SoftMaker Office?

Posted Oct 16, 2008 3:39 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659)
Parent article: OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

I'd love to see some big FOSS company (Red Hat I'm looking at you) buy SoftMaker and release SoftMaker Office as FOSS and see what kind of community rises up behind it. It doesn't have all of the applications of OOo but it isn't far behind... and it is a lot lighter weight.

While there is also Abiword, Gnumeric, and KDE Office (which is expecting a major upgrade in the not too distant future)... I'm not sure how much uptake those products have when compared to OOo... and I'm not sure OOo sees those projects as competition. It would be nice to have another FOSS office suite, especially one that is as mature, multi-platform and integrated as SoftMaker Office... added to the mix.

SoftMaker Office?

Posted Oct 16, 2008 15:11 UTC (Thu) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (1 responses)

What benefit would Red Hat (or any other large Linux company) get from buying SoftMaker and releasing its software Open Source?

Remember that this is essentially what happened with OpenOffice, so there is no guarantee that you'll see a community grow around it any faster. It probably has similar issues of fragile build systems and third party proprietary code to deal with, so it would take a while before outside developers could even get started.

A company like Red Hat would also need to weigh this effort and risk against working on OpenOffice or a derived product like go-oo (which they might if copyright assignment is a problem).

So while it might be nice to have another free office suite, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this to happen.

SoftMaker Office?

Posted Oct 16, 2008 22:30 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]

Well, thank you for asking. There are a number of reasons.

1) If and only if Red Hat thinks SoftMaker Office is a mature, stable, quality product... should they consider buying it.

2) Only if they are willing to dedicate resources over a long period of time to ensure further development as Sun has with OpenOffice.org... but with Red Hat's nature to lead as a FOSS company with better licenses (GPL2 or 3)

3) Only if Red Hat wants to expand its software portfolio with the addition of an office suite

4) Only if Red Hat is willing to switch to it and eat their own dog food

5) Only if SoftMaker Office is independent enough where they can buy the whole thing and not have to redo pieces licensed from third parties (a big if)

Then and only then would it be worth doing. OpenOffice.org seems to have a number of issues... some due to Sun's leadership and methods... and I'm not sure the split with Go OO is a solution... given the fact that it is Novell spearheading Go OO and they have a number of open wounds with the Linux community... regardless of what the apologists say.

Red Hat has a fabulous reputation walking the FOSS walk... and I don't think anyone else is in a position to make it happen. There isn't much competition to OpenOffice.org... and I don't see additional forks being the answer.

I don't use office suite applications much myself so I must admit I'm not sure SoftMaker Office is worth it or not... but they are fairly inexpensive, offer fantastic academic discounts, and offer a try before you buy trail... are multi-platform... blah, blah, blah... so it shouldn't be hard to evaluate. It is worth looking at.

If you are asking how Red Hat would make money from it. How are they making money from other FOSS products? Apply the same logic.

SoftMaker Office?

Posted Oct 17, 2008 4:17 UTC (Fri) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (1 responses)

Please no, not another office suite. Why isn't 4 or more enough?

SoftMaker Office?

Posted Oct 17, 2008 19:21 UTC (Fri) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]

What 4 would those be? Remember, they have to be actually used by a significant number of people.