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October 2005

Open Source Attracts Public Sector

“File format compatibility could prompt other public-sector CIOs to consider similar moves, said Murugan Pal, founder and chief technology officer of SpikeSource, which sells combinations of open-source products and support licenses.

"Two hundred years from now, organizations won't want to be paying software royalties just so they can read documents that were formatted in a variety of old formats," he said.

Even if OpenDocument isn't the prevailing format years from now, developers will be able to easily create tools that understand it, he said. "The moment a format is not owned commercially, anybody can create an interpreter to read that format," he added. ”

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=38621

Avanquest distributing StarOffice 8

“As part of the agreement, Avanquest will make StarOffice 8 software available to consumers throughout Europe, downloadable versions of StarOffice 8 software will be available through Avanquest Online stores in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK. Online shoppers in Italy, Spain and Portugal will be able to download the software from Avanquest Online by end-October, with the retail boxed version of StarOffice 8 also available through more than 5,000 retail outlets Europe-wide by the end of the month.”

http://sourcewire.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=22927&hilite=

Why multi-party stewardship of the OpenDocument Format matters so much

“Given ODF's multi-party stewardship, the ODF standard is far more open to incorporating such changes than would be a single-party controlled format since that single party may have other offerings that are threatened by the enhancements. Although such conflicts of interest are not completely avoided by multi-party stewarded standards, their likelihood is significantly reduced by the transparency of the standards setting process.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2002

KOffice 1.4.2: Improved OpenDocument Support

"Among various bugfixes and translation improvements, the KOffice 1.4.2 release further improves support for the OASIS OpenDocument file format and interoperability with OpenOffice.org."

http://dot.kde.org/1129013255/

ISO to review OpenDocument as a standard

"The committee will send the specification out to its members probably at the end of this month, and they will have five months to study and vote on it, according to ISO spokesman Roger Frost."

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,105314,00.html

OASIS submits OpenDocument as standard

"OpenDocument will continue to be developed and maintained within OASIS, but the group is seeking the ISO standardization to make the document formats more accessible, according to an OASIS representative.

"We believe OpenDocument's approval by ISO/IEC JTC1…will serve as a gratifying endorsement, making OpenDocument even more accessible to adopters--particularly those implementing business solutions for governments--who look to ISO for assurance of long-term viability," said OASIS representative Carol Geyer."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5892649.html

Microsoft 'must support OpenDocument'

"An OASIS spokeswoman said on Wednesday the public sector is making "great strides" in terms of user demand for OpenDocument.

Microsoft will be forced to offer support for OpenDocument if more organisations decide to use the file format, according to James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk.

"ODF [OpenDocument] is quite new, and it will take a while for demand to build. But I don't believe it will need 120,000 requests a month to change Microsoft's mind; just a few more high profile departures like Massachusetts," said Governor. "If Microsoft starts to lose customers because of a lack of ODF support they will offer a plug-in before you know it.""

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39226547,00.htm

141,624 PCs with OpenOffice.org in China

According to the following article OpenOffice.org will be on 141,624 PCs:

"Six PC makers, including Haier and Founder, announced yesterday that they have won contracts to provide a total of 141,624 PCs to the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education for an educational program called, "School-to-School Project." At the same time, Sun Wah Linux's Debian-based Chinese Operating System RAYS LX was also chosen as the operating system used in all 141,624 PCs."

According to the product website, RAYS LX contains OpenOffice.org.

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051005183120307

AbiWord gets OpenDocument support from Nokia

"Support for the OpenDocument file format has been donated by INdT, Nokia's Technology Institute. Currently the OpenDocument import filter is basically complete, with support for styles, headers/footers, lists, image wrapping, text boxes, tables, footnotes/endnotes and tables of contents. OpenDocument export is planned as well and will be added during the 2.4.x series."

http://www.abiword.com/release-notes/2.4.0.phtml

Microsoft denies PDF support is a reaction to Massachusetts decision

"Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of the Microsoft Office product development group, had earlier stated that the company received 120,000 requests a month for the ability to produce PDFs from within Office.

In any case it seems unlikely that the ability to save Word or Excel documents as PDFs will sway the Massachusetts Information Technology Division, especially since Sun Microsystems' StarOffice and the open source OpenOffice.org project have supported the creation of PDFs since 2003, and also support OpenDocument."

