Re: redifining GNOME office.

[Alex Hudson <home alexhudson com>]

On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 12:55 -0400, Ken VanDine wrote:
> I definately agree.  Not sure I agree with wikipedia says makes up
> GNOME Office.  But we need something that we can say works together,
> abiword, gnumeric and gnome-db for sure.  We still need a presentation
> app, criawips also seems dead.  Lets get these revitalized.

I don't think "GNOME Office" needs to be short-hand for "the GNOME
Office suite"; I think it does need to be much more about integration
and collaboration.

So, for example, I don't see why both Abiword and OO Writer can't be
part of GNOME office. They appeal to totally different types of users,
and don't really compete in terms of functionality. Both should be
"first class" in terms of the GNOME desktop: yes, OOo is very sucky in
some areas (mostly the UI), but that does seem to be improving very
rapidly (and perhaps would be quicker with GNOME pushing it).

I think it's more important that programs are able to work together well
(e.g., good OpenDocument support, that kind of thing) and work well in
the overall desktop. Programs like Abiword et al. are definitely
worthwhile IMHO, but I don't see them replacing OOo in my daily work in
the next few years - they're just not "big" enough. It seems important
to me that they all work well in GNOME.

Cheers,

Alex.