StarOffice 7, GNOME-Office 1.0 Released 336
Jim Hall writes "I just noticed that Sun Microsystems has released StarOffice 7. I've been using the StarOffice betas for a while now, so I have been eagerly awaiting this release! StarOffice is, of course, based on the ever-popular OpenOffice.org. StarOffice 7 software adds functionality to enable export to PDF, and to the Macromedia Flash format. It also introduces the new StarOffice Configuration Manager, the StarOffice Software Development Kit, a macro recorder, and support for assistive technologies, as well as for complex text layouts. Multi-platform running on Linux, Solaris OS and Windows. Only US$79.95 to buy your copy for home (free for edu, plus cost of media+shipping.) Now is a great time to show this to your boss and pitch that 'MS Office to StarOffice' conversion project."
An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge has a 'drive-by' 'quick-peek' look at the new StarOffice up on their site."
One suggestion on office software for the Free Software desktop: Casually re-start a friend or co-worker's Windows computer with Knoppix and show them you can open their Word files with OpenOffice.org. Mention their machine is moderately safe from Word-borne viruses until they reboot into Windows.
StarOffice has a lot of catching up to do (Score:4, Funny)
Re:StarOffice has a lot of catching up to do (Score:2)
Re:StarOffice has a lot of catching up to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:StarOffice has a lot of catching up to do (Score:3, Funny)
Re:StarOffice has a lot of catching up to do (Score:3, Insightful)
Whereas providing specific examples of why its better is usually moderated as insightful or interesting.
worse than that (Score:3, Funny)
Java 3 may require several megabytes just to store the version numbers of all the included components
Relationship to Mad Hatter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Relationship to Mad Hatter? (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought it was going to be something cooler like the Java port of OpenOffice [planamesa.com].
Re:Relationship to Mad Hatter? (Score:4, Informative)
Madhatter is a integrated desktop focused OS. First release will be based on SUSE Linux. Staroffice, Mozilla, Evolution, Gnome, tightly integrated. Target market is call centers and the like.
Re:Relationship to Mad Hatter? (Score:5, Interesting)
A Java front-end to StarOffice? I think not.
As far as I understand it, Mad Hatter is more or less a SuSE spin-off that comes with a new Sun-theme and is bundled with StarOffice 7. At this time Sun puts the word "Java" in all their new products. This is just a brandig strategy like
Re:Relationship to Mad Hatter? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think even IBM has been ready to go that far (well, they could've done it with OS/2 eight or nine years ago, and I don't see that they've grown a spine since that time).
This'll be interesting to watch.
Casual mistake (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Casual mistake (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Casual mistake (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Casual mistake (Score:5, Funny)
What makes you say that?
KFG
Re:Casual mistake (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Casual mistake (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think so ...
OpenOffice was based on StarOffice ...
StarOffice is now based on OpenOffice.
From the OpenOffice.org Unofficial FAQ [bytebot.net]:
OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, which means that it is a piece of software (an office suite in this case) developed under a set of very liberal licenses (the LGPL and SISSL - more on this later).
One of the freedoms provided is that one can take OpenOffice.org and package it as his/her own distribution. Then, this distribution can be sold to make a revenue. Such a distribution is StarOffice, from Sun Microsystems.
Therefore, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice have exactly the same core applications, except that it misses out on certain fonts (like Asian language ones and a few for improved Microsoft file format compatibility), a database component (AdabasD), certain file filters, templates & a clip art gallery, and some sorting functionality. However, most of what OpenOffice.org lacks can be made up with the help of third-party applications...
What you're saying is rather like saying Mozilla is based on Netscape ...
So, what's the version of Gnome Office again? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So, what's the version of Gnome Office again? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think I can clarify more than that
Re:So, what's the version of Gnome Office again? (Score:5, Funny)
Abiword 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
Complete history (Score:5, Funny)
Around and around we go!
Re:Complete history (Score:5, Funny)
Close...
StarOffice is based on OpenOffice which is based on StarOffice which copies many functions from Microsoft Office, which debuted first on the Macintosh, who purchased ClarisWorks only to produce AppleWorks and later created Mac OS X that copies many *BSD features. Does this mean Microsoft Office is dying, StarOffice is dying or OpenOffice is dying? I'm confused.