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2ABE5E3C-3814-4A02-A259-B27E49EC20FA

RedMonk's Stephen O'Grady about Sun, Google and OpenOffice.org

"And then there's OpenOffice.org. To me this is far and away the most interesting of the potential collaboration areas (with the possible exception of OpenSolaris, but that was not really discussed a great deal on either call unlike OpenOffice.org). One of the questions I was asked at least a dozen times between yesterday and today was what Google might bring to the table with respect to the Microsoft Office alternative so often in the news of late? Well, resources for one. A web version? Possible, but I think it'd be very different functionally than the current codebase - a lot simpler. While I'll leave that speculation for another time - as we'd be here a long time - I will say that even a tacit acknowledgement of OpenOffice.org as a credible platform from Google would be a big win for the project. If they can further it technically, all the better, but Google's got sufficient clout at this point to have value just as a marketing channel."

http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/001015.html

Here are some ways Google and Sun could work together

"Let's just say you are using StarOffice Impress, which is Sun's counterpart to PowerPoint. How about a Picasa icon? Or maybe even Google Earth, for import of geographical images of that empty landscape you want to build your plant at for a presentation you are showing to bankers and developers?

Or say you are writing a document in StarOffice Writer, Sun's counterpart to (sorry, you get only one guess), Microsoft Word. You want to know more about a given subject. You simply enter a search term in the Google toolbar within Writer, click,and your browser opens up in a new window with a list of search results.

Or, for that matter, you want to share that Impress spreadsheet with your colleague. Why not IM him or her by means of GoogleTalk button along the Impress toolbar?"

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/index.php?p=680

Lenovo bundles StarOffice

"Sun Microsystems and Lenovo have announced an agreement to bundle the StarOffice 8 desktop productivity suite in Lenovo’s latest ThinkPad R51e notebook."

http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=2731&pubid=3&issueid=67

OpenOffice.org & Google's SOC

http://development.openoffice.org/summerprojects.html

eWeek: 1xExcellent plus 3xGood for StarOffice 8

A good StarOffice 8 review from eWeek:

"KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

CAPABILITY - Excellent

INTEROPERABILITY - Good

SCALABILITY - Good

MANAGEMENT - Good"

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1864224,00.asp

CRN: Five Stars for StarOffice 8

StarOffice 8 gets four and five stars in this CRN review:

"The verdict is in: StarOffice 8 is slowly, but surely, gaining steam on Microsoft Office 2003 as it climbs toward an 80 percent functionality equivalent. StarOffice’s new macro converter tool is finally solving the huge migration hurdle that customers need to transition from Office."

http://www.crn.com/sections/microsoft/microsoft.jhtml?articleId=171201631

September 2005

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 announced

OpenOffice.org is proud to announce the immediate availability of the new 1.1.5 version of the award-winning open source office suite.

This new version is initially available on the Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP), GNU/Linux (X86 and PowerPC) and Solaris (SPARC and X86) platforms.

In addition to English, builds for Czech, Danish, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Turkish are immediately available with other localisations following shortly.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 introduces import support for documents, spreadsheets and presentations in OpenDocument format. The OpenDocument format is an XML based international office document standard approved by OASIS, the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. XML based, the OpenDocument format enables the free exchange of data between compliant software packages.

For full announcement please visit:

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=256

SISSL retired

On 2 September 2005 Sun Microsystems announced that it was retiring the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL), an Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved software license. In recent weeks, the OSI, which authorises open-source licenses, has been discussing limiting license proliferation, so as to make the process of choosing a license easier for developers and companies. Sun's move is in support of that objective.

How does this move affect OpenOffice.org? As most know, OpenOffice.org code was launched under the dual banner of the SISSL and LGPL; licensees could choose which one they wanted to use, and nearly all have chosen the LGPL. Effective with the announcement that Sun is retiring the SISSL, however, OpenOffice.org will in the future only be licensed under the LGPL.

For users, the simplification means: no change. OpenOffice.org remains free to use, distribute, even sell. One can freely use it in commercial as well as government environments; nothing has changed.

For vendors, distributors, add-on and plug-in writers of OpenOffice.org: The LGPL allows for commercial distribution without affecting derived products in the same way as the GPL.

For developers and other contributors: As the code will be licensed only under the LGPL, modifications to the source must be published. (The SISSL did not require all changes to the source to be published.) As most OpenOffice.org contributors are already openly contributing to the community, we anticipate no problems. And for those who have been using the SISSL exclusively, we invite you to join us.

The OpenOffice.org Community Council

http://council.openoffice.org

http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/license-change.html

Original announcement: http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=255

Estonian Native-Lang project announced

The Native-Language Confederation is pleased to welcome a new member in its big family:

The Estonian Native-Language project, led by Ain Vagula and Peeter Russak. The Estonian Native-Lang project has a fairly impressive track record because it was active as a localization group long before it went to existence as a member of the NLC. A team composed currently of three main members, Ain Vagula, Peeter Russak and Marek Laane, has been involved in the localization work of Openoffice.org, ever since the 1.0.2. This team also developped dictionaries and distributes CD-Roms.

