Montag Oktober 25, 2004

New OpenOffice.org newsletter available
The new OpenOffice.org newsletter can be found at:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?listName=announce&by=date&from=2004-10-01&to=2004-10-31&first=1&count=3
( Okt 25 2004, 03:29:57 PM CEST ) Permalink

OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 awarded a six-star ranking
Great win for OpenOffice.org:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/64884/openoffice-112.html
( Okt 25 2004, 03:21:36 PM CEST ) Permalink

Freitag Oktober 22, 2004

More to do for Steve Ballmer's cavalry
More to do for Steve Ballmer's cavalry:
"Bristol City Council may move up to 5,000 of its desktop computers to StarOffice next year. The move could save an estimated £1.4m over five years, a council spokeswoman said on Friday."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39171155,00.htm
( Okt 22 2004, 05:32:40 PM CEST ) Permalink

OpenOffice.org Tutorials
I just got a request asking for an OpenOffice.org tutorial. I thought it would be good to share what I have found so far:

* OpenOffice.org How-Tos
* OpenOffice.org Books
* Articles by Bruce Byfield
* StarOffice Documentation

( Okt 22 2004, 01:03:34 PM CEST ) Permalink

"OpenOffice.org's integrated development environment"
"OpenOffice.org includes a very capable IDE with tools that run, edit, and find errors in your macros. It is worth the time to become familiar with its features."
http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/10/14/1452253.shtml?tid=93
( Okt 22 2004, 11:29:25 AM CEST ) Permalink

"Poor nations on front line of operating-system wars"
"The fact that so many people like Ms. Pereira are taking the first tentative steps toward computer literacy is remarkable, but it is not the reason these classes are newsworthy. The unusual thing here is that the students are using Linux (news - web sites), an inexpensive, open-source software platform increasingly popular with governments, especially in the developing world, who see it as a cheaper, safer, and more flexible alternative to Microsoft Windows."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20041020/tc_usatoday/poornationsonfrontlineofoperatingsystemwars
( Okt 22 2004, 11:27:15 AM CEST ) Permalink

More OpenOffice.org wins
Check this out:
"OpenOffice.org is available all four of Singapore's official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, according to the native language section of the OpenOffice.org site. Office 2003 is only available in English and Chinese, according to the Microsoft Web site.
The City of Munich recently decided to go ahead with the migration of 14,000 PCs to Linux, after plans were scuppered due to worries about patent issues. The City of Bergen, in Norway, is also due to migrate desktops in its 100 schools, which have 32,000 students and pupils. "
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,39020396,39171012,00.htm
( Okt 22 2004, 11:23:11 AM CEST ) Permalink

Freitag Oktober 15, 2004

Cross-continent Team Work
On October 13 the OpenOffice.org project celebrated its 4th birthday. Four years ago, Sun donated the source code of the StarOffice software to found one of the largest open source projects.
Occasional visitors of the OpenOffice.org website only know what they see on the web pages. However, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes via mailing lists, IRC chats, direct emails, phone calls, etc. The birthday preparations are a good example for that.
Until late at night people accross the world worked hard to get ready for the big day. People from Australia, South Africa, France, Germany, Czech Republic, the UK, Malaysia, Benin, Turkey and the US (I hope I did not forget a country) collectively created a community announcement. Different people submitted new OpenOffice.org logos with birthday cakes included for the OpenOffice.org home page. New web pages and a summary of last year's news were put together. Finally, many people from the different native language projects translated the community announcement to get the word out to the press.
From my point of view, this all would not have been possible without Louis Suarez-Potts. He is the OpenOffice.org community manager at CollabNet, the company that hosts the OpenOffice.org web pages and provides the platform that enables the global collaboration of the OpenOffice.org contributors.
Louis coordinated most of the birthday preparations and was a main contributor to the announcement and the different web pages. I don't know when he did it, but he even managed to do an interview . Thanks Louis! Great job!

( Okt 15 2004, 11:38:58 AM CEST ) Permalink

"OpenOffice Looking Better All the Time"
Here is another interesting article about OpenOffice.org:
"OpenOffice is starting to become a contender for the status that Office has attained—that of a solutions platform."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1676740,00.asp
( Okt 15 2004, 10:39:21 AM CEST ) Permalink

Donnerstag Oktober 14, 2004

"OpenOffice.org development boosted by Arab and Israeli collaboration"
This is what I like about the OpenOffice.org project! Maybe open source projects are more effective in creating peace than what politicians have on their agenda.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39170349,00.htm
( Okt 14 2004, 09:12:31 PM CEST ) Permalink

Mittwoch Oktober 13, 2004

Happy Birthday! Herzlichen Glückwunch zum Geburtstag! ...
Happy Birthday! Herzlichen Glückwunch zum Geburtstag! Van harte gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag! Joyeux anniversaire! Muchas felicidades! ...
Today OpenOffice.org celebrates its 4th birthday. On October 13, 2000 Sun donated the source code of the StarOffice software to found the open source project OpenOffic.org. Now, four years later, the OpenOffice.org community including Sun Microsystems has achieved a lot. The number of supported languages is growing almost every day. Volunteers localize the software or support users in their native language.
If you read the news about OpenOffice.org from the last year, you will realize that an increasing number of governments has started to adopt OpenOffice.org and related products like the StarOffice software or the Sun Java Desktop System. However, for me the most important experiences during my a bit more than two years on the OpenOffice.org project are not the large deployments, the 31+ million downloads, etc. I enjoyed most the days when I met the people behind the project in all the different countries. Quite a few of them I would call my friends.
Without all the volunteers the project OpenOffice.org and its derived products would not be where they are today. Thank you to everybody who has contributed to the success of the project! My wife and I will drink a nice glass of Champagne today to celebrate this great day!
( Okt 13 2004, 10:32:42 AM CEST ) Permalink

Montag Oktober 11, 2004

20 per cent cost advantage with OpenOffice.org
"For a €1,000,000 budget, the use of OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office would provide a 20 per cent cost advantage."
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19006
( Okt 11 2004, 10:36:10 AM CEST ) Permalink

Freitag Oktober 08, 2004

"What's so Java about Sun's Linux desktop?"
Very interesting article!
( Okt 08 2004, 12:31:28 PM CEST ) Permalink

Another challenge for Microsoft's cavalry
Here is another challenge for Microsoft's cavalry. An increasing number of city councils and ministries worldwide is either evaluating or already using OpenOffice.org, the "professional sibling" StarOffice or Sun's Java Desktop System. In addition, the EU supports open document formats like the OpenOffice.org/OASIS file format. I'm looking forward to the news about the next ministry that decides to switch to open source and, more importantly, open standards based software.
( Okt 08 2004, 11:03:05 AM CEST ) Permalink

Donnerstag Oktober 07, 2004

"Replacing FrameMaker with OOo Writer"
My colleague Joost Andrae pointed me to the following article which is pretty cool:
"I began comparing FrameMaker and Writer when a regular on the OpenOffice.org User's list asked what it would take to give Writer the power of FrameMaker. When I started, I mentally pictured a scale with Microsoft Word on one end and FrameMaker on another, with Writer in the middle, but closer to Microsoft Word. As I proceeded, I found Writer was a much stronger contender than I had expected. At the end of the comparison, I had to conclude that the two products compare quite closely, depending on what features are more important to a given user."
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/10/04/150207
Considering that OpenOffice.org is free people get a great value, and for just $39.95 people can even get a more professional flavor of OpenOffice.org with clipart graphics and dictionaries included.
( Okt 07 2004, 03:16:33 PM CEST ) Permalink