Dear All
This is the draft for the newsletter for this month. It is a bit thin
as it seems to be a bit of a slow news month. The only things which
need to be added will be:
* statistics
* any other conferences
* possible report of the OOo distribution effort in India
* any other news items
Any comments, changes and suggestions would be gratefully received.
With Thanks
Deepankar
-----
------------------------------------------------------------------------
#########################################################################
OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 02 - Issue 12 - 6/2005
Please send news clippings to:
[email protected]
#########################################################################
Highlights in this Newsletter
#########################################################################
* OOoCon 2005 Call For Papers (Announcements)
* NeoOffice/J 1.1 Released! (Announcements)
* OpenOffice.org Writer vs. Microsoft Word (Studies & Reports)
#########################################################################
Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our
To Do List!!
http://www.openoffice.org/contributing.html
http://development.openoffice.org/todo.html
#########################################################################
Announcements
#########################################################################
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
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 NeoOffice¨/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.
ÒThis release is the culmination of many thousands of volunteer hours,Ó
said NeoOffice¨/J 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.Ó
NeoOffice¨/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/
Announcement Uno Runtime Environment (URE)
------------------------------------------
"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 [email protected], respectively to Stephan
Bergmann ([EMAIL PROTECTED], UDK co-lead) or Kay Ramme
([EMAIL PROTECTED], UDK lead)."
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=245
Announcement Archive
--------------------
All new and past annoucements can be found in the announcement list
mailing list archive at
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
#################################ADVERT##################################
The Mozilla Links newsletter
---------------------------
"The Mozilla Links Newsletter is a publication covering topics about
the Mozilla open source project, the Mozilla Foundation, other Mozilla
independent projects, marketing, and mostly anything related to the
Mozilla project."
To subscribe visit:
http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/newsletter/
#################################ADVERT##################################
News from the Native-Language Confederation
#########################################################################
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
------------------------------------------------------------------
[Courtesy of RKVS Raman]
"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
Success Stories
#########################################################################
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
United Kingdom
==============
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
Studies & Reports
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org Writer vs. Microsoft Word
----------------------------------------
"Several years ago, I wrote "Opening Up to OpenOffice.org: Finding an
Alternative to Microsoft Word" -- my most quoted article. At that time
OpenOffice.org (OOo) was barely known, so I confined myself to
highlights. Now that OOo is starting to be used in business, a more
detailed look seems overdue. Accordingly, I compared the beta of OOo
Writer 2.0 with Microsoft Word 2003."
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/06/14/2137222.shtml?tid=152&tid=93
Open-source versus Microsoft in office arena
--------------------------------------------
"In fact, if the reports offered by the analysis companies are
accurate, OpenOffice already has a 10% market share, at least according
to IDC, Jupiter and Gartner, while Forrester is even more optimistic
about the open-source solution, evaluating its market share at 15%."
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Open-source-versus-Microsoft-in-office-arena-2554.shtml
Windows shopping
----------------
"How many will decide not to follow Microsoft is another issue. So far,
there just aren't that many companies moving to alternatives such as
StarOffice or OpenOffice.org. According to Gartner researchers, these
accounted for just more than 1% of business installations in Europe at
the end of last year. And while plenty of businesses have told Gartner
they're planning to move to newer versions of Microsoft Office by the
end of this year, only 2% are planning to install open source
alternatives."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1496720,00.html
Resources
#########################################################################
Why Open Source is Good for Education
-------------------------------------
"OpenOffice.org allows you to create a PDF version of your document
without the need for a third-party application. PDF generation, with
support for embedded thumbnail images and hyperlinks, is built-in to
the application. It also includes the capability of saving your
presentations in HTML format for web deployment but what is even better
is it allows you to save presentations in Flash, making it more
interactive and even available for viewing on high-end PDAs. In
addition, the upcoming OpenOffice.org version 2.0 allows documents to
be signed electronically. Digital signatures are now supported.All
these are, of course, available for free -- just go to
http://www.openoffice.org to get the package and it runs on Linux,
Windows and the Mac and even comes in different languages!"
http://www.mb.com.ph/TECH2005053135836.html
Give Office the push
--------------------
"OpenOffice.org now punches like a contender, with a word- processor,
spreadsheet, drawing tool and database that, for most people, should do
the trick. Elegant and simple, it can open and save common Office
files, so you can view documents sent to you from people who stick with
Microsoft. It is also absolutely free, and, increasingly, is bundled
with versions of Linux that are attractive ways to revive ageing PCs."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2103-1650596,00.html
All in the open
---------------
"FOR open source freaks, this is nothing new. But for newbies, who use
the PC as if it has just been taken out from the carton, this is a
must-read. Specially if you have been using proprietary software,
particularly the office suite. A totally free of cost Office package,
which includes a word processor, a worksheet, an html composer among
other things is making waves all over. Net watchers claim that
OpenOffice, a free open source package has already captured 10 per cent
of the market. This is a staggering number considering the fact that it
has been in the market for three years only, compared to 10 years of
Microsoft Office. Interestingly, Indian users account for one of the
largest chunk of downloads. "
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=135424
Licenced to simplify
--------------------
"However, there are multiple licences that fall under the ambit of open
source. Having said that, there are companies such as Tata Power that
have gone for a Ôopen sourceÕ deployment. Avers Batliwala, ÒWe are
using OpenOffice.org and are shortly planning to upgrade to version
2.Ó"
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050620/management01.shtml
Three-year wait ends for Debian fans
------------------------------------
"The Debian Project has finally released a long-anticipated new version
of its widely-used Linux distribution.
