Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:01 pm Post subject: Sun/OpenOffic.org to delist NeoOffice from Mac OS X download
I recently received a message from Louis that seeks to delist NeoOffice from the Mac OS X download page, leaving only X11. My response is below. Granted, I am pissed since I received this after donating how many thousands of hours to Sun/OpenOffice.org over the years. Louis' query occurs after my first signature.
I hope we have the skill and backing to kick the asses of Sun Microsystems and their ficticious community front. Or at least that I still will make enough salary to keep the servers online
ed
Code:
I'd like, in the end, to relocate the mention of Neo/J to what you once suggested, a "derived products" page, but for now, I'm just listing the 2.0 X11 builds directly from that page, along with the legacy 1.1.2.
The original goal we had last year was to devise a combined download page which presents the raw facts of both projects. The objective was to prevent people from "discovering" one or the other of these projects as a Macintosh cure-all (which was frequently the case on the various user and development lists). Unlike other OpenOffice.org supported platforms, a viable fork does exist for Mac OS X which is not directly supported by Sun Microsystems. Different users on the Mac platform may have different needs. The existing download page provides a side-by-side comparison of the two major ports and is intended to allow users to choose which one better matches their requirements. The OpenOffice.org download page has always been set up to emphasize that the X11 port is more in conjunction with the mainline release on other platforms. For the online forums I host of my own pocket, X11 gets top billing as has been since I first put the server online. I do not see how work on the 2.0 X11 release should change this arrangement.
If you, Eric, CollabNet, and Sun Microsystems have a strong desire to relegate the NeoOffice project to a footnote and exorcise any mention of us from the OpenOffice.org site it is your prerogative as OpenOffice.org is but a corporate-sponsored front. No official entities entered into any legal agreement to provide concurrent mention of our separate products, so any unilateral modification is perfectly sound. I have no intention of using my community OOo commit privileges to instigate a "war" of differing viewpoints.
In the end it will be only end-users who suffer from this withholding of information. The OOo/Sun vaporware Cocoa port announcement has already dried up nearly all donation momentum from the NeoOffice project. This has severely hindered our ability to continue to have a full time volunteer engineer devoted to development. We do not even have funds to enter into arrangements to gain official access to a DTK. This lack of funds precipitated directly by your actions restricts our ability to achieve compatibility with the Mac-on-Intel platform as well as all thoughts of future OOo 2.0 development. This may very well be the first nail in the coffin of our project.
I wish you and your corporate agenda all the best in your battle against us few from around the world who selflessly donate thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to make software freely available for all. Your cause is a noble one that I'm sure people will remember for years to come.
ed
Hi Ed,
Hope things are going well with you.
So, some updates... A lot of work has recently been done on the X11 port. As well, Eric Bachard had taken on the role of leading the effort, as well as the co-leading the Porting project. So, I'm helping to update the mac os x download pages to better promote the 2.0 x11 build. There is, once again, a fair amount of interest in it.
I'd like, in the end, to relocate the mention of Neo/J to what you once suggested, a "derived products" page, but for now, I'm just listing the 2.0 X11 builds directly from that page, along with the legacy 1.1.2.
As to further updates to those pages: I think it makes sense for Eric and his team to maintain those pages, at this point.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject:
FWIW:
I've been accused of being a nut on the order of Theo. I take it as a compliment AFAIK, anyone who does somethng for pure love (and for no money) has earned the right to say whatever the hell they want. God bless you Theo, and God bless OpenBSD.
For the record, I agree 100% with Ed's statements. Louis' e-mail and Eric's vaporware announcement have one thing in common: they make absolutely no sense from an engineering standpoint.
I predict that, unless Sun's OOo engineers take it over, this time next year the OOo Cocoa port will still be in the same state it is now i.e. non-existent.
For the record, I agree 100% with Ed's statements. Louis' e-mail and Eric's vaporware announcement have one thing in common: they make absolutely no sense from an engineering standpoint.
But they ARE following in the steps of the gurus at Redmond. They have killed off several projects, OS/2 being one of their targets and it seems to have worked.
pluby wrote:
I predict that, unless Sun's OOo engineers take it over, this time next year the OOo Cocoa port will still be in the same state it is now i.e. non-existent.
