StarOffice GPL extends beyond StarOffice.
I read a danish article today on paper (that's why there is no URL), which has some interesting points.
As you probably know, Sun's StarOffice product will become GPL'ed (GNU Public License) in october. This means that other GPL'ed applications can take source-code from StarOffice. Whether this is realistic now, is questionable, since StarOffice's source code structure wasn't built for open-source development, but there are today word processor for Linux, that are not very advanced, but will be good enough for many people in a year or two.
The interesting in this is:
1) There is a collaboration on making a common, XML based file format for office suites, including Staroffice. I cannot find an internet link for that, so I don't know how serious it is.
2) Sun's Staroffice has the best import/export filters for Microsoft Office. These filters can now be used by Open-Source products. This could become a standard library on all Linux machines, and could make Linux the platform with the most Microsoft Office compatible programs ever.
So it is very realistic, that in 2 years, we will have 3-8 different Office suites with a common file format and all will have the ability to read and write Microsoft Office files.
The advanced user can choose an advanced office suite, and the average user can choose an average user office suite. And none of them will cost you a software license.
Interesting, isn't it? |