Re:Complete history (Score:5, Funny)
I love Linux. But I like OS X a lot more.
And with a
Re:Complete history (Score:2, Funny)
The leading roll is the one which I eat first.
Re:Complete history (Score:3, Funny)
I'll only perform if you change that to "Who shot JBoss."
Sorry, that's my contract, and it's GPL'ed :)
Re:Complete history (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be noted that Claris always was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple. Apple did buy ClarisWorks from Claris and rename it to AppleWorks (which is also the name of a word processor Apple created back in the Apple II era), and Claris renamed itself to Filemaker, Inc. which is still an Apple subsidiary.
Claris the company is not to be confused with Clarus the dogcow [google.com].
Pitching Star Office (Score:4, Insightful)
Blah...
Re:Pitching Star Office (Score:3, Insightful)
I find the "I need such-and-such features. You could pay $600, or I have this system which is available free..." tends to work quite well.
Of course, after the first "these 5000 documents are in Word97 format, and if we want Office2003, it'll cost 3 man-weeks to convert them" conversation, some people might have a serious think about file
Pointless switch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not switch the company to OpenOffice.org? I doubt the company needs StarOffice.
You're just going from one pay-for product, to another (albiet less cost). If you REALLY want to show your boss the beauty of alternative software. Show him something thats great, FOR FREE! (that will get any bosses attention).
And if you choose StarOffice just because "Money means better" to the management, you're just as bad as MS.
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the same reason a lot of companies will pay through the nose for RedHat Enterprise---not because it does more, but because they have a single place to call when something goes wrong.
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really what happens is you wait on hold for 30 minutes, and then talk to someone offshore who may or may not understand the English you are speaking. After hitting your credit card for 35 bucks, you are told to reboot, and that will fix the problem.
I'll take the mailing list any day.
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:2, Insightful)
On top of that, how much support do you need for an OFFICE SUITE? I of course understand how you would need support for an Operating System/Server, but who could justify spending the money for StarOffice (thousands of dollars) just for support.
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:5, Informative)
We are still, unfortunately, stuck with SO5.2 (I know, and I'm working on it...), but we have gotten custom patches from Sun 3 times in the last 6 months for SO dealing with MS Word documents. I'd like to see MS provide patches for Word because it's not bringing up a Word Perfect file up correctly...
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:3, Informative)
oh bull crap. several PHB's tried trotting out that lie the LAST time we went around with Open source.
Fortunatley we called them on the carpet. Made them gather the call data to microsoft from the help center. and show us the number of important support calls to Microsoft on Office.
Oh guess what... ZEREO calls were made and billed to us No support was needed for Microsoft Office and therefore we wasted money on a
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it seems that many management types look up to MS management. A friend of mine worked for an ISP which ran Windows server software. In spite of my friend colocating a Linux server which had no problems to speak of, a mail system superior to NTMail, and trying his darndest to get his boss to switch to free software, his boss still insisted on equating free with crap. PHB's (Pointy-haired bosses) don't know the meaning of the word "free," and are willing to piss away enormous amounts of money for a warrenty card and tech support number even if the product itself is inferior.
That's where StarOffice comes in. OpenOffice is great, no question about that. Only problem is that it doesn't come with any sort of liability. Sun calls their version of OpenOffice StarOffice and fills this gap, maybe even going a little further to make the migration from MS to non-MS a little easier.
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pointless switch? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course you can also pay for StarOffice because...
(i) The money going into StarOffice is being used to continue the development OpenOffice, as Sun still pays for a lot of the Development of OpenOffice.
(ii) You can get product support, and training from Sun. Important for even small business, or any overstressed IT department.
Not all of the cost of software is in the purchase of that software.
I don't think so... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but even as a big OO booster, I'm the first to say that importing word docs is still a total crapshoot. Plain text letters etc come through fine most of the time. In fact most of the content comes through, but when it comes to even slightly complex word docs with images and lots of formatting OO chokes badly. Sure you end up with most of the text and images, but then you have to spend 5 minutes trying to move everything back to whre it should be the
I don't fault OO for this since sucky MS won't open their file specs though. Unfortunately MS knows that proprietary Office file formats are the key to its desktop monopoly, so don't expect that to change in our lifetime.
