Although OpenOffice.org had planned to release the final 2.0 version of its open-source office suite on Oct. 13 - the fifth anniversary of the founding of the organization - the company has decided to hold off due to a "show-stopping" problem with the software, community members said Wednesday.
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Member since:2005-06-29
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"... has been pushed back to allow time for key bug fixes."
What a refreshing concept: quality control!
"We have to support a lot of levels of use—corporations, languages, regional groups," Suarez-Potts said. "It is our responsibility to make sure everything is right before it's released. A lot of things can happen at the last minute. That's the way of open source—you don't release it until it's ready."
That sure isn't Steve Ballmer talking.
Member since:2005-07-06
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great to see such a passion for quality, but delaying a product for third or forth time already shows nothing but bad management.
i remember early plans for releasing ooo2.0 in late 2004. then there was spring 2005, now autumn 2005 is postponed...
(and i still see no trolling as i see in vista's case)
Member since:2005-07-26
Well, it could be bad management, or it could be technical issues (sometimes stuff "just happens", and cannot be fixed by "managing" it).
Same basic issues in Open Source as in Propriatary Software. We can just live with it and accept it, or we can help out the project (OO.o is looking for non-technical help, too. Not just technical/programming.)
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:2005-10-02
The development branch of OO.o has been very stable for quite a while.
If this had been a proprietary product it would have been out as 2.0 a year ago.
Proprietary software is released when it cannot be postponed any further, and unfixed bugs stays unfixed for quite a while, sometimes even in years (look at the windows desktop - some bugs haven't been fixed despite the fact they've been there since Windows95 and can be fixed in a couple of minutes - recompiling not counted).
FLOSS is released when it has reached the target (eg. when it's ready).
That's the difference. Of course there are alwasy the unknown bugs or the unsolvable bugs, but they are a part of development, and will be fixed or worked around in due time, no matter if it's proprietary or FLOSS.
RE: third or forth time already
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Member since:2005-07-09
> > The OO codebase is sphagettified crapola
>
> Since you are so well versed in the OOo codebase
> paerhaps you would care to post some examples 
Actually, since he used it to show that MS Office is better, he must "know" the MS Office code base. So a better question is, if the MS Office codebase is so pristine, why can't it's file format be perfectly forward compatible?
Member since:2005-08-27
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"Anybody that thinks OO is a Office killer is delusional."
No one said that, but for some of us, OO is (almost) the only viable solution.
However with the Open Document Format hopefully getting pushed into Office, I see that as a quite useful addition for everyone. Working in a 2000+ employees organization where one suddenly grab the latest XP edition spreads kaos when the "official version" is Office 97 or 2000.
Member since:2005-07-21
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Member since:2005-07-14
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Your advice is flawed. When MS creates a native version of Office for:
1) FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD.
2) Linux (x86, ppc)
3) Solaris
Perhaps you might be wondering why Microsoft will not create a version for other OS (except Apple). Its called "vendor lock in", it would detract from their Windows user base. Now you may be saying: "hey, there is a version for OS X". Well, Apple and MS don't compete for the same customer base. MS doesn't make PC's, when they do, then I will consider them a direct threat to Apple.
Now on a side note: have you ever tried to open a Word 3 doc in Office 2000/XP/2003? Do you know what happens? Have you ever tried to migrate thousands of documents between versions of Word? Probably not, so your .02 cents is worthless; why, because trolls don't have money.
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2005-07-06
I've tried the last two versions of Base, and each time it's crashed with data-loss. The last time was when I was trying to save a form I'd created to represent a query on two tables (the only two tables in the database as it turned out).
Add to this the fact that some apps look radically different (my bug here: ) and it seems like OpenOffice still has a way to go before it'll make in-roads into large institutions.
I suppose I'll just wait for 2.1.4, like I did last time 
Member since:2005-07-06
Sorry, forgot to add the link to the bug report on docked panel appearance: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=53984
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2005-10-02
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Member since:2005-09-26
The use of XML instead of a direct representation of the document in memory slows down the proces. It is a small price to pay for a future proof document format. Maybe you have noticed the subtle incompatiblity between the various incarnations of MS Office. Disappearing or moved images. Complete paragraphs in bold. deleted passages that reappear. Even the dollars of Microsoft can't buy flawless import capabilities of their own binary format.
I am not saying that the opening and saving of ODF shouldn't be improved. I just don't want anyone argueing they should axe the whole XML format.
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As for Open / Save, Have you looked at the difference in size between an MS saved file and the exact same file saved in OO? OO is much smaller, therefore the compression / decompression work will take more time. Id like to see it open / save faster too, but in truth I rarely if ever 'ninja' open/save multiple doc's. So it really does not bother me very much.
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I really cannot understand why people seem to think Open Office is some kind of third rate amature, part time office suit only usable to a handful of users.
It does most of what MS Office will do and it's free, so I think it's a no brainer to download OO.o rather then spend £200 on MS Office. Yer again Open source breching the old stuck Microsoft OWN use all world, but you'll find that people have illegal copies of MSOffice. What a sad world you Windows people live in, owned by Microsoft and use there products like sheep.
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2005-07-09
If you think OOo is faster than Office 2003 you are dreaming. Damn dude OOo takes so long to start up and I have a powerful comp! With quickstart enabled, the first start is slow but the second start onwards things are zippy. But 2k3 is just darn fast no matter what you are opening...thats the truth! I dig OOo cause it is free has pdf export built in, autocomplete, the open docu format and a great forum. I like Office 2k3 cause it seems a bit more polished, slightly easier to use at least in terms of using the spreadsheets and creating charts and it just does not feel as heavy as OOo does. I am sorry but MS Office is the benchmark to compare OOo to and so far MS is ahead!
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Member since:2005-07-04
I hope they release the official new version not only as rpm's. The old installer was perfect for people not using rpm-distros (Slackware for instance), I will keep my fingers crossed.
I find the best way to install it on non-RPM distros is this. Put all of the RPMs you want in a folder with nothing else (delete RPMs you don't want to install). Make sure you have alien installed on your system. Then run this command.
su -
[password]
alien --to-tgz *.rpm
Don't convert to DEBs if you are running Debian...it doesn't work. TGZ is the best to use on non-RPM distros, whether it is Gentoo, Debian or Slackware. After this, enter this command:
mv *.tgz /
So they are at the root of the filesystem.
cd /
Then, one by one, for each tgz file, extract it
tar -zxvf OpenOffice-blahblahblah.tgz
You can't use a * for a wild card, it has to be done one by one.
I did this on Ubuntu for OpenOffice Beta 2, and then again for StarOffice 8. Using alien to convert to DEBs didn't work for either, but using alien to convert to TGZ files worked for both.
After this, you may need to make a symlink that is in /etc/ that points to the main openoffice folder in /opt. Try running the program (soffice binary in the openoffice folder) and it will tell you if there is a problem and where the symlink needs to be.
Hope that helps you out. Not quite as elegant as the original installed though. 
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I work for the state of MA. There have been plans and memos going around getting people prepared to switch to Open Office 2.0. I have been using open office 2.0 lately and for most office work such as writing reports, creating a spreadsheet I haven't run into any major problems that prevented me from doing my daily work. I would say that a whole state switching to an open source application is pretty significant. It might not be exactly the same as MS Office but does it really matter? The state wants to have a patent free file format that can be used anywhere.
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