But that is all they need to kill off NeoOffice. All they need to do is build the appearance that Sun is standing behind their efforts and that NeoOffice is an 'unapproved' build of OpenOffice and folks will abandon NeoOffice to go to a vastly inferior OpenOffice/X11 for the Mac because it is "offical" and "supported". But wait: Only mav_eric and the crew is supporting this build and when they have no more time for it (yes Eric you have a family, job and the rest, I can retire any time I like and play with either OpenOffice or NeoOffice or both) then folks will find out that OpenOffice/X11 for the Mac is a 'boiler-room' project with no offical support from OpenOffice.org. This is a very dangerous situation which may lead to the failure of the ENTIRE OpenOffice.org project. I've been there, and I really don't like what happens when the truth hits the press. mav_eric you really don't what to be in the middle of this. Note, at no time am I knocking what you are trying to do, build a Cocoa version of OpenOffice 2.0 for the Mac. I, like Patrick and Ed, welcome your efforts. But remember, you CANNOT go to Sun and ask for OFFICAL support of your product, they simply cannot support it unless they hire on Mac specific folks to build, test and support the MacOSX product.
pluby wrote:
I hope they prove me wrong.
So do I. I really don't see anything wrong with competion as long as it is fair. (Don't get me started with that one.)
I have to say, unfortunately, this doesn't really surprise me. The writing has been gradually appearing on the wall since Simon Phipps called for Neo's recognition as a fellow part of the OOo community in February.
(Since that time, twovapourware Cocoa/Aqua ports have been announced, Patrick's code donation (which was once prominently displayed on the OOo homepage) has more-or-less sat bitrotting, tempers flared over the spring and summer, Eric B. was appointed co-lead of the entire Porting project (the very same day he flamed me for pointing out the SVG import solution was not viable for most Mac OS X users), and we had a very successful Neo/J 1.1 release that seemed to really irritate some factions. And now Sun's flying high with the Massachusetts OpenDocument decision.)
pluby wrote:
For the record, I agree 100% with Ed's statements. Louis' e-mail and Eric's vaporware announcement have one thing in common: they make absolutely no sense from an engineering standpoint.
And they make absolutely no sense from an end-user standpoint. (Well, OK, the end-user thinks he/she needs a nice Cocoa app, but in reality the end-user actually wants a good Mac OS X experience in a quality app. Aside from geeks and zealots, it doesn't matter what the duck drinks.)
I've said it before in my posts about the previous vapourware ports, but these things--vapourware ports and de-listing Neo/J--do a grave dis-service to Mac end-users interested in OOo, and to OOo itself as a cross-platform office suite.
And it's really sad, because as Ed's summary of Simon's talk noted,
porting.openoffice.org/mac wrote:
At the OOoRegiCon, Simon Phipps called upon the OpenOffice.org community [blogs.sun.com] to recognize NeoOffice [neooffice.org] as a part of a wider OpenOffice.org community of collaborators all working to achieve a common goal.
we're all working towards the same end. It's not like we're Netscape and Microsoft here.
Time to raise the pirate flag on our ol' sailing ship, I guess. (And thank the captains and the mates again for their volunteerism and hard work.)
Smokey
(BTW, does anyone recall what app that flag a-flying showed up in as an Easter egg? I saw it once, long ago, but no longer remember.) _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Speaking of vaporware ports (this is more relevant to the earlier thread, I suppose), I missed this warning to the porting list from one of the VCL developers. Therein he echoes the same things Patrick and Ed have been saying all along (and cites a post by Dan describing in more detail some difficulties in meshing the Cocoa and OOo worldviews). (Even for the layman like me, all of Dan's posts to that thread are informative.)
If people won't listen to Patrick and Ed and Dan (and, really, they should, given the time they've spent in the trenches doing this very work), they should at least listen to a VCL developer.
So it sounds like management somewhere decided they need to push "their own" version (aka X11) on Mac users in order to keep the users around for a "native" version that, by one of their own engineer's estimates, will take 6-9 months of full-time work by someone with good knowledge of VCL and the Mac platform to get to a non-production-quality build with lots of major bugs in key areas (not to mention still not looking like a Mac app). That's not a way to treat your users.
(Where's the emoticon for "throws hands in the air in exasperation"? I'm sure Ed and Patrick need it more than I do!)