Honestly though I just don't think its right to outright lie to people and say OO can easily open all Word files. That's probably never going to happen. For me its not a problem since I never deal with a ton of word docs anymore, but for those who HAVE to both send and recieve word docs all day long I can't say they should see that as a plus for using OpenOffice.
God I hate proprietary file specs and protocols.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure you're right about OO's performance here. Unfortunately, you can say exactly the same thing about Word opening slightly complex .doc files. Word will choke when trying to make them, choke when trying to save them and (it's wonderously consistant!)
Yeah for GNOME Office 1.0! (Score:2, Insightful)
What happens with XML... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:2)
However microsoft's office xml is apparently no more bastardized than any other xml document.
--jeff++
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:2, Insightful)
An ignorant opinion, but probably no more ignorant than most people's:
Grocery lists will continue to open fine, your 300 page thesis with autogenerated table of contents and bibliography will continue to cause a kernel panic if you're using Nvidia drivers on an Athlon/VIA system and basic documents will continue to open all the text and numbers but need some prettying up. S
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:2)
I prefer raw hand-coded (In EMACS...) HTML when I have to exchange documents with my managers. I can churn out a document faster with that than a WYSWING word processor, and if you put .doc on the end of it, they never know the difference.
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:2)
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:5, Interesting)
2) It will not be used very much because old versions of office can't read it (oops the Office 97 install on your secretaries machine is out of date).
3) It will not be used very much because 100 Meg of uncompressed xml takes longer to parse than people with 30Meg of xls want to wait.
Re:What happens with XML... (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess there's XML and there's XML and getting between them is not necessarily easy.
Microsoft made a big deal about the most recent versions of Office writing out XML, but that was because XML was a buzzword, sounded as if it might be more open than ".doc", and was essentially a selling point.
From what I've read, people have been underwhelmed [com.com] with the XML coming out.
But your question is a good one when you see the potential for XSLT transformations [tomw.net.au] that enable OpenOffice to import and export DocBook XML.
If only a similar set of transformations could be developed for OpenOffice to import and export the XML of the latest version of Microsoft Office. From what I understand, the schema is not documented and the formatting and rendering rules for documents are still kept a private affair, just as it has been for .doc files.
You're still locked-in, dude!
A related suggestion on open source office suites (Score:5, Insightful)
Lazy Questions (Score:2)
Re:Lazy Questions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lazy Questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Word processors should be used for letters and very short papers. Anything approaching a book, or anything needing any kind of consistency should be done using a document processing language like LaTEX.
Same goes for spreadsheet 'programming'. If you have to automate some data analysis, write a program
Re:Lazy Questions (Score:2)
A few months ago I had to type up a fairly complex docu
I was getting sick of maintaining my own TOC, so I decided to try the MS word features. I started the TOC when I was 80% done witht he document, which was a big mistake. It worked miserably. Page numbers not getting updated, TOC pointing to the wrong place. MS word couldn't handle msword docs with auto page numbering , auto table of contents and/or tables.
yicky
Re:Lazy Questions (Score:2)
Re:Lazy Questions (Score:3, Informative)
Best little piece of software I've seen. Ever.
www.lyx.org
Spreadsheet Programs (Score:5, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree. Spreadsheet make a very nice interface to complex analytics. Real practitioners do their own calculations on the complex bits and use a spreadsheet front end as a scratch pad, a way to quickly twiddle data. Spreadsheets are not databases, and generally should not be used that way. However, to dismiss them as being merely stedding stones to real databases is to miss the point entirely. They're quite good at lots of other things.
Re:Spreadsheet Programs (Score:3, Interesting)
Just to second Jody's point: I've seen spreadsheets (specifically Excel) used for, of all things, spacecraft design (among other things). In fact, JPL's Project Design Center (aka Team X) uses a whole slew of linked workbooks to develop entire conceptual mission designs. The beauty of
Finally!? A word processor!? (Score:2, Interesting)
And people wonder why Linux isn't 'on the desktop' yet!? Seriously, apps like these are needed; they aren't some kind of swish extra that only Windows users can have. So while it's nice to see a decent 'quality' wordprocessor, it's also a bit embarrassing really.
What was everyone doing? Waiting for M$ to release Word or is it just a sign that Linux is still currently in the palm of techies, not office workers?