OpenOffice.org is making steady progress in the Baltic region, as shown by the interest of the Estonian government in getting CD-Roms including OOo in Estonian. Stay tuned, as the Estonian Native-Lang project is a small community that can achieve much for Openoffice.org!

http://et.openoffice.org

University of Toronto at Scarborough Standardizes on StarOffice for all Student Computing Resources

“Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc. today announced the University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC) has standardized on StarOffice(TM) office productivity software for all student computing resources. This ensures every student on campus has access to the leading office productivity suite for Linux, UNIX(R) and the most popular alternative for Windows-based computers. UTSC supports a mixed computing environment, and required an office productivity application that was available for all of its operating systems. Delivery of a standard, easy-to-use, and cost-effective application is central to UTSC's information technology mandate and was the key to its decision to migrate to StarOffice.”

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-27-2005/0004132492&EDATE=

Commonwealth of Massachusetts moves to open document formats

The big news for this month involves the decision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to move to open document formats, including that of the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0's OpenDocument format. This move has been given widespread acclaim with the move to a format which is open, free and unencumbered. A lot has been written about the move from praise, to rebuttals from Microsoft managers.

News of final decision:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5878869.html

OpenDocument format:

http://www.spreadopendocument.org/

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050130002908154

MP3 and Ogg of meeting with Massachusetts CIO:

http://www.softwaregarden.com/cgi-bin/oss-sig/wiki.pl?OpenFormatMeetingSept2005

Massachusetts Enterprise Technical Reference Model:http://www.mass.gov/portal/index.jsp?pageID=itdsubtopic&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Policies%2c+Standards+%26+Legal&L2=Enterprise+Architecture&L3=Enterprise+Technical+Reference+Model+-+Version+3.5&sid=Aitd

IBM response to decision:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/dw_blog_comments.jspa?blog=384&entry=94431

The story as it developed throughout the month:

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/massachusetts-planning-move-to-open.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/massachusetts-open-document-policy.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/legal-worries-led-massachusetts-to.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/more-blog-commentary-on-massachusetts.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/more-massachusetts-news.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/opinion-zdnet-blogs-on-opendocument.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/opinion-what-has-microsoft-done-for.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/opinion-states-open-document-dispute.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/opinion-geriatric-microsoft-scuppered.html

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/massachusetts-moves-ahead-sans.html

OpenOffice.org distributed at state conference of lawyers

"About 350 lawyers and Law students we expected, but, in fact, over 750 came. It was a tremendous success. We distributed 750 CD«s with OpenOffice.org, and some other free softwares, and we demonstrated it in a datashow (projector) along with some information about its use. People got astonished and surprised."

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=openoffice_org_distributed_at_state

"OpenOffice is great alternative to Microsoft"

The Chicago Sun-Times has an article by Andy Ihnatko on the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0, including favourable comparisons as an office suite as well as an overview of the OpenDocument format.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-andy22.html

"Plan by 13 Nations Urges Open Technology Standards"

Following on from the Massachusetts policy, 13 nations have put together a report to push for the adoption of open technology standards.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26093

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2005/09/plan-by-13-nations-urges-open.html

Indonesia adopts the Java Desktop System (and StarOffice / OpenOffice.org) for its national open-source desktop

"Indonesia's Ministry of Research and Technology Thursday said it will implement a Java Desktop System (JDS) on Linux as a national-standard desktop, customed-designed for its own culture. This desktop software will be a major component of the new Indonesia Goes Open Source (IGOS) program that aims to help eliminate the "digital divide in the world's largest archipelago," the ministry and Sun Microsystems said in a joint announcement."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3370503002.html

http://www.igos.web.id/english/english.htm

OpenOffice.org Conference 2005 in Koper / Capodistria, Slovenia

http://ooocon-arnes.kiberpipa.org/media/

Raising the bar on patents and standards

"Great news for OpenDocument fans. The guy from Microsoft couldn't have known this, but we were already working on a move that raises the bar on what it means to create a truly open standard. Yesterday, Sun sent to OASIS a new statement concerning patents on the OpenDocument standard.

To decode this statement for you, it says that Sun promises not to enforce any patent in any country against any implementation of the OpenDocument format (ODF). That means that, unless you're intending to sue Sun in connection with ODF, you can use ODF with confidence and ignore the FUD."

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=raising_the_bar_on_patents

August 2005

OpenOffice.org announces version 2.0 public beta 2

"This beta release is made available in order to allow a broad user base to test and evaluate the next major version of OpenOffice.org, but is not recommended for production deployment at this stage."

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=252

NeoOffice gets $25,000 donation

"A very generous individual has stepped forward and given a US$25,000 donation to NeoOffice/J. This much needed donation plus the many small donations received over the last few months provides enough funds for me to work full time on upgrading NeoOffice/J to use Java 1.4.

