It really comes down to being just a pissing contest that will result in a waste of resources. They will spend years replicating Patrick's work not for any underlying technical reason but only for the sake of putting it under a different name.
Do you really think a cocoa version of Oo could not have a better speed and less memory usage?
I really do not know if the Oo 2,0 staff is willing and able to rewrite a Oo 2.0 in cocoa, but from a user point of view I can understand they would try to build a Oo with the same performances of the windows version.
Quote:
I wonder if Sun is really behind this because we refuse to play ball by their rules.
I think that SUN have to spend more and more money to have a staroffice 8 for macintosh
It really comes down to being just a pissing contest that will result in a waste of resources. They will spend years replicating Patrick's work not for any underlying technical reason but only for the sake of putting it under a different name.
<tin foil hat>
I wonder if Sun is really behind this because we refuse to play ball by their rules.
</tin foil hat>
Well, can we make a deal otherwise then? Say that if Patrick gets an anonymous cheque in the mail, made out to himself, you, Dan and James for say, two hundred grand, that you will be so amazed by so much community generosity that you spontaneously relicense Neo/J to LGPL?
I'd find it hilarious, but I'd support it if that is what it takes to have Sun and you guys both save face.. _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
What's wrong with this? The effort was not completed by OO.
</hits nail on head>
With a really big hammer, too.
OPENSTEP wrote:
It really comes down to being just a pissing contest that will result in a waste of resources. They will spend years replicating Patrick's work not for any underlying technical reason but only for the sake of putting it under a different name.
Or better yet, license. They have all of Patrick's fixes to 1.1.4 but have not applied them yet. I know that Eric B. posted a message about not being able to sync them back into the Master Work Space. As I've stated elsewhere, I would like to see a NeoOffice with OOo 2.0 code. Because OOo 2.0 for the Mac/X11 is not ready, it would be worthless to start this effort.
OPENSTEP wrote:
<tin foil hat>
I wonder if Sun is really behind this because we refuse to play ball by their rules.
</tin foil hat>
Could be, but I doubt it. However, I have not met all of the personalities at Sun, so my statement may be incorrect. I do agree that moving to Cocoa may be a total waste of time and effort but I'm not on the 'inside' so Sun may provide the OOo porting team with hints and tricks they were not able to or willing to for the NeoOffice effort. That being said, Patrick and you did a very good job and expended a great deal of effort before stopping on the Cocoa version and moving onto Carbon/Java.
Let's see how far they get before they give up. Maybe like me, they will find a method of fixing the problem by blindly stumbling around.
Well, can we make a deal otherwise then? Say that if Patrick gets an anonymous cheque in the mail, made out to himself, you, Dan and James for say, two hundred grand, that you will be so amazed by so much community generosity that you spontaneously relicense Neo/J to LGPL?
Interesting concept, but please keep me out of it. I have enough problems without an anonymous cheque showing up in the mail....
ovvldc wrote:
I'd find it hilarious, but I'd support it if that is what it takes to have Sun and you guys both save face..
Now, that I support. I think there is a tremendous amount of anamosity between the NeoOffice and OpenOffice teams. This may be the reason that Sun decided to try and walk the path towards doom by building a Cocoa version. Then again, they may think that they know better and are going to try it anyway. In either case, this may prove interesting and entertaining. {Note: I will be out of the country at the end of this month and my level of activity will be decreasing over the next few weeks.}
Say that if Patrick gets an anonymous cheque in the mail, made out to himself, you, Dan and James for say, two hundred grand, that you will be so amazed by so much community generosity that you spontaneously relicense Neo/J to LGPL?
Interesting concept, but please keep me out of it. I have enough problems without an anonymous cheque showing up in the mail....[/quote]
Aww.. You're contributing patches. I was going to lobby Ed to give you Architect status like Dan and Patrick .
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
I think there is a tremendous amount of anamosity between the NeoOffice and OpenOffice teams.
Yeah, and the reason why it keeps flaring up is beyond me. I suppose there are the entrenched positions of the gentlemen over here shouting that the others are going to waste their time and the people at Sun yelling that the people here are stuck up and uncooperative..
If you look from each side's viewpoint (this, admittedly, takes some empathy), the other side is thoroughly unhelpful. At which point it all becomes a process issue and technical reasons are simply moot arguments. I was trying to mediate for a bit but other than returning the flame war to a cold war, not much progress has been made.
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
In either case, this may prove interesting and entertaining. {Note: I will be out of the country at the end of this month and my level of activity will be decreasing over the next few weeks.}
Yes, feel free to get in a few chuckles over in the Middle East . That place needs laughter.
Anyway, all of my friends who have travelled there (for instance, my girlfriend was in Lebanon, Jordania and Syria for holiday two weeks ago) say the natives are really friendly and open, as long as you treat them with respect.
You will be sorely missed here, of course, but we'll keep your account warm for you .
best wishes,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Say that if Patrick gets an anonymous cheque in the mail, made out to himself, you, Dan and James for say, two hundred grand, that you will be so amazed by so much community generosity that you spontaneously relicense Neo/J to LGPL?
