OpenOffice - But For How Long?
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With the Sun buyout, some folks out there have been concerned as to what the future of OpenOffice (Oo) might end up being? To be honest, I was among those concerned considering just how important Oo is to the open source community and desktop Linux as well.
If Oracle is wise about all of this, we will see even more resources dumped into Oo as it would mean being able to roll it into something worth buying should they opt to continue with StarOffice. Not seeing where I am headed with this? Think of it this way. Dual-licensing on the product, with Oo available for the masses but real MS Compatibility with StarOffice. Doing this would mean both financial support for the Oo back-end, while also allowing people needing much improved MS Office compatibility something to upgrade to.
After using Oo 3.0 for some time now, there is no question that, while it is a good product, it is NOT really all that compatible with MS Office as formatting and other issues come into play when exchanging files back and forth with Microsoft’s pain in the butt file formats.
5 Comments
Tommy
April 25th, 2009
at 3:27am
I know it’s the greatest,for those of us that dont want to shed out $$$$ to Microsoft.Some business uses Open Office.Some says business should pay for a Office Suite.
But most computer users already spends plenty on other software and rarely uses a office suite.
So to us free and open source if the way to go.And i really thank them for offering a free office suite.So to keep it open is a plus.
Aaron
April 25th, 2009
at 5:15am
Even though Microsoft had a large hand in making this happen, their new file formats are an ISO standard. They are also the standard for business (the old .doc format until more people convert to Office 2007 at work). So, good compatability with MS file formats is a must for work that is used by the “masses”. That is why I don’t use Oo except occassionlly for files that are for me and not for anyone else. If the other person does not have to edit the document, I can save as PDF which works well. But, when I save a file as .doc in Oo and open it in Word, the formatting is almost always ruined.
Blaise Gomez
April 26th, 2009
at 2:02pm
the formatting issue is always the downside of oOo, is there any alternative of Office if the Oracle people kills the app?
CAA1000 (Carol Alfonso
April 26th, 2009
at 2:03pm
Some of us can’t afford MS Office. If I was to buy MS Office, at least make it less than $40 dollars. But no! Is $125+. The Star Office software, was in the $35 level, but I won’t buy that expensive, with Open Office for Free!
Emmet
April 26th, 2009
at 3:14pm
since windows vista stopped having ms office for free on it everyone is using openoffice like i am now. therefore it wouldnt make people very happy that they have to go out and buy ms office for 100 dollars which alot of people dont have.