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Sun released OpenOffice for X source code

updated 02:45 pm EDT, Wed April 11, 2001

Sun has released the Mac OS X port of the OpenOffice.org source code, which should speed development of the project. "Sun is releasing the work it has completed on the Mac OS X port to the OpenOffice.org community. Sun firmly believes that there is enough support within the Mac OS X community to continue development on the port, and we invite Mac developers throughout the world to contribute their efforts to finishing the work that must be done to make this port a strong rival to other office software suites. "

by MacNN Staff

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04/11, 02:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
OSX

This is what Apple wants, and me for that matter. People working together with open sourced programs that really enhance the Mac experience as well as the community. Amen

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04/11, 03:19pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Yeah!

I've been waiting a long time for this open-sourced freeware office suite for the Mac. Everyone knows that Microsoft Office will be the de facto standard for many years to come, but this will be a nice alternative for those of us who don't have the money to spend, as well as offering *some* sort of challenge to MS (i.e. competition is always a good thing).

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04/11, 03:36pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
woo-hoo

Now we can have a Start menu on OSX, great. HELLO??? Have you ever looked at that piece of c***? No wonder they don't want to bother porting it. It's millions of lines of crappy code, and a really lame application (think Lotus Notes-ugly)

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04/11, 03:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Wrong!

Two points:

1. OpenOffice, unlike StarOffice, does not have the start menu. They have reduced the amount of clutter and generally improved the interface quite a lot IMHO.

2. StarOffice 5.2 (I've used it on Windows and Linux) actually works very well as a general purpose office application. Have you actually used it or are you just going by first impressions?

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04/11, 03:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
It's a start...

Mac users begging Corel to offer the source code to WordPerfect to developers. We should be happy about this move.

Reading their FAQ's page, it appears that it is possible for some company to take the source code, fix it, rebrand it, and bring it to market, right? After it's tweaked and the UI streamlined, I think it will be a good addition to the AppleWorks, Office competition.

Of course it needs a lot of work but the hard part is done already.

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04/11, 03:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
OpenOffice vs. StarOffice

In a nutshell, what's the diff between the two? I noticed that they said they're planning to offer the former but not the latter for Mac OS X ...

And anything that breaks MS's "lock" on their office suites, even just a little, is a good thing. For better or worse, it's become the standard for word documents, spreadsheets, etc.

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04/11, 04:11pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Why would anybody moan?

I can't believe anybody is whining about StarOffice. If you want to roll over, bite the pillow, and take the screwin' from Microsoft every time they want to update Office, go right ahead. The rest of us enjoy seeing more apps available for the Mac platform, StarOffice/OpenOffice included.

StarOffice rocks.. totally cross platform (Windows, Solaris, Linux and soon MacOS X)

Oh, and you can turn off the clutter, too.

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04/11, 04:13pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Cool...

...more Free stuff!

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04/11, 04:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
hmmm biting pillows

I bite pillows often, but it ain't Microsoft that is screwin me!

Hehehehe!

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04/11, 04:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple's Fault

Sun too a look at how long it would take their Mac team
to program around Apple's CRAPPY MacOS X API's. (Apple
screwed up many of the standard UNIX API's).

Don't expect to see a binary of OpenOffice for the
Mac until Apple fixes MacOS X.

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04/11, 04:38pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Apple's fault

What the heck are you talking about?

Thousands of GNU apps compile with no modification and you're whining about crappy API's? Give us a break, troll.

The biggest task is the port Quartz - based on the NeXTStep APIs which are considered by many as the best out there.

Try again, loser.

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04/11, 04:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Apple's Fault

(Apple screwed up many of the standard UNIX APIs)

Rubbish! Where do you get your information? A huge amount of Open Source software compiles with virtually no problem on Mac OS X and runs well. For example, this morning I compiled much of Gnome and The GIMP (probably millions of lines of C++ altogether, although I haven't measured). It runs superbly.

Althoguh I have every confidence that OpenOffice on Mac OS X will eventually rock, I'm a bit disappointed that Sun didn't get it a bit further before throwing their half done port to the wind.

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04/11, 04:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Yeeeha!

Finally I'm able to open those .sdw-files I get from my friends!

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04/11, 04:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Excellent....

Ignoring the idiot troll, this is excellent news.

OS X is going to be amazing a year from now, mark my words.

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04/11, 04:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
It's a start...

Mac users begging Corel to offer the source code to WordPerfect to developers. We should be happy about this move.

Reading their FAQ's page, it appears that it is possible for some company to take the source code, fix it, rebrand it, and bring it to market, right? After it's tweaked and the UI streamlined, I think it will be a good addition to the AppleWorks, Office competition.

Of course it needs a lot of work but the hard part is done already.

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04/11, 04:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
maybe next time...

Important: only the modules in the Abstraction and Infrastructure Layers of OpenOffice.org have been ported. Accordingly, a full build of OpenOffice.org is not possible at this time.

