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Software Linux

Desktop Apps Ripe Turf for Open Source 270

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-needs-a-spreadsheet-anyway dept.
Amy Kucharik writes "Two new reports on open source validate office suite application alternatives like OpenOffice.org and StarOffice and their push into the mainstream against market giant Microsoft Office. "
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Desktop Apps Ripe Turf for Open Source More

Desktop Apps Ripe Turf for Open Source

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  • Inflated numbers don't make it credible. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:17AM (#10429282)
    As much as I know we all hate MS funded "research" I just can't trust the number of times that an application is downloaded as market-share. Sorry, that just does not compute...

    Hell, I have downloaded Firefox on countless occasions (usually to test a new version). It never lasts more than an hour on my machine. Does that count as a piece of market-share in the browser war when I don't actually use it?

    I have downloaded OpenOffice multiple times as well (on multiple computers) to test and to tour the features newer version have to offer. Again, the install may last a few hours while I test the features that I require. So my 25+ downloads counted towards the 16+ million?

    I am glad to see that somewhat viable alternatives are coming into their own and getting media attention but I don't know if we really need to be associated with false numbers just to get the word out. It doesn't exactly give us a leg to stand on when MSFT fires back about the artificially inflated numbers.

    • Re:Inflated numbers don't make it credible. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:20AM (#10429322)
      I have downloaded Firefox on countless occasions (usually to test a new version

      And I compensate because I keep the latest version on my usb stick that I carry around in my pocket. And I upgrade it on all my work machines, my home machines and the friends that I visit. So there.
      • And I compensate because I keep the latest version on my usb stick that I carry around in my pocket. And I upgrade it on all my work machines, my home machines and the friends that I visit. So there.

        So your anecdotal evidence counters the grandparent's anecdotal evidence, which provides us with what kind of real valid and meaningful data?
    • That's a fair point, but there's also the fact that you can't count the cd installations.

      I've got friends running OpenOffice.org because I popped round with a CD and installed it for them.

    • Couldn't the same thing be said for a company who buys, say, 100 licenses for MSOffice, then only uses a certain percentage of those licenses purchased. Sure, 100 licenses were sold, but they may only be used on 50 machines.

    • Re:Inflated numbers don't make it credible. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SendBot ( 29932 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:30AM (#10429423) Homepage Journal
      I've downloaded 3 different versions of OO.o as new versions come out, and those get distributed to the 30 or so computers at my office.

      Also, last x-mas I gave out copies of the open cd [sunsite.dk] to family and friends, each containing a copy of OO.o.

      Perhaps I'm not alone, and that others who do this balance out the figures for downloads that don't result in market share.

      There must be some margin of error, but in lieu of a comprehensive survey, download quantity gives a good representation of how widely used a software product is.
    • Although I agree with your general sentiment, is your 'download and try' that far removed from the guy that buys a piece of shrink wrapped software only to find it does not do what he wants and he cannot take it back. OK, I agree that he does not buy 25+ copies (unless he is more wealthy than he is intelligent) but to a lesser degree, this is the other side of what you represent.

    • Re:Inflated numbers don't make it credible. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by skaffen42 ( 579313 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:37AM (#10429484)
      On the other hand there are people like me, with a full suite of MS software on my PC at work that never gets used. I use OO and Firefox exclusively.

      And I'm one of many in our dev team. The IT purchasing people makes sure you get a copy of MS office, but the majority of people are ignoring it and using software of their choice. Not that MS is the only people with skewed numbers. I think we have 3 JBuilder licences for every developer that actually uses it (Go Eclipse!).

    • As much as I know we all hate MS funded "research" I just can't trust the number of times that an application is downloaded as market-share.

      The above observation is a good point since frequency of download does not equate to frequency of use.

      The greatest lack of credibility for Linux going mainstream is the lack of an AOL client in Linux. If Linux really had a huge following or interest in the consumer market, then AOL would have already launched an AOL client for Linux so that millions of tech-ignor

    • How about how many Linux distros that StarOffice, OOo, or Firefox are included with? How many times have those distros been downloaded? Are those numbers even considered? Are the ftp mirrors of the original archives and distro archives counted? They certainly add to the soup, as it were. Your 25+ downloads seem to pale in comparison when you actually consider the scale of "uncounted" downloads.

  • Its True (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:18AM (#10429294)
    Its true, a local newspaper by me just got all new
    Sun x86 based systems and they all came with OpenOffice. (I was a bit baffled why they didn't have StarOffice but such are the mysteries of life.)

