OpenOffice.org V3.0 Sets Download Record, 80% Windows 451
thefickler writes "The newest version of OpenOffice, version 3.0, has set a download record in its first week of availability. Most surprising is the fact that over 80% of downloads were from Windows users. As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."
Re:Package Managers? (Score:5, Informative)
while gentoo may have an openoffice 'overlay'(not a gentoo user so that may be the wrong term) most ubuntu users will have to download the deb manually (either from here [openoffice.org] or a third party repo (cant think of any for ubuntu) or wait for 9.04
oh and from TFA
Only 221,000 downloads by Linux users were recorded, leading John McCreesh, head of marketing for OpenOffice.org, to suggest a massive undercount. McCreesh said 90% of Linux users traditionally receive OpenOffice.org updates straight from their Linux distribution's vendor, which would explain the relatively low Linux count.
but that would still give windows >66% (assuming os x makes up 0%, which is possible due to neo office)
From the article (Score:4, Informative)
Most Linux users get their software from their distro, so that's the reason for the predominance of Windows in the downloads. However, the conclusion reached by the author is arbitrary. There is nothing here showing that Office is "loosing" market dominance. All you have are OpenOffice download numbers, which don't prove anything about market dominance. Office isn't even available for Linux, so how is its market dominance changing from what it was before?
Re:I haven't got it yet, not in repository yet. (Score:5, Informative)
You'll be waiting a while. Ubuntu won't have OO.o 3 until next April. [tectonic.co.za]
Long story short: upstream delays made it miss the Intrepid feature freeze.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:5, Informative)
Your question is answered in the link, which says the numbers are skewed. Thus, this announcement is a bit of misleading marketing on the part of OpenOffice.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:2, Informative)
It's not in either the gentoo or ubuntu repositories yet.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:5, Informative)
Semi-offical PPA for intrepid: https://launchpad.net/~openoffice-pkgs/+archive [launchpad.net]
Re:Almost identical? (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, hard to include Office 2007 in that line...
--another pissed off Office 2007 have-to-user at work.
Just as an aside...how fast to do paste special in Excel 2007? Hmm... not so easy to find in the new "easy to use" interface...
Re:Package Managers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:80% (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Free vs "free". (Score:3, Informative)
Um maybe you need to read more carefully but the link in the GGP is actually to a scam site (piratebay.com), not the legitimate Pirate bay (thepiratebay.com)
PPC-based Mac users have to wait too (Score:5, Informative)
Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:2, Informative)
I've been looking for a job over the past couple of months (I've now found one, thanks for asking). I used OO to write my CV (resume) and saved it as a .doc. I wasn't getting anything like the response rate I usually get from applications and really couldn't understand why. Until, that is, I loaded up my CV in Word and discovered the formatting was fucked - my CV looked like shit. I never bothered to work out exactly what happened, but it seems some small difference in font rendering or spacing meant half the dates wrapped onto the next line, so the whole thing looked a mess. I gave up on OO, switched to Word and heard back from the very next job I applied for. Perhaps I screwed up, perhaps there are some compatibility options I should have used, but the fact of the matter is I used OO, selected "save as .doc" and didn't get what I expect. That cost me a good few weeks work and as a result a few thousand pounds.
Re:Does this beat Firefox's record (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OpenOffice.org vs Office 2007 (Score:4, Informative)
That is one big advantage. Being able to export to PDF without spending a buttload of money on Adobe Acrobat or spending a lot of time to find a good Windows freeware print-to-PDF program is another advantage of OOo, and OOo 3.0 can also open and edit PDFs to some degree with the Sun PDF plugin, which is a huge feature. One last thing I have heard quite a few others praise is the ability to open almost any document file type out there right out of the box, now that OOo 3.0 has Office 2007 XML support.
Why highlight the lack of MS2007 export? (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure why the article sees the need to mention this:
OpenOffice.org 3.0 eases some adoption concerns. It is able to open all Office-formatted files, including the latest Office Open XML (OOXML) documents (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.), but it cannot save OOXML files natively.