Biased Story, apps already exist. (Score:2)
90% of the features of current MSOffice go unused, and the offerings for *nix are more then enough for most people.
Hell, even 'works' is more then most people need.
ANd before you argue with me, take a good look around at the average user... and identify what they are really doing. You will be suprised.
Slight Error in Summary (Score:4, Interesting)
OOo does Flash already (Score:3, Informative)
OpenOffice does export as Flash, according to tho OpenOffice.org 1.1beta2 Features Page [openoffice.org].
You won't be throwing out Macromedia's product any time soon, I gather, but it's probably a good option for those Impress presentations...
Jay (=
Gnumeric Recieves a Grant from Mitch Kapor (Score:5, Interesting)
Gnumeric has received a grant from Mitch Kapor [osafoundation.org] (creator of Lotus 1-2-3) to develop an interoperability test suite with leading proprietary competitors. The money will be used as form of bounty to fund the expansion of our existing tests [gnome.org] for worksheet functions (eg =SUM, or =ODDFPRICE). Our goal is to ensure that a users data will produce the same results (or better
Exact prices have not been decided as yet, but this is an excellent opporunity for non-coders to help opensource programs, and earn a bit of money too. Specifics to be announced on the mailing lists [gnome.org] in the coming weeks.
Official announcement here [gnome.org]
The Cooperative Bug Isolation Project (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to take Gnumeric 1.2.0 for a spin, consider participating in The Cooperative Bug Isolation Project [berkeley.edu], a research project being conducted at UC Berkeley. We have prebuilt Red Hat 9 packages of Gnumeric and several other popular applications. These binaries are built with extra feedback instrumentation that lets us understand how the software is working (or failing to work) in the hands of real users.
Even if you have never written a line of code in your life you can help make the software better for everyone simply by using our special bug-hunting feedback packages.
Read more about it [berkeley.edu] or download and install [berkeley.edu] today!
What about Document Management? (Score:2, Interesting)
A strong pitch for Gnumeric (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the release mentioned above [gnomedesktop.org], Dr. McCullaugh recommends using Gnumeric instead of excel.
Blatant bias.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Koffice [koffice.org] Loads faster than OO, has proper footnotes, has never had its "own" font directory, and is properly integrated into the rest of KDE.
Re:Blatant bias.. (Score:2)
Re:Blatant bias.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dont forget K-Office (Score:2)
Oh, and siag office too.. if you want something more lightweight.
Presentation application? (Score:4, Interesting)
I see a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database app. How about that other stalwart of the "office productivity" suite, presentation software? Much as it pains me to say it, Powerpoint has become almost indispensable (at least in my line of work) these days. OO.org's Impress is nice, but still not quite on a par with PPT. A Gnome-Office PPT equivalent would be a nice addition to the suite. Or is there some other open source presentation option out there I'm not aware of?
Why I can't switch to Abiword yet (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, the story claims that one of Abiword's distinctive features is, "includes proper footnotes". Well what is this supposed to mean? I've never had any difficulty making OpenOffice.org Writer do footnotes properly. Is there some widely known deficiency of which I am completely unaware?
There were also a number of other issues last I tried; perhaps this have since been resolved:
Seemingly no support for automated numbering of a proper outline (i.e. cycle Roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, etc.). I can't even get it to work manually, changing the sort of "numbering" I want at each level of indent.
select+delete or cut text fails to properly redraw the screen, leaving a line of the removed text visible, and leaving me to wonder whether I actually removed the section properly, or if it is just due to improper redraw.
In "Web Layout", strange breaking occurs where page breaks "should be", leaving me to wonder whether it hit "Enter" accidently, or if it is merely this bug.
Scrolling results in text distortion, making one or more lines unreadable until scrolled off the screen again, or until the application window is covered and redrawn (although disabling "smooth scrolling" seems to "fix" this).
Also, Abiword doesn't appear to allow the insertion of any "objects" other than "pictures". Of course this isn't a "fault", as I suppose it is waiting for a framework to be standardized for this sort of thing.
No, between everything else, I don't have the time now to get a handle on the code base and fix or implement these things myself, and so please don't tell me to.
I'm simply stating that as I found it last I checked, it was not sufficient to meet my needs, and I will, if most of these issues still remain, have to wait a while longer before I can adopt or endorse it for regular use.
