[ablaze]

Do you remember about a year and a half ago, when there was speculation about an Apple branded version of StarOffice/OOo? Everything was quickly denied by everyone.
To be honest, as I see it, OOo is the only competitor to MSO at the moment. Even if Apple gets ported some of the other Apps for NeXTStep, e.g. OpenWrite by Lighthouse, it will only be a niche solution.
OOo is the best alternative out there.
Considering how long Apple is working on the new version of Appleworks now, I think they're doing a complete rewrite. And I bet they've taken OOo as their starting-point. They used khtml for Safari, too, without anyone knowing it, or even guessing it. I don't think the speculation on the Sun/Apple deal about StarOffice was just nonsense, but a mistake that shouldn't have happened on their side.

Again: We will see an Apple branded OOo with full Aqua appearance next year and they will be giving back all the changes they've made to the code to the community, as they've done with khtml.

As a side note: Perhaps this is the reason why Sun isn't pushing the porting of OOo for OSX much more. They just "allowed" the porting guys to open up their own sandbox with NeoOffice(J). Corrext me if I'm wrong.

What do you think?

[VEGAN]

The official reason for postponing the OOo cocoa port was that they are waiting for the OOo 2.0 ... but...

[ablaze]

Originally posted by VEGAN:
The official reason for postponing the OOo cocoa port was that they are waiting for the OOo 2.0 ... but...

I thought Sun told the porting team that they can include their changes in the official codebase for the OOo 2.0 development cycle. Until then, the new Apple Office (or iWorks, or Appleworks) will be out.
So this is just another clue, as I see it.

[ja]

have a look at this thread

[asxless]

Or this thread

It appears that speculation on Apple's plans vis a vis Office suites is a perennial topic

-- asxless in ILand

[ablaze]

I've read these threads. I wanted this one to be more concrete concerning Apple to work on OOo code.
I might throw this link from one of these threads in the ring again:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-946714.html

[asxless]

Originally posted by ablaze:
I've read these threads. I wanted this one to be more concrete concerning Apple to work on OOo code...

Although I believe that Apple will release an "iOffice" suite around MWSF, I very seriously doubt that "We will see an Apple branded OOo with full Aqua appearance next year and they will be giving back all the changes they've made to the code to the community, as they've done with khtml.". This does not mean that Apple might not utilize OOo's input/output filters, and other low level functionality components of OOo which hold little or no proprietary benefit. For example, spreadsheet calculation needs to work correctly regardless of platform. But IMHO that would not be "an Apple branded OOo with full Aqua appearance"

Apple's history with Open Source is to use the underlying code and add a proprietary layer so that they can sell it as a standalone product or bundle it with the Mac OS/Hardware ( i.e. BSD Unix ->OS X, KHTML -> Safari, XFree86 -> X11, etc.). In each case the look _and_ feel of the resulting Apple branded product was largely separable from the underlying open source code. For example, the proprietary quartz-wm window manager of X11, the Safari GUI on top of the KHTML web page rendering engine, etc. This is simply not the case with OOo. The look and feel (menu structure, feature set, etc.) are embedded in the functionality of the OOo modules. One of the main differences planned for V2.0 is the separation of the look and feel from the underlying functionality.

FWIW I was one of the main contributors (Beta testing and User Support) to the current OOo v1.0.3 for MacOSX (X11) port. I've built this beast from source many times, I've tested it's functionality and compatibility with M$ Office extensively. I am on record as saying that I believe that the OOo X11 port is good enough for me to quit upgrading M$ Office. BUT OOo is still essentially an M$ Office clone. I don't mean just the 'look' (Windows 95+) but, more importantly, the 'feel' (menu structure, feature set, etc.). Apple is not a follower. Apple won't just put aqua lipstick on this clone of a pig and take it to the dance.

-- asxless in iLand

Edit: for clarity.

[businezguy]

That deal with Sun Microsystems is very interesting. I bet this joint venture is going to be the new office suite everybody is expecting. Sun is pretty much even encouraging Apple to distribute it as their product.

The only part of that article that probably will not come true is that it will most likely not be free. I'm sure it will be a better deal then is Microsoft Office. However, since there will be a lot of development going into this office suite, and since it also is an outstanding chance for Apple to get more revenue stream, this is not going to be a free product. One of the ways they can justify this is by including a highly integrated Keynote 2.0 application.

