| From: |
| Erwin Tenhumberg <erwin.tenhumberg@Sun.COM> |
| To: |
| announce@openoffice.org |
| Subject: |
| [ooo-announce] OpenOffice.org Newsletter - August 2003 |
| Date: |
| Wed, 13 Aug 2003 16:00:37 -0700 |
#########################################################################
OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 01 - Issue 2 - 08/2003
#########################################################################
Announcements
=============
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC (July 14, 2003)
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=750723&listName=announce
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/1025908.htm
http://news.com.com/2100-1046_3-1025908.html
OpenGroupware.org: SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=746582&listName=announce
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1190359,00.asp
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,39001153,39140727,00.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/1024994.htm
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=44496
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/11/1057783326188.html
OpenOffice.org Statistics
=========================
* more that 17,500,000 have downloaded OpenOffice.org
so far (as of July 19, 2003)
* the OpenOffice.org projects has more than 12,700
unique people subscribed to the mailing lists
(as of July 19, 2003)
* 267 people and companies have signed a JCA and are thus
either already contributing or considering to do so
(as of July 31, 2003)
* 896 people have participated in the OOo developer
survey so far (as of July 31, 2003), 16% indicated
that they work for an independent software vendor,
8% are employed at a systems integrator, 9% work for
companies with 100 to 999 employees and another 9%
work for companies bigger than 1000 employees.
* From a total of 208373 users who filled out the
English OpenOffice.org user survey
- 42.45% (88469) use ONLY Windows
(one or more Windows versions)
- 11.46% (23890) use ONLY Linux
(one or more Linux versions)
- 35.5% (71906) use combinations of Windows and Linux
but no other OS
* OpenOffice.org user survey responses by country
(The survey only covers OOo users. Thus, it does not
represent the actual market share of the OOo suite!)
Location Responses Responses Responses
in Percent per 1M
Residents
---------------------------------------------------
USA 40428 18.02% 148
Germany 23772 10.60% 290
France 9662 4.31% 164
UK 8785 3.92% 149
Italy 7423 3.31% 130
Brazil 6895 3.07% 40
Canada 6024 2.69% 194
Poland 5498 2.45% 141
Netherlands 4917 2.19% 307
Spain 4809 2.14% 123
Japan 4601 2.05% 37
Australia 3575 1.59% 188
Switzerland 2672 1.19% 382
Belgium 2396 1.07% 240
Finland 2360 1.05% 472
China 2107 0.94% 2
Denmark 2103 0.94% 421
Czech Rep. 1936 0.86% 194
Sweden 1863 0.83% 207
Other 82494 36.78% N/A
---------------------------------------------------
Total 224320 100.00% N/A
More statistical data at:
* http://stats.openoffice.org/
* http://oosurvey.gratismania.ro/results/index.php
* http://oosurvey.gratismania.ro/developer/results.php
* http://www.openoffice.org/copyright/copyrightapproved.html
Awards and Reviews
==================
Linux Journal Editors' Choice Awards 2003
-----------------------------------------
Best Desktop Software: OpenOffice.org
http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6995
LinuxWorld San Francisco Product Excellence Awards
--------------------------------------------------
OpenOffice.org and StarOffice were finalists in different
categories, but unfortunately did not win in any of the
following categories:
BEST Productivity Application
StarOffice
BEST Open Source Project
OpenOffice.org
BEST Development Tool
OpenOffice.org SDK
BEST Front office Solution
StarOffice
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC2 Review
-----------------------------
"... It's hard not to feel a little smug. We're
looking at a crisp, colorful Adobe Acrobat PDF
document, created from one of the PowerPoint
templates on the Microsoft Office Template Gallery
site. But we didn't use the $399 Office to open
and edit the template, nor to create the PDF
(despite PDF's popularity, neither today's Office
XP nor tomorrow's Office 2003 can save or export
Acrobat files). We used the latest release of the
Microsoft-file-compatible, cross-platform,
open-source OpenOffice.org suite. We paid $0. ..."
http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/reviews/4940/1/
Kent Callison's Technology Review: Open Office v1.0
---------------------------------------------------
"... Believe it or not, if you are tired of trying to
keep up with Microsoft's version upgrades you finally
have a real option. Open Office reads, writes and edits
all MS Office formats. It sports a familiar, albeit
boring, interface that most users will take to quickly.