    • Newspapers. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 )
      Most newspapers don't use an office suite for actual wordprocessing. The stuff they need from a word processor is so specific, that office doesn't really help them.

      On the other hand, they get office documents ALL THE TIME in the mail. At the paper where my wife works, they actually have to share Office installs, because there is no budget for a mostly useless office suite for every computer.

      When the Phbs in management there realize that there is a free alternative that, since they DON'T ACTUALLY NEED TO P

      • Re:Newspapers. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by fitten ( 521191 )
        is FAR superior to MS Office,

        Subjective. If OO.o doesn't have a feature that MSOffice has, but that feature is required to complete some task, then OO.o isn't superior to anything.

        I use OO.o on my home machines because my wife's and my document creation needs aren't that complicated and it's free. We also use it at work for the same reasons.

        Being "superior" depends on a lot. If I graded on startup times, OO.o would get a failing grade, for instance. On my Athlon 64 3000+, for example, I can sometime
        • If you'd read what I said, you'd know that all they need to do is read office documents.

          To be able to do that, and for free, makes it far superior. Slow startup doesn't apply because it's a seldomly used application---total time spent would be negligible on a weekly basis.

    • Re:Its True (Score:4, Informative)

      by Creepy ( 93888 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:43AM (#10429552) Journal
      my guess would be that it came with OpenOffice for two reasons
      1) Sun can divert (most of the) support to OpenOffice.org
      2) Sun does not have to pay for the commercial fonts or other commercial add-ons (pdf exporter is one, I think) in Star Office and pass the cost on to you, the consumer.

      It still astounds me that the linked article mentions Star Office as being free at one point, which it's not. The whole purpose of Sun making a commercial version available was to make the option more appealing to businesses - offer support as well as a set of professionally done fonts.

  • I for one ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:18AM (#10429299)
    am quite nervous about OpenOffice. I don't understand Sun's latest deals with Microsoft but I don't trust them.

    Keep working on koffice guys. We really shouldn't be putting all our eggs in one basket.

  • Taking a foothold (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:19AM (#10429305) Homepage
    In a report from El Segundo, Calif.-based consulting firm Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), Microsoft dominates the office suite market, with 95% of the overall share and more than 300 million users worldwide.

    However, the report notes that OpenOffice.org, an open source alternative to Microsoft Office, has secured 14% of the large enterprise office systems market, with over 16 million downloads and countless CD installations.     Even with Microsoft retaining 95% overall marketshare, the fact that OpenOffice now holds almost 15% of enterprise workstations, means it's only a matter of time before John Cubicle brings OO.org home.

    Disclaimer: I use OO.
    • It's already happening. My kids are supposed to turn in a lot of their 'reports' in .ppt format. MS-Works does a really poor job of that, and I wasn't spending 200+ on office. OpenOffice does a fine job of creating good reports and then rendering them in the PPT format. My cost - $0.

  • *sigh* So close..yet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:19AM (#10429311) Homepage
    so far. The article seems to think cost is the reason to get excited. I agree, that is pretty damn cool, however, the real reason to get all a titter is because of the open formats used in open office.

    The format being as open as it is ( you can read, in the code, the format if all else fails ), you can do a great many things that just aren't possible with ms office.

    • Re:*sigh* So close..yet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PhoenixFlare ( 319467 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:30AM (#10429426) Journal
      The format being as open as it is ( you can read, in the code, the format if all else fails ), you can do a great many things that just aren't possible with ms office.

      I think the question to ask would be, is the normal home or business user going to need or want to do those "great many things"?

      There's a lot of stuff that may be pretty damn cool if you're a geek or hacker type, but I think you're going to have to find more relevant selling points if you want wider exposure than those limited circles.

      • Re:*sigh* So close..yet (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bfields ( 66644 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @01:07PM (#10430436) Homepage
        The format being as open as it is ( you can read, in the code, the format if all else fails ), you can do a great many things that just aren't possible with ms office.

        I think the question to ask would be, is the normal home or business user going to need or want to do those "great many things"?

        There's a lot of stuff that may be pretty damn cool if you're a geek or hacker type, but I think you're going to have to find more relevant selling points if you want wider exposure than those limited circles.

        The windows and mac users I know are often quite fond of downloading little extras for their favorite OS, many of which appear to be written by just random geeks who got excited when they noticed that the OS provided some API that would let them do some nifty thing.

