Sun brings official support to OpenOffice development for Mac OS X
Eric Bachard has just announced on his blog that Sun Microsystems has decided to bring official support to the development of his OpenOffice port to Mac OS X.
The French professor at the Université de Technologie Belfort-Montbéliard has been working hard for several months to bring what appears to be an early functionnal build of OpenOffice with an Aqua user interface.
Sun is said to have assigned two developers to work on the Mac OS X flavor of its open source productivity suite. These developers will work on the Aqua version of the project.
OpenOffice's initial Mac port was an X11 project, meaning it required Apple's adaptation of X11 windows server to run. Another project called NeoOffice later attempted to use Java so as to bring a more Mac OS X friendy look and feel and get rid of X11.
The Aqua version of the project, which was about to enter in alpha stage uses native code, it means not only a very Mac OS X friendly look and feel but also a significant performance improvement over X11 and Java-based versions and use of Aqua system dialog boxes.
During our last years' visit at AppleExpo 2006, Bachard showed us his ongoing work but couldn't provide a timeframe for the release of his OpenOffice port and was actively seeking for help from the developers community.
Now it looks like Sun and OpenOffice.org are betting on his work and want to bring their own development resources to the project and this can only be good news for the Mac community as it will help the emergence of a true alternative to Microsoft Office for the Mac, something that even Apple's own iWork productivity suite has failed to achieve so far.
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Good news, but I guess we'll
Good news, but I guess we'll have to wait a few more years to get a usable Mac version of OpenOffice.
Just what we need - another
Just what we need - another effort in competition with an existing - and very far progressed - effort at bringing OpenOffice to the Mac. Why not throw the force in behind NeoOffice????
For the editor: I recommend you look at the current NeoOffice offering for an updated view of what is available today: Version 2.1 was released recently, and includes "full" aquiafication - I say "full" because I cannot see anything about it that isn't as I have come to expect from good, solid OS X applications. I use NeoOffice full-time in an otherwise Microsoft-only environment, daily exchanging documents, spreadsheets and presentations with others. I use the Microsoft file formats as the default for anything I do, whether original work or changes to other peoples work - and over the last year it has not failed me once.
And for pear: what about NeoOffice is it that makes it less-than-usable?
- love over gold -
Umm... you missed the point.
Umm... you missed the point. This isn't a competition... its about bettering quality.
Did you not see the "NeoOffice... use(s) Java". Its like saying because Photoshop CS2 runs on an intel mac fine through rosetta theres no reason to make it run natively. Every process you do has to go through and extra step, if we get rid of extra steps it runs faster and better.
I use NeoOffice and love it, the developers aren't entirely against it, and are joking that OOo owes them beer for what they've done.
In the end they are both built on the same code base and in order for the project to develop properly, it needs to run natively. Honestly you can't say you didn't wish NeoOffice didn't start up faster.
I think the "what about NeoOffice is it that makes it less-than-usable" line was mocking sun for their long development cycle more than saying NeoOffice isn't usable. The alpha version is less than usable. So, it will be another year before sun actually releases a final "native" product.
Good to see there will be a
Good to see there will be a true alternative to MS Office.
I'm using OpenOffice on Windows and I'm pretty happy with it. never felt the need to purchase MS Office.
I can't get used to NeoOffice though, even the latest version is so slow and heavy in resource usage. Still better than the X11 version though :).