I look forward to switching.
Just one question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that would be a huge benefit of moving away from MS Office, right? Because all these different office suites are totally compatible and interchangeable, even though they can never be totally compatible with the secret, changing MS Office formats.
So I don't have to keep saving in DOC just to exchange files between StarOffice and GNOME Office and KDE Office, right? I can save in some new, default, standard, universally recognized file format, and easily exchange files between all these different programs without any translation problems or confusion, right?
And Microsoft will quickly be forced to create a patch for their Office products so they can read and write this new open file format that the whole world is suddenly standardizing on because it's used by default by every open source office suite in the world, right?
Or am I smoking crack and about to get my first -1, Troll rating for openly wondering why there is still no apparent single, open, standard, widely used file format? One to compete on solid ground with the single, closed, proprietary file formats from Microsoft and others that we all revile on a daily basis.
We've had 15 years or more to replace DOC and its brethren. Where is the replacement for DOC? Or the replacement that can be used for anything, like a combination of DOC, XLS, PPT, PUB, etc? I'd really, really, really like to know. Because until I know that, I feel pretty stupid telling people to drop the nice, simple, standard (de facto if not de jure) Microsoft Office file formats. When they ask what they're supposed to use instead, I have no answer.
Re:Just one question... (Score:3, Informative)
abiword not there yet (Score:4, Interesting)
for OpenOffice, any MS Word doc with graphics is hosed and forget about Word Art.
Quite frankly, both have a lot of work ahead of them IMHO.
Re:The old debate... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The old debate... (Score:5, Informative)
Adding to the technical challenges are the politcal bits. I've writting elements of gnome-office (libgsf) with the specific intent that it be sharable between the different platforms. Why bother rewriting OLE import/export 3 times ? Unfortunatly, that teeny little 'g' is a big problem. The kword folk have accepted the library, but the kspread team seems intent on writing their own. The OO people can't even look at it because 'the mac people would scream when they saw a glib depend'. Its depressing.
For the time being we're stuck. Each of us feels our project can produce the best result in the shortest time. At best the projects can share test suites and documentation. Which is where Mitch Kapor's grant to Gnumeric comes in handy. We're using it to commission a set of tests in xls format (so that we can all read it, even Ms Excel). The other projects are welcome to use it along with all of our other interoperability tests.
Re:Typical Comment (Score:2)
Re:Typical Comment (Score:2)
sentences and having a program remind you that
a sentence is too long is nice. It also occasionally
catches plural-singular mismatches etc.
If you are not a native English speaker, it has
some value, so long as you realize that most of
its suggestions are BS.
Re:Problems with gnome. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Problems with gnome. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Problems with gnome. (Score:2, Funny)
Try running it on your own computer
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:5, Informative)
Try Qt. It has superb documentation, examples and tutorials. And once you pick it up, the KDE API documentation (which assumes you know Qt) will make much more sense.
If I run KDE, will I be able to run Abiword?
You'll need to install some Gnome libraries to get it to install, but yeah, there's no problem running any app in any window manager or desktop.
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:2)
Your best bet for a GUI toolkit will vary depending on which language you want to use to program but I'd recommend looking into wxWindows [wxwindows.org] if you want a toolkit that's MFC-like. There a bunch of other good choices, most notably QT and GTK based toolkits but those would require a more significant departure
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:2)
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:5, Informative)
When I first read that I thought you were joking, but as I read the rest of your comments, I understand where you misunderstandings lie. I don't know anything about Apple's APIs, but I imagine that they are very clean. Win32, on the other had, is a mess. Linux *does* have very clean and well-defined system APIs. You are mistakenly thinking that windowing and GUIs have something to with system APIs. They don't. And they shouldn't. Instead, userland libraries supply this functionality. The windows gui is quite a hack, api-wise. And it has many, many security problems because of it's being put into the kernel as a system api.
Windowing has nothing to do with the standard C library (which all c compilers link against, even on windows -- that's what msvcrt.dll is for). This library, combined with the system apis (chapter 2 of the man pages) provides lowlevel access to the operating system. User interaction on linux comes through other higher-level apis from libraries such as gtk [gtk.org]. This may seem backwards to a Windows developer to separate it this way, but this gives a great amount of development flexibility and increased application security.