In a statement, project leaders said salient improvements in the
distribution included improved installation routines and software
selection tools, as well as integrated cryptography and the inclusion
for the first time of Sun Microsystem's OpenOffice.org office suite."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39202170,00.htm
Erwin Tenhumberg's Weblog
-------------------------
Includes news and tips on the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer
Customer & User Feedback
#########################################################################
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
High Five - Five must-have computer applications for home users
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Ok, all those who can legally afford MS Office, please raise their
hands. Ookkaay, now what if there was a suite that offered most of the
features that you require (the operative word here) at zero price? Too
good to be true you think. Well, check out OpenOffice and judge for
yourself. OpenOffice comes with a word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation manager, drawing package et al, that do the job quickly
and painlessly. And itÕs free! Still stunned? Try www.openoffice.org"
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=135000
Developer and Administrator News
#########################################################################
Microsoft Office Open XML Formats: "We Already Got One"
-------------------------------------------------------
[Contributed by Erwin Tenhumberg]
"When asked why Microsoft did not use the OASIS (Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards) OpenOffice.org XML
file format, Paoli answered, "Sun standardized their own. We could have
used a format from others and shoehorned in functionality, but our
design needs to be different because we have 400 million legacy users.
Moving 400 million users to XML is a complex problem.""
http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000732.html
Tips, Tricks & How-Tos
#########################################################################
Open Systems, Open Standards
----------------------------
"A few weeks ago, I wrote about the OpenOffice.org (OOo) Office
productivity suite. OOo Office uses standard and open file formats.
Beneath the sxw, sxc and sxi and the new OASIS Open Document formatted
files are XML-files - you can use an ordinary text editor to view the
content of your document. This prevents your precious documents from
being locked-in by a certain application since your data can still be
recovered should you decide not to use OOo Office anymore."
http://www.mb.com.ph/TECH2005062037421.html
Competitive/Market Info
#########################################################################
XML, one format to rule them all
--------------------------------
"Interoperability will be greatly improved, since the new XML format
will be supported by three of the most important and utilized
applications from MS Office.
But the ones to benefit the most from this format will be Open Office
and StarOffice, which due to MicrosoftÕs policy not to charge any sum
of money for Open XML Format will be able to offer much easier support
for the documents created with MS Office."
http://news.softpedia.com/news/XML-one-format-to-rule-them-all-2570.shtml
MS Office XML Formats Not OK with GNU
-------------------------------------
"The royalty-free license under which Microsoft plans to make its
upcoming new Office Open XML Formats widely available is incompatible
with the GNU General Public License and will thus prevent many free and
open-source software projects from using the formats, community
officials say.
In addition, a leading patent official is calling into question the
validity and enforceability of the Microsoft Corp. license and
suggesting that free and open-source software developers need not
comply with its conditions."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1829356,00.asp
Additional reporting:
http://htmlfixit.com/?p=706
Sun Donates StarOffice to Non-Profits
-------------------------------------
"Sun is giving the gift of StarOffice to nonprofit and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in the United States and internationally. The
software will be distributed through a partnership with Gifts In Kind
International."
http://www.betanews.com/article/Sun_Donates_StarOffice_to_NonProfits/1118687222
Possible prior art for Microsoft XML patent found
-------------------------------------------------
"The row over Microsoft's XML patent has taken another twist with the
discovery of an open source application on Sourceforge for converting
C++ programming objects into XML files that pre-dates the patent
An open source application could potentially invalidate a patent that
Microsoft was granted for XML serialisation last week."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39201784,00.htm
New default XML formats in the next version of Office
-----------------------------------------------------
"To summarize really quickly whatÕs going on, there will be new XML
formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in the next version of Office,
and they will be the default for each. Without getting too technical,
here are some basic points I think are important"
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/06/01/424085.aspx
MS Office XML news roundup
--------------------------
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B768CE5D-740F-405E-ABE5-6A377EA8C5D7
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1459
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163702927
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/2235466750
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121104,00.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4603539.stm
http://news.com.com/2102-1012_3-5731225.html?tag=st.util.print
Commentary:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/02/1231253
Statistics
#########################################################################
Events
#########################################################################
Upcoming
========
OOoCon 2005
-----------
OpenOffice.org Conference
September 28th - 30th 2005
Koper - Capodistria, Slovenia
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/
OSCON 2005
----------
O'Reilly Open Source Convention
August 1-5, 2005
Portland, OR, USA
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2005/
EuroOSCON 2005
--------------
O'Reilly European Open Source Convention 2005
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
October 17-20, 2005
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/eurooscon/create/e_sess
Newsletter Archive
#########################################################################
Past issues of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter can be found in the archive
of the announce mailing list:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
Contact Information (regarding this newsletter)
#########################################################################
[email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.9/23 - Release Date: 20/06/2005