I'd expect the price to be around $149, and I would expect a lot of Mac users would jump all over this office suite since it would have that simplified, elegant interface we all expect from Apple.

If Apple DOES release an office suite (and I think it's pretty much a given they will), I expect nothing less then a revolutionary product that adds ease of use with useful (but less) features.

[ablaze]

Originally posted by asxless:
Apple is not a follower. Apple won't just put aqua lipstick on this clone of a pig and take it to the dance.

Sorry, I didn't make it clear. I never thought of a real 1:1 port of OOo, but, as you mentioned, a real Apple product based on OOo. Of course this would mean a completely new interface, as the old one is too windows-like. But the functinality will be on par with OOo. i.e. You won't miss anything here (Except for the presentation module replaced with Keynote)

This does also mean the integratio of Webcore for html rendering etc.

Perhaps Apple has done many important changes to even push the goal of seperation of the program's underlying functionality and look&feel and will bring the evolution of 2.0 a big step forward by contributing this code.

[ablaze]

Originally posted by businezguy:
That deal with Sun Microsystems is very interesting. I bet this joint venture is going to be the new office suite everybody is expecting. Sun is pretty much even encouraging Apple to distribute it as their product.

The point is that what is in this article was quickly denied by Apple and Sun afterwards.
But I never believed this to be just some bs some editor's dreamt of the night before. Someone has talked with someone else and I expect that there is something to come from Apple.

[Truepop]

I used StarOffice for the longest time and one thing I don't like about and AppleWorks is it is all one app. I also don't like that about Netscape.

If I want eMail I will open an email only app. If I want web browsing I will open up a browser.

I hope Apple understands this and I hope I am not the only one who feels this way. Keynote is separate and Mail.app is separate from Safari and iMovie is Separate from iDVD. Word is Separate from Excel and not to say that is the only reason (or number one reason) I use the new $149 version of Office over AppleWorks but it is on my list.

[ablaze]

Originally posted by Truepop:
I used StarOffice for the longest time and one thing I don't like about and AppleWorks is it is all one app. I also don't like that about Netscape.

The OOo/StarOffice guys have understood that, too. Since OOo 1.0 each application is individual and not all in one anymore. At least it seems like it, because in fact they share much of the same code base, but are loaded seperately.
But the end user has the feeling that the individual apps could also be stand alone apps.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by businezguy:
If Apple DOES release an office suite (and I think it's pretty much a given they will), I expect nothing less then a revolutionary product that adds ease of use with useful (but less) features.

If Apple DOES release an office suite, I expect nothing less than a full-fledged frontal assault from Microsoft, including the discontinuation of any further Mac Office development.

While some people wont care, I need Office to live. Without a 100% file compatible application, as Office X is, I'd be up the proverbial creek... and forced to use a PC for writing. My livelihood depends on being able to transfer Office files, particularly complex Word and PowerPoint files, to colleagues and publishers. I depend on EndNote for references and bibliography generation, which, at the moment, works best with Office.

[asxless]

Originally posted by ablaze:
The OOo/StarOffice guys have understood that, too. Since OOo 1.0 each application is individual and not all in one anymore. At least it seems like it, because in fact they share much of the same code base, but are loaded seperately.
But the end user has the feeling that the individual apps could also be stand alone apps.

You might want to look at the OOo source code or at least the launching scripts of the OOo v1.x binary installation.

OOo v1.x is one huge application. Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress _appear_ to be separate because the installation includes a set of shell scripts that launch soffice with a parameter (swriter, scalc, sdraw, simpress). By doing this OOo avoids loading _some_ of the code which is specific to the other modules. But most of the application is read into memory at launch. This is one of the reasons that OOo takes so long to startup. Note that selecting exit on ANY OOo window's File menu quits OOo entirely, not just the module associated with that module (Calc, Writer, etc.).

Anyone who wants to pursue this should visit the Mac Testing forum on www.ooodocs.org. The main Mac OS X porting team developers have already covered this as part of their explanation of why OOo launches slowly.

-- asxless in iLand

[ablaze]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
My livelihood depends on being able to transfer Office files, particularly complex Word and PowerPoint files, to colleagues and publishers. I depend on EndNote for references and bibliography generation, which, at the moment, works best with Office.