        So the "pretty damn cool" stuff for geeks can trickle down.

        --Bruce Fields

      • Re:*sigh* So close..yet (Score:4, Insightful)

        by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @01:10PM (#10430482) Homepage
        There's a lot of stuff that may be pretty damn cool if you're a geek or hacker type, but I think you're going to have to find more relevant selling points if you want wider exposure than those limited circles.

        You aren't thinking then. Imagine, you use openoffice today, but who's to say something better isn't coming out nextweek? Well, given OO's open format, you can switch fairly painlessly ( given the programmer knows his job ).

        Neatness does indeed become relevant in the long run, often that's what switches people over.
        • You aren't thinking then. Imagine, you use openoffice today, but who's to say something better isn't coming out nextweek? Well, given OO's open format, you can switch fairly painlessly ( given the programmer knows his job ).

          Very true, but the problem is getting people to start using OO in the first place, and more what I was commenting on :)
    • For me, and probably hundres of thousands of others, cost is the initial factor, "I can't afford application X, and I don't really like to download warez anymore. Maybe I'll dig up that Linux CD that Robert gave to me in highschool. It's got free apps on it." Then you start using the programs and think, "This is kind of cool." Then you start understanding the reasons why it's free of cost and again you think, "Wow, cool!"

      Ok, so that's sort of a mix of cost and morals. Just my two cents.

    • Sadly, it is not the open formats that will make or break the open source offices suites.

      For me, a veteran MS Office hater, my litmus test is compatability with MS Office formats. Unfortunately, OpenOffice does not score all A's in this dept. Perhaps the odds are stacked against them.

      Here is my anecdotal evidence: A few months ago, my workplace laptop hard drive died. I always personally install everything, so after I got WinXP installed, along with various other apps I use, I came to the office suite

  • Playing follow the leader (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coulbc ( 149394 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:19AM (#10429312)
    If all we ever do is try to emulate the M$ Office and other popular desktop apps, We'll will never be able to offer a superior product. It's time to add non bloating features that outshine the commercial software.
    • I agree with the first part of your comment; Recreating MSOffice gets us very little.

      But which "non-bloating" features do we add? And how? Do we stick with the one function, one app mindset of Excel/Word/Powerpoint, or move toward a multifunction app/document that can be whatever we want it to be?

      Is document-centric over yet?
    • Isn't this song getting old? There is nothing original in MS Office it has all been done before. There are many other projects than OO.o, they are just not beeing talked about because they are not MS Office clones.

    • If all we ever do is try to emulate the M$ Office and other popular desktop apps, We'll will never be able to offer a superior product. It's time to add non bloating features that outshine the commercial software.

      I tend to disagree. Office suites represent a very mature category of software. Just about any feature that is useful (and many that aren't) has already been added to these.

      With software like this, all we really need to do is emulate and interoperate with what's already out there, and beat it o

    • Re:Playing follow the leader (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 ) <sgk25@drexel.edu> on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:52AM (#10429655)
      What most people don't realize is that Star Office's code base is 15 years old. Open Office and MS Office aren't emulations of each other, they've just both evolved around the methods in which humans naturally prefer to do word processing and the like. How else would you design a word processor for use with the average person? Saying Open Office just copies MS Office is like saying that is all Corel did too. It seems that, like the typical MS, they saw good proudcts out already, they also saw a market advantage to selling their own Office Suite, so they took all of the good ideas from the other Office Suites and combined them. As with most software applications, it evolves through time, some of those evolutions involve borrowing ideas from other suites that are admittedly implememnted better. You don't really think that MS came up with spell checking or mail merge, do you? But sure enough they have those features. Also, OOo is very usable in its current form, and the biggest issue people complain about (it's UI and load times, which are mostly interrelated) is going through a major overhaul right now. By the time 2.0 is released you should have no reason to stick with MS Office. The OOo gui used to be so horrible simply because they used to have to implement their own widgets and even emulate an entire desktop environment at some points because there was no standard back in the day, now there is more of a standardized base, and its being implemented using it.
      Regards,
      Steve
    • ..in Business 101 when they said that cost leadership wasn't a valid strategy. Not that offering better features for less cost isn't an even better one.

      The trend is right IMO, large enterprises have the push to make it a standard. Then it will dribble down to smaller companies and finally to end users (think: employees).

