A British executive for Sun said on Friday that the release date for the company’s StarOffice 8 suite would now be September 12, almost two months later than originally anticipated. The office productivity software sees wide use in the Linux community, and includes word processing and spreadsheet applications.
… we prefer delaying the product for 2 monthes to have major bugs fixed as we don’t care : our cash is earned on support, not software update/upgrade.
Um… isn’t that exactly what you WANT to hear? A software company releasing something that is READY rather than being governed by a date?? I say three cheers for Sun on this one!
We are still waiting on OF1.99 to get out of beta releases. It is almost there but I still feel like it is buggy compared to 1.1 on my machines. 2.0 is coming or AKA SO 8, but I would rather wait and have a stable product.
this means star office 8 is only less that 1 month away to be released, which means it will be based on an openoffice 2 beta, which is not too stable right now.
IMO, they should delay it for christmas.
I am using the latest release 1.9.122 while OOo2 beta was based on 1.9.8x and SO8 Beta was based on 1.9.83 I think. The latest version has not crashed on me not even once and I use it extensively. My only gripe is that when adding additional Toolbars (View>Toolbars>Insert) they don’t stick once the program is closed and when OOo is reopened I have to readd it again. That is a major nuisance for me.
If what you say about 1.9.122 is true and SO8 going to be released next month, does that mean OpenOffice 2.0 will be out next month too? I couldn’t find anything about release dates on the OO.org website.
shortly after
shortly after . Read http://news.com.com/StarOffice+8+release+date+slips/2100-1012_3-583…
” The latest version has not crashed on me not even once and I use it extensively”
Neither here. I usually kill it after I get tired of waiting it to load….
Where is the usual OSS zealotry?
– OSS is always cheaper than commercial software because there are no license fees.
– OSS development is incredibly fast because millions of volunteers are participating.
– OSS is always more interoperable because everyone can implement it directly in the source code.
– Microsoft Office cannot open documents that were created in earlier versions of Microsoft Office while OpenOffice.org can.
– Commercial software should not be used because the manufacturer could get bankrupt while OSS will always be developed by the community.
– Everyone who prefers commercial software over OSS has no clue at all.
– Governments that use commercial software instead of OSS are evil and do that to finance wars.
– OpenOffice.org and StarOffice are not slow and can open any Microsoft Office document without a problem.
– Microsoft Office does not have more features and a more integrated workflow, it is only used because of vendor lock-in and because people have no clue.
– OpenOffice.org is not a huge crap of old and unmaintainable cold.
– Even if OpenOffice.org were not perfect, OSS would still be the better choice for all situations because there are Kword, Abiword and Gnumeric.
So please, OSS zealots, add your thoughts.
Anonymous (IP: 217.246.190.—),
Please stay on topic. This is about a product delay.
With OSS, you always get superior quality because we never ship until it is really ready. 😉
In the BetaNews article, the paragraph, “However, news surfaced late Thursday that the Microsoft Office alternative lost a large contract, striking a blow to Sun’s efforts and raising questions as to the suite’s viability outside of the Linux and open source community.” seems to be more of an opinion of the article’s author, rather than based in any factual evidence.
Yet somehow, that seems to make it into the OSNews headline as “MS Pressure”. Precisely what pressure was applied by Microsoft that caused the delay of Star Office 8?
Yet somehow, that seems to make it into the OSNews headline as “MS Pressure”. Precisely what pressure was applied by Microsoft that caused the delay of Star Office 8?
Don’t you know that exciting headlines, albeit almost never true, generate more ad revenue? MS Pressure is much more exciting than Sun Loses Contract. The first thing I thought when I saw that was that MS had threatened a patent lawsuit or something. So, of course, I click on the story….but it really had nothing exciting. Journalistic ethics are so low nowadays that this is nothing…in-fact, quite normal.
Don’t you know that exciting headlines, albeit almost never true, generate more ad revenue?
For the millionth time: We do NOT get payed at OSNews! How many times do I have to repeat that before it gets through?
Journalistic ethics are so low nowadays that this is nothing…in-fact, quite normal.
Go complain at BetaNews, *they* supplied the news. Is it my right to change the original author’s intentions?