You won't be the only one who want's to keep using MSO. That's why I think MS will continue to sell the Mac version even if Apple comes out with their own package.
A product is sold because you can make money with it. If there is a merket for Office.mac, they will continue selling it. The facts that MS doesn't fear the Mac as a rival platform for operating systems, and that the availablity of Office for the Mac was one argument in their latest lawsuites are just more hints that they will continue with Office as long as they can make money with it.

[MacGorilla]

From all accounts, M$ makes money hand over fist from Mac Office. I can't see them pullig the plug anytime soon.

[asxless]

Originally posted by ablaze:
Sorry, I didn't make it clear. I never thought of a real 1:1 port of OOo, but, as you mentioned, a real Apple product based on OOo. Of course this would mean a completely new interface, as the old one is too windows-like. But the functinality will be on par with OOo. i.e. You won't miss anything here (Except for the presentation module replaced with Keynote)

This does also mean the integratio of Webcore for html rendering etc.

We both seem to believe Apple will release the remaining modules that will free it from dependance on M$ Office. And we both seem to agree that these modules will be based, at least in part, on Open Source code (e.g. OpenOffice.org). I guess the main differences between your view and mine of any future Apple 'office product' are...
* which OOo modules will be included and
* how much OOo code we expect to be included.

Which OOo modules --
OOo has four main modules -- Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. I don't see any reason for Apple to take on key vendors like Adobe, Macromedia, Deneba by releasing the equivalent of OOoDraw. And as you point out they already have Keynote. which AFAIK does not include any OOo code. So we are probably down to just OOoWriter and OOoCalc.

How much OOo code --
I think this will mainly be low level I/O filters, spreadsheet calculation modules, word processing rendering code etc. You appear to think that Apple will incorporate more of OOo code than I do. Unfortunately, this is simply unknowable.

In the end, how much OOo code would need to be included before one calls it an "Apple branded OOo" is largely a semantic debate.

-- asxless in iLand

[ablaze]

Originally posted by asxless:

Which OOo modules --
OOo has four main modules -- Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. I don't see any reason for Apple to take on key vendors like Adobe, Macromedia, Deneba by releasing the equivalent of OOoDraw. And as you point out they already have Keynote. which AFAIK does not include any OOo code. So we are probably down to just OOoWriter and OOoCalc.

That would be my guess, too. I don't think neither that they're going to include oodraw.

How much OOo code --
I think this will mainly be low level I/O filters, spreadsheet calculation modules, word processing rendering code etc. You appear to think that Apple will incorporate more of OOo code than I do. Unfortunately, this is simply unknowable.

That's quite a lot. The rendering code, spreadsheet modules, I/O filters, and text/image layout capabilities is the main work to be done on an office suite.

In the end, how much OOo code would need to be included before one calls it an "Apple branded OOo" is largely a semantic debate.

I agree. iOffice/AW/iWorks = "Apple branded OOo" would be like Safari = "Apple branded khtml/Konqueror" which isn't the case, either. I think it is nearly the same thing we're thinking of.

[asxless]

Originally posted by ablaze:
The rendering code, spreadsheet modules, I/O filters, and text/image layout capabilities is the main work to be done on an office suite.

I agree. iOffice/AW/iWorks = "Apple branded OOo" would be like Safari = "Apple branded khtml/Konqueror" which isn't the case, either. I think it is nearly the same thing we're thinking of.

Sadly this level of Open Source usage/contribution by a platform vendor like Apple can be the kiss of death to an Open Source project like OOo on that platform. The popularity of the resulting proprietary product greatly diminishes the chances of a completely open source version ever being produced on that platform. For example, we are not likely to see a completely open source Aqua version of Konqueror on the Mac now that Apple has produced a proprietary version -- Safari. It can even have a chilling effect on similar/related open source projects (e.g. Camino). If Apple produces a proprietary version of OOoWrite & OOoCalc bundled with KeyNote (as you predict), we are not likely to see an Aqua version of the _full_ OOo suite. For most Mac users this is a mute point. But for open source contributors it can make a huge difference in who contributes to which ports and at what levels of effort. Not many people are willing to continue to contribute man months of their personal time to create a product that they expect to be overshadowed by a proprietary product based on their own efforts. [Everyone even remotely interested in an open source Aqua version of OOo should send Ed and Dan a big thank you email right now.]

