Hello,

we develop a product that uses OpenOffice.org as a document converter, running 
as a server in headless mode. We use JODConverter as a client API library.


OpenOffice.org has serious problems running in headless mode on Mac, documented 
in issue #91990. In short, a running WindowServer is required, and that makes 
running a daemon very unreliable if not impossible.


In OpenOffice.org 3.1, we solved this problem by building on Mac with the 
--with-x option. The X build doesn't require any running X server and 
everything runs perfect.


Now I see that in 3.2, the --with-x option for the Mac build has been removed, 
probably because it was considered useless and because the removal allowed to 
cleanup some heavily #ifdef-ed code. But it certainly isn't useless in headless 
mode.


Any advice on what should we do? It seems that the headless mode is kind of an 
obscure feature that is being constantly overlooked and forgotten. But if one 
wants a cross-platform software that is able to render virtually all common 
document formats into HTML or PDF, then OpenOffice.org doesn't really have any 
viable alternative.


Jarda Snajdr
Kerio Technologies

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