      I think you will find that 99% of the users are completely satisfied with the feature set of either MS Office or OpenOffice. The key issues are mindshare (Office. Oh, you mean there's some
    • I fully agree. I would be much happier if all the effort being spent on making imitations that will (by nature) always be second rank was spent on making F/OSS platforms better.

      Of course, the non-Microsoft world usually already has the superior technology. Plain Latex output looks superior than any MS Word document I've seen. Microsoft's databases are a joke; the popular F/OSS databases do much better. MS's operating system is horrible. Their mail client is junk, almost any alternative is better. The brows
      • There are exactly two areas where Windows is still better than Linux: integration and interoperability. I like using Linux more than Windows, but I have to admit I get tired of all my programs looking completely different, working differently, having to keep several different UI toolkits installed, and not being able to play Windows games.

        For me, that's not enough of a downside to go back to Windows (although I have gotten a Mac), but for a lot of people it is.

  • OpenOffice news, AbiWord, missing features (Score:5, Interesting)

    by otisg ( 92803 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:20AM (#10429323) Homepage Journal
    This is only somewhat true.
    While I have been reading all Word documents with OpenOffice (OO) for the past 2 years or so, I often run into Word features not supported by OO. For instance, I recently received a password-protected Word document that I could not open with OO. I had to use AbiWord (how come the report doesn't mention that!?).
    Another missing feature seems to be the ability to view Word document changes when the original document has 'track changes' turned on.

    I guess reports like this one help larger, less up-to-speed corporate users by opening their eyes and mind.
    • I have made extensive use of the change tracking features in Word documents opened in OpenOffice and exchanged with people using MS Word. It appeared to work flawlessly, and I never let on to my collaborators that I was using anything other than Word.
    • I appreicate what OpenOffice is doing, but when it comes to integrated Gome-ified apps, I don't think the OpenOffice tools are as high-quality as AbiWord and Gnumeric. The Abi folks in particular have an amazing site with impressive bug tracking, regression testing graphs etc.

  • Use the money you save to hire a lawyer... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:22AM (#10429340) Homepage
    It's only a matter of time before Microsoft files a patent suit against you for using OpenOffice.

  • Application Integration Still Not There (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unfortunateson ( 527551 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:23AM (#10429346) Journal
    More than just application quality, price, ease of use, etc. will be needed to get OSS into big corporations. Many of them have spent significant $$$ on add-ins and custom development in Word, Excel and Access. If OpenOffice supported VBA, it could be a slam-dunk, but integration with applications such as accounting systems, scientific data acquisition, or just automation of Word and Excel for productivity would need to be rewritten from scratch.

    Those apps are a big part of my business -- I'd happily migrate them, but nobody's the least bit interested in the Pharmaceutical industry in moving away from MS Word and Excel.

    • Re:Application Integration Still Not There (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've been there. Frankly, I don't think that's really feasible. Its one thing to replicate the features of a program, but its wholly another to replicate the whole embedded scripting system.

      The fact is that people that use VBA-scripted Office apps have bought-in to a level that nobody will be able to help them leave. Hell, even Microsoft probably will have to scramble away from those old VBA apps now that .NET is replacing VB6. Will even MS maintain backwards compatibility with those apps?

      So, in a rel
    • If OpenOffice supported VBA, it could be a slam-dunk, but integration with applications such as accounting systems, scientific data acquisition, or just automation of Word and Excel for productivity would need to be rewritten from scratch.

      Supporting VBA is just not going to happen. OO.org is getting Python scripting though, which should open up the OO.org to a lot more scrpting and extension than is currently the case. In the end people upgrade systems and have to replace outdated custom code, and that'

  • Cross platform Opensource Music apps (Score:5, Informative)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:23AM (#10429348) Homepage
    There is an interesting writeup [newsforge.com] about opensource music apps over at News Forge [newsforge.com]today. Just installed wxMusic [berlios.de]and it looks excellent for large music collections.

  • Best Quote (Score:4, Interesting)

    by anocelot ( 657966 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:24AM (#10429354) Homepage Journal
    "They did not have the confidence that proprietary [applications] would allow them to be interoperable with other organizations..."

    To think I would live to see that line. What an age we live in. And to think that there are now people posting on /. who will argue about it. Where's my time machine when I need it?

    ;)

  • The only Linux desktop apps? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:27AM (#10429384) Homepage
    Why is it that whenever a story about Linux desktop application suites comes up, they always bring up OpenOffice and StarOffice? Are there not other good examples they can use?