Why would you need to save in this format? The existing binary support should be all you need if you need to collaborate with Microsoft Office users. It's their saving in Microsoft Office 2007 format that causes the roadblocks, not OpenOffice.org's lack of exporting to it.
Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
It is a common requirement in the UK for submitting your CV to recruitment agencies.
Re:I haven't got it yet, not in repository yet. (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The templates (yes, more than one is provided) is under Tool -> Letters and Mailings -> Envelops and Labels.
Granted, it's a pain to find it there but they've lumped all the Avery (and other large pre-formatted paper providers) templates in one area.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:3, Informative)
That said, the binary ebuild downloads from the gentoo mirrors rather than the official OpenOffice.org web/ftp servers, but the source built version downloads directly from go-oo.org
Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly, sending out a resume in an editable format is just unprofessional for anything higher than a receptionist position.
Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
After the second person who didn't have clue what a PDF is (I shit you not), I gave up on them. For direct applications to tech companies PDFs are ideal, but recruitment agents are a) stupid and b) prefer Word files, so they can edit out your contact details to ensure they don't get bypassed.
Re:Almost identical? (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you are a veteran user of the 97-2003 line who used the suite for basic stuff.
I am.
Then OpenOffice.org looks far more attractive.
It doesn't.
Obviously your and other peoples' mileage does vary.
Re:I haven't got it yet, not in repository yet. (Score:4, Informative)
It will probably be available in the backports repo for 8.04 and 8.10. And there is a semi-official ppa repo for 8.10 now (google for it).
Re:80% (Score:5, Informative)
First off, we really shouldn't count Macs as part of the equation. I haven't checked recently, but for a long time, OOo's support for MacOS X lagged way, way behind. It was essentially unusable.
No, we have to count Macs. One of the big bullet points on the OpenOffice 3 release notes was its new native Aqua support on OS X.
Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
If you are a dedicated ms-office user, and you really need 100% of the functionality of ms-office; then get ms-office - don't even think about anything else.
But, if you are like most of the population, and you just need a good office product, that is basically compatible with standard file formats, then openoffice does the trick.
JMHO.
Re:BitTorrent? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Almost identical? (Score:1, Informative)
Right click context menu?
Re:Apathy trumps price for most users (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like a more formalised version of this comment:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=219158&cid=17788090 [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org]
Somewhat, but with more of a focus on the consumer marketing approach. Think customer preference between Pepsi and Coke. Less technical focus. Less objective.
This approach recognizes that often the decisions of consumers are not based on logic, or on the best features, performance, price, etc. There are other factors that matter to them, that they rationalize in their heads that have a real world impact. I'm trying to quantify these factors for this specific case. The results should be the best estimation of real-world barriers between the two. Most current assessments simply compare the technical features, which, while useful for some classes of users, doesn't speak to a larger class of users who are more affected by other factors.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:1, Informative)
The OpenOffice.org 3 for IntelMac is much better than NeoOffice, if you ask me. So, I'd say, OS X is not entirely 0%.
Re:OpenOffice.org vs Office 2007 (Score:1, Informative)
And if you don't like that, try PDF Creator.
Re:80% (Score:3, Informative)
I've used NeoOffice for several months, and didn't notice it being significantly different than OO.o on Fedora.
Re:OpenOffice.org vs Office 2007 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Package Managers? (Score:2, Informative)
"assuming os x makes up 0%"
You assumed wrong:
Windows 2.450.000
Mac 322.000
Linux 221.000 + non counted downloads.
Spam sites already (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the number of spam sites already, google for openoffice (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=openoffice), and you get sponsored links like these -
# OpenOffice.org 3 www.office-soft.net Get the Free OpenOffice Download the latest Version |
# OpenOffice 2008 - Free OpenOffice.org-Suite.com OpenOffice Latest Version. Fast & Easy - 100% Guaranteed.
This one is quite nasty http://www.office-soft.net/uk/ [office-soft.net]
Click the link "You must accept the terms and conditions to download any program"
PRELIMINARY WARNING:
THE COST OF EACH SMS FROM THE USER'S MOBILE PHONE IS 1.5 POUNDS (VAT INCLUDED). UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, THE DOWNLOAD COST SHALL BE FOUR SMS.
