Joerg Sievers wrote:
Hi!
Some answers, now from my private account, to be clear:
1. Sun has spokesmen/spokeswomen
OOo has been founded by Sun and it should not wonder
nobody here that Sun employees have their own opinion
if they're working on an open sourced (open minds)
project. It is their daily job and sometimes they have
answers on questions or also questions and need
answers...
OpenOffice is and will always be based on StarOffice, which started as a
project on either UNIX or OS/2. There was no efforts given then for a
MacIntosh version as Microsoft and Apple both had products that met the
needs of that group of folks.
2. Sun and the Mac port and doing fixes
AFAIK (and I do not know anything) the first steps of
using Java instead of X11 als have been done by Sun
in the past.
The NeoOffice guys have done after the initial start a great job
and I also support the team by doing automated QA if there
is a request. Sometimes I have a look at their milestones and
it is really a nice application on the Mac.
Sun has decided not to do a Mac port, so why should they fix
issues or invest in using Cococa/Java/... they have no interest in?
Sorry, but nobody and no company would do that!
Agreeed! No company would produce a product that will take a lot of
resources for little or no return. I think that Apple and SUN have
looked at porting OOo to MacOSX and decided against this. So the only
effort that is working on it right now is totally volunteer.
Sun is supporting and sponsoring OOo - with no view on
which platform it is being done. It is IMHO good for the
Mac OS X port community that also inside Sun some
employees have interest in having a Mac OS X port -
they do their job in private time but they have the knowledge
of their daily work..
That is true, even for Patrick, who no longer works for SUN, that we
have folks who work for SUN during the day and work on the MacIntosh
port at night.
3. X11 and Java
It is NOT Sun's job to beat a market where they're not
present. StarOffice is not available on the Mac, so if
somebody wants to beat the market it is the OOo
community and not Sun because they have a Mac OS X
port.
I agree here too. SUN knows that the market slice is small and there is
alot of competition for very few $$$ (insert your favorite currency here.)
It is a market with many small apps: M$ Office, iWork,
Papyrus, AbiWord (supporting OASIS OpenDocument
format!), .... have fun and I would happy to help.
And the first has a very large and profitable company producing it. And
they have abandoned Internet Explorer because of the losses they were
taking just trying to keep it current.
We have to keep in mind that the MacIntosh audience is small, UNIXes
have more of a market share than we do, and the we are very picky. Thus
a company is going to be very careful and might not consider
building/constructing a Mac version of their programs. If we solidly
support an ALL VOLUNTEER effort, then those who are on the 'wall' will
join in. If we don't, then the opposite is more likely and it is
possible that folks will leave for 'greener' pastures.
If you have a problem with OpenOffice, voice it. Even better yet,
figure out a way to fix it.
James McKenzie
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