Well, and those 2 out of 90 modules take 5h to compile on a G4/500MHz/1GB RAM... Guess I'll wait for the binary :-)

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04/11, 05:35pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
patience

You all got my hopes up... no, this is in very early stages of the port (from a cusumer's standpoint anyway) in that they don't even have a full build yet. But it is promising (yeah!). If my programming skills were good enough I'd help... but they aren't.

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04/11, 07:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Don't forget Abiword!

There are actually TWO free and open word processors in the works for Mac OS X -- the first is OpenOffice's word processor. But under the radar, there's work on porting Abiword (http://www.abiword.com) too.

Not sure about OpenOffice, but Abiword saves files in a native XML format so you can actually open it with a text process and understand what the h*** is in there. It can import/export to other systems too.

The best part about Abiword is its cross-platformness, which means that though it's totally a native OS X application, it should run almost identically on Linux, Windows, BeOS, etc...

The latest developer discussion on their list is here: http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/01/April/

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04/11, 07:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
GIMP on Mac OS X

oh, also, for those of you who are interested in a free Photoshop-like application, check out the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is now running in OS X....

http://www.macgimp.com/

I think they're working on creating an installer for this thing so that everyone will be able to get it working pretty easily. Right now you gotta compile it yourself.

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04/11, 08:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Allright!

I guess it's very clear now what a great job Apple has done with the move to Unix. This is the first in a line of great apps that are gonna come to Mac in my opinion. Great news!!

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04/11, 10:31pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
pdf

A word processor that loads and save pdf format would rock.

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04/12, 02:52am | report spam | close Reply | delete
is it necessary?

Does anyone really use apps like this anymore? I can see needing a spreadsheet, but when is the last time you needed a word processor? Hello! it's 2001. go digital.

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04/12, 05:13am | report spam | close Reply | delete
is it necessary?!?!?!

Have you never had to write a letter or a business proposal, or maybe a resume? Not everyone can afford Quark XPress or InDesign. Of coarse this is necessary. What do you mean "go digital".

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04/12, 05:35am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Full Office Suite

I'm not eager to plunk down the bucks to upgrade to Office 2001 for OS X. Office 98 Gold was one of my hastiest, ill thought out, software purchases ever, games included. But there are important features unavailable in a popular 'soho' suite like AppleWorks that will force me to do just that. I would have been first in line to pay, yes pay, for an office suite from Sun that offered equivalent functionality to Office 98 or 2001. Star Office has some enthusiastic users and I've heard few complaints. It would be a real benefit to Mac OS X users if such a product came to the Mac. My programming skills were top notch when "Inside Macintosh" came in three hardbound volumes or I would be pitching in to help.

Good Luck!

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04/12, 12:42pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
We need a spreadsheet

Howdy, all.

The biggest lack in the Mac market is a decent spreadsheet not produced by the Behemoth. I can hope that the one in StarOffice will be it, since they have a lot of underlying stuff finished. Failing that, are there any other options? Reading excel is important, but as long as it can do csv or tab delimited well, we can probably work with it.

Scott

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04/12, 03:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Disappointed

What a disappointment! I wanted a downloadable (or even shrink-wrapped), compatible alternative to MS Office (AppleWorks is a consumer toy) for my Mac...Not a homebrew compile-it-yourself-and-hope it works mess...I remember ages back when it was announced that there would be a port of StarOffice (5.2?) to the Mac...At the time it was going to be a classic app, then it emerged that it would be for OS X, and then there were notices on the OpenOffice site that there would be a Mac port soon after X was released....Now Sun has abandoned their own efforts (not much of a vote of confidence in X), and spat the results out into the open-source community...which is better than nothing but is a much slower and messier development model than many folks think (check out Mozilla..better than Netscape 6, but still messy and progressing slowly)...If there had been an OpenOffice/StarOffice before MS Office for X, it would have gained considerable momentum, and MS would not have been able to donate the Mac market outright as easily. Remember though, without MS Office X and the Mac are effictively banished into non-standard, stagnating Amigaland...Perhaps Apple told them to back off as MS Office for X could have been delayed, or it's level of Mac market PENETRATION (notice the word) compromised...Apple needs MS Office for X, and so do I as long as nobody gives me a choice (cheers, Corel and Lotus!)...Microsoft has us all by the bollocks on the Office front, I'm afraid...And I just wish that Sun of all people offered a real alternative for us rather than incomplete, sub-alpha source code....(sobbing quietly) J.

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04/12, 03:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
One more thing...

And yes, as a previous poster mentioned I would have gladly PAID to have an MS Office alternative. I even would have paid considerably MORE than for MS Office in order to have an alternative......Maybe some ISV will do as Sun suggests and turn this tonne of partially compiling kludge into some sort of real, shipping product, but somehow I doubt it...Who would have the resources, and the bollocks to do it? (still sobbing) J

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04/12, 04:29pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Microsoft Office Files

I think the porting of star office is excellent. I read on their web page about office filters, and wondered if anyone has tried opening documents that were created with Microsoft Office on Star Office (mac os X)? Does it retain formatting, and import images? Also, I'd be interested in seeing some screen shots. Post 'em to Macnn's OSX 3rd party software board if you got 'em!