For the billion time, if you want to be called an editor, act like one.
It is not only your right, but your obligation to provide truthful headlines, even if they vary from whatever source you are linking to.
It would do you wonders to take a journalism class before you feel entitled to act and respond the way you do.
“It is not only your right, but your obligation to provide truthful headlines, even if they vary from whatever source you are linking to.”
Please provide a link to any site on the internet where you see a linked story that has had its headline altered from the source. You won’t find one.
Just because StarOffice loses *again* is no reason to give the OSNews editors flack.
…other than that, there *is* pressure from Microsoft, as they are in *direct* competition with Sun in this field, so there *inherently* is pressure.
It’s not my problem that people see “Pressure from MS” and think: “Lawsuits! Patent issues! Anti competative behaviour!”. It says more about the *reader* than about the author.
Your conduct is improper. You need to watch your attitude and your language when you make comments. There is presure on you as I can see, or at least you think there is presure. Also, don’t post every piece of crap here and then complain thatm people don’t like it. Maybe more and more will stop reading the site. Where is Eugenia by the way? She had better posts and comments!
Quite a rude answer for an editor.
BetaNews is responsible for the content on their pages but OSN editors are responsible for missleading titles on http://www.osnews.com.
Actually the article title is exactly what the BetaNews title is, changing that would be more dishonest imo than changing it to fit your approval since this is just a stub linking to the BN article.
OSNews editors should pick appropriate titles for their own work, but they shouldn’t be expected to come up with better titles for other people’s work. OSNews links to a lot of articles from other sites, this is something I appreciate but it also means that the editors won’t have time to come up with new titles for every article they link to. You can either live with it, or bother the editors until they stop listing any articles but their own.
OSNews editors: Consider the format “BetaNews: [title]” or “Slashdot: [title]” when writing stubs to other articles like this so it will be clear that you are quoting the title from that site and aren’t liable for the wording.
Nit Pickers: Nothing is perfect, especially journalism and software; you can either be glad that the mistakes are only small, or complain that there are mistakes. It all comes down to whether the glass is half full or half empty for you, but being pessimistic and complaining about everything isn’t cool and won’t make you popular here.
“OSNews editors: Consider the format “BetaNews: [title]” or “Slashdot: [title]” when writing stubs to other articles like this so it will be clear that you are quoting the title from that site and aren’t liable for the wording. ”
This is a very good suggestion. Nonetheless, if you don’t feel that the title reflects the content of the article, it may be prudent to introduce the article differently while linking to it. That is exactly what the part of “editing” in being an editor entails.
Care to point out where exactly I insinuated that OSNews was at fault for the headline?
Oh, and it is our ad clicks that are paying for this site, so jumping down our throats while imagining we said things we really didn’t is incredibly unprofessional.
Precisely what pressure? If you can’t see the pressure that MS Office exerts on OOo, you my friend are blind. Let’s not split hairs under the false pretense of journalistic integrity. For crying out loud, MICROSOFT is the owner and developer of MS Office. That is *Precisely* how they factor into providing pressure.
Rather than microanalyze the freaking headline, just acknowledge the real issue. Pull your head out of the sand and go to war, don’t attack us.
Maybe there is Apple pressure these days…lol
Tasteless journalism!
MS must make a Linux Office…..
… named OpenSolaris has also very few developers for such a project and as I can see also gets very few developers from outside (from the Free SW/Open Source community).
Something rotten in the development models of Sun.
Hehe. If you don’t like the Muck … Move on.
I love the entertainment value of the site.
Hehe. If you don’t like the Muck … Move on.
One of these days people may do it. Some times I get the impression that it may happen as soon as there is an alternative. Osnews is a good site, but imho they like to waste their reputation, and people may get tired of that.
I love the entertainment value of the site.
They may change the name to “Os Fun” then…
edit. period. unless they’re /. editors, which is not something you want to aspire to.
jeez.. i don’t see a problem with the contents of the articles.. to me, OSNews is just a compendium, from which you can draw you own conclusion. some of us make it sound as if they just slap this together with the express intention of posting flamebait…
just chill, man
I agree.
