Re: Information Request on AbiWord

From: Alan Horkan (horkana@maths.tcd.ie)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2003 - 14:50:41 EDT

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    I am sending a copy of this mail to the mailing list for archival
    purposes, and we (I) should probably put some of this information on a
    press page. We get asked these questions quite often (but not as much as
    we used to, which i put down to the greater popularity of Linux, but i
    digress).

    On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Orowo Omorojor wrote:

    > Dear Sir/Madam,
    > As an IT consultant within the London Metropolitan University,
    > U.K, I am looking to advice my clients on the installation an
    > implementation of alternative Word Processing Application Programs to
    > popular brands like MS Word. I have reviewed your website and found some
    > interesting information on your Word Processing Software - AbiWord.
    > However, before proceeding, it would be helpful if you could answer the
    > following questions as they would help my client make a much more informed
    > decision on whether or not to go ahead with the installation of your
    > product:

    > 1. What special feature(s), function(s), facilities and add-ons exist
    > within the latest version of AbiWord that would make it more desirable
    > than other popular market brands?

    There is a list of Abiword features in the features matrix
    http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/PluginMatrix access.

    The highlights include, a Thesaurus plugin (Aiksaurus), a plugin to
    support many more graphics formats (ImageMagik). Abiword supports a wide
    variety of file formats, some of which in more recent versions have been
    moved out of the main version and are now optional plugins.

    The developers are hard at work on Abiword 2 which will include many
    improvements most notable of which are support for tables and footnotes.

    And last but not least the license makes abiword more desirable, which i
    will try to explain below.

    > 2. What are the existing licensing agreements?

    Abiword is licensed under the Gnu General Public License (GPL).
    Essentially you may use, control, and change the software in any way you
    see fit, with one minor exception:
    If you make changes to the source code and only if you wish to distribute
    those changes outside of your organisation you must share them under the
    GPL too. Share and share alike ;).

    The Free Software Foundation provides more information
    http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

    > Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

    It would be helpful to know what your requirements are, your feedback
    helps the developers to prioritise what features to develop next.

    > Kind Regards,
    > Omorojor, Orowo (Ms)
    > London Metropolitan University.

    Please do take the time to read more of the site, and ask any other
    questions you might have, and we will do our best to answer them. Hope
    you enjoy using Abiword.

    Sincerely

    Alan Horkan

    Abiword Evangalist
    http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

    PS See also http://OpenOffice.org

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