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Speaking of vaporware ports (this is more relevant to the earlier thread, I suppose), I missed this warning to the porting list from one of the VCL developers. Therein he echoes the same things Patrick and Ed have been saying all along (and cites a post by Dan describing in more detail some difficulties in meshing the Cocoa and OOo worldviews). (Even for the layman like me, all of Dan's posts to that thread are informative.)
I agree. Building a Cocoa version on top of VCL will be extremely difficult. There is a person advocating that the 'new' version of OOo for the Mac/Cocoa be built on XUL, which would be vastly easier and not involve some of the 'artwork' that is needed for a VCL/Cocoa version.
sardisson wrote:
If people won't listen to Patrick and Ed and Dan (and, really, they should, given the time they've spent in the trenches doing this very work), they should at least listen to a VCL developer.
So it sounds like management somewhere decided they need to push "their own" version (aka X11) on Mac users in order to keep the users around for a "native" version that, by one of their own engineer's estimates, will take 6-9 months of full-time work by someone with good knowledge of VCL and the Mac platform to get to a non-production-quality build with lots of major bugs in key areas (not to mention still not looking like a Mac app). That's not a way to treat your users.
They really should listen to the VCL development team. And I agree that the 'string them along' voice is deep within SUN, it has to be as no company would put their reputation on the line without such approval. Eric B. is just following what they are telling him to to. Kevin H. resisted their efforts to have a Cocoa'ized version because he knew the efforts put forth by Patrick, Ed, Dan and the rest of the Cocoa crew. Nothing like trying to reinvent the wheel to make you aware of the amount of time and effort that went into their valliant attempt.
It will be a very interesting next few months.
BTW, the NeoOffice/J page was still there as of last evening.
I agree. Building a Cocoa version on top of VCL will be extremely difficult. There is a person advocating that the 'new' version of OOo for the Mac/Cocoa be built on XUL, which would be vastly easier and not involve some of the 'artwork' that is needed for a VCL/Cocoa version.
I don't what will make XUL any easier than Java. The problem is that VCL is its own cross-platform windowing toolkit like Java, XUL, Qt, etc. Because of this, two thirds of the OOo code is directly tied to the VCL APIs and their specific behaviors. I can't see how XUL or any other windowing toolkit will magically make reimplementing VCL any easier.
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
They really should listen to the VCL development team. And I agree that the 'string them along' voice is deep within SUN, it has to be as no company would put their reputation on the line without such approval. Eric B. is just following what they are telling him to to. Kevin H. resisted their efforts to have a Cocoa'ized version because he knew the efforts put forth by Patrick, Ed, Dan and the rest of the Cocoa crew. Nothing like trying to reinvent the wheel to make you aware of the amount of time and effort that went into their valliant attempt.
My guess is that Sun/OOo management were caught in a bind when after pushing the new ODF file formats as an "open, cross-platform" solution, some rather large customers with Macs (e.g. universities, government agencies, etc.) asked where the OOo's Mac support will be, they needed to have an "official" plan even if it is a vaporware plan.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:37 pm Post subject:
The fundamental issue is that someone (Sun? Eric? Louis?) wants to enter into a pissing contest. <tinfoilhat>I can see that the Mass. decision may have forced someone to play their hand early</tinfoilhat>.
Still, I cannot see how delisting Neo from the OOo downloads page will do anything except hurt end-users. Folks who want to play with OOo 2.0 and its new features can do so. Folks who require integration with native fonts and print driver paths (yes, on Macs there are a lot of us) have the option of ditching the 2.0 features and going with Neo.
Why anyone finds this threatening is beyond me.
From Louis'/Sun's perspective, perhaps it looks "bad" that there's another project listed on the d/l page now that it's getting a lot of new hits. FWIW, the increase in views has not necessarily led to a new rush of Neo downloads and definitely has not led to a new torrent of donations. Not surprisingly, folks who are interested in OOo 2.0 are doing just that...downloading OOo 2.0. Louis' recommendation to remove Neo from that page is purely political in nature, driven by the increase in traffic, and makes me just as sick to my stomach as habu sake.
Thus far neither Louis nor Sun has responded to my reply. I suspect I either will receive no response or they will just change their pages unilaterally. I wish the bookies were watching in cause I have $20 that says that may be the case...
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:47 pm Post subject: Can A Big Pirate Honor Little Ones?