Interesting concept, but please keep me out of it. I have enough problems without an anonymous cheque showing up in the mail....
Aww.. You're contributing patches. I was going to lobby Ed to give you Architect status like Dan and Patrick .
I'll take a status change anyday. I just don't need the US Tax folks, the FBI or any other of those type of folks banging on my door at 3 a.m.
ovvldc wrote:
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
I think there is a tremendous amount of anamosity between the NeoOffice and OpenOffice teams.
Yeah, and the reason why it keeps flaring up is beyond me. I suppose there are the entrenched positions of the gentlemen over here shouting that the others are going to waste their time and the people at Sun yelling that the people here are stuck up and uncooperative..
I could take the position that programmers are very egotistical and thus they become entrenched in what they are doing rather than backing off and seeing what actually is best. I had to deal with such a person in a prior work position. I finally gave up and left that job. In a few weeks afterwards that person was told to make the changes that I suggested in the first place, but from a different person.
ovvldc wrote:
If you look from each side's viewpoint (this, admittedly, takes some empathy), the other side is thoroughly unhelpful. At which point it all becomes a process issue and technical reasons are simply moot arguments. I was trying to mediate for a bit but other than returning the flame war to a cold war, not much progress has been made.
Sadly, that may be all that will happen. Sometimes it takes two or three trips down the same road before folks will say, "That road sure is bumpy and maybe I should do something about it." That is what is happening here. Patrick and Ed have been down the Cocoa road and told everyone that it is bumpy. However a select few decided that they will go down that road anyway and no matter what you tell them, they will have to find out for themselves. It may be a waste of time, but nothing you can do will stop them.
ovvldc wrote:
Yes, feel free to get in a few chuckles over in the Middle East . That place needs laughter.
Anyway, all of my friends who have travelled there (for instance, my girlfriend was in Lebanon, Jordania and Syria for holiday two weeks ago) say the natives are really friendly and open, as long as you treat them with respect.
You will be sorely missed here, of course, but we'll keep your account warm for you .
I may be lurking around. Then again, I may not go afterall.
Well, can we make a deal otherwise then? Say that if Patrick gets an anonymous cheque in the mail, made out to himself, you, Dan and James for say, two hundred grand, that you will be so amazed by so much community generosity that you spontaneously relicense Neo/J to LGPL?
I'd find it hilarious, but I'd support it if that is what it takes to have Sun and you guys both save face..
For the record, here is the list of people that have some copyright ownership in one or more of the Neo/J projects:
NeoOffice/J:
- Me (Patrick)
- Ed
NeoOffice/C
- Ed
- Dan Williams
NeoOffice/J Finder icons:
- Smokey
NeoOffice/J Dock icon, splash screen image, and images:
- Dan Bennett
Not that I expect Sun to ever cough up a dime. I've been intensively doing fundraising among the big companies that might care about Neo/J that are located in Silicon Valley and while their executives do respond promptly and supportively, none have responded "yes" to a donation. In other words, people like Neo/J but they don't want to pay for it.
Do you really think a cocoa version of Oo could not have a better speed and less memory usage?
I really do not know if the Oo 2,0 staff is willing and able to rewrite a Oo 2.0 in cocoa, but from a user point of view I can understand they would try to build a Oo with the same performances of the windows version.
Java 1.4.x is written in Cocoa. The latest Neo/J performance patch uses Java 1.4.x. Since Apple's engineers wrote Java 1.4.x, I would bet money that Apple's Java code will be faster, in most cases, than any Cocoa that is written from scratch. In other words, to write in Cocoa, a developer will need to relearn all of the lessons (lessons = fixing code that doesn't work correctly) that Apple's engineers have already learned.
I may be wrong, but in my experience, reusing someone else's code has resulted in faster implementation and more stable code than if I started from scratch.
On the other hand, as an engineer, I have felt the desire that many engineers feel to start from scratch (also known as the "clean slate" approach). This desire is very strong and probably explains why there are at least 10 different web browsers available for most platforms.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:35 pm Post subject:
Cocoa in and of itself isn't a magic performance bringer. It's no more or less efficient then any other framework. It's easy to create a Cocoa application that makes Virtual PC seem like a speed demon. Just start continually making ATSUI requests for font metrics...
Take this with a grain of salt now that I've been "outed" as one of the lesser "potential beneficiaries" of the magic two hundred grand check
I watched the video of the OOoCon presentation last night...to quote a certain Frenchman, it was "very interessant".
There were what I consider some glaring historical errors and contradictions. There were nice things and not-so-nice things said about "NeoOffice" and its people. There were some things that seemed really off-the-wall and fantasy-land to me, and some plain, flat-out FUD (or a major case of being serioulsy misinformed or some language barrier issues), mostly about Apple's plans (but then again I don't have access to NDA-only info).
