Not sure how many people are aware of it, but there is an ever growing desire for good Japanese word processors for free. Sure, they could just download and set up Open Office in Japanese, but... there are two points I'd like to just throw out there to the Open Office community.
1) Students of the Japanese language (or other languages, I'm sure) would love to be able to keep their English interface, while being able to switch between Japanese & English inputs, thus, being able to have Japanese and English in the same document, while keeping the English menus. Not only might this be helpful to the English/Japanese community, but I think it would be great for other languages that use other alphabets. As an idea, couldn't someone write something into the program where you can switch between English (or other languages) and foreign alphabets, without having to install Open Office in those languages?
2) Specific to the Japanese/English community, there is a well known set of dictionaries (the Edict and Kanjidic dictionaries) made by individuals which are constantly being updated. For some (students for instance), they would use the crappiest software on earth... if they could get a great dictionary with it. These dictionaries can be downloaded free and used by many programs, some open source. Among the dictionaries you can get from that project, are dictionaries that go well beyond normal ones (which are great if you can use multiple dictionaries in a program), such as the Name dictionary, or specific terms dictionaries like the legal terms dictionary.
If Open Office could utilize this format of dictionary, then countless users would save anywhere from $100 to $200 or $300 ... which is what they pay for the leading commercial software that uses these dictionaries, NJStar. With these two modifications... ability to switch inputs of languages, and the ability to use multiple dictionaries including the edict files, Open Office would surpass NJStar... and probably most of the other Japanese/English word processors out there. NJStar beats most precisely because it utilizes the Edict and Kanjidic dictionaries. Furthermore, if Open Office can be used on Linux, it will become the leading "Japanese Word Processor" option on Linux as well, because right now, there aren't any (that I know of), let alone any free ones.
The Open Office community has the chance to save a lot of people a lot of money... and bring some users who NEED NJStar and like programs (which are NOT supported on Linux, even by Wine or Codeweaver), one step closer to a total removal from expensive commercial software. Plus, I am sure that there are people who have the same issues with wanting inputs of other languages (Chinese, etc...), which this idea would also benefit.
I have been watching the development of Open Office with great interest (as a writer), but to have another very necessary utility of mine (a Japanese word processor utilizing the comprehensive edict files) merged into it, I think, might be enough for me to toss both of my commercial word processors (NJStar and Lotus Word Pro), or at least NJ Star. There is also a project under way now to do the same thing for Chinese, called Cdict. For students or translators, the dictionary makes the word processor. Here's hoping Open Office will reach out and help this "fringe group" to get away from commercial robbery (the difference between NJStar basic for $100 and the pro version for $200-$300, is FOUR FONTS!! They're gouging people $100-$200 for the ability to print in nice fonts! Nothing else!).
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