Best of all, the software is free. If you are a small
business owner struggling to choke down the price of
Microsoft software, you will adore Open Office. ..."
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_39201.asp
Is Microsoft's hegemony over?
-----------------------------
"... Aside from being a free download, I think what I
like most about OpenOffice is the fact that it has given
me the freedom of choice. ...
But now, I have a very good alternative and one that I
believe will end up being my default and only office
productivity suite for a long time to come until the
wonderful guys from OpenOffice.org unveil the Aqua
version of OpenOffice sometime in the second half of
next year.
With OpenOffice as my default office productivity suite,
I have also started to discover many other open-source
software to complement, ..."
http://computerworld.com.my/pcwmy.nsf/unidlookup/36FD4A2DDB7EFE9448256D7B00137FD1?OpenDocument
Success Stories
===============
France
======
The article below begins by explaining another dent to
MS armour as the Japanese govt is looking at putting
Linux in its autorities which have up to 800K civil
servants working for it. This follows the news that
Munich has moved to a Linux solution despite Steve
Ballmer's attempts to try and convince them otherwise.
Linux and open source projects appear to be having a
phenomenal success around the world particularly in the
public sector and government bodies despite its
reliance on individual contributors to maintain their
existence.. One of the pricincipal reasons for their
success is the financial advantage to using 'free
software' particularly in the current economix climate.
In France the acceleration into the world of open
software has seen a huge growth since 2000 - the minister
of Culture migrated 400 of its servers to Linux followed
by the Ministry of Finance.
Despite MS's stranglehold on the marketplace , with 9 out
of 10 PCs equipped with Windows and Office on the
majority of these, examples such as Munich where
14000 desktops have migrated to Linux show that the fear
factor around free software has been dispersed. At the
hospital of Avranches-Granville in Normandy, France,
400 desktops have migrated to Openoffice, the free clone
office suite to MS.
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=126087
The 13 pages article below talks about Linux, an operating
systems that works, meaning that it will become the first
choice for lot of companies, shools and administrations in
France. The article includes a lot of interviews from people
who have moved to linux but also to OOo : a college where OOo
was deployed on 400 desktop, Ataiire which is a private company
and also the traveler company Nuances du Monde.
http://www.vnunet.fr/pce/editpce/pcesom133.htm
South Africa
============
OpenOffice.org Translation
The translation of OpenOffice.org into several languages in South Africa
is being undertaken by translate.org.za. To this date this translation
project has reached the following milestones:
* Successfully translated OpenOffice.org 1.0.x into Zulu and
almost completed the 1.1rc2 translation. (Packaging of the
translations are still underway.)
* Adapted scripts for PO (Portable Object) files and CSV (Comma
Separated Values) files to allow for the easier translation of
OpenOffice.org.
In addition to this, translate.org.za are working on the development of
a translation portal, which will allow anyone to help with the
translation of OpenOffice.org, Mozilla and other Open Source projects.
OpenOffice.org.za Portal
The launch of the South African OpenOffice.org portal is being
synchronised with the final release of OpenOffice.org 1.1. The aim of
the portal is to provide local news and resources to existing and
potential users, consultants and distributors in South and Southern
Africa.
South African Distribution Program
The South African market has differing needs from that of many markets
internationally. To this end, the South African marketing team has
developed a localised distributor program. This program aims to
encourage peer-to-peer distribution of OpenOffice.org through the
maintenance of a public database of individuals, companies and
organisations who are willing to assist with the distribution of
OpenOffice.org on a commercial or non-profit basis. This database will
soon be available of the OpenOffice.org.za portal.
Sahara Computers Distributes OpenOffice.org
Sahara Computers (www.sahara.co.za), the second largest distributor of
PC's in South Africa, has begun to ship OpenOffice.org 1.0.x with all
it's branded products. This landmark was facilitated by Chris Mostert of
Replay (www.replay.co.za) who market software bundles to local white box
manufacturers.