    I don't mean to bait flame here, but aside from OpenOffice and StarOffice (which essentially do the same thing), what other good, solid business apps are available for Linux? All I ever hear about are the same two.

    • what other good, solid business apps are available for Linux?

      Abiword [abisource.com], Gnumeric [gnome.org], and Evolution [novell.com] are also cited a lot, these are GNOME packages. Then there is KOffice [koffice.org], part of KDE, which few seem to use or talk about, but which does seem solid and extensive.

    • I think they get cited mostly because the run on windows. Windows is actually pretty cheap (in high volume OEM channels see how much you can save off a Dell by buying grey market components) that's about the cost of Windows to Dell. As a result most people are willing to pay for Windows, it's MS office that gets to be expensive.
    • The only OSS desktop tools that get any kind of media attention - the only two that seem to make any commercial inroads at all - are OpenOffice and Mozilla.

      Why? You could be charitable and say it's because they're the best, or that they're the only two with major commercial companies behind them, or you could say it's because they run on Windows. Stuff that runs on Linux doesn't mean jack, because in the big wide world, linux doesn't mean jack.

      Look at all the cool extensions, themes and stuff for the Mozi

  • Corporate features (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:28AM (#10429392)
    - a tool to go through specified directories and copy and convert all files to OO format.

    - some sort of central server type connector that allows multiple users to work on the same document at the same time and the result mirrored to all users.

    1 is required , 2 would be a selling point

  • .. blah blah DESKTOP blah blah .. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:28AM (#10429397) Homepage Journal
    *Forget* about Desktop, its a straw man! Nobody gives a shit about desktop computing any more; the days of cubicle-bound misery-computing are numbered!

    The real realm for application prosperity, *especially since Linux has a lead above and beyond WIN32*, is Embedded.

    Yes, thats right folks, give up the Desktop War of Straw. Computers getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller .. and you can do a hell of a lot of computing/real-work with such devices.

    {If you've got the temerity for bold app design, I might posit, oh and some cheap host-hardware to throw in that $400 software/hardware combo you're selling to your customer ..}

    In short: Desktop is Dead. The New In is Embedded.
    • "*Forget* about Desktop, its a straw man! Nobody gives a shit about desktop computing any more; the days of cubicle-bound misery-computing are numbered!"

      Hrm. I think it's got a few years left in it, my friend. Giving up now to fight a future battle only puts you ahead of a curve that's not yet ready to be taken. Ask Apple - they've done a good job of this many times in the past, only to have others eat their lunch (Newton, QuickTake being a prime example).
      • Hrm. I think it's got a few years left in it, my friend

        I didn't say its going away. As far as 'app traction' goes, its dead right now; the Big Thing is Embedded. You know .. computers that don't need a fancy interface, but still nevertheless get a hell of a lot of work done ..

    • In terms of what a computer *looks* like, perhaps you're right.

      but I'll wager that ten years from now, when we're all using handhelds wirelessly connected to the dumb-terminal monitor/mouse/keyboard we're sitting at we'll *still* be using word processors and whatnot.

      What I mean is that the usage won't change, just the form factor.

      Just because it's embedded has absolutely no relevance to what we're doing. Word processing or design or programming or CAD or music editing or non-linear video editing or just

  • OOS Office Suites need more exposure... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:31AM (#10429430)
    especially in education, where $$$ are often tight, and users rarely need all the features of MSOffice. That's also a good way to get the word out to parents as well.

    Case in point - our local high school has a class that requires a PowerPoint presentation as part of the class. The teacher insisted on PP and was a bit taken back when I suggested to one parent that OO has a perfectly good presentation package and doesn't require shelling out the $$$ for MSOffice; and you can test for compatibility with MS's free PP viewer as well.

    Despite living an affluent district, many parent's can't afford the $125 or so for a student edition MS Office and may not even have a PC that can run it, so OO is a very viable alternative.

  • LDS church now using Open Office (Score:4, Informative)

    by 3arwax ( 808691 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:32AM (#10429441)
    Here is something interesting. The LDS Church is now distributing Open Office for use on machines at local meetinghouses. This is very interesting because they are very very careful at which software they use.