"The first port was 1.1.x"
"1.0 used Aqua"
"Apple doesn't want to maintain X11"
"Cocoa will solve [hardware] problems; x86 is implemented already"
"Mactel port is building 20%; it will be easier when using Cocoa"
"It's not a good idea to use native fonts; Neo has problems with them, too"
"I refuse to use Java because Apple will stop it"
(Those aren't exact quotes because there's no transcript that I could find and the player didn't have a pause/rewind, so it's only close. For that reason, I won't post the real inflammatory statements.)
As far as I could tell, the main strategy is to study the OOo code, study the Neo/J code, reimplement C code in C++ code, and have a working, "proof-of-concept build using native code" by the end of 2006.
BTW, Patrick and Ed, have you gotten your inviations to join the new port yet?
My real question out of all of this thread and "news" of the Cocoa port, though, is how will the "new" port affect Neo/J development and debugging when they start ripping out all of the Mac OS X X11 code that is used as the reference implementation of vcl behaviors and so forth, and/or start changing other parts of the code in ways that might be incompatible?
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
ava 1.4.x is written in Cocoa. The latest Neo/J performance patch uses Java 1.4.x. Since Apple's engineers wrote Java 1.4.x, I would bet money that Apple's Java code will be faster, in most cases, than any Cocoa that is written from scratch. In other words, to write in Cocoa, a developer will need to relearn all of the lessons (lessons = fixing code that doesn't work correctly) that Apple's engineers have already learned.
if java is really giving the best performance to Oo for mac osx, well, java has poor performance for this kind of work (and the last performance patch is giving me more troubles that pleasures).
i'm supporting neooffice/j 'cause it is the *best* Oo version for macos, but from a productive point of view there is no reason for me to use neooffice/j instead a Oo for win, except the love for the os.
So I can understand the desire of some programmers to try other way that the java way, even if I have many many doubt about the cocoa project and I have the feeling they throw the heart over the code, if you can understand me.
BTW, Patrick and Ed, have you gotten your inviations to join the new port yet?
My real question out of all of this thread and "news" of the Cocoa port, though, is how will the "new" port affect Neo/J development and debugging when they start ripping out all of the Mac OS X X11 code that is used as the reference implementation of vcl behaviors and so forth, and/or start changing other parts of the code in ways that might be incompatible?
For the record, I am staying as far away as possible from their Cocoa project. I already have a working native port so why would I waste a year (or more likely two) of my life just to get back to the same spot that I have Neo/J at today?
IMO, Ed and I have set up a good development approach and, after having worked in the software industry for many years, this new Cocoa project that they are starting looks like it will have plenty of politics, continual debate (and maybe flaming) over the technical details, etc. Ed and Dan started the NeoOffice project (and I joined them) specifically so that we could code within a small group of like-minded people. It has worked well for us so why throw it away?
BTW, I wouldn't worry about them changing compatibility a whole lot at this point. Your worry assumes that their schedules are feasible. I, on the other hand, wish them good luck but based on my experienced, I will be extremely surprised if we see any substantial changes to the OOo code in the next six months. Starting the project requires lots of technical thinking and, with so many different people involved, agreement. I'm not trying to slam them as I know that they have been working hard, but they have been working on the OOo X11 port for at least six months now and the amount and complexity of new code they have added is fairly trivial compared to the amount and complexity of code that a Cocoa port will require.
You can make your own judgement, but mine is this: if enough donations continue coming in, Ed and I really won't have much trouble upgrading to OOo 2.0 and porting to the Mactel platform long before their scheduled prototype date arrives.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:11 am Post subject:
The other thing to keep in mind is that Mac OS X X11 isn't the reference for VCL behaviours...it's actually X11 and GDI that are the reference as they're the only official VCL implementations coming out of Hamburg. Since neither Solaris, Linux, or Windows are going away, we'll never lose any reference whatsoever.
The most difficult part about Mac OS X X11 aren't the technical aspects of it. I solved them with Dan years ago. The difficulty lies in QCing a release and supporting end-users who are unfamiliar with X11 or whine about the Win95ish GUI.
The only utility of an X11 port is that it's always up to date with other platforms and will generally be more bug free. Keeping it building is not really mind bending work either and it's not like we can't do it ourselves. Witness the 10.4 support and gcc4 work I've been doing because it doesn't exist in OOo 1.x for any platform.
The most direct effect it will have on us is people badmouthing Neo claming how much better the OOo "vaporware" will be. And from sardisson's summary of the "announcement" it's already started.
I have the feeling they throw the heart over the code, if you can understand me.
I like that phrase very much, actually. Makes the point in an elegant way without being offensive .
As for the vapourware thing. Eric Bachard is a professor of engineering. While he may not be a programmer, he must have discussed the plan with some who are, and he must have a grasp of the resources needed for a large project. As such, I wish him all the best and I hope for the OOo group's sake that Patrick and Ed's comments are unfounded and that they make good progress.
On the other hand, I can't think of anyone more qualified to make statement on OOo for the Mac than Ed and Patrick..
Best wishes,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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