On 3/23/07, Mathias Bauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Chad Smith wrote: > And why do people type Mac in all caps? OK. Bad habit. I promise to improve. :-)
Thanks. :) It depends. If Apple *users* wanted OpenOffice.org (that's what is
discussed here) it should be in Apple's interest to serve their customers. So I can read your statement only in two ways: There is no demand for OpenOffice.org on the Mac (sic!) from its customers (but then why are we talking about it?) or Apple deliberately ignores such demand.
Apple users want OpenOffice.org - at least some of us do. Many Apple users - just like many Windows users - don't know that OpenOffice.org exists. I'd say fewer Mac users know about OOo than Windows users, because the Windows port is less buggy, more (read: completely) native, more up to date, and better advertised. Apple does ignore any demand that there is for OOo because its not an Apple problem. Apple didn't make the project. Apple doesn't own the project. Apple has nothing to do with the project. That'd be like saying Apple is ignoring the demand of users for Encarta or Frontpage or Halo 3. It's not up to Apple if a third party decides to port its software or not. It's up to the third party. In this case, since it is an open source project, sure, Apple could step up. However, Apple is interested in making money. That's why any attempt for Apple to meet consumer demand for an office suite will most likely take the form of the next version of iWork, or some other Apple-brand office suite. I'm not talking about Apple making money with OpenOffice.org, I'm
talking about Apple being interested in making the Mac more attractive or reacting on a demand.
Apple is about Apple making money. Apple isn't going to port OOo just because they can. They'd have to have a reason. And, for the reasons listed above, and in my last post, I doubt there is much demand reaching Apple for them to do anything about the current situation. And if, somehow, there was - if I were Steve Jobs - I'd point to NeoOffice and shrug my shoulders. Kind of a "let them eat cake" answer - but in this case, there really is a bunch of cake laying around in the form of free NO downloads. But if OpenOffice.org is not necessary for the
Mac, again: then why are we talking about the Mac version at all? And why should Sun or anybody else work on the Mac version of OOo? IMHO OOo adds more to the Mac platform (not for Apple per se directly) than vice versa. But YMMV.
Well, OpenOffice.org isn't necessary at all, really. I mean, there are other projects. There are many other office suites. There are quite a few other free office suites, for pretty much any platform you got. (AbiWord, KOffice, ThinkFree, TextEdit, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, ZohoOffice, TextWrangler, EasyOffice, 602 PCSuite, etc..) It's not a matter of "need" - it's a matter of want. You're striking at the whole purpose of the open source movement. It's not just to fill in needs, otherwise why would open source games exist at all?
From what all I've read in the last few years - the main thrust behind a lot
of development interest in OpenOffice.org is that of providing a tool that can handle the OpenDocument standard formats. One that is full featured, cross-platform, and open source. *That* need isn't being met on the Mac platform other than through NeoOffice. If OpenOffice.org as a project has some ... um ... misgivings? about the NeoOffice project - then they need to step up and provide an "official" alternative. That is why we are talking about this. I don't really have a problem with NeoOffice. Would I prefer a true Mac port of the official variety? Yes. But NeoOffice is far better than any "stopgap" measure that X11 may provide. If you are talking about market share and mass adoption on the desktop
it's only Windows that counts. Sad but true.
True, but second in line is Mac OS X. Not Solaris or Linux or FreeBSD or even those combined. But we have native versions for all those OSes - but not Mac. Weird. The same is true for the OOo developers: they are busy doing things that
seem to be more important to them than a native Mac port. So why do you take different measures for Apple and other companies or projects?
Well, I am trying to explain that it would benefit the OpenOffice.orgproject far more than Apple, Inc. to have a native port available for Mac OS X. I mean, why develop OpenOffice.org at all? There has to be some motivation, and I think some part of that motivation is that people will actually use what is being developed. As far as Sun's motivation is concerned.... StarOffice Universal Binary for Mac OS X has a nice ring to it. And ringing up cash registers for those sales sounds pretty nice, I would imagine, to the company. So has Sun, Novell, Red Hat ...
Apparently, I just wish it were not the case. -- - Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