  • No spin zone. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cpn2000 ( 660758 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:32AM (#10429449)
    Quoting ... the report notes that OpenOffice.org, an open source alternative to Microsoft Office, has secured 14% of the large enterprise office systems market, with over 16 million downloads and countless CD installations

    The interesting this about these numbers is that no one can put a spin on this. For instance, if these numbers were about 'number of PCs sold with Linux pre-loaded', you would have claims that this was only being done to circumvent the MS tax, and most people subsequently loaded the PC with pirated Windows OS.

    You just cannot make those claims in this case.

    • Re:No spin zone. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by goldspider ( 445116 )
      "with over 16 million downloads and countless CD installations

      The interesting this about these numbers is that no one can put a spin on this."

      But as an earlier post mentioned, those kinds of metrics are totally invalid. The 16M downloads could span multiple versions by the same person, and how does one measure "countless" CD installations?

      So how could you put spin on these figures, or make invalid claims based on them, when the figures themselves are absolute bunk?

    • Re:No spin zone. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ZorbaTHut ( 126196 )
      Yes you can.

      (1) Downloads are meaningless. Just look at a few of the comments attached to this story - people downloading it many multiple times and often uninstalling it. I know that I personally am responsible for at least 15 Mozilla downloads, and 2 OpenOffice downloads, and while I finally do use Mozilla I haven't used OpenOffice.

      (2) "Countless CD installations" does not imply there's necessarily a lot. It simply implies we can't count them.

      (3) 14% of the large enterprise office systems as counted ho
      • Downloads are meaningless. Just look at a few of the comments attached to this story - people downloading it many multiple times and often uninstalling it. I know that I personally am responsible for at least 15 Mozilla downloads, and 2 OpenOffice downloads, and while I finally do use Mozilla I haven't used OpenOffice.

        I agree, the number of downloads by themselves do not have much relevance. What I do think is relevant is that there seems to be an upward trend in the number of downloads, and that to me

        • Oh, definitely. I don't argue at all that the numbers are looking up. There's a really obvious upward trend on all of this, and I'm quite happy about it. I just think it's way way way too early to be making claims about how OpenOffice is winning - we could see it easily plateau.
    • The interesting thing about these numbers is that no one can put a spin on this.

      Of course you can.

      number of downloads != number of users. It doesn't matter if something has been downloaded a billion times, if everyone deletes it within five minutes of installation. And what about the OpenOffice CD I made for my friend with a 56k connection and no patience to download it? Or what about the people who get it from corporate intranet sites? Or when I download it right before my hard drive crashes, and I

  • The new Insurgence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grunt107 ( 739510 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:39AM (#10429509)
    While the OOo/SO twins get the 'starchild' treatment, IMO it will be of couple other desktop apps that will bring up open source (and that includes Linux OS) apps. These would be Firefox/Tbird and GIMP. I have switched 2 neighbors over to these (1 does pro photog) and they like them. The photog guy is now open to getting Linux installed on his oldest PC (cannot go to XP, dying on 98).

    Since all of these work on Windows, these people can learn on their existing WinOS, and switch to Linux when the 'upgrade to XP or else' is forced on them.

  • Any Small OS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by microsopht ( 811294 )
    Is there any Linux OS that is less than 10 Mb ,and can be run from CD without installing?

    No ,i dont want knoppix.It may be good, but I simply cant download 700 MB image file on dialup.
    So any options?

    Oh yeah iam a windows user.wanting to try linux.or perhaps a new OS.
    • I doubt it though I may be wrong...anyone correct me?

      In the mean time, do you have any contacts that may have access to a high speed connection (students, employees, family, friends). You could give them instuctions on what to download then they could burn it for you.

      Alternatively, if you email your address to
      andyfaeglasgow@gmail.com
      I would be happy to mail you whichever distribution you want.

      Andy
    • 10 MB? Yes, but don't expect a GUI. If you want a desktop Linux on CD, you can try Morphix [morphix.org] in the LightGUI variant, but that's still 20x as big as you want it.

      Or, with the help of Google [google.com], you could have found this [frozentech.com] page, which is a list of live CDs. But don't expect a complete desktop OS in under 10 MB. Even the basic font files take about half of that.

    • While not 10MB, Damn Small Linux [damnsmalllinux.org] at 50MB would be doable overnight.

      Alternatively, you could try ordering a full set of Fedora [easylinuxcds.com], Mandrake [easylinuxcds.com], etc. CDs for under $5US, which is pretty minimal. Certainly within a budget for trying out a new OS.