Upgrading NeoOffice/J to Java 1.4 is one of the critical tasks that must be done in order for NeoOffice/J to run on Apple's upcoming Intel-based machines. With this donation, one of the three critical tasks for creating a Mac Intel verison of NeoOffice/J is now fully funded.

Not only do I want to thank our generous donor, but I would also like to thank the hundreds of people who have donated to NeoOffice/J. The many small donations that NeoOffice/J has received are important and, without them, working full time on NeoOffice/J would not be possible."

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=97&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Linux pumps up fitness retailer's network, desktops

""Twenty percent of our employees are already running OpenOffice.org on Windows. Our first task was to train them on OpenOffice.org; then we will switch to Linux." Converting employees to OpenOffice.org brought formatting problems when converting files from Word format. "When people first used OpenOffice.org, the formatting was somewhat distorted," Scott says. "We sat down and worked out the differences with them. Now we have everyone first create their documents in OpenOffice.org." Other than that, the migration hasn't caused any problems. Says Scott, "It's been pretty easy.""

http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/07/22/1418204.shtml?tid=37

Kenosha Finds Big Savings in Linux

""For the most part, everybody is happy," says Schall, who adds that OpenOffice integrates smoothly with Microsoft Word and Excel documents.

A key benefit of using open source applications such as OpenOffice and the Firefox Latest News about Firefox Web browser is that they are platform independent, says Tig Kerkman, Kenosha's network administrator.

"So my users can download OpenOffice for free and use it at home on whatever hardware they have," he says."

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=37526

CheckStatus.net Switches To Open Source

""Of course there is a learning curve. It is something new and different, but after a few days most people feel like they've used it all along. OpenOffice.org has made it much easier with their OpenOffice suite. Last week we converted a law office over to OpenOffice and will be migrating them to Linux shortly.""

http://i-newswire.com/pr40322.html

http://checkstatus.net/

OpenOffice.org distributed at state conference of lawyers

"About 350 lawyers and Law students we expected, but, in fact, over 750 came. It was a tremendous success. We distributed 750 CD´s with OpenOffice.org, and some other free softwares, and we demonstrated it in a datashow (projector)along with some information about its use. People got astonished and surprised."

http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=20943

Massive Linux handout set for French schools

"Every student between the ages of 15 and 19 attending a school in Auvergne will be given a pack containing two CDs. The first CD contains free software for Microsoft Windows and Apple Computer's Mac OS X, including the OpenOffice.org office productivity application, the Firefox browser and the GIMP image editing application. The second CD is a Linux Live CD, allowing pupils to try the open source operating system without installing it. The Linux Live CD is based on Kaella, a French derivative of Knoppix."

http://news.com.com/Massive+Linux+handout+set+for+French+schools/2100-7344_3-5828644.html?tag=nefd.top

PC Magazine review OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta

"Unlike the slow, clunky original version, version 2.0 of this free productivity suite is surprisingly slick and highly compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. It even offers features not found in its expensive Microsoft counterpart."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851001,00.asp

"OpenOffice.org 2.0 reviewed"

SearchEnterpriseLinux has an article reviewing the OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta,and gives it a good recommendation.

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1116763,00.html

FOSS word processors compared: OOo Writer, AbiWord, and KWord

OpenOffice.org receives most of the attention among free and open source (FOSS) office suites, but users shouldn't forget that free software includes at least two other word processors: AbiWord, part of a projected GNOME Office, and KWord, part of the KOffice suite. From their inception, both have been playing catch-up with OpenOffice.org's Writer. But now, after several years of development, AbiWord and KWord are both reaching early maturity. How do Writer, AbiWord, and KWord compare?

http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/08/16/2038242.shtml?tid=93&tid=150

Endorsement in the Chicago Tribune

"After all, www.OpenOffice.org alone gives us Writer, a word-processing module with every feature from spell check to fancy fonts, footnotes to frames that any ordinary family or student might need or want."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0508150274aug16,1,6710884.column?coll=chi-technology-nav&ctrack=1&cset=true

Support for OASISOpenDocument format in eZ publish

"eZ publish, the CMS developed by eZ systems, a new extension for to way communcation with the OASIS Open Document format is released. This is the format used in OpenOffice.org version 2 and KWord ammong other applications."

http://newsvac.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/02/1624208

Perl module for OASIS OpenDocument at CPAN

"The OpenDocument-compliant version of Perl OpenOffice::OODoc (2.003) is now available at CPAN.