FWIW The release of Safari and KeyNote at MWSF in January convinced me that Apple was going to produce what I call iOffice using only the low level "rendering code, spreadsheet modules, I/O filters, and text/image layout capabilities" while ditching the cross platform UI and all of the Impress / Draw modules. This caused me to decide to immediately reduce my contributions to the OOo Mac OS X port and completely quit contributing after the release of the OOo X11 port this summer. My logic was that the X11 port would be good enough for me (and other Mac users) to not have to purchase/upgrade licenses to M$ Office. And would provide full functionality for Mac users in a truly cross platform OOo environment. So my contributions to the X11 port was essentially independent of what Apple did (or did not do).

Anyone who has followed the OOo Mac OS X porting team's progress knows that the project has been (and still is) severely understaffed. We will probably never know why participation has been so low but it is just possible that other potential contributors decided not to bother since Apple was likely to trump their results with a proprietary product based on their open source contributions.

-- asxless in iLand

[Truepop]

would it really matter if apple gave them the kiss of death for a mac os x port of the suite? Didn't they say something like 2005 or even 2007?

[normyzo]

Officially, yes, it could be early 2005 before an "OpenOffice.org" Aqua version comes out, but that's a full tested end-user release. There will most likely be developer, alpha, and beta release well before then.

And if you don't want to wait for an "OpenOffice.org" official release, Ed and I are working on getting NeoOffice into shape very very soon. (NeoOffice is where we stick code that's not clean enough to get put into OOo and has a much faster track than OOo). We're bringing it up to OpenOffice.org 1.1 code right now, after which (in a week or two) we'll start doing the hard-core aquafication using patches I've already coded.

The issue with the many changes we put into NeoOffice is that a lot of them aren't cross-platform safe and therefore we can't just drop them into OOo right away. And since we want to get a good stable Aqua release out in a couple months that means we can't use OOo infrastructure to do it, hence NeoOffice. Its a hack now, commit later approach.

Dan

[ablaze]

Originally posted by asxless:
Sadly this level of Open Source usage/contribution by a platform vendor like Apple can be the kiss of death to an Open Source project like OOo on that platform.

Sad but true. But what can Apple do? They could make some 50-100 developers work on OOo to get it aquafied and than take their work as the base for their commercial product. So the community would benefit from their changes at first. But I doubt that SUn would allow such a step. Especially because Apple would change th UI a lot for their own release.
Somehow there is no other possibility but killing the porting project, is there?

[ablaze]

Originally posted by normyzo:
And if you don't want to wait for an "OpenOffice.org" official release, Ed and I are working on getting NeoOffice into shape very very soon. (NeoOffice is where we stick code that's not clean enough to get put into OOo and has a much faster track than OOo). We're bringing it up to OpenOffice.org 1.1 code right now, after which (in a week or two) we'll start doing the hard-core aquafication using patches I've already coded.

Thank you very much for your work. I really love OOo and would love to see it running natively in OS X.

[wallinbl]

Initial delivery of 2.0 for Win32, Solaris, and Linux x86 expected in Q1 2005. Projected OS X X11 port availability expected to be Q2 2005. Projected OS X native availability of OpenOffice.org 2.0 is currently Q1 2006

If this is the timeline, then I say bring on Apple's version. The X11 version for OS X is neat, but slow and clunky. My wife won't use it, because of speed and because the whole X11 thing is bizarre to her. She runs OpenOffice on the linux box, which is inconvenient since the Mac is our primary box.

Maybe the X11 version will be better with Panther, where I hear that X11 is built right in, so you don't know an app is using it, instead of the current kludge.

[asxless]

Originally posted by ablaze:
Sad but true. But what can Apple do? They could make some 50-100 developers work on OOo to get it aquafied and than take their work as the base for their commercial product. So the community would benefit from their changes at first. But I doubt that SUn would allow such a step. Especially because Apple would change th UI a lot for their own release.
Somehow there is no other possibility but killing the porting project, is there?

Actually Apple could do several things to minimize this collateral damage to the Mac open source community*. Assuming Apple truly wants to encourage Open Source development/porting to Mac OS X (not just X11), Apple could...

