######################################################################### 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) =============================================== newsletter@marketing.openoffice.org or erwin.tenhumberg@sun.com