Sun to push StarOffice for Apple's OS X

Post #47,132 by altmann 7/26/02 11:53:24 PM Reply	Sun to push StarOffice for Apple's OS X [link\|http://news.com.com/2100-1001-946714.html?tag=fd_lede\|Sun to push StarOffice for Apple's OS X] A Java based version of [Star\|Open]Office[.org] native to MacOSX rather than based on X11 like the port currently in the works . With that and Mozilla (Apple recently hired [link\|http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/\|the guy] who created [link\|http://chimera.mozdev.org/screenshots.html\|Chimera], a simplified native Aqua UI for the Gecko engine at the core of Mozilla, though for what is unknown), they could go for dumping reliance on MS completely before MS dumps them. -- Chris Altmann
Post #47,146 by orion 7/27/02 12:43:13 AM Reply	It would be nice if they had both a Java and Native version of Open Office for OSX. It would also be nice if Apple activated their partnership with IBM and had IBM port their Lotus applications to OSX. But IBM wouldn't even port the Lotus applications to Linux, go figure that one out! *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #47,303 by static 7/29/02 8:07:12 AM Reply	Not IBM. Even though IBM now own Lotus, it's not IBM and it's not Lotus who won't do a Linux port of the Notes client. There's a third company owned (AFAIK) by Lotus who do all the development. They decided porting Domino to Linux was enough of an effort and refused to do a Linux port of the client. Besides, they wanted to push the web access to Domino. Or at least that was the state of the nation 2 years ago when I was supporing Domino on Linux. Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #47,181 by tuberculosis 7/27/02 11:28:43 AM Reply	Why Java? For Office? Fuck. It'll never sell. Java UI's are SLOOOOOooooooowwwwwww. As long as they are going to eliminate X11, why not use Cocoa with an eye towards supporting Gnustep as well? Then it will work on all the free machines and OS X and it'll rock. Java UI sucks. And Apple has the best VM implementation too. It still sucks though. I'm pretty sure I won't use it except to view the occasional turd document someone dumps on me. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #47,204 by altmann 7/27/02 4:28:43 PM Reply	Re: Why Java. It is my understanding that MacOSX has a Java API to the Cocoa Framework. The UI would be native Aqua/Cocoa. Sun would probably like to be able to re-use the non MacOS specific parts of the port for thier own purposes. Of course, they could 'just' port the UI layer of StarOffice to Aqua via the Carbon libs and stick with C++. Then they could go about re-arranging the UI to better conform to the Aqua UI guidelines. -- Chris Altmann
Post #47,206 by tuberculosis 7/27/02 4:40:10 PM Reply	Dumb idea Yes there is a Java api to Cocoa. But the current implementation is in C++. There is an ObjectiveC++ compiler (compiles a mix of ObjectiveC and C++ code making bridging/wrapping easy). Plus, the Java apis to Cocoa are weak compared to the ObjectiveC ones and the JVM imposes a VISIBLE performance penalty in both size and speed. So why saddle the port with Java at all? Dumb dumb FUCKING dumb idea. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #47,210 by altmann 7/27/02 4:55:07 PM 7/27/02 5:11:47 PM Reply	Actuallly, I agree I don't see what re-writing what is already a very cross-platform oriented codebase buys anyone except Sun's marketing dept. And as for my second suggestion, it appears that the OpenOffice.org team is planning on [link\|http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/roadmap.html#OO638\|doing just that]. This probably also means that the original story I posted is confused and that the Java involved refers to the ability to write plug-ins for the suite in Java. I see alot of people make the assumption that StarOffice is written in Java because it a)contains/uses a JRE for said plugins, b)is slow to start up, and c) comes from Sun. -- Chris Altmann Edited by altmann July 27, 2002, 05:11:47 PM EDT Expand All History

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