Talk:OpenOffice.org/Archive 1

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One-sentence paragraphs

From Wikipedia:One-sentence paragraphs:

Don't use too many one-sentence paragraphs. If your entire article consists completely of one-sentence paragraphs, consolidate them into one paragraph. If you have two separate short paragraphs that are somewhat related, combine them.

I understand wanting to keep topics together, but if there are several sentences that simply state facts (rather than being a proper narrative), please consider using a list. Several of these sentences could be grouped together as they are on closely related (the rule actually says "somewhat related") topics, e.g. you could at least group the sentence on widget toolkits with the API information because they are both on development topics. I agree it makes sense to separate out separate topics, but when the entire section is so small, it makes sense to group at least some of it together, because it's all about OOo development. There are already so many articles (although I'm not suggesting this is one of them) on Wikipedia that are a collection of one sentence paragraphs that do not deserve to be called encyclopedia articles. Also the sentence on KDE integration should definitely be part of the preceding paragraph, it's certain on-topic. --Lexor 01:42, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You're right. I was probably thinking more in terms of the structure, and of those one-sentence paras as outlines of what the relevant paragraph is about, rather than what it actually is on the page :-) There's a lot more to say on both topics, and I'll try to expand on them today or tomorrow.

(I shall not edit when tired. I shall not edit when tired. I shall not edit when tired.) - David Gerard 09:40, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

OK - I've expanded most of the one-sentence paragraphs in a sensible fashion and reorganised very slightly. I still think keeping to one idea per paragraph takes precedence over eliminating single sentences, but obviously filling out the one idea is the ideal solution :-) - David Gerard 10:27, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

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(from Village pump)

OpenOffice Software Documentation

What is the Wikipedia policy on establishing pages for an ongoing FAQ/documentation project for various Open Source software? In particular, I have in mind the increasingly popular Open Office (www.openoffice.org). One of the problems with open source software is that the guides and documentation are frequently written at a single point in time by single authors, even though the software is a moving target. The web typically contains several outdated documents, and leaves some areas which are not well explained. A community effort could quickly keep documentation fresh, and offer assistance through current guides.

I realise that an encyclopaedia is not the place for software documentation, but then again, you wouldn't expect to find cartoon characters in an encyclopaedia either.

Your view and/or ruling on this would be much appreciated.

--Humanist 00:56, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

If what you describe could essentially be called a manual for OpenOffice (e.g. "OpenOffice for dolts") then that sounds like an excellent wikibook [1], from which a link from wikipedia's OpenOffice page could reasonably be made. -- Finlay McWalter 01:03, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This is exactly the mission of OpenFacts. OpenFacts runs on the same MediaWiki software we use here on Wikipedia, and has as its aim documenting open source software. --Brion 03:36, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I believe what you are suggesting is covered by http://ooo.progbits.com/ - which is listed in the OOo article :-) - David Gerard 18:02, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

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OOo is notoriously large and slow

Isn't that a bit POV?

• It's not very large (download edition is 60MB, while MSOffice has two CDs), as for memory used, it's in the limits of MSOffice
• the time of start is not sesisable greater than that of the MSOffice. Bogdan | Talk 12:29, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is large and slow, and its size and speed problems are well-known. I think that meets the definition of "notorious".

Of course, "notoriously large and slow" implies "compared to Microsoft Office." At which point we have to work out which version of MS Office we're talking about, and which versions OOo is replacing. Let's keep in mind here that MS Office's greatest competition is its own previous versions.

At work, I use a Windows NT4 box (yes, still NT4) with 128MB memory and Office 97. OOo is much larger and spends most of its time at startup thrashing. Even with the preload. Whatever fantasist at Sun claimed OOo could get by with 64MB obviously hadn't tried to use it that way ...

OOo 638c was REALLY fat and low. OOo 1.0 was less so, but still fat and slow. OOo 1.1 was even less so, but still fat and slow - I would seriously question that the problems are solved as of 1.1. I'm now using development snapshots on the way to 2.0 (currently on 680_m32) and it is now getting to be a lot better.

So I stand by the original "large and slow" (using this machine with twice the memory listed in the specs) and the "notoriously", as this fact is well-known; and, as implied by my original phrasing, it will be a lot better for 2.0. - David Gerard 15:40, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I'm not sure it's appropriate wording for an encyclopedia. How about replacing 'notoriously' with 'considered by many to be'?

Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. I am entirely unconvinced it's an intrinsically unencyclopaedic word. Same for the bit further down where Sun's reluctance to accept outside contributions may fairly be called "notorious." (That one has a link attached, though I don't think that's necessary.)