  • professional bias? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lawngnome ( 573912 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:39AM (#10429515)
    I have met many professionals that are biased on the desktop programs they use because they are the "industry standard" and want to feel like a professional. I good example is photoshop, I have had several graphics designer friends say they wont use anyother graphics package regardless of features because "its not photoshop..." How can opensource apps with their underdog persona get around this?

    • How can opensource apps with their underdog persona get around this?

      Who cares about these people? Look, there are always going to be people who make bad decisions. It is not important that everybody use FOSS; it's only important that they have the option to do so.
    • Professionals are - apart from attached to the stuff they know - geared towards results.

      I can go "wow" when looking at office - or Photoshop - alternatives, because it's of course an impressive amount of work. But I can't compare those attempts with the real thing.

      I don't agree at all with the notion that OOo is a good replacement for MSOffice. It's however a good alternative when you no longer want to - or have to - pay the MS tax.
    • How can opensource apps with their underdog persona get around this?

      One small step at a time...

  • Thoughts from an outsider... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eV_x ( 180493 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:43AM (#10429553)
    No, I'm not a Linux geek by any means. I am certainly not a MSFT lover, but I'm a best tool for the job, and most of my job requires MSFT today. On that same thought, I've recently been getting into some open source things, and have even installed Linux pretty recently (just instaleld a MythTV box at my house!).

    I've made the switch to Firefox completely - both at work and at my home. Why? It looks really nice, functions well, and was easy to get my wife switched over to as it functions pretty similar to tools she already knows. Hell, I've even switched some of my less technical friends over, and they love it. I didn't do this with Mozilla though - it just seemed "too much".

    Now, on the other side, I finally broke down and installed OpenOffice to give it a shot. I thought, will this be the Office breaker I've heard about? No way. I can't stand it - it's clearly designed by technical people and doesn't have the slightest bit of usability in mind. Bash MSFT all you want, but they spend a fair amount of cash on usability, and unfortunately flattery is the best form of competition right now (think about how early versions of Word had the ability to emulate certain WordPerfect functions).

    Right when I installed OO I went to open the word processor. It's actually called a Text Editor. WHAT? Notepad and nano are text editors, this is supposed to a Word Processing suite! Further, the interface looks like Office 95 - honestly, people are visual and the interface makes me feel like I should be sitting in a tiny bricked wall office with no windows and a flickering flourescent light overhead. Sure, some may like that, but it's not most people. Finally, the product seems slow on WinXP - yes, it may be my setup, and your mileage my vary, but Word is snappy on my box so it doesn't matter.

    The short short is that products like Firefox and MythTV can make me a convert. They're well designed, look nice, have a lot of functionality, but also keep the end user in mind. OO.org has a long way to go thought before I'd recommend it to one single person as a Microsoft alternative.
    • Right when I installed OO I went to open the word processor. It's actually called a Text Editor. WHAT? Notepad and nano are text editors, this is supposed to a Word Processing suite! Further, the interface looks like Office 95 - honestly, people are visual and the interface makes me feel like I should be sitting in a tiny bricked wall office with no windows and a flickering flourescent light overhead. Sure, some may like that, but it's not most people. Finally, the product seems slow on WinXP - yes, it may
    • "it's clearly designed by technical people and doesn't have the slightest bit of usability in mind."

      It isn't. OpenOffice is derived from StarOffice, made by StarDivision Inc (now acquired by Sun). In other words: OpenOffice is derived from a commercial product! *Shock*, *shrudder*, commercial products are always designed by tons of usability experts and can never, ever be unusable junk like open source software, right? Right?
      If anything, your statement just proofed that commercial software can be just as

  • What is still needed... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rick Genter ( 315800 ) <.rick.genter. .at. .gmail.com.> on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:45AM (#10429566) Homepage Journal
    ...is a good project management application. I just scanned SourceForge.net but didn't find one. IMHO this is sorely lacking in the Open Source world. So much so that I've thought about writing my own (I wrote one that was curses(3)-based back in the early '80s :-). Does anyone have any pointers to a decent[1] project management app? Or should I start coding? ;-)

    [1] decent == Can track resources, tasks, costs; can perform some sort of resource auto-leveling; can report resource conflicts; supports GANTT charts; has a relatively easy-to-use UI.

  • Bloatware (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:49AM (#10429607) Homepage Journal
    I don't know how StarOffice is these days, but OOo is bloatware and it shows. Since when do I need more than 128 MB RAM and a coffee break to start a word processor?