Just an ignorant outsider's comments, wondering of an alternative outside donating 1/10 of my lottery winnings to NeoO....
I seem to recall long ago just how skittish Apple was at any rumors floating around of creating a browser to "compete" with Internet Explorer. They managed to work up the brass balls to take the dare and now years later are still floating after spitting Billy in one eye with Safari. Now in lieu that NeoO is light-years beyond old AppleWorks and (IMHO) even their new iWorks "suite", I'd like to know just how much Apple thinks it might lose in adopting NeoO outright in the face of MS Office for a REAL office suite? (Apple's dumped lots of $$ "whoops" projects before, so iWorks can't be that much of a sacred cow!) Would Jobs turn away the NeoO crew if they camped out in his driveway? Turn away fellow pirates under the skin? Can the old big shot pirate have sympathy and regard to a new crew of renegade programmers and take them under his wing? Does Jobs still have the sass and dash to recognize wild side talent and take them in or does Gates still cow (dare) him? I dunno, but has the NeoO crew slipped a peach envelope under Jobs' door to jog the old guy's sense of boldness again?
Just rambling in frustration of good guys getting screwed again.
James Greenidge
Folks who require integration with native fonts and print driver paths (yes, on Macs there are a lot of us) have the option of ditching the 2.0 features and going with Neo.
Which is exactly the path we are following in the World Scout Bureau and with good reason. On Macs, we want a Mac-behaviour. The argument that having "Identical interface to other supported platforms to ease support and training in multiple platform deployments." doesn't stack-up. I would still have to provide additional training to Mac users so that they can learn 'a different way to do everything' when it comes to their core office productivity suite.
I'll admit that it has been a little time since I used OOo for Mac OS X (X11) but as long as it can't use the native Mac fonts, printing windows etc, I will not be switching over from NeoJ.
That does not prevent me from using NeoOfficeJ as my justification for wholeheartedly promoting OpenOffice.org as the best and most comprehensive multi-platform productivity suite on the planet to everyone in our organization - and beyond. But without NeoJ, I couldn't be there banging that drum. I hope someone inside Sun is listening to the beat. We can't work with vapourware but we can work with NeoOfficeJ, at least for now.
As a voluntary organization, we appreciate very much the efforts of everyone - and I mean everyone - who is involved in every step of porting and maintaining a viable Mac version of OpenOffice.org, whether you work primarily on the X11 version or the NeoJ version. Please don't let the politics of engineering muddy your waters. The only losers will be us - your end users.
Keep giving us the option of working with an X11 version or NeoJ on the Macs - let that choice illustrate the richness of the Mac environment. Please keep both options available on the official OOo pages until Sun can provide a truly-native version, not just the promise of one to come.
I, for one, don't want to take my offices back over to the poverty of the M$ Office imposed environment. _________________ Ray Saunders
World Scout Bureau
reminds me of a story i learned in school. yuri gargarin, was not to be the first man in space. his predecessor (whose name i forget) was killed in an accident on the launch pad during tests. the cause was the fact that the cabin atmosphere was pure oxygen (you do this to reduce pressure, and thus stress on the frame). there was a spark, and badness happened.
well, the russians changed to an oxygen / nitrogen mixture, reworked some things and launched gargarin into space.
here come the americans. do the russians tell them what happened? cold war! remember! no! so the americans get apollo 1 up and ready and are doing tests. during one of the tests a transistor comes loose, the astronaut pushes it back in, spark, pure oxygen environment... the accounts say the door was nearly welded shut.
maybe neo/oo.o isn't life or death, but we are considered the 'other camp' and we are saying 'pure oxygen is a bad idea, we tried it...'
hmm. or maybe that was a metaphor a bit too extended. =)
I liked it At the very least, it gave me a laugh, and I needed a laugh after the day I had (3.5 hour owner's meeting of vitriol tonight, to say the least)....
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Perhaps the reality is more that Cocoa is now crack due to Jobs' RDF...
Having played with it, man, it can be addictive. But you really gotta know its limits
Thanks for the warning. I will be going through a programming book when I return. This may prove to be a very interesting exercise. Is it as bad as DOOM (yes, I have played for hour after hour....)
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AFAIK, anyone who does somethng for pure love (and for no money) has earned the right to say whatever the hell they want. God bless you Theo, and God bless OpenBSD.