Go whole hog -- by doing exactly what Ed and Dan did with NeoOffice. Use the underlying OOo code base to build a fully GPL Aqua port of OOo. Then provide any enhancements back to OOo (the org) and the source code for others to improve / modify etc. Apple could still charge for distribution costs, support, etc. Apple could even produce an enhanced version (e.g. that took better advantage of OS X internals) that was not GPL (e.g. StarOffice vs OOo).

Support dual paths -- Apple could directly support the development of an Aqua port of the full OOo suite with people & resources AND still use the underlying code base as a foundation for a proprietary version of OOoWriter and OOoCalc for incorporation in to "iOffice". This helps the open source community to complete the port in a timely fashion and demonstrates that Apple is serious about making sure a fully Open Source version is produced.

Note: Dan has posted in this thread that "Ed and I are working on getting NeoOffice into shape very very soon. " and Ed has posted on http://trinity.neooffice.org that "I'm hoping to get it to a useful state (e.g. alpha quality) by January". AFAIK these estimates are based on the existing team of a few _part time_ developers and beta testers. If Apple only provided a couple of full time developers and G5 tinderboxes, it would greatly speed up the progress of the NeoOffice (read Aqua OOo) development. Imagine how far along the Aqua port would be if Apple had assigned just one full time developer (w/ tinderbox) to the OOo port back in January 2003.

I'm sure others can think of more creative ways for Apple to nurture the open source community that has been the foundation for several of Apple's major successes -- OS X, Safari, etc..

-- asxless in iLand

* I used OOo as an example because of my familiarity with this project. But most of this could probably apply to other open source projects.

[JB72]

Originally posted by ablaze:
Sorry, I didn't make it clear. I never thought of a real 1:1 port of OOo, but, as you mentioned, a real Apple product based on OOo. Of course this would mean a completely new interface, as the old one is too windows-like. But the functinality will be on par with OOo. i.e. You won't miss anything here (Except for the presentation module replaced with Keynote)

This does also mean the integratio of Webcore for html rendering etc.

I would be SOLD. I do think that Apple is still playing it nice with M$ though. And if Apple took on a real office suite it would mean they would have to do it full bore, and for the life of the platform.

[normyzo]

Originally posted by asxless:
Note: Dan has posted in this thread that "Ed and I are working on getting NeoOffice into shape very very soon. " and Ed has posted on http://trinity.neooffice.org that "I'm hoping to get it to a useful state (e.g. alpha quality) by January". AFAIK these estimates are based on the existing team of a few _part time_ developers and beta testers. If Apple only provided a couple of full time developers and G5 tinderboxes, it would greatly speed up the progress of the NeoOffice (read Aqua OOo) development. Imagine how far along the Aqua port would be if Apple had assigned just one full time developer (w/ tinderbox) to the OOo port back in January 2003.
-- asxless in iLand

asxless is right, even one developer full-time or loan of equipment like a G5 to either or one of the current developers would speed things up greatly. Who-ever mentioned 50-100 developers earlier, that's insane, since thats almost equal to the # of developers that are on OOo right now, from Sun, from Red Hat, from Ximian, from Mandrake, and from the community. If they did have even 20 developers on an iOffice, and contributed the changes back, that would be enormous and something to really celebrate.

Furthermore, while Ed and I have not taken the "wrap OOo file filters and rendering code in a completely new Cocoa front-end", that doesn't mean someone else can't. I would love to see something like this happen in an open-source effort, mainly so that I could help out Trust me, its a lot more fun to create something yourself from scratch than to attempt to shoehorn existing code to do what you want.

Dan

[HOMBRESINIESTRO]

So there is nothing on the grapevine about iOffice lately. Who does still believe Sun and Apple are cooperating?

[VValdo]

Originally posted by HOMBRESINIESTRO:
So there is nothing on the grapevine about iOffice lately. Who does still believe Sun and Apple are cooperating?

FWIW-- I have been using the latest version of NeoOffice/J, which supposedly is for developers only. Yet in a month of use I have experienced a total of ZERO crashes. It supports native OS X fonts and prints perfectly.

Get it from http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/download.php

W

[jwblase]

I still don't think that Apple will take the OpenOffice route... I think they will look at something like kOffice, as they did with Safari. Look here for some of the work (albeit the link is over a month old) that's being done on making any of the KDE apps work natively on OS X.

Sure, the OOo project may contain some usefulness, but the project is too cumbersome, and too locked into their own way of doing things to be taken whole hog.

JB