    I really prefer the approach taken by AbiWord. They made a good word processor, without the bloat. It continues to be light and snappy now that they have added support for various features and formats.

    Now, AbiWord is only a word processor, but with other projects providing spreadsheets, databases, etc. you can still get all the pieces of a complete office suite. Add some coordination and cooperation and you can get everything nicely integrated and uniform, too. Or use KOffice; a bit lacking in features last I sampled it, but well integrated and relatively light.

    It's not that I don't recognize the hard work that went into OOo, it's just that I think the development approach is fundamentally flawed. Same goes for Mozilla, BTW. First they made a huge effort to build the Mozilla application suite, now Firefox and Thunderbird are working hard to strip off the bloat. KISS.

  • Exchange (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:51AM (#10429641)
    What about Exchange replacements? One of the good things about Outlook in a corporate environment is that it works so well with Exchange.

    If there were Outlook replacements and Exchange replacements, then corporations could swap out one or the other rather than having to jump immediately into the water.

    Especially more so in the fact that if you swap out Exchange and keep Outlook 2000, then your IT department will have saved a bucket-load of cash end whilst the end-users will never know the difference and never need retraining.

    • Ever heard of SuSE Open Exchange? It's a replacement for Microsoft Exchange Server and seems to work well. But from what I recall from a corporate standpoint if you use Outlook to connect to a non-Exchange Server client in this manner you *could* be possibly violating their EULA. Not sure on that last point 100% though.

  • Reminder: Do not pirate MS Office. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xutopia ( 469129 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:53AM (#10429680) Homepage
    We've heard often by MS Fudmakers (tm) that the GPL is viral but the truth is that MS Office is viral. It is intrisic to proprietary/closed format. What we need to do is to have less pirate versions of Office around.

    As a teenager I gave countless copied CDs with Office or Windows on it and it only helped MS. Now I do the opposite. I have Slackware installed (might try some gentoo or Unbuntu soon though) and use solely OpenOffice and when people come to me for help or for software I point them to FOSS alternatives. Open Office works great with it's own format. It just has problems with closed formats. I think being polite and asking people to send me thing in RTF is a good way to save 300$+ on my OS/Office suite.

    • MS Fudmakers? I think most "GPL is viral" trolls are from BSD Fudmakers. "The GPL is evil! BSD is freeer! lolololololol!!!"
      Their reasoning is similar to "People in my country have the freedom to kill other people. Your country's law restricts people from killing others. Therebefore my country is freeer than yours."

  • My experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @11:54AM (#10429696) Homepage Journal
    From my experience more people turn onto OpenOffice.org for its one-click PDF generation than anything else. People who publish newsletters, invitations, or just some documents they want on the Web site. Adobe Acrobat is $170 on Pricegrabber [pricegrabber.com], but it's generally $250 retail in stores, so I've seen people wow'ed by OpenOffice single click Word->PDF conversion.

    They are not switchers, they continue to use Office (MS Office 97 in some cases), but keep OpenOffice for this feature when they need another PDF.

  • getting my Dad OO (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ducomputergeek ( 595742 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @01:09PM (#10430468)
    My Dad really only uses word processor and spreadsheet to keep track of his stocks. So after a crash and reinstall last year I installed OO on his machine. Only complaint is that it takes a few seconds to load the first time. I have discs to MS office 2000 and XP with XP never have been installed before.

    However, I use MS Office V.x for Mac over OpenOffice. Why? I find that it works better than on windows and I actually like using it over other applications. But mainly PowerPoint. Keynotes is nice and I could survive with Apple Works for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, but still I find PowerPoint for Mac extremely hard to beat. Same with Word for Mac. It just seems cleaner than Word XP or 2000. Excel I don't use often enough really to go one way or the other.

  • As indigo montoya might say ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ClosedSource ( 238333 ) on Monday October 04, 2004 @06:30PM (#10434379)
    You keep using this word "validate". I don't think it means, what you think it means.

    If some organization was actually validating these products it would be great. I tried OpenOffice on one of my real-world MS Word documents awhile back and it crashed (no I don't remember which version). I imagine it works fine for simple documents, but then again, so does WordPad.

    I still think that the goal of MS Office file compatibility is a losing one. They should try to produce a better product instead. Anyone who believes MS Office file compatibility is critical, isn't going to risk getting fired to save a few dollars.

    On the other hand, many users don't need to edit old documents or share them, and those are the users to target with a superior product IMHO.

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