1 warning to professionals who may be tantilized by the posting of a "free photoshop-like alternative" MacGimp. This program does not support CMYK. This means if you're a professional, you're stuck with the $600 Adobe bill.

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04/12, 09:37pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Don't hold your breath..

Based on a recent post to the openoffice.org dev group, I don't think the open office.org initiative is ever going to produce a viable product on any platform. Basically I gather Sun person is complaining in sun-speak that there is zero forward movement. Lots of people downloading and playing around, but no hard core of dedicated individuals is stepping forward to do the real work. So start saving for that MS-Office upgrade.

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04/12, 11:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Karl

I like that idea of being able to read .pdf files into the editor.

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04/13, 12:55am | report spam | close Reply | delete
OpenOffice = too late

First, to the person who asked what does "go digital" mean, well it means that instead of printing your resume or your letter to whomever, just send an email, got it? Save the trees, dude. I have never printed a resume in years.

Second, it's no wonder Sun is dumping OpenOffice to the open source movement. No one wants it. Too little, too late. Absolutely no innovation. A pale copy of a successful product, no matter how crappy MS Office is or isn't. People who worked on this app are the most unimaginative nerds I can think of. Instead of copying MS Office, why don't you *REINVENT* MS Office? This is where money can be made.

Third, for the one who's not ready to plunk down the $$$ for MS Office, may I suggest that it might be because you don't need it? Productive applications are for productive people who can justify the investment.

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04/13, 04:34am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Beauty of Excel

I find Excel to be beautiful. It works like a charm and has amazing power that I can tap. If I were to see a 95-100% compatibility with StarOfiice once it's compiled, I'll give it a look over but I'm not holdin my breath. I own Office:2001 and I love it. It's good software. Really good software. Office for the mac is NOT bloatware, and is far from c***. I find Office2001 clean, stable and very Mac-oriented. It's 10x better than Office2000 for pc (which I use at school) and is fully backwards compatible.

There, I've said it. I love a Microsoft product. I despise windows from top to bottom, but I love Office. It's GOOD software.

I am very productive with Office and I like the way it works. It'll be a sad day if (when) Microsoft cans Office:Mac.

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04/13, 06:38am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Staroffice interface...

The "START" menu you all speak of is "ONLY" on the PC variant of Star Office. It's part of the effort to make their Office suite carry a "platform" feel. If you've ever seen Star Office on Solaris (Sun's site used to have screenshots), it doesn't have the "START" button to the best of my knowledge (unless they added it in later builds).

Otherwise... Star Office is an exceptional piece of software. It's feature rich and performs exceptionally well. It will move faster of the Mac platform as there are many software engineers that will find ways to make it work. If I were you, I'd send some letters to either Stone design ( http://www.stone.com/ ) or Omni Development Group ( http://www.omnigroup.com/ ) and see what they can do. They're very talented in the workings of programs for Mac OS X, and are exceptionally savvy. With enough of an interest they "MIGHT" just turn OpenOffice' source into something usable and "Cocoa-native" within OS X. Never hurts to fire some e-mails in the proper directions.

To the person that says that he likes a Microsoft product; a) Office is slow and outdates older machines too quickly, b) from Office '98 to Office 2001, my machine easily takes 2x's the load time, if not 3x's compared to prior versions, c) the interface of 2001 is a major letdown, as I actually feel it's a step backwards from '98; which itself wasn't as savvy, efficient, or performance oriented as the various components of Office 5; which still remains the "KING" of all Office programs for the Mac (both in interface and in efficiency and usability).

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04/13, 01:27pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
StarOffice

"It performs exceptionally well"... Bullshit! It just doesn't. The mail application, for instance, takes 30 seconds to create a new, empty message. The other office pieces are slow and quirky.
I agree that Word 5.1 is the last good version M$ shipped, but Star/OpenOffice fall victim to the same disease of overengineering, feature-overloading. It's bloatware.
And porting 6+ million lines of sourcecode is not easy.
Hey, even Sun doesn't want to bother.
Sorry, but they should have ported to MacOS and offered the source to the Linux community, not the other way around. I'm sure we'll find a better alternative. Judging by how crappy StarOffice is, I'm actually sure of it.

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04/14, 06:42am | report spam | close Reply | delete
multi-platform software

I'm wary of multi-platform software. Let's not forget NS 6/Mozilla. I'll jump up and cheer when I see it work and I can claim it is indeed a mac app

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04/14, 06:48am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Can't believe you people

Word 5.1? Excel? Talk about CRAPWARE!

Word doesn't even allow you to select text like other mac apps, it behaves like a windows app (and NO! It's not a preference)

Excel is recognized by the scientific and research community as not only the most inaccurate spreadsheet, but the most misleading. Anybody using 3D pie graphs please shoot yourself now!

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04/16, 01:48pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
AbiWord needs to be Next

That pittyful openoffice suite isn't worth the code. Maybe if AbiWord was ported then there would be a decent open source word processor available. I used Word daily, abi made the move to linux jumpable.

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Sun released OpenOffice for X source code

updated 02:45 pm EDT, Wed April 11, 2001

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