since Mac OS X's entire display system uses PDF internally, it's a breeze to do. Very fast, also.

      Secondly, I just tried downloading the HTML version of the FreeBSD handbook and dragging it on top of TextEdit, which is a very basic word processor/text editor, uses all standard Cocoa APIs a

  • NeoOffice (Score:5, Informative)

    by knoxer ( 638523 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @03:53PM (#6768662) Homepage
    The only thing that the timeline states is that the 'official' OpenOffice.org 2.0 won't be available on Mac OX X until 2006, and it won't be on ANY platform until 2005.

    There is still a port (branch, aquafication, quartzification, whatever) going on, a couple in fact. Check out NeoOffice and NeoOffice/J (Java):

    www.neooffice.org

    www.neooffice.org/java

    trinity.neooffice.org

  • Not surprised (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Friday August 22, 2003 @04:06PM (#6768767)
    I tried to sign on to help work on the Mac version of OO...they were looking for a steward at the time, and simply rejected any 'outside' ideas for direction, etc. Seems they were and still are rudderless for the Mac port effort.

    I spent 6 months trying to get someone to take my offer to help seriously, and gave up. And don't get me started on the squabling on the Mac dev forums for OO...if you're not on the good old boys list, you ain't spit.

  • May Not Have To Wait That Long... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We may get a native StarOffice for OS X much sooner than OpenOffice. Sun Microsystems is pushing the Unified Desktop, debuting their new Solaris OS with a very Apple-ish dock. In fact, Sun urges its employees to utilize Macs at home.

    If Sun and Apple start work together on this whole Unified Destop thingy, I would bet StarOffice would be one of the first things ported to OS X. It would be a big boon for both Apple and Sun, anyway. Sun would squeeze into the desktop market, and Apple would squeeze into t

  • doesn't vi come installed by default?

  • Quite amused (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@p[ ]ell.net ['acb' in gap]> on Friday August 22, 2003 @06:24PM (#6769774) Homepage
    I am quite amused by the fact that a proper Mac OS X port of OpenOffice quite literally could pay for itself... buy 20 developers some nice refurbished 1.25GHz G4s and OS X 10.2/10.3, and then charge $100 a copy for OpenOffice Pro while providing a slimmed down 10mb OpenOffice Express...

    If Microsoft can make a lot of money from Macs, why wouldn't/couldn't OpenOffice?
    • ... the expectation of end-users at this point is that the software will be free.

      • Solution is (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        Marketing! Branding! How well do many people know (or care) that Safari == KHTML?

        If you produce a product called Productivity Plus and Productivity Pro, one being a word processor/spread sheet package, and the other throwing in a few other tools + integration with the iApps, and then give it the nifty Aqua finish...

        Why would anyone expect it to be Free?

  • Mac OpenOffice 'delay' debunked (Score:4, Informative)

    by mr_tap ( 693311 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @05:12AM (#6792273) Homepage

    The Register [theregister.co.uk] spoke with Dan Williams (one of developers) whose said that they "may be able to wrangle a 1.5 release with our required changes or something. Others, like Ximian, want to add stuff to. So the long and short of it may be that there isn't an "official" Aquafied OpenOffice.org release until 2005 and OOo 2.0, but there could be an interim release". There is heaps more info in the article, so have a peek.

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