India
=====
Open source software goes into schools
--------------------------------------
"... The curriculum is based on Linux Operating System
and uses OpenOffice.org for teaching. ..."
http://newstodaynet.com/31jul/ev1.htm
Australia
=========
Vic Greens set to complete Linux switch by year-end
---------------------------------------------------
"We hope to encourage our members to use Open Source software
by informing them of the benefits through articles in our
newsletter, by providing install disks for OpenOffice.Org for
both the Mac and the PC as OpenOffice.Org is the office suit
we have chosen to use in our office. We are hoping to hold an
installfest later in the year with the support of the Linux
Users of Victoria."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/06/1060064230512.html
USA
===
Linux Access in State and Local Government, Part V
--------------------------------------------------
"... Jeff: We (the City of Newport News, Virginia) have
developed ... And we are taking a serious look at Zope.
We are trying to find an open-source project manager
application for our development team. We are promoting
the use of OpenOffice.org wherever possible to city
employees.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7008&mode=thread&order=0
Wal-Mart to sell SuSE PCs
-------------------------
"... In addition to the OS-less, Lycoris, and Lindows PCs,
Wal-Mart now offers SuSE PCs.
...
The software included is the typical Linux line-up, including
the OpenOffice.org suite, and a variety of Web browsers. ..."
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Jul/gee20030716020836.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/1025780.htm
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-1025780.html
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_headline.cgi?&story_file=bw.071503/231965075&directory=/google&header_file=header.htm&footer_file=
Trinidad
========
The Caribbean learns about Free and Open Software
-------------------------------------------------
"... "You mean this program is really free? We don't have to pay
for it?" was a question I heard about OpenOffice.org from several
ministry budget-watchers after they watched it in action. They
were also impressed by the idea of software development tools
that cost nothing; these have been budget-breakers for them many
times when they decided to do inhouse development in a Windows
environment. ..."
http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/06/30/1416250&mode=thread&tid=19
Market Information / Competition
================================
Jupiter Research
----------------
According to Jupiter Research OpenOffice.org is deployed
at 6% of SMB with another 3% with plans to deploy it in
their next fiscal year.
Link: http://www.idg.net/ic_1326566_9698_1-5060.html
Microsoft, Organization of American States Join to Boost
E-Government in Latin America and Caribbean
--------------------------------------------------------
Q&A: The heads of the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation
and Development and Microsoft Latin America discuss a new
US$9 million agreement intended to bring e-government
technology to Latin American and Caribbean citizens.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/jul03/07-30oas.asp
Microsoft's Move To Open Source Code to Governments
Seen as Linux Defense
---------------------------------------------------
"... The Microsoft overture is a reaction to the fact that
Linux is becoming a threat, Bill Claybrook, research director
at Aberdeen Group, told NewsFactor. "Linux is not following
Microsoft, MS is changing its tune to align itself with Linux,"
he said. "Microsoft is feeling the pressure now." ..."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nf/20030731/bs_nf/22007
KSpread (KDE) will switch to the OpenOffice.org Calc format
-----------------------------------------------------------
"... During the LinuxTag 2003 conference, KOffice
hackers Ariya, Norbert and Phillip had a chance to meet
and discuss the current state of KSpread as well as the
future direction of the project. Plans include an Excel
export filter as well as switching to the OpenOffice.org
Calc format -- read on for the full KSpread Development
Roadmap that resulted from the discussions. ..."
http://dot.kde.org/1059107636/
Redmond's new point man on Linux
--------------------------------
Martin Taylor, Redmond's new point man on Linux, says he
plans to change Microsoft's open-source competitive strategy
by focusing on 'just the facts.'
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1207677,00.asp
Microsoft to let Office users jump to Professional
--------------------------------------------------
Microsoft Corp. when it releases Office 2003 will give certain
Office Standard Edition users the right to order Office
Professional Edition applications at no extra cost and offer
a "Step-up License" to upgrade to the full Office Professional
suite, the company said.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/04/HNofficejump_1.html
PDF Format Shifting to XML
--------------------------
"... Meanwhile, Adobe isn't the only one working to
integrate PDF and XML. The open source OpenOffice.org
Project, which is developing an office productivity suite
to compete with Microsoft's Office, has issued
OpenOffice.org 1.1 Release Candidate 1, which signifies
the 1.1 version of the suite is close to final release.
As previously reported by internetnews.com, OpenOffice.org
1.1 features the ability to export the suite's native XML
documents as PDF. The RC1 version enhances both the suite's
PDF export support and support for mailing a document as PDF.
