OpenOffice.org removes Neo from Mac downloads page

[djpimley]

[LemonAid]

[gasdoc]

I was a Mac evangelist in the system 7.5 days but got dragged over to windoze at work with the advent of NT 4 and the lure of free IBM thinkpads. In the last 6 months I have become a born again mac user with my lovely white macbook. I discovered neooffice following frustration with the "limited iwork interface" and MS word telling me what I can and can not do. I had used OpenOffice for a limited while on the PC. I have also tried ThinkFree (not free) office too.

What you Guys have to realise is that the current versiopn of NeoOffice IS technically the best office suite available for the intel mac. It also has the most practical UI. I hope that the next version will sport the prettier acua (akua) icons amongst the other fearures promised.

OpenOffice has so far to go, and MS is going sideways not forewards. What you guys have achieved is outstanding and IMHO as far as the mac community is concerned, NeoOffice is at the forefront and the OpenOffice guys, if they had any sense would be well advised to ask for your help and cooperation, not trying to shur you out. Widespread cross-platform compatability has got to be a good thing.

Paul

[OPENSTEP]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm proud of all the work I've done, both at OOo in the past and here. There really is a viable alternative to MS Office on the Mac with even some features that go above and beyond.

Fact of the matter is that open source software has no barrier to entry. It's much different than the commercial world. Open source has no barrier to entry, so it's ripe for exploitation by opportunists and egomaniacs. If as a startup you went out and started calling your rivals criminals and started breaking good faith contracts your investors would have a nice round of orly and stop funding the company (and maybe throw in a lawsuit for kicks). In the world of open source there are no checks and balances...anyone with any type of political or personal agenda can use their pulpit for any means they want without any inbuilt counterbalancing force to bring them back down to reality.

I do believe OOo is doing themselves a disservice by constructing their own fiefdom and castle and attack their open source "opposition" instead of recognizing that alternative open source projects such as NeoOffice and ooo-build and even the closed source variants all are serving the common good. Neglecting to inform users who are looking for free software (both as in freedom and as in beer) solely because of the political agenda of your own project or individuals involved is sheer sleazy opportunism that just hurts users. This is totally not the true spirit of open source.

The open source world is full of its nutjobs. That's not to say that's a bad thing...look at the amazing work done by Theo De Raadt and, of course, by RMS, to name a few individuals some would put in that nutjob category. I'm certain there are some who would place myself in that category of nutjobs. All I can say is that 500,000 users can't be wrong and if they are I sure as h**l don't wanna be right.

I'm thrilled to be able to do the work that I do and I'm glad that there are users who benefit from my work. I'm also thrilled to not be a part of OOo and its petty politics. It allows me to bring users such great features such as the Aqua support and forthcoming OpenXML compatibility and a great software support experience. I think it's a prime example of how open source can really work on the Mac platform. Unlike Linux and elsewhere, open source isn't about developers; first and foremost it's about users and helping handhold the person who just turned on a Mac for the first time a few days ago into discovering a great Mac experience

These are fun times and it's very satisfying to be an enabling force for Mac users at large.

ed