The same API supports both the OOo 1.0 and the ODF. With some care, it's now possible to write programs that simultaneously deal with several documents with different formats."

http://search.cpan.org/dist/OpenOffice-OODoc

Juli 2005

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 Release Candidate Is Here

"OpenOffice.org 1.1.5rc is ready for you to download now. It's a release candidate, meaning that it has bugs, and we would like for you to work with us in finding them and reporting them. It's easy and even fun. :-)

What's important about 1.1.5rc? It includes numerous bug fixes but just as important includes a filter for OpenDocument files, which is the type that OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the 1.9.x releases create. To download and file bug reports, follow the links below:

• OpenOffice.org 1.1.5rc:
  http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.5rc/index.html

• QA Project:
  http://qa.openoffice.org/

This release candidate arrives simultaneously in 11 languages. More languages will be available as the community creates them. Check with your Native Language Project for more information. It is also available for Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

• http://projects.openoffice.org/native-lang.html

The OpenOffice.org Team"

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=250

BharateeyaOO.o with Linux For You Magazine

The July 2005 issue of Linux For You magazine (India) will be distributed with the Hindi version of OpenOffice.org that was recently released.

http://www.linuxforu.com/

New Community Contributor Representative

Laurent Godard is the new Community Contributor Represenative (CCR) winning with 53% of the total votes. The CCR represents the OpenOffice.org community of endusers, among others. To learn more of the Community Council, visit the Council site.

Congratulations Laurent, and thanks again to all nominees and participants!

http://council.openoffice.org/

OpenOffice.org's third international conference announced

"The conference is being organised by the Slovenian and Italian OOo project teams. The first part of the program will cover topics such as development and OpenOffice.org in education, for those interested in the community and the project itself, whereas the last part of the conference will be focused on the end-users and the use of OpenOffice.org in public administration and enterprises."

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/7321

Conference page:

http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2005/index.html

OpenOffice.org at city of about 100,000

"Schall says there were no major issues with the migration to Linux on either the server or the desktop. The city never used Microsoft Latest News about Microsoft on the desktop and so is in the process of transitioning from WordPerfect to OpenOffice.

"For the most part, everybody is happy," says Schall, who adds that OpenOffice integrates smoothly with Microsoft Word and Excel documents.

A key benefit of using open source applications such as OpenOffice and the Firefox Latest News about Firefox Web browser is that they are platform independent, says Tig Kerkman, Kenosha's network administrator.

"So my users can download OpenOffice for free and use it at home on whatever hardware they have," he says."

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000002WK6K

OpenOffice.org, FOSS, and the preservation of Gaelic

"By itself, the release of OpenOffice.org for Scots Gaelic is a small event within the communities of free and open source software (FOSS). It is only one of the more than 50 localizations available for OpenOffice.org 1.x. However, the release shows a potential for FOSS that is often overlooked, particularly by those for whom English is their native language. Specifically, FOSS has the potential to help resuscitate a declining language and thereby aid in revitalizing a disintegrating culture."

http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/06/28/2040202.shtml?tid=93&tid=130&tid=132

Vienna starts desktop Linux migration

"The city is currently running Microsoft Windows 2000 and Office 2000 on its 16,000 desktop PCs, but has identified 7,500 that could be migrated to the open source productivity application OpenOffice.org. Of these, 4,800 could also be migrated to the open source operating system Linux."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39207461,00.htm

OpenOffice.org at Australian community center

"With 65 user accounts and counting, The Hut's network now includes 10 Ubuntu workstations running GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Evolution, and Firefox, an application server, a gateway box, and a backup server. There is also a dual-boot workstation and two strictly Windows boxes that sit on the network but don't rely on the file server."

http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/07/14/1942237.shtml?tid=37

Schools ink deal for open source

"The Education Ministry has signed an 18-month software licensing deal with Novell New Zealand, the ministry's first deal to provide open source software to schools.

It includes Novell's SUSE distribution of the Linux desktop operating system."

...

"The SUSE Linux operating system is packaged with open source Internet browser Firefox and Microsoft Office rival OpenOffice."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3348057a28,00.html

New USB Flash Drive Sports Bootable OS, Office Apps

"The $149 Computer-On-a-Stick is a USB flash drive with a bootable onboard Linux operating system and open source office suite."

...

"The office suite, developed by OpenOffice.org, is compatible with the most common Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook."

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166401966

Press Release:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050722005199&newsLang=en

Additional reporting:

http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050723ComputerOnAStickWhatsNext.html

Novell showcases OES

"The desktop OS includes a number of office productivity tools and applications. The Novell edition of OpenOffice provides tools like word processor, spreadsheet and presentation package that handles native Microsoft Office file formats and can export files to Adobe PDF."

http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=1902&pubid=3&issueid=56

OpenOffice.org instead of Works

"Corine has MS Works, but says it is not compatible with the more widely used Microsoft Word. She wants to know if there is a viable alternative that won't irritate her limited budget?

In the past I've suggested Open Office, at www.openoffice.org, as a reasonably compatible suite of programs that in many cases works as well as the hugely popular Microsoft product, though it is a little lean on extras.