It also supports export to Macromedia Flash, DocBook, and
PDA file formats. ..."
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2235261
Linux lagging in local desktops (Australia)
-------------------------------------------
"... PCs running Linux have been available to US consumers
from Wal-Mart, and in New Zealand from Dick Smith, but low-end
buyers in Australia are offered few open source options. ...
Hewlett-Packard, which last week announced it would begin
selling SME-targeted PCs with Mandrake Linux installed in the
US, says it will not advertise the Linux option on that model
here. ..."
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,6715754%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
Oracle Taps Sun To Challenge Microsoft
--------------------------------------
"... Saying their combined assets can drive down the cost of
deploying real-time collaboration software, Sun Microsystems
(Nasdaq: SUNW) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) have announced
plans to work together to spread the word about the benefits
of their alternatives to Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) dominant
Office suite. ..."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/31200.html
http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=12803250
Linux Desktops Not Good Enough For Information Work
----------------------------------------------------
"... "We want to make sure customers and partners understand
the value, not just the cost, of software," Raikes said. The
deployment of StarOffice or OpenOffice would cost dramatically
more than that of Office 2003, he said. ..."
http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=12803252
Novell buys Ximian
------------------
One major part of the deal is Ximian Desktop 2, a Linux desktop
environment that has an integrated suite of Linux applications
capable of supporting Windows file formats and networks.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,83716,00.html
RealNetworks and Helix Community to Build Open Source Media
Player for Linux, Solaris and Unix
-----------------------------------------------------------
"As an important contributor to two of the world's largest
open source projects, OpenOffice.org and GNOME, Sun is well
aware of the momentum of the open source movement on the
desktop," said Curtis Sasaki, vice president of Desktop
Solutions, Sun Microsystems. "We are pleased to see a company
with the skill and expertise of RealNetworks increase this
momentum by driving the development of Helix Player as the
leading open source media player for Linux and the
Solaris(TM)Operating System."
http://www.stockworld.de/msg/569972.html
Sun Joins OSDL; Strengthens Commitment to the Open-Source
Community And Driving Open Standards
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/08-05-2003/0001995613&EDATE=TUE+Aug+05+2003,+12:00+PM
Sun Declares Linux Desktop Ready for Primetime
----------------------------------------------
At LinuxWorld, Sun is also previewing the next version of
StarOffice, its award-winning productivity suite. StarOffice
is a key component of the Project Mad Hatter desktop and is
based on the open source code found at OpenOffice.org, a
popular open source community founded by Sun in 2000.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK6.story&STORY=/www/story/08-05-2003/0001995805&EDATE=TUE+Aug+05+2003,+04:31+PM
Activities (local and world wide)
=================================
OpenOffice.org [1.0.3.1] Ported to SGI IRIX
-------------------------------------------
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3993
4 new native-lang projects
--------------------------
Greek, Slovenian, Lao, and Vietnamese joined the fast
growing number of native-language projects on OpenOffice.org.
Project URL: http://native-lang.openoffice.org/
Events
======
OSCON 2003, Portland, USA
-------------------------
"... In addition to our presentations, OpenOffice.org also
maintained a *very* active booth in the Sun pod, which was
prominently placed. Thanks to Phillip "Flip" Russell, we
had hundreds of CDROMs to distribute. I went through all
of them. ..."
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=752227&listName=announce
LinuxTag 2003, Karlsruhe, Germany
---------------------------------
LinuxTag lasted 4 days and attracted approximately 20,000
visitors. The members from the German OOo community answered
questions about the spellchecker, database integration,
migration topics like macros, available books and literature,
API programming and porting.
Several vendors showed OpenOffice.org solutions. tarent GmbH
demo'd tarent Contact und tarent Finder, which offer a complete
address management leveraging OpenOffice.org. A German publisher
(Handel und Technik Verlag) presented eDOKument inter@ktiv.
This solution allows to generate electronic books from
OpenOffice.org documents. Wyona.org showed how to do content
management using OpenOffice.org and Apache Cocoon. YellowTab
wants to bring OpenOffice.org to the BeOS platform and has
already started the porting efforts.