Please read these USAGE CONDITIONS carefully and, if appropriate, use the download service which shall imply the express and complete acceptance of each and every one of these USAGE CONDITIONS. Otherwise, please close this website.
ONE. PREMIUM SERVICE DESCRIPTION
1.1. Through this website (hereinafter the Website), users can download executables that contain the selected computer program from our servers to their hard drive (the SOFTWARE).
1.2. Netlink Network Corp. offers a PREMIUM high speed download service that is efficient and virus free. In exchange, the user shall first send three SMS under the conditions specified in clause 2.2 that defines the commercial conditions of the service.
TWO. USE OF THE PREMIUM SERVICE
2.1. In order to access the PREMIUM service, the user shall first send three SMS to 88889 as per the detailed instructions provided at all times in the download section of the Website.
2.2. The cost of each SMS sent by the user to said number is 1.50 pounds + VAT; therefore the total cost of access to the PREMIUM service shall be 3.60 Euros + VAT.
2.3. After sending the three SMS, and always in accordance with the detailed instructions provided in the download section, the user shall receive a code that will enable him to perform the high speed download through the PREMIUM service.
etc. The others are similar scams, they want you to give your email address, sent them money by credit card, or by SMS, and have bogus stamps of officialdom and verisign secured etc.
Of course, when the scammers want in, it means the project is a success.
There can be major differences between them. (Score:4, Informative)
Some differences between Word and WordPerfect:
1. Word handles word count differently to WordPerfect. WordPerfect counts all words, even those in footnotes. Word didn't for a long time (I think they might have fixed that now).
Word was unwelcome as a format in many legal courts in the US, because some types of filing have word count limits and users or Word consistently over-ran, thus filing documents that the court could not accept.
2. Word has a paragraph-based formatting engine, which is very different to the stream based one in WordPerfect. That's a huge difference - it's like saying that Word is a bitmap painting package, and WordPerfect is a vector one.
Those are two differences off the top of my head. I'd say that switching from WordPerfect to Word could well require training, especially if these kinds of differences were ones you used a lot in your work.
Here's one practical example I found many years ago:
Word has no concept of right-justification within a line unless you use tabs. WordPerfect does. If you right-justify in WordPerfect and then change your margins, paper size or paper orientation then WordPerfect just handles it for you - the text snaps to the new margin with no effort required on your part.
When I had to use Word, I had to learn the tab-based workaround. And I had to change the formatting of some kinds of documents I produced, as switching from portrait to landscape meant much more extra work as I then had to change all the tab stops on those pages too.
(I eventually solved this by creating styles with the tab stops in them, one for each page orientation. But that solution took time to arrive at.)
Whether your word processor is Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice.org's Writer, AbiWord, or something else - any heavy use will likely expose you to some feature that either has no direct analogue in other products, or that works differently in them.
If all you ever do is write one-page letters with no real formatting beyond basic text appearance, right-justifying paragraphs and indenting text, then what I've written means nothing to you. You're in the 80% of people who use only 20% of the features. (Possibly even 90%/10% these days.)
For the other 20%, switching word processors will always mean retraining to some degree, as they find these differences by trail and error.
Re:Almost identical? (Score:3, Informative)
Paste special?! It's on the Home page, in the left most section which is titled Paste. You just click the drop down and there it is.
So you just open the program and there's this big button called "Paste". How hard can it possibly be to find it.
Actually I find Office 2003 rather tricky to use now that I've used 2007. It took me around an afternoon to get used to the new interface and I would not want to go back.