There are converters available for MS Works, but users of Open Office do rave about its level of compatibility. Being free open-source software, it is a continuing development project based initially on the Sun Microsystems commercial product StarOffice."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10338051

[Beta Review] Openoffice.org 2

"With that in mind, there's no doubt version 2 is more than powerful enough for most home and business users and can certainly give Microsoft a run for its money, especially since it's free.

And for corporate users who need proper technical support (which isn't available with the free version), there's a retail version of the suite called Star Office. This costs $50 (£26.26 approx) and is supplied and supported by Sun Microsystems."

http://www.vnunet.com/personal-computer-world/software/2140229/openoffice-org

OpenOffice 2.0 Beta Review

"I have been exploring the use of free Open Source software as an alternative to Microsoft Software for quite some time now. I have been using Open Office for about 8 months now for my word processing needs. In a nutshell I am satisfied. Last week a new beta was released, I downloaded it as soon as it was made available, on first view, even though the key functionality in version 2.0 Beta remains largely intact, it promises dozens, possibly hundreds, of changes."

http://www.osjournal.com/content/119/Reviews/OpenOffice_2_0_Beta_Review/

KDE Plugin in the Official OpenOffice.org Packages

"A year and a half after launching the KDE.OpenOffice.org Integration Project, the KDE plugin with the Native Widget Framework has become part of the official OpenOffice.org development packages. Developer snapshot m118 is the first of the towards-2.0 milestones that contains it."

http://dot.kde.org/1122037183/

Xandros Business Desktop & StarOffice

"Over 1,000 businesses have taken up Xandros Inc's Enterprise Linux Challenge to try out its Business Desktop Linux operating system, according to the company, indicating strong potential demand for the

new product. ... The product includes Sun Microsystems Inc's StarOffice, Xandros Anti-Virus and Xandros Firewall security features, and a bundle is available with the xDMS Xandros Desktop Management Server for mass deployment."

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=64D13B18-A4ED-44C5-8CD4-EA126A9DA1F2

Valuable Data Requires Open Formats

"So I unzipped the OOo archive and checked the styles.xml file using xmlwf (checking to see if the XML was 'well-formed', which is step one of two on the road to correctness; the second hurdle is validity according to the schema). Sure enough, there was a duplicate element attribute at the line and column indicated in the cryptic OOo error message.

Edit it out, zip it back up, try again, and ... same error, different location. But after a couple of iterations the problem was fixed.

Sure, it was a pain, and sure, it should never have happened. But in an imperfect world, I'd much rather have my data in an accessible format that can be manipulated by many different tools than locked up in an undocumented, proprietary format."

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/7432

How Microsoft will try to get more money from Office users

"But likely to prove controversial is Microsoft intention to charge users an additional "premium" client access licenses (CAL) to use these higher-end versions of Office and Windows. Ballmer and other executives were light on specifics today, although in the Office market at least Microsoft seems to be going beyond its current high-end edition of Office Professional Edition, which is priced at $388.49 per copy.

...

"We will... introduce higher-value versions of existing products that really help us drive new growth and new value. We did that with the Professional edition of our Windows product, and it drove literally billions of dollars of revenue growth versus the home version," Ballmer said.

...

Microsoft's decision to introduce more SKUs and charge higher prices, though, will expose the company to more accusations from competitors that is gouging customers while IT budgets are tight. Sun Microsystems has been pushing StarOffice as a low-priced, subscription-based alternative to Office to help customers overcome the pricing issue."

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/28/microsoft_skus/

Taking the Lead in Security and Performance; New version of the TYPO3 Content Management System Released

"The powerful search engine now produces statistics about the terms entered. Editors can use this information to tailor their site to their visitors. The search engine also indexes new types of data, such as Microsoft Excel tables, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and OpenOffice.org documents."

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/7/emw262183.htm

Norway says yes to Open Source

"The Norwegian minister for modernisation (nice job title) says the government will no longer accept the use of proprietary formats.

Without mentioning Microsoft, or anyone else, directly, Morten Andreas Meyer said: ÒProprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government.””

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/28/norway_wants_os/

Microsoft looks to partners to force Office upgrades

Microsoft is investing $300m in Office marketing for fiscal 2006 and expanding the number of field sales people from 450 to more than 1,000 - Chris Capossela corporate vice president for the information worker product management group.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/08/_office_partners/

June 2005

OOoCon 2005 Call For Papers

"The third international OpenOffice.org Conference, OOoCon 2005, will be held in Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia, this year, from 28-30 September, and you are invited! Promoted this year as a joint effort by the Slovenian and Italian OpenOffice.org language projects, the conference provides the opportunity for the community to meet the developers, contributors, marketers, and others who are making OpenOffice.org one of the most important open-source projects and products today.

