Open Office 3.0 Beta

Submitted by keizer_or on May 7, 2008 - 12:38pm

Is there any plans to produce a portable version of Open Office 3.0 Beta?


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I just took a look at the

I just took a look at the new beta. It seems to be the same as the current version.

I don't know if John will do a version of it. I seen to remember something from the OpenOffice website that has changed in the licensing. I think know you need to get permission to redistribute the program.

In short, I don't know of plans to do a beta, but then, John hasn't said anything.

Good gracious! There goes a kangaroo. I must have a practice with me boomerang- Now then, slowly back
If you throw that thing at me, I'll jump right on your head.
Innit marvellous? Got a land full of kangaroos and I had to pick that one.

Can you find that licensing

Can you find that licensing change again? I can't seem to find it anywhere. It would really be a shame if OpenOffice.org started to close up like that.

Edit: it's here http://www.openoffice.org/license.html

The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705

Yes, its a shame. But

Yes, its a shame. But hopefully they'll let John keep doing what he's doing.

Good gracious! There goes a kangaroo. I must have a practice with me boomerang- Now then, slowly back
If you throw that thing at me, I'll jump right on your head.
Innit marvellous? Got a land full of kangaroos and I had to pick that one.

From what I read, they arent

From what I read, they arent closing it up at all. They are switching to LGPL v3. the agreement with Sun is you contribute code to their project, and the agreement is to say that you share the rights of the code with Sun.

The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705

There could be some problems making beta3 portable

... on systems without installed c++ runtime. That means that OpenOffice.org and the portable version too will no longer work on win98/me, cause there are no c++ runtimes for this systems.

There are also some changes in the structure of OpenOffice.org. I will have a little look on the beta and will create a portable in the next days (if John isn't quicker but if I remember well he is no fan of portables for Beta versions).

You've paid for Sotware more or less?
What You need is OSS!

Thank you

That is most welcome news. I know that several users (read: me) have been anxiously awaiting OOo 3 (even if it is still in beta) as a portable so we can finally go back to using it for our Office needs, since the world now seems to be working exclusively in .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc. Thanks again, we (I) wait eagerly in the wings.

"We recognize the present is half as pleasant as our nostalgia for the past that we’ve presented, recast and reinvented, until it's how we meant it." -BNL

Not Really

Hardly anyone is using the new formats because when they do, they get burned. Case in point, my friend who lost 3 months of job hunting because not one recruiter could open his resume. Or my friend who almost lost her job for delaying a major network show's footage by not getting her stuff in on time (she'd used Word at Kinko's which was Word 2007... sent it in DOCX... network couldn't use it).

No one should be using the Office 2007 formats for anything if they can help it.

Live with purpose.

Autch. Sending resume in

Autch. Sending resume in some weird format was never advised. It used to be that you send your resume in some very old word .doc format that all machines can open. But as today doc files can be scriptable it might even more wise to send it as txt format. PDF might also be usefull but it's big compared to word 6 .doc or txt.

I think what he meant is that these document formats are somehow 'future proof' because they aren't in some propitairy binary format. So while it's not advised to send it out to people who use a certain office application without needing them to download Open Office for example, the Open Office formats might be used for archiving.

So the bottom line is, never use some bleeding edge format that needs the latest version of whatsoever, or at least, that is what I was taught. (Boy, I thought that was kinda universal knowledge...

Future Proof

Actually, the OpenOffice.org default of Open Document Format would be a far better bet for a truely future proof format. It already works with nearly all office software.

Whatever becomes of Microsoft's format in terms of support by other software won't be the same as Office 2007 which uses a variation of it that isn't the same as the version that ISO will be working with. And Microsoft's format will probably be encumbered by patents at some point whereas Open Document Format won't be.

Live with purpose.

Wow...

All I was saying was that I was happy someone was looking into making OOo 3 portable. I didn't realize at the time that I was going to be roasted for offering gratitude, or explaining my circumstances. Lesson learned, I won't make that mistake again.

"We recognize the present is half as pleasant as our nostalgia for the past that we’ve presented, recast and reinvented, until it's how we meant it." -BNL

Roasted?

You're not being roasted. Of course we're going to be making OpenOffice.org portable. It's just that someone had given support for the Microsoft Office XML format as a reason to look forward to it and some advice was given to avoid that format if you can for good reasons... of course, not everyone can because, say, work forces them to use that format. But why would you take any of that personally?

Live with purpose.

Yeah

Yeah, MicroSoft's XML based format accommodates (closed source) binary parts. It's my guess that they change the format every new version of Office/Word to lure (other) users into upgrading. But that costs money...

Open Office on the other hand is free and therefor users are more likely to be more up-to-date with the software. And they don't change their format every release (I hope) which would make for a more usable format.

I think the number of improvements on office suites is nowadays more about thinking up another function to sell another new 'update'. And I get the feeling 99% of all office application users use only 1% of a suite's functionality.

Does MS Office load native OpenOffice.org formats nowadays? I remember there was some talk about it some years ago.

Side by side or regular install?

OpenOffice.org 3. Beta1 Portable is ready to launch...
... but should it be an regular installation in OpenOfficePortable or a 'side by side' one eg. OpenOfficePortable3 by default?

You've paid for Sotware more or less?
What You need is OSS!

Side By Side

We always do side by side of anything that's a beta. Using OpenOfficePortableTest as the default is the best idea. And have the suffix " (Test)" attached to all the menu entries in the launchers and in appinfo.ini. But, at the same time, ensure that it handles upgrading an existing OpenOffice.org install.

You doing this in English and German (just guessing)?

Live with purpose.

OK,

Sure I'll create an English and German Version with OpenOfficePortableTest, the suffix test and an modified splash (OpenOfficePortable splash in grey with 'Test Release - for development only) ok?

Upgrade of existing version will be supported. I'm thinking about some additional checks in the setup (for example check if the Suite and the Documents /temp path exists an set the paths depending on the result).

The version will be available for test this week in the development section.

You've paid for Sotware more or less?
What You need is OSS!

Polish

You can use the standard splash for it. As long as it's named with the test suffix, we're good. If you're interested in maintaining it going forward (each beta, upgrades, etc) we can even publicly release it with a frontpage story.

BTW - Would you be interested in taking over maintenance of OpenOffice.org Portable in general? I'm trying to free up more time to organize and streamline things and enable other devs to get apps out and less time supporting all the apps I have.

Live with purpose.

This will be great!

You know that OpenOffice.org (Portable or not ;-) ) is on top of my projects.
I'll be glad to take over this great part of Your work.

In this case I'll try to get the releases of OpenOffice.org Portable just in time (with the original releases) like Your other Apps (the mozilla family and all the others) and than (later) offer some additional stuff like language packs, light versions and so on.

Thank You John

You've paid for Sotware more or less?
What You need is OSS!