URL of German report:
http://de.openoffice.org/veranstaltungen/linuxtag_2003.html
LinuxWorld, San Francisco, USA
------------------------------
This year's LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco seemed to be
less busy than last year. Especially there seemed to be less
geeks (and less ponytails) and more "guys in ties". Thus,
LWE SF was a bit boring compared to other shows in the past.
However, we had some good conversations with end users,
IT managers, software vendors, hardware vendors and the media.
Whil Hentzen, Ryan Singer, Josh Berkus, Christian Einfeldt,
Louis Suarez-Potts, Edward Buck and Paul Miller volunteered
at the OpenOffice.org pod on the Sun booth at LinuxWorld.
In total we gave out 3,500 OpenOffice.org CD's. Most of them
(about 3,400) were already gone on the very first day.
The following picture shows three of our "booth babes" (Whil,
Josh and Ryan):
http://www.openoffice.org/project/www/issues/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=8293
Discovered OpenOffice.org Solutions
===================================
OpenSHORE
---------
OpenSHORE is a XML based hypertext repository with a
free definable meta model that stores data about and
described by documents. The acronym SHORE means
Semantic Hypertext Object Repository.
The OpenSHORE OpenOffice Export Filter provides
installable filters to transform OpenOffice documents
to OpenSHORE documents which can be directly imported
into a OpenSHORE server instance. Filters are provided
as OpenOffice filter packages. Every user can install
these packages very easily via a OpenOffice dialog
without any further configuration.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openshore/
New OpenOffice.org To-Do's
==========================
GLOW Groupware Client
---------------------
http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/dev/opentasks.html
Other To-Do's
-------------
http://website.openoffice.org/developer/todo.html
All to-do's are marked as a TASK with the keyword
"needhelp".
In order to get new to-do's added please contact
Erwin Tenhumberg (erwin.tenhumberg@sun.com)!
New Resources
=============
German Usability Study: Linux/KDE/OOo vs. Win XP
------------------------------------------------
The German company Relevantive AG (Berlin) did a usability study
with 80 people who all were unfamiliar with Linux/KDE and
Windows XP. These people had to do different tasks like writing
a small text document, creating an email, moving files, burning
a CD, etc.
On Windows XP the test candidates needed more than 41 minutes
on average whereas the tests on Linux took a bit less than
45 minutes.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/04/HNusabilitystudy_1.html
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5060709.html
http://www.linux-usability.de/download/linux_usability_report.pdf
Making a pitch for OpenOffice
-----------------------------
By Solveig Haugland
"... As an OpenOffice.org and StarOffice instructor
and consultant, I've heard all the objections that
fearful Office users can muster. Here are five
objections that you're bound to hear when you suggest
switching and some ways to explain why those objections
are spineless. ..."
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci915065,00.html?Exclusive=True
Desktop Linux Report
--------------------
"... The KDE and GNOME desktops have reached a level of
maturity where they offer an acceptable enduser experience.
The availability of strong cross-platform application suites,
including the Mozilla/Netscape browser suite and the
OpenOffice/StarOffice office suite, complemented with other
core productivity applications ..."
http://www.osafoundation.org/desktop-linux-overview.pdf
OpenSector.org
--------------
"Welcome to OpenSector.org, where public sector decision
makers meet the people, projects and principles of the
open source software (OSS) movement to bring the benefits
of free software to their constituents and where OSS
developers and organizations can find opportunities and
advocate for adoption of free software. ..."
http://opensector.org/
German Department of the Interiors releases Migration Guide
-----------------------------------------------------------
The German Department of the Interior released a software
migration guide that is supposed to help companies and
govnernment authorities to migrate from old Microsoft
platforms to newer ones or from Windows to Linux.
The documents mentions OpenOffice.org and StarOffice
quite a few times!
German PDF file: http://download.bund.de/mlf_v1_de.pdf
StarOffice 6.0 Software Basic Programmer's Guide
------------------------------------------------
The StarOffice 6.0 Software Basic Programmer's Guide
provides an introduction to programming with
StarOffice 6.0 Basic and indicates the possible
applications provided by using StarOffice Basic in
StarOffice. To get the most out of this book, you should
be familiar with other programming languages. Extensive
examples are provided to help you quickly develop your
own StarOffice Basic programs.
http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/817-1826-10
Contact Information (regarding this newsletter)
===============================================
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