If you have been thinking about coding for OpenOffice.org and want tips, now is your chance; curious about OpenOffice.org's XML potential? Want to write extensions? Plug ins? Then come to the conference!

Indeed if you are not technically minded but want to join a great community come along and find out why so many people are switching to OpenOffice.org.

We have posted the call for papers (CFP) and are soliciting presentations from the general OpenOffice.org community (and then some) for papers concerning the development of OpenOffice.org to its marketing; from the global politics of free software to the technicalities of localizing OpenOffice.org.

To see all the tracks open and to obtain the template for submissions, as well as to request travel assistance, visit:

• http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2005/cfp.html

250-word abstracts in English must be submitted to callforpapers@openoffice.org by 10 July 2005. We ask that you use our template for your abstract. It can be found on the CFP page.

For more information, visit the OOoCon 2005 pages:

• http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2005/index.html

And to learn more about the lovely seaside city of Koper – Capodistria (a bilingual community), see:

• http://www.slo-istra.com/koper/eng.asp

Cheers,

The OpenOffice.org Team"

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=246

NeoOffice/J 1.1 Released!

"Planamesa Software and the NeoOffice.org community are proud to introduce NeoOfficeš/J 1.1, a Mac OS X-native version of the OpenOffice.org office suite that includes Microsoft Office-compatible word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing applications.

“This release is the culmination of many thousands of volunteer hours,” said NeoOffice/J's creator and primary developer Patrick Luby. ÒAs a result of this tremendous effort, we have a very stable, full-featured office suite for Mac OS X that supports dozens of languages.”

NeoOfficeš/J 1.1 is available today as a free download from the Planamesa

Software website at http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/."

http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/

Uno Runtime Environment (URE) released

"Dear OpenOffice.org and UNO friends,

I am pleased to announce that a sponsor, who is preferring to stay anonymous, is supporting us to do the next step in modulizing the OpenOffice.org office suite and to make its component model available independently. That means, that we are going to factor out the highly requested

• Universal Network Objects (UNO)

into its own

• Uno Runtime Environment (URE)

The URE allows the usage of UNO independently of the OpenOffice.org productivity suite. UNO is OpenOffice.orgs underlying component model, allowing language agnostic and remote transparent development of add-ins, components and applications.

As UNO has already been designed with independence in mind, the URE is mainly about bundling the appropriate libraries, executables etc. into their own package. Please have a look at the URE proposal at

• http://udk.openoffice.org/common/man/draft/standalone_uno_1_0.html

respectively the UNO homepage at

• http://udk.openoffice.org

for details. The URE is planned to be released with OOo 2.0. As OOo 2.0 is already advanced in its development, the plan is to adapt OOo to the URE with its next major (see http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=50467) release.

XPCom, Bonobo and Mono fans might want to give UNO a try and see if we can/want to bridge from one component model to another, to reach higher overall interoperability.

Distro packagers might want to provide the URE (and the OOo SDK) with their distro, not only as a prerequisite for past OOo 2.0 releases but to enable people to develop UNO components.

Porters might want to port the URE, which is mainly a packaging task, to their favorite platform.

Please send feedback to dev@udk.openoffice.org, respectively to Stephan Bergmann (sb@openoffice.org, UDK co-lead) or Kay Ramme (kr@openoffice.org, UDK lead)."

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=245

Opening of an Eurasian Languages Native-Lang Group

"The Native-Lang Confederation announces the creation of the Eurasian Languages Group. This group comes as an answer to the needs of several projects to share their ressources, information, and ease communication between them and the greater OpenOffice.org community.

As a result,

• the Russian (http://ru.openoffice.org)

• the Turkish (http://tr.openoffice.org)

• the Georgian (http://ka.openoffice.org)

• the Azeri (http://az.openoffice.org)

• the Ukrainian (http://ua.openoffice.org)

native-lang projects form this new group. Rail Aliev, co-lead of the Russian and Turkish projects, will coordinate the technical & localization efforts. While there's no clear marketing coordinator, the Eurasian Languages Group intends to increase its marketing activities and its awareness inside the OpenOffice.org community.

More Eurasian projects can be added to this list in the future. This is why the Group would like to invite the existing Armenian and Persian Native-Lang projects to join them. Later on, any native-lang project representing Slavian, Turkic, Altaic and Mongolian languages and cultures will be able to join this group.

As part of its mission, the Eurasian Native-Lang Group will have to

• coordinate localization efforts and developments

• mutualize and help the projects with the localized builds'QA.

• speed up the adoption of OpenOffice.org on a local basis and help

• coordinate its promotion

• coordinate documentation writing

• communicate with the other projects of OOo and the native-lang confederation

• ease the communication between the Eurasian native-lang projects

Best Regards,

Charles-H. Schulz,

Lead of the Native-Lang Confederation,

OpenOffice.org"

http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=5263

Once more OpenOffice.org and Open Source Softwares on CDs in India

"At New Delhi on 20th June, Hindi Free Software CD will be launched. And so will be OpenOffice.org in Hindi.