Re:"Almost Identical"? (Score:4, Informative)
I never said anything about how Microsoft Office 2007 was doing. I was only speculating that a significant amount of new OpenOffice.org users switched to OpenOffice.org because of Microsoft's UI overhaul.
Re:Package Managers? (Score:3, Informative)
$ genlop -t openoffice
Sat Oct 25 17:09:27 2008 >>> app-office/openoffice-3.0.0
merge time: 1 hour, 22 minutes and 57 seconds.
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name"
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz
Re:Package Managers? (Score:3, Informative)
I would recommend Gentoo with getdelta on dialup. Saves a lot of traffic.
Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
Because recruiters, and HR personnel, ask for it that way. They use it to add their own notes on a candidate, to feed it to forms processors, to put it on their own corporate letterhead, and if they're sneaky, to check the document history and see what you've edited. (I've done that to Word documents I've received: it's enlightening.)
Re:Probably because of java (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft Works drives people to OpenOffice (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft Works comes as a standard option on the lower end PC's. It's so stripped down that it is actually aggravating to use. It won't even open most existing XLS or DOC files properly!
Open Office was a breath of fresh air for those of us too cheap/unwilling to purchase the full MS Office 2007 (especially given it's lackluster reviews).
It works smoothly, has all of the interfaces we've come to learn and love, and opens/closes Microsoft Office files unlike Microsoft Works...
Re:Package Managers? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, the gentoo ebuilds almost always download from gentoo mirrors. The only common exceptions are:
1. Non-free software with restrictions on distribution (java used to fall into this category).
2. Files downloaded REALLY soon after the ebuild is made. The gentoo mirrors are updated automatically but it can take a few hours before they all notice the new package in the portage tree. So, if you fetch the files quickly enough you might beat the mirrors, in which case the ebuild will eventually fall back to the upstream repository.
Go ahead and try fetching the openoffice source now - you'll find that it uses your gentoo mirrors. The gentoo mirroring system is fairly impressive - as soon as an ebuild goes into the tree the mirrors start noticing and begin retrieving the distribution files. When an ebuild leaves the tree the mirrors notice and purge the distribution files (probably after some delay). The gentoo mirrors also handle files that are manually pushed out.
Re:Probably because of java (Score:2, Informative)
Re:80% (Score:3, Informative)
What is the name of the actual windowing system?
The name of the toolkit (which is really what they need to support to get it native looking/behaving) is Cocoa (for most apps - Carbon is a secondary native toolkit that can be used by developers more familiar with Mac development methods prior to the release of OS X).
Re:OpenOffice.org vs Office 2007 (Score:3, Informative)
For the record, Microsoft has a free, supported, and well-integrated PDF exporter for Office 2007. It actually used to be part of the base install, but Adobe threw a fit so MS made it an optional download (with a link in the base install that says something like "Download a tool to safe in Adobe PDF format..."
Download link (first hit on Office 2007 PDF): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en [microsoft.com]
I use it all the time, since I get free printing on the department's Linux computers and don't trust OO.o not to screw up the formatting on my papers/resumes/whatever.
Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
It seems likely that you're guilty of a pet peeve of mine: brittle formatting. If so (the rest of my post assumes this), it's not an OpenOffice problem. It often happens when moving documents from one machine with Microsoft Word to another (different version, different OS, different fonts installed). You almost certainly have this problem even within the same editing session on the same machine when you make the tiniest change to your document, whether it's to formatting or content.
The solution is to use the tool properly. For example,
Any time you find yourself hitting the same key many times or correcting many like things after making changes to your text or formatting, you're doing it wrong. Learning to do it right will result in a much more pleasant and successful experience.
This requires an attitude change. Many people refuse to learn how to make documents properly; some because they're "not computer people"; some because they're geeks who don't like GUIs or writing in human languages. I find both attitudes disgusting. The "not computer people" spend all day every day in front of one, and the latter group do need to communicate with people and could easily learn the GUI or find an alternative (e.g. TeX). If efficient or quality is important, you need to take some pride in your work and learn. It's a poor workman who blames his tools.