Subject: RE: implications of GPL'd StarOffice
From: Uncle Meat (kcsmart@worldinter.net)
Date: Sun Jul 23 2000 - 12:51:22 CDT
On 23-Jul-2000 James W. Lindenschmidt opined:
> Greetings, everyone.
>
> I was wondering what, if any, implications there would be for AbiWord of
> Sun's recent decision to GPL StarOffice.
>
> As a paper-writing student end-user type, I have been using AbiWord for
> short notes, and StarWriter for more advanced/longer papers. My only
> qualm about StarOffice, until this week, was that it wasn't Free
> software.
>
> Now, this has changed. Given that I think StarOffice 5.2 is fabulous,
> and that they are working toward a GPL release with 6.0, frankly I am
> finding fewer reasons to use AbiWord. It's not that I have anything
> against AbiWord (quite the contrary), but being realistic, there's
> currently no comparison between AbiWord and StarWriter. If they are both
> GPL'd, why continue with AbiWord?
>
> Do you think AbiWord will incorporate some of the OpenOffice code?
>
> Just wondering...
If more can be done to improve AbiWord, I'm for it. But, I don't consider
endless addtional bloat to be improvement.
My distatse with SO is that it absolutely insists on loading everything it
can fit into memory when it starts. If I want to read or write a document,
I have no use for all of the graphics and internet crap along with it.
I have it installed only because of some filters it has for imports. I also
have WP8 and AbiWord for similar reasons. I default to AbiWord more and
more since it has much smaller footprint. If the filters ever reach my
needs (both import and export), SO and WP will disappear.
PLEASE!!!!!!!! Don't create another office suite that has every imaginable
feature that will never be used by the vast majority of users just so that
we can have everything all in one package. We already have more than enough
of those! If more functionality is needed, make it modular (as in Siag),
not as so many others (SO, koffice [kde period!] M$, offix, etc) have
thrust upon us!
-- How do you explain Wayne Newton's power over millions.
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