Venue: Vigyan Bhavan

Once again we are talking about 3 million CDs but this time in Hindi. So what are the other OS softwares going in? This time we are including FireFox, Gaim and Columba all localized to Hindi. Apart from that we are also packaging Transliterator addon to OpenOffice.org which supports transliteration from English to 5 Indian Languages.

I will be there at launch. Will come back and update you.

Please feel free to give this mail as much circulation as possible."

http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=20519

Sun Microsystems' Donation of StarOffice(TM) Suite To Be Distributed Through Gifts In Kind International

"Sun Microsystems and Gifts In Kind International, the world's leading charity in the field of product philanthropy, announced today a new global donation program, to provide StarOffice(TM) suite to eligible nonprofit and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the US and countries around the world. StarOffice is the world's leading office productivity software suite on the Solaris(TM) Operating System (OS) and Linux, and the leading alternative office suite on Windows."

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/06-06-2005/0003818288&EDATE=

Linux and other OSS helps connect rural African villages

"Each Communications Station features an inexpensive and durable PC with Linux and KDE, OpenOffice.org, and an unspecified web-browser. Also, of course, each station has a telephone. In part because of the open source Asterisk PBX system, villagers can now make and receive calls for the first time --including free calls between the connected villages."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7710415162.html

Indian OpenOffice roll-out continues

"Last month, ZDNet UK reported that the Indian government would distribute 3.5m free CDs containing Tamil Language versions of open source applications, including the Firefox browser and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite. Within a month the project had received requests for 85,000 CDs, thousands of downloads from its Web site, and had attracted the attention of the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39205447,00.htm

Free Indian Language Software is Hot!

"In a high profile ceremony, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairman of the National Advisory Council of India, and Thiru Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology released a free CD of software containing Hindi language tools and fonts based on open source software in New Delhi this week. To the rousing applause of the audience, Thiru Maran asserted that this freely available office suite is in every way the equal of Microsoft Office."

http://www.technetra.com/News/free_indian_language_software_is_hot_html

Additional reporting:

Linux For You magazine: http://www.linuxforu.com/

LT Scotland Introduces Gaelic Version of Office Applications Software

"Learning and Teaching Scotland (LT Scotland) launched a groundbreaking Gaelic version of Open Office today (2 June 2005) at the A' Chuisle conference in Aviemore. The software has user interfaces and features similar to other office suites but for the first time ever the language is entirely in Gaelic."

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/news/press.asp?newsid=396

OpenOffice.org Gaelic homepage:

http://gd.openoffice.org/

Additional reporting:

http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/news.jsp?sec=5&cat=99&res=86963

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3026

Trying OpenOffice

"I have a recommendation. A friend of mine who is majoring in computer science recently turned me on to OpenOffice.org. It is a free office suite by Sun Microsystems meant to compete with Microsoft Office. It has a word processor and spreadsheet, presentation and database software that effectively compete with their equivalents in Office. It is Mac and PC compatible and will open most other types of word processing software files. It will also work with any e-mail program automatically attaching the file you are working on to the message. It is also available in multiple languages, can be downloaded for free at Openoffice.org or a cd ordered at the website for a nominal cost."

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=83087

Italian lawyers in love with open source

"GL-OS is preparing to release Italian legal forms in OpenDocument format, and plans to offer custom CD-ROMs. The group is studying how to become official OOo Community Distributors. The to-do list also includes training classes (especially for OpenOffice.org) and conferences about FOSS and the forensic world. The longest-term goal is the utilization of FOSS to access both legal databases and the Processo Civile Telematico, the Italian project that is attempting to reduce as much as possible the amount of paper circulating in any given trial. Once it is implemented, all requests to the court and other documents will be written and directly filed in encrypted XML format, signed with smart cards."

http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/05/06/15/1924206.shtml?tid=147&tid=132

RedMonk's Stephen O'Grady on the OASIS OpenDocument format

"On some level these arguments fly in the face of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset that seems to be prevalent within Microsoft divisions that have generated quarter after quarter after quarter of sustained revenue growth, but I think that that mindset is going to have to change in a world that's increasingly driven by macro trends like open source and open standards. Are we at the tipping point in the office format equation was a question I debated with a vendor yesterday, and the answer, in my mind, is not yet. But the Open Document Format is still young, and I do think it ultimately has the power to fundamentally alter the context of discussions around office productivity software.

Microsoft can be proactive and aggressively compete on that basis now, or they can ignore the demands of governments and ISVs abroad. I know what I'd choose."

http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000732.html

XML, one format to rule them all</