It's quite funny, actually, that experienced unix programmers wonder the same thing about win32 developers. I recommend checking out some books on linux development. I think you'll be slowly impressed as you discover the unix model of development and the simplicity and power of the posix-style api, and the tremendous availability of programming libraries to do things like gui programming, you'll be impressed.
Yes, of course. You just need the gnome libraries installed (but not the full environment.
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just about every Unix system has an X11 server, but few seem to know the dark arts of programming directly to X. Everyone picks the windowing toolkit flavor of the month and programs for that, apparently under the assumption that everyone will eventually see the light and pick their toolkit.
KDE, Gnome, CDE, OpenWindows, OS X, etc a
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:3, Informative)
Try 'man -k KEYWORD'. I don't use linux very much, but this has helped me a great deal.
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:2)
When chooising toolkits one can use the full KDE API's or just use Qt. So one can code to just Qt and then the program would only need the Qt libraries installed. Or one can code to KDE then Qt and KDE would need to be isntalled. The same applies to GNOME and GTK+ respectively.
So, if the GTK+/GNOME
Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes? (Score:2)
GTK is a gui toolkit, QT is much much more. It's a complete framework in c++.
Then there is other glib based projects, but seperate from gtk, that implement stuff that exists in qt so they end up with pretty much the same features. Ie, gnome-db (the libgda part)
A great thing about abiword, is that they are doing support for other OS's the right way. Every platform has their own UI implementation, the win32 UI has nothing in common with the GTK UI. Because of this, abiword p
Re:Got it wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Got it wrong! (Score:2)
Re:abiword (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS & OpenOffice compatability (Score:2)
Re:vs. Office (Score:5, Informative)
Gnome Office and OpenOffice.org (I couldn't comment on Star Office as I have not used it) are many features behind Microsoft's latest incarnations of it's Office suite.
However, Microsoft Office has had a head start. It's been going for a great deal longer than any of OpenOffice.org, AbiWord and Gnumeric. It also has many more developers.
Yet the Free Software Office programs seem to be catching up. AbiWord has matured massively between 1.0.x and 2.0 - they're almost unrecognisable from each other.
Gnumeric is the one exception to the 'fewer features' since it actually boasts more functions that Excel. A little bit of polish, tweaking, and a few subtle feature additions and Gnumeric will be superior to Excel - some argue that it already is.
OpenOffice.org is also making great strides. 1.1 is far better than 1.0 in all areas - features, speed, and general polish. The plans for 2.0 are promising - there is a detailed roadmap [openoffice.org] that makes for interesting reading. Version 2.0 of OpenOffice.org will be a major milestone for the project. 1.0 was the initial release, 1.1 was the produce of a bit of spit and polish, 2.0 will be the first to feel like a true individual project as opposed to a bastard-brother of Star Office.
How is it that these Free Software programs are gaining on the software developed by the software giant?
Since Free Software developers develop for free, I think there's a pride assosciated with their work that inspires them to overcome obstacles insurmountable to a payrolled team. It could also be that we have a superior development platform, but that's just flamebait.
Re:vs. Office (Score:2, Insightful)
My take would be that M$ have not really added any compelling "must have" features to Word since at least Office 97 & arguably Word 6.0 for Windows 3.1 (except XML and I am NOT buying Office 2003 for that, I bought Office 2000 OEM and cheap when I was building my own box & I didn't see any reason to upgrade to XP either). So with a fixed target the open source versions are bound to catch up wi
Re:vs. Office (Score:3, Interesting)
That's all well and good, but is it four times the usability and productivity of SO? Because that's what the price tag says (and that's just for the standard version). Hell, WinXP Pro retails for less than that.
I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to buying software (and, yes, I buy software), but when it digs into my pocket book as much as a proposed MS Office solution does, I'm going to spend on SO instead and use the savings on ways
Re:It (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What ist this fetisch with fast loading times (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly, I don't think you read the end of my comment. :) Computer geeks use computers differently than the rest of the world. And the bottom line is, if the users complain, then it is an issue. You can't close a bug report with, "users aren't using application the way we expect them to."
Clearly a slow-loading app isn't a problem if you leave the application open for 163 days. But you're an exception. Most people shut down their applications at the