OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo) (not "OpenOffice", due to a trademark dispute) is an office applications suite. It is intended to be compatible, and directly compete with, Microsoft Office. OOo is free software under the LGPL or SISSL and is available for Microsoft Windows, Unix-like systems and Mac OS X.
OOo is based on the code from an older version of StarOffice that was acquired and made open source by Sun Microsystems with the aim of breaking the market dominance of Microsoft Office and allowing Sun access to rapid development at reduced cost. It also allowed the general public a version of StarOffice that was free including the source code.
OverviewThe OOo API is based on Universal Network Objects (UNO), the OOo component technology, and consists of a wide range of interfaces defined in a CORBA-like interface description language. The document file format used by OOo is based on XML and several export and import filters. All external formats read and written by OOo are converted back and forth from the internal XML representation. By using compression when saving the XML to disk, OOo's files are generally smaller than the equivalent binary Microsoft Office files. The OOo file format is also the basis of the OASIS Open Office XML file format standard. The upcoming OOo version 2.0 has the following goals: better interoperability with Microsoft Office; better performance, with improved speed and lower memory usage; greater scripting capabilities; better integration, particularly with GNOME; and improved usability. Snapshots of development in progress are released every few weeks in the developers' zone of OpenOffice.org. The OOo project is still essentially run by StarOffice staff, and getting non-Sun contributions into the core codebase is notoriously difficult, even for the project's other corporate sponsors [1].GNOME and KDE integrationOpenOffice.org uses its own widget toolkit and typeface-rendering libraries to ensure cross-platform portability. However, this comes at the expense of full native look and feel. Sun and Ximian are working on full integration of OOo with GNOME. Ximian includes OOo in their Ximian Desktop product and Sun in their Java Desktop System. Work is also in progress on better integration with KDE — Cuckooo (OOo as a KPart and hence fully integratable with KDE), KDE vclplug (using the Qt toolkit rather than OOo's own toolkit) and KDE NWF (Native Widget Framework, to give OOo the look of the host platform). This work was started by Jan Holesovsky and is currently sponsored by SuSE.Mac OS XThe current Mac OS X version is a port of the Unix version, using X11. A native Mac OS X port with an Aqua interface is being worked on, but will likely not be finished until 2006. The porting team is waiting on the OpenOffice 2.0 toolkit API being finalized before they can begin. Also available is NeoOffice/J, combining a Java GUI with the mechanics of OpenOffice.org to deliver a well-integrated Mac OS X system.Other projectsOther projects run alongside the main OpenOffice.org project and are easier to contribute to. These include documentation, localisation and the API. There is a scripting project which aims to be a repository for distributing macros. OpenGroupware.org (OGo) is a set of OOo extension programs to share OOo files, calendars, address books, e-mails, instant messaging and blackboards, browse the web and access other groupware applications. There is also an effort to create and share templates and other goodies at OOExtras [1].See alsoExternal links
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"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." - H. G. Wells (1866-1946) |
The primary development platforms for OOo are 