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Jim Long wrote: >>From: Brendan >>I think you may have it reversed. SO is built from the OO source, not the >>other way around. > > > But there were 5 versions of StarOffice first. The OpenOffice source was > released to the open source community by Sun as they were redesigning > StarOffice in preparation for version 6. So you could say that both OO > and SO 6 (and 7) were built on OO source, but Sun was the one who > developed the OO source in the first place, and released it to the public > so that free software developers could do their thing and turn it into a > nice, free office suite. I participate loosely in the CD-ROM and Documentation projects of oo.org, but I'm no expert. However, I did want to make the following subtle clarification. As I recall, StarOffice was originally developed in Germany (and I believe it was open source??), and SUN bought the company so they could have an alternative to MS Office. A quick check of of the oo.org site reveals this. Sun deserves credit for their additions to OpenOffice since 1999, their continued financial support of the project and for releasing the project under the LGPL ********* from http://www.openoffice.org/about.html#history ********* *Historical background* StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation. The OpenOffice.org source code initially includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and scriptable functionality, including Java(TM) APIs. This source technology introduces the next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite as separate applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous other features are also present including XML-based file formats and other resources. Foundations of Office Productivity in a Networked Age, a white paper from Sun available on this site, presents a general outline for the technology roadmap. There you will find outlined the design of the source. However, because of the nature of open source, the community at large is ultimately responsible for realizing OpenOffice.org's promises. A FAQ addresses the changing differences between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. ******************************************************************** As for concerns that Sun could suddenly withdraw financial support, wreaking havoc on the viability of the project, I flatly dismiss this possibility. I think there are too many other financial interests who would step in to fill the void, and I also think there are way too many self-interested users/programmers who would fill the void too. Right now, with cozy support from a central sponsor and enough (I could say dramatic) progress in the project, those other interests are held in check. Open Source *is* the free market. Now that Sun is 'friendly' with (paid off) by Microsoft, I could see them backing away from oo.org, but for the above reasons, I don't think that scenario would matter to oo.org success. My (call it paranoid) concern is that Microsoft knows that oo.org is a powerful threat as an open source project period, and thus will attempt to subvert oo.org through their newfound clout with Sun by controlling it as a 'sponsor'. Microsoft would benefit if they could delay the progress of oo.org, causing competing projects like KOffice or AbiWord to distract attention and adoption rates away from oo.org. They've no doubt learned a lesson from the Mozilla project about what can happen if you try to let something die on the vine. I do not have good statistics on the market share of Mozilla these days, but boy it sure looks like it's kicking IE's butt again after it was supposedly completely dead. Kinda reminds me of all those horror movies where the monster is shot dead, and as soon as you turn your back, it roars back to life. ;-) MS Access and MS SQL Server are both awful products. I can't wait for oo.org to spruce up the database GUI frontend so that I can really start offering oo.org plus MySQL / PostGres as a complete replacement for MS. --Greg
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