OpenOffice.org is as bloated as a very bloated thing. 2.0 will be better in this regard, much as (say) Mozilla has improved tremendously in all respects. But its bloat is in fact notorious. That's the correct word for what it was. - David Gerard 16:01, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Good point - I shall avoid weasellyness in future. I'm still not sure I'd agree with the use of 'notorious' in that context, but the latest rewrites seem to have eliminated the issue anyway.--ALargeElk 16:21, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC) (signature added later as I forgot)

Since the issue has been resolved, this isn't of much consequence, but I'd like to observe anyway that notorious just means well known (i.e, noted), and doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation, although it is predominantly used that way. -- Arvindn 16:18, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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I replaced 'Unix-like' by GNU/Linux and Solaris. This is for the following reasons:

• Technically Mac OS X qualifies as 'Unix-like'.
• Not all Unix-like systems will run OpenOffice.org. In fact, only a subset of them do.

FreeBSD? Although the current MacOSX version is basically the Unix version ported, as you say. But "Unix-like" avoids having to make an unnecessarily lengthy list - David Gerard 17:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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I shortened Microsoft Executive' quote, because the point of the original paragraph is to show that Microsoft is freightned, not to relay its contreversial marketing. Otherwise, we should also put Louis Suarez-Potts answer "They are wrong. Was MS Office 97 able to export any file as a PDF? Export presentations as Macromedia Shockwave Flash files? Was MS 97 using XML for all its files? Functionally, we are leading Microsoft Office.". I wonder indeed if Microsoft opinion really belongs to this encyclopedia, especially since we don't even talks about OOo marketing project

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This article feels highly "slashdoter" centric view. It talks about anecdotical feature such as the memory size of the quicklauncher, but doesn't even mention general concepts like Style-orientation, Object Navigator, or its highly "separating content and visual" policy. Maybe someone could arrange the article to a more encyclopedia-like one, at least the "overview" part.

Criticism of OpenOffice.org

There is criticism of Oo.org's reliance of Java. See [2]. Java doesn't meet Debian's definition of free and open software, so therefore can't be compiled into the core distribution. Can we note this? - 203.35.154.254 07:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've added some info about the Java issue, which has since been put into its own section. I disagree with that approach; information about OOo's good points and bad points should be integrated into the whole of the article, wherever appropriate. There may be a better place for the Java stuff, but I don't the idea of a special "free speech zone" where criticism belongs. Tverbeek 15:02, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is commonly known as a "storm in a teacup". With the exception of Base, only some minor/obscure functionality of OOo is dependant on JRE. It's not like the suite is crippled without JRE - you can still do 99% of word-processing and spreadsheet tasks without it. Further, OOo wouldn't exist without Sun either, so it's not entirely suprising/unexpected that parts ended up needing Sun code. Dan100 21:09, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

True, but FSS advocates need code that is fully free; no closed source code, period. Besides, OOo was seen as the FOSS alternative to Microsoft Office, and with OOo using JRE, they have little to turn back on in terms of an alternative (fully) free office suite (maybe KOffice, but that is not cross platform). --Bash 23:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Edit Edit Edit

Has anyone besides myself noticed the three edit shortcuts to the right of the paragraph about Calc? I would fix it myself, but I afraid that I would FUBAR it. Can it be fixed? Two Halves, who rather concerned and not upon a pogocycle at this time...

Those are the "edit" links for the Calc section, the Writer section, and the Components section. They're stacked there because of the two screenshot images along the right, which prevent them from being at the right margin where they belong. It's mostly an HTML rendering glitch that probably can't be fixed without moving the images elsewhere. Tverbeek 13:22, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Explanation of large changes

I've made a lot of changes, so I though I'd better explain why:

I rewrote the opening. The original seemed way too obsessed with unimportant details very early on. No-one cares enough that it's "OpenOffice.org" and not "OpenOffice" to put it in brackets as the first piece of information blasted at the poor reader. So I moved it until the last part of the intro.

I removed the links to the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Those sorts of things belong on the open source page, and I tried to stick to the message that OpenOffice.org was open sourced in order to make a low-cost, high-quality and open alternative.

I've also removed a lot of redundant linking.

I've tried to standardise on using the name OpenOffice.org -- OOo is spectacularly ugly jargon, and I suspect that it was introduced to reduce typing. That brings me onto the removal of the constant redundant use of the project name (OOo), which I've tried to reduce -- although there's always the danger of introducing ambiguity, so I'd appreciate others giving it a good read.

I tried to clean up the GNOME/KDE integration section -- the KDE bit in particular was just a blizzard of acronyms and shoehorning-in of project names. I've tried to be fair and clear and readable, and give the reader the right impression that work is progressing to integrate with both desktops. If I've removed something you consider vital, it was not intentional.

In short, I've tried to make it read more like an article than a loosely organised collection of facts. I think there's still a lot of work to be done. For example, lots of external links need to be moved to the end; the History section needs a rewrite to be more article-ish as does the Development section... and I'm sure I've introduced plenty of mistakes of my own. It really needs more people to go through it and just try to read it like an article and correct the parts where that impression fails. All, IMO, of course. Motor 21:25, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

Additional: I also moved some info from the history section into a "Market Share" section of it's own (which still needs an awful lot of work)Motor 21:34, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

Impress

It also suffers from slow performance and poor smoothness of animations.

