RE: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved
As much as I hate to defend Microsoft...and I do hate defending Microsoft...they have patents on their implementation of XML, not XML in general. This has no effect on XML. It's akin to someone patenting a method of casting a die out of aluminum. That patent doesn't affect aluminum, nor does it affect the casting of aluminum dies except for protecting the methodology laid out in the patent. As for MS Office being bloatware, I can't defend that. -Original Message- From: Farrell McGovern [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 9:52 AM To: U2 Users Discussion List Subject: Re: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved Ian Stuart wrote: Although I have requested IBM to look at some of the issues associated with OOo and U2 it would appear that the 'not invented here' syndrome prevents them from doing anything constructive; this is not a criticism, just an observation. I am surprised though that with IBM really pushing the Linux strategy that OOo is not seen as an alternative to MS Office for Linux on the desktop. Actually, it's more of this: As part of its initiative to put Linux on the desktop, IBM Corp. wants to migrate Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite to Linux. Microsoft said it's not involved and suggests that IBM might do it by emulation. from: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/13/HNlinuxoffice_1.html I don't think this is a good move...MS-Office is bloatware, and as MS patents it's XML formats (the Patent Office is so stoopid! Tomorrow, I will patent Air, and start charging everyone on Earth usage fees!), many may move away from it, if only for interoperablity sake. But that's just my personal opinions. We have someone here is is working on OOo and integrating it with our Unvierse product, Medformix under our version of Linux, MfxLinux. You can email him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] He doesn't get onto mailing lists. ttyl Farrell -- Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke Farrell J. McGovern Crowell Systems Linux Systems Admin.Toll Free (US and Canada) 1-800-366-4564 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://crowellsystems.com -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved
Ian Stuart wrote: Firstly, the performance of OOo is really good and we have not been able to match it with MS Office on a thin-client platform. At a customer site we have successfully migrated 45 users onto a single Intel-based server running Linux and OpenOffice for thin-client based users. This includes those users who have the RTC syndrome (resistance to change) like the executive secretaries and personal assistants. Whatever functionality may be missing in OOo that is in MS Office is obviously not used. This includes receiving and sending MS Office documents (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) to the corporate head-office who have inplemented MS Office. We have thousands of users on Universe on Linux. We ended up building our own distro of Linux to get all the features we wanted, like very good support for IBM eSeries Intel based servers. Our distro has support for things like the Serveraid Card and such built right in. We make medical office management software. We initially were going to use AbiWord as an integrated editor/word-processor, but it mostly does what we want, but OOo has turned out to be a much better solution, and opens some really big integration possiblities with Universe. What about the porting of UniVerse/UniData to Linux on the pSeries. I don't see why it isn't there already! ttyl Farrell -- Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke Farrell J. McGovern Crowell Systems Linux Systems Admin.Toll Free (US and Canada) 1-800-366-4564 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://crowellsystems.com -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved
Thanks to Farrel for responding to my plea and for the contact details of other users. I don't think this is a good move...MS-Office is bloatware, and as MS patents it's XML formats (the Patent Office is so stoopid! Tomorrow, I will patent Air, and start charging everyone on Earth usage fees!), many may move away from it, if only for interoperablity sake. But that's just my personal opinions. This is crazy; IBM may believe that OOo does'nt meet users requirements but that does'nt gel with our experience. I'm faced by UniVerse customers who want to get away from Microsoft, read about IBMs commitment to Linux, which I don't for a minute doubt, but I cannot offer an alternative to MS Office where the users need to use reporting tools similar to MSQuery because ODBC drivers from IBM for U2 products on Linux are not available and the JDBC does'nt quite work with OOo. To get around this, we're still using StarOffice 5.2 which supports ODBC 2.0, but only on Windows PCs. Firstly, the performance of OOo is really good and we have not been able to match it with MS Office on a thin-client platform. At a customer site we have successfully migrated 45 users onto a single Intel-based server running Linux and OpenOffice for thin-client based users. This includes those users who have the RTC syndrome (resistance to change) like the executive secretaries and personal assistants. Whatever functionality may be missing in OOo that is in MS Office is obviously not used. This includes receiving and sending MS Office documents (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) to the corporate head-office who have inplemented MS Office. The server also acts as the browser server for 20 users, print and file services for the other 35 Windows users who are still to be converted and telnet server for the 45 users who access UniVerse applications running on IBM pSeries 615 from their low-end P1 133 Mhz PC-based thin clients. Secondly, You can already run MSOffice as well as IE6 on Linux under Wine and can install it easily with crossover from Codeweavers, and the performance in a thinclient environment is reasonable but does not compare to OOo on Linux - we've tried MS Office/IE; it works. We've even installed Dynamic Connect on Linux with some success. The third issue is the cost of implementing,upgrading,licensing MS Office. A thin client solution using MS tools (Win2000/RTS licences,MS Office licences etc) is horrendous; but porting MS Office to Linux will only eliminate the OS/RTS level licencing but you'll still have to pay good money for MS Office. The point is that there is an excellent alternative and IBM could make the implementation of U2 products more cost-effective for users by ensuring that the interfaces (ODBC,JDBC etc) actually work with non-MS systems, for example what about supporting Lotus Approach - is'nt it still their product. If IBM support MSOffice on Linux will the client tools, UniDK etc,. for the U2 products be ported to Linux as well - probably not at a guess, which pretty much leaves the U2 community committed to an MS desktop environment. What about the porting of UniVerse/UniData to Linux on the pSeries. Ian Stuart -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved
Ian Stuart wrote: Although I have requested IBM to look at some of the issues associated with OOo and U2 it would appear that the 'not invented here' syndrome prevents them from doing anything constructive; this is not a criticism, just an observation. I am surprised though that with IBM really pushing the Linux strategy that OOo is not seen as an alternative to MS Office for Linux on the desktop. Actually, it's more of this: As part of its initiative to put Linux on the desktop, IBM Corp. wants to migrate Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite to Linux. Microsoft said it's not involved and suggests that IBM might do it by emulation. from: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/13/HNlinuxoffice_1.html I don't think this is a good move...MS-Office is bloatware, and as MS patents it's XML formats (the Patent Office is so stoopid! Tomorrow, I will patent Air, and start charging everyone on Earth usage fees!), many may move away from it, if only for interoperablity sake. But that's just my personal opinions. We have someone here is is working on OOo and integrating it with our Unvierse product, Medformix under our version of Linux, MfxLinux. You can email him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] He doesn't get onto mailing lists. ttyl Farrell -- Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke Farrell J. McGovern Crowell Systems Linux Systems Admin.Toll Free (US and Canada) 1-800-366-4564 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://crowellsystems.com -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
RE: Using OpenOffice with UniVerse/Unidata - request for U2 users to be involved
I have been actively pursuing the use of OpenOffice.org (OOo) as an alternative to MS Office on both Linux and Microsoft platforms with reasonable success; from initially working with StarOffice 5.2 which worked well with UniVerse ODBC, through the beta versions of OOo where the developers actively responded to my requests by sending patches for the OOo ODBC interface (would that other company do that for you without a business case) , making changes to their implementation of tablename aliasing (because UniVerse does'nt support aliasing a tablename to itself), The current status is that the dba group of OOo at my request have downloaded UniVerse PE to test why the JDBC does not appear to work consistently from OOo version 1.0.3 to 1.1. They have run into a few issues getting into UniVerse to run but are willing to persist as long as they have some support. The fact is that if more of the U2 community were to report problems, request support for UniVerse/UniData ODBC/JDBC etc the OOo team would realise that there is a large community that they would be catering to. Also, it would ensure that the U2 community have an alternative, cost effective solutions to offer. Although I have requested IBM to look at some of the issues associated with OOo and U2 it would appear that the 'not invented here' syndrome prevents them from doing anything constructive; this is not a criticism, just an observation. I am surprised though that with IBM really pushing the Linux strategy that OOo is not seen as an alternative to MS Office for Linux on the desktop. (I heard a rumour, apparently confirmed in the press, and perhaps the IBMers on this list could comment, that by end 2005 IBM will be Linux wall-to-wall internally on the desktop - some of us just want to get there sooner) There are areas of the product though that do not work well with UniVerse, and, depending on who you talk to, it would appear that UniVerse ODBC for example, is not keeping up with developments as it implements ODBC 2.0 and OOo provides for ODBC 3. It has to date not been possible to get information from IBM whether theU2 ODBC driver will be enhanced, whereas OOo have made attempts to support ODBC 2.0 via patches. Unfortunately in recent releases of OOo(1.1.0) and StarOffice 7 ODBC and JDBC fails when accessing metadata. The good news is that OOo are actively looking at this problem for a single U2 user - me. That is impressive. My plea (oh, what a little pleader) is for all/many/some in the U2 community and especially those on this list to participate in the OOo development by logging issues related to database access; the OOo team have shown that they are willing to address issues but the larger the interest from outside the greater the focus will be on providing a solution. You don't have to do anything other than register with OOo and report where OOo does'nt work with U2. To make it easy I'll give you the list of things I've found. Some have referred to OOo on this list - if you are using OOo and have UniVerse/UniData please contact me. For those that don't know OOo yet there are some really powerful features we can utilise from within UniVerse eg XML designed forms (invoices, purchase orders) automated conversion of documents to pdf format, automated emailing etc. For the java people - OpenOffice can provide powerful services to your applications and is worth looking at. There is a largish site in Cape Town that has migrated most of the users to Linux thin-client and OOo and the users don't miss that other suite at all. Here's to hoping that this gets your support :). Thanks Ian Stuart -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