It’s kind of like killing the mail man for delivering a letter with bad news.
I read the article last week that spotlighted the move back to MS Office by the (one department/precinct of the) scotland police. One thing that bothered me was that the article skirted around the idea that MS offered some unspecified (financial/support/incentive-based) assistance tied to the reverse-migration. There was some hinting going on in the quotes from the police department, but the journalist chose not to explore this angle.
With so many entities switching from MS to non-MS solutions receiving only summary coverage in the media (analyst reports, etc.), is MS banking on “facilitating” higher-profile reverse switchers as a promising new source of FUD? Or am I reading too much into this?
First of all, the torrent of criticism aimed at the OSNews staff/editors needs to be stopped. These comments are of no use to other OSNews readers, and therefore these discussions should be taken offline. If you have a problem with the way OSNews staff or story submitters conduct themselves, contact them directly instead of posting in the comments section. I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed to receive your criticisms by email–I know Eugenia was particularly thrilled with my email about “Get The Facts” ads appearing on OSNews. I apologize for that, by the way…
Second, OSNews staff need to stop feeding these discussions. I think that it is great that you participate in the comments sections and contribute positively to the discussions. However, it’s not right to respond to these personal attacks, however reasonable/correct your position might be, using an account that is immune to moderation. Let the OSNews community mod these discussions appropriately and stay out of it so that you can maintain your credibility and reputation.
That said, we all should mod these comments out of whatever threshold we browse at, and we should only respond if we have something positive to contribute.
For example, the suggestion to attribute the headline to the source is a worthwhile idea to discuss. I would also suggest as a related alternative that the main page of the source be linked below the headline. For example:
StarOffice 8 Faces Delays, MS Pressure
From: BetaNews (hyperlinked to http://www.betanews.com)
Linked by `whoami` on `date`, submitted by someuser
This should present the headline in a way that clearly attributes it to the source, and provides a standard way of linking to the main page of the source (which should always be done anyway imho).
Perhaps in the future users will be able to blacklist sources if they find them particularly untrustworthy:
From: BetaNews <add source to blacklist>
and then they will never again see articles from that source on the main page when they are logged in (except maybe a notification on the bottom saying some number of articles blacklisted with a link to show them). Just an idea, OSNews v3 is a vast improvement over the previous version already.
Actually, I agree with the headline. Clearly that fact that MS is their principle competitor does imply that they are under great pressure (esp. with the recent Scotland defection).
Having said that, I find myself often wishing that I could moderate the non-administrative comments from the site editors. The tone of some of their messages in this thread have been “less than polite” to say the least!
They should drop that graphical user interface look/theme. It is very repulsive. I know they’re trying hard to look different, but not in such a bad way!
They should better learn from Apple, Gnome Industrial Theme, KDE, and even the new Windows…
Our knowledge is superior! we can learn none from nobody.
It’s “paid” idiot. Not “payed”.
“It’s ‘paid’ idiot. Not ‘payed’.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=payed
Wow. Just wow.
If they shipped early, they would have been slammed for shipping a buggy product – now they’re getting slammed for holding a product back due to major bugs, you can’t satisfy everyone.
Regarding the bigger issue, I think he larger issue at play is SUN’s unwillingness to invest the necessary money to court ISV’s to port their desktop applications to Solaris x86 – not weird, obscure, “no one has ever heard of it’ stuff, I’m talking about big names like Adobe, MYOB, Quicken, Peachtree, etc. etc.
No one, I repeat, no one will change to Solaris x86 let alone Linux, until they can get the same applications that their business relies on for their work flow, and I’m sorry, StarOffice doesn’t stand up against Microsoft – the only thing that *COULD*, given enough investment, would be Wordperfect Suite; it would require investment, but it is 95% of the way there, vs. OpenOffice.org/StarOffice which isn’t even on the radar when you compare the features of the suites.
Then why are they called ‘Editors’ if all they do is copy and paste links? Hardly sounds like the most demanding journalistic task. ‘Linkers’ would be a better term 🙂
We appreciate facts. If it’s a personal opinion, then you serves the readers better by making it clear it’s a personal opinion. Thank you for the article anyway.