Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:10 pm Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program postponed
I have some bad news: we totally misestimated how much work is still needed before NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access is ready for release. We thought we were on schedule, but a few days after we set the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program start date to 15 November, we found some very significant bugs in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines.
These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs.
We will set a new start date and post that new start date on the NeoOffice Early Access Program page once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs. In the meantime, I have changed the start date listed on the page to 15 January 2009 to be conversative. While I don't think it will take this long to find and fix these PowerPC bugs, we thought it would be safest to list the "worst case" date and move it up sooner if we find and fix the bug quickly.
For those of you who are curious, here are the most significant PowerPC bugs that we found:
1. Crashes in OpenOffice.org's UNO component loading code - This code is what handles installing and running NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org extensions
2. Application loading is 10 times slower - What this means to users is that opening the first Writer document in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access or OpenOffice.org 3.0 takes 13 seconds longer on PowerPC than NeoOffice 2.2.5 or OpenOffice.org 2.2.1. On Intel, there is barely any slowdown.
While we hate changing release dates, we are pretty sure that our Early Access members will be very frustrated by these PowerPC bugs. We have some ideas where these bugs are in the OpenOffice.org. However, testing our fixes requires lots of time as each potential fix requires a full rebuild of the OpenOffice.org code. Because of this, 15 November is no longer a realistic release date and it makes sense for us to postpone the release until we have a NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access PowerPC build that is reasonably stable and not so slow.
Joined: Feb 16, 2006 Posts: 163 Location: 48°51 N 2° 21 E
Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:14 am Post subject:
Quote:
Some very significant bugs were recently found in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines. These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs. We will set a new start date once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs.
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:40 am Post subject:
Yes, I decided to make a few modifications:
Quote:
Some very significant bugs were recently found in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines. These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs. We will set a new start date once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs.
Good luck in fixing the mess Sun left. At least now we know why they didn't release a PPC build for 3.0.
In all fairness, I don't think Sun did anything that one would expect to cause these problems. I would suspect that they only support Intel because they assumed that PowerPC was a dead platform and since the only do Windows and Linux builds for Intel, that is where their expertise is.
Instead, I think the crashing bugs are reoccurrences of the infamous optimization bugs in Apple's gcc compiler. I first encountered this problem back in 2000 when I was working for Sun on the first Mac OS X port. That is when I discovered the trick of running the compiler with optimization turned off would solve inexplicable crashes.
I used this same approach in yesterday's build to solve crashing and hanging when installing extensions. The fix is safe and simple. The hard part is finding the piece of code that the optimizer in Apple's compiler is mangling.
My current theory about the extremely slow library loading is that OpenOffice.org added more features to each of the application modules which nearly doubled the number of functions in each library. That, in turn, is causing some limit to be exceeded in Apple's dynamic library loader on PowerPC. So, my first approach will be to strip out as many private
functions from the PowerPC libraries as possible and see if that helps.
This is the URL you get when you click on "Get more platforms and languages". As you can see, no less than five PPC builds are available (the Brazilian Portuguese is a link to another website which only seems to offer a Windows download).
Whether Sun intended to release them or not, they're called OpenOffice.org, they're on the official website (two clicks away from the front page), so they've become official (yet possibly unsupported).
Whether Sun intended to release them or not, they're called OpenOffice.org, they're on the official website (two clicks away from the front page), so they've become official (yet possibly unsupported).
That is the key: Sun did not release PowerPC builds, community volunteers released it. AFAICT, there is only one person doing any public PowerPC builds (Maho) and he is not a Sun OpenOffice.org engineer.
Also, Sun has only released and Intel version of its StarOffice for Mac OS X so that really sends the message that PowerPC is not a supported platform and, instead, PowerPC is a volunteer-based released like Linux PowerPC or the pre-3.0 X11 Mac OS X releases.
Also, Sun has only released and Intel version of its StarOffice for Mac OS X so that really sends the message that PowerPC is not a supported platform...
The only reason that OOo for MacOS X Intel even exists is because MacBook Pros were added to Sun's internal order system, IT included NeoOffice with them, most of the Sun execs started using the platform, and the Sun StarOffice management was continually "embarrassed" about it.
Some very significant bugs were recently found in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines. These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs. We will set a new start date once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs.
Code:
We hebben een paar belangrijke problemen gevonden in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access op PowerPC computers. Deze problemen komen ook voor in OpenOffice.org 3.0, en zorgen ervoor dat NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access aanzienlijk langzamer en onstabieler is dan NeoOffice 2.2.5. We stellen daarom de start van het NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access programma uit tot we we deze problemen op PowerPC hebben gevonden en opgelost. We zullen een nieuwe datum kiezen zodra we deze PowerPC problemen hebben opgelost.
Quote:
NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program postponed due to PowerPC bugs
Code:
NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access programma uitgesteld wegens problemen met PowerPC
Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:12 am Post subject: German translation
NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program postponed due to PowerPC bugs
NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program auf Grund von Bugs auf PowerPCs verschoben
Some very significant bugs were recently found in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines. These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs. We will set a new start date once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs.
In NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access haben wir mehrere schwerwiegende Fehler gefunden, die sich nur auf PowerPCs, dort aber auch bei OpenOffice.org 3.0, zeigen. Sie führen dazu, dass NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access wesentlich langsamer oder instabiler als NeoOffice 2.2.5 läuft. Wir haben uns daher entschieden, den Start des NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Programms so lange zu verschieben, bis wir diese Fehler gefunden und behoben haben. Das neue Startdatum wird danach bekanntgegeben.
Some very significant bugs were recently found in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access on PowerPC machines. These bugs, which also occur in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 on PowerPC machines, cause NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access to be significantly slower or less stable than NeoOffice 2.2.5. So we have postponed the start of the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program until we find and fix these PowerPC bugs. We will set a new start date once we have fixed these PowerPC bugs.
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