Is this true? I don't know since I don't use Impress. I just carried the claim across from the old version. Slow... compared to what? Powerpoint? Motor 22:49, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

Don't know. I only use OOo Word. And overall OOo is slooooooooooow (compared to MS Office 2000 on the same machine). So I don't think Impress would be an exception.--minghong 20:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

New Screenshot?

Im thinking it may be nearly time to add a 2.0 Beta screenshot as the main one? It really is quite stable, and makes the office suite look so much better. Cheers, Ian // omega21

I don't think the main image should be replaced until the new version is officially released -- although I can't see a problem with adding, to the relevant parts of the article, a few more shots of things that will be new in 2.0... as long as they are clearly marked as such. - Motor (talk)) 08:03:43, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

Release version updates

I don't know whether this release version scheme is working out (personally I think it's too complex and we should only be tracking stable versions anyway), but the current comment telling people what to do leaves a big "Do not edit this page" as almost the first thing a newbie sees after clicking on the edit page link. I don't think that's a good idea... any other opinions? - Motor (talk) 09:12:26, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

If there are no opinions on this, I'm going to revert it back to the original infobox. Its simpler and friendlier (well, as friendly as templates get). The new infobox doesn't appear to solve any actual problems. - Motor (talk) 17:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Market share section (and Motor's Non-NPOV edits)

What is the reason Motor so persistently insists on keeping a single link in the market share section? It comes to us by the way of a third or forth derivative with no direct source stated in this link. I finally traced the source down to this report by Forrester Research published on September 2003. Two things: the report is old, so the link to the back-draft migration may be a valid addition for NPOV-proofing the section. Second, there is no way (short of shelling out $600+) for us to verify the number and their methodology in the first place.

From what I saw in other sources the same number was derived as follows: "there are reported 20 out of 140 major corporations using OOo, so OOo market share is obviously 14%!" ...Hello?! What about parallel installs? Say, I have OOo 1.1.6 + 2.0 beta installed along with MSO 2003, what's OOo market share here, 67%? What about size of those companies, is it 1/7 of the total or larger or smaller? What about those 2 years since the publication date? Dit the share go up or down? I don't like this section as it is now, does it show? :)

1. I don't like the section at all -- hence the reason I chopped it back to just the reference to large enterprise market share with the acknowledgement that Microsoft Office is still completely dominant. I'd rather the section is removed altogether.
2. The section is already unbiased (NPOV), if rather poorly sourced and pointless IMO (which hardly makes it unique in this article).
3. The comment "migration is apparently a two-way process" was hardly unbiased, and appeared just after a slashdot story on one group of people who stopped using it, and was added by an IP-only user. Wikipedia is not for lodging every single backwards and forwards switch between Office and OpenOffice.org. It tells you nothing about market share. So yes, I removed it while I was chopping out most of the broken links and worthless information in the section -- and then removed it again when you re-added it.

- Motor (talk) 08:18:02, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

UNO?

Where's the info on Universal Network Objects? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Criticism: Java accuracy Dispute

From the article: "Also, a number of operating system distributions either do not include a complete JRE due to licensing terms (for example, Debian GNU/Linux), or cannot include one because it is not available (for example, FreeBSD, Yellow Dog Linux)

This is VERY misleading. Java is available for debian, it can not be included in the core distribution since it's not open source. Thus it's one download away. Microsoft Windows does not include java in its core distribution either, why is this issue being raised then?. FreeBSD's JRE: [3] Debian JRE: [4] Yellowdog linux IBM JRE: [5]. Under a 1.5 Centrino Laptop the load time for OOo writer (rough stopwatch) is seven seconds whether Java is enabled or not. Could someone verify that the loading time is slower if java is used? (remember to keep quickstarter off).

For the same reason that some people want it to stress that OOo is a "resource hog" (as if it's any more of a hog than any other large, complex program): they have an axe to grind. -- BBlackmoor ^(talk), 2005-12-12 T 20:57 Z

Agreed. I went ahead and removed the disputed sentences for now.

Point releases

I doubt that it is a good idea to keep up with point releases of software on wikipedia. (the latest OOo point release is 1.02 already ;-) ) snoyes 17:46 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)

What is the point to have MySQL in "see also"? PostgreSQL is also interesting.. GerardM 14:44, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've no idea ... that was in there already. David Gerard 14:34, Jan 9, 2004 (UTC)

This article seems to have started life as some sort of press release; still needs some NPOV. One other thing that I think needs mention is that, despite being open source and talking about 'community' a lot, the development of the OpenOffice core is still very much under rigid Sun/StarDivision control, with outside developers having great difficulty getting code in - a 'cathedral' rather than 'bazaar' development model. I'm not sure how to say that in a suitably NPOV manner. David Gerard 14:34, Jan 9, 2004 (UTC)

There was an Openoffice release by the Hungarian group which included more templates & stuff. It was from some hungarian site. I think OpenOffice.hu or something offering more templates, fonts & stuff. There is no info. on this on the web page. Shirishag75 10:13, Jan 30 (IST)