Re: What is GNOME office?

[Andy Tai <atai ece ucsd edu>]

Just one view:

GNOME should accept all components that are useful for
an office application into GNOME Office.  Simple
arguments:

1. KDE has an office suite today, GNOME does not have
a complete one. And GNOME needs one, fast.

2. AbiWord, Gnumeric, etc. have been in development
for a long time.  It may not be productive to ask them
to join force with OpenOffice, or vice versa.  After
all, OpenOffice has their own people/resource that the
participation of the AbiWord/Gnumeric people may not
be that productive. Vice Versa. Arguing who should
join who takes a lot of time and produces no useful
results but bad feelings.

3. Being Free Software, people can readily copy from
each other.  So if they are not working as a team,
they are actually indirectly working together.

4. One program for one type of application is the
characteristic of proprietary office software suite. 
A Free Software suite needs not be bounded by that
rule.

5. Bonobo takes care of integration issues.  So
StarWriter and AbiWord can work with each other, and
same for everything else. So the the ciritcal
requirement of GNOME Office should be Bonobo support,
and not much beyond that.

6. KDE is there adding pressure.  GNOME has no time to
waste and needs to move fast (repeat of the first one)

 

=====
Andy Tai, atai atai org

Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the 
people! Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!