Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 00:04:19 EST-10EDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600 Subject: [UnixOS2_Archive] No. 414 ************************************************** Thursday 07 October 2004 Number 414 ************************************************** Subjects for today 1 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Kris Steenhaut 2 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Dave Saville" 3 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : billn 4 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Kris Steenhaut 5 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Bart van Leeuwen" 6 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : John Poltorak 7 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Dave Yeo" 8 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Lewis G Rosenthal 9 Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? : Stefan.Neis at t-online.de **= Email 1 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:01:55 +0200 From: Kris Steenhaut Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? billn schreef: >It seems to me that if this project is undertaken as native or unix >port, the version we should start with is 2.0, not 1.x. 2.0 may need >more effort, but when we are done, we will have a current version rather >than be a major jump behind. > > > Right indeed. >This would be useful enough to me that I would be willing to spend time >and effort on it. > So I'm I. Effort meaning prepared to donate an certain amount of euro. Incidentally, I still have a list of people prepared to pay a real (or almost real) native OOo would see the light. So, if it would turn into doable reality, do send me a note. -- Groeten uit Gent, Kris **= Email 2 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 16:59:14 +0100 (BST) From: "Dave Saville" Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:01:55 +0200, Kris Steenhaut wrote: > > >billn schreef: > >>It seems to me that if this project is undertaken as native or unix >>port, the version we should start with is 2.0, not 1.x. 2.0 may need >>more effort, but when we are done, we will have a current version rather >>than be a major jump behind. >> >> >> >Right indeed. > >>This would be useful enough to me that I would be willing to spend time >>and effort on it. >> >So I'm I. Effort meaning prepared to donate an certain amount of euro. >Incidentally, I still have a list of people prepared to pay a real (or >almost real) native OOo would see the light. >So, if it would turn into doable reality, do send me a note. Maybe we could organise a meeting of interested parties at Warpstock Europe? -- Regards Dave Saville **= Email 3 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:11:09 -0700 From: billn Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? I'd love to come to such a meeting, but airlines still require real money for flights. :-{ However, if anyone knows of cheap flights from Washington State in the US, let me know. OTOH, perhaps we should start with some discussion here to find out how much interest and support would be available. If we can find a core group who will work and advise me as to what would be most useful to translate, I will build a prototype to evaluate the possibilities. FYI, I have some experience in translating/rewriting complex applications, though none as big as OO. BillN Dave Saville wrote: > > On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:01:55 +0200, Kris Steenhaut wrote: > > > > > > >billn schreef: > > > >>It seems to me that if this project is undertaken as native or unix > >>port, the version we should start with is 2.0, not 1.x. 2.0 may need > >>more effort, but when we are done, we will have a current version rather > >>than be a major jump behind. > >> > >> > >> > >Right indeed. > > > >>This would be useful enough to me that I would be willing to spend time > >>and effort on it. > >> > >So I'm I. Effort meaning prepared to donate an certain amount of euro. > >Incidentally, I still have a list of people prepared to pay a real (or > >almost real) native OOo would see the light. > >So, if it would turn into doable reality, do send me a note. > > Maybe we could organise a meeting of interested parties at Warpstock > Europe? > > -- > Regards > > Dave Saville **= Email 4 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 21:50:25 +0200 From: Kris Steenhaut Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? Dave Saville schreef: >On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:01:55 +0200, Kris Steenhaut wrote: > > > >>billn schreef: >> >> >> >>>It seems to me that if this project is undertaken as native or unix >>>port, the version we should start with is 2.0, not 1.x. 2.0 may need >>>more effort, but when we are done, we will have a current version rather >>>than be a major jump behind. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>Right indeed. >> >> >> >>>This would be useful enough to me that I would be willing to spend time >>>and effort on it. >>> >>> >>> >>So I'm I. Effort meaning prepared to donate an certain amount of euro. >>Incidentally, I still have a list of people prepared to pay a real (or >>almost real) native OOo would see the light. >>So, if it would turn into doable reality, do send me a note. >> >> > >Maybe we could organise a meeting of interested parties at Warpstock >Europe? > > > Sounds like a good idea. I'll be there anyway. -- Groeten uit Gent, Kris **= Email 5 ==========================** Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 22:08:35 +0200 From: "Bart van Leeuwen" Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? On 06-10-2004 21:50:25 owner-os2-unix wrote: >Dave Saville schreef: > >>On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 17:01:55 +0200, Kris Steenhaut wrote: >>Maybe we could organise a meeting of interested parties at Warpstock >>Europe? >> >> >> >Sounds like a good idea. I'll be there anyway. If you guys would like to have a lecture room in the evening let me know. since I organize I can arrange that ;) Bart van Leeuwen **= Email 6 ==========================** Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 21:21:33 +0100 From: John Poltorak Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 10:08:35PM +0200, Bart van Leeuwen wrote: > > >Sounds like a good idea. I'll be there anyway. > > If you guys would like to have a lecture room in the evening let me know. > since I organize I can arrange that ;) If any notes emerge, can someone post them here for those of us interested in any developments but unable to attend? BTW how about some details about Warpstock Europe... > Bart van Leeuwen -- John **= Email 7 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 18:41:30 -0800 From: "Dave Yeo" Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 11:28:40 +0100, John Poltorak wrote: > >As I remember the topic came up about six months ago and I tried to >build the existing (**150MB**) archive:- > >http://ooo.ximian.com/packages/OOO_1_1_1/OOO_1_1_1.tar.bz2 John if you still have the tarball could you grep for os2, emx or whatever else you can think of. Curious if the OS/2 code is still in there. I'd do it but I don't want to tie up my phone line for a couple of days Dave **= Email 8 ==========================** Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:30:05 -0400 From: Lewis G Rosenthal Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? Wow! I can't believe I've sparked such conversation from my question. Just shows to go that it may not be _what_ one asks, but _where_ one asks. :-) I have several responses to posts in this thread, so I'll just run down some quick quotes & replies. Apologies in advance for the length of this post (particularly to our dialup-connected bretheren). I have some links and additional info listed at the end of this message. On 10/06/2004 02:57 am, Kris Steenhaut thus wrote : > Only questions are: who is going to do it and who is going to pay for > the work. This, of course, is near the top of the list, as we have all seen at one time or another that the only real obstacle to resolving programming problems is perseverance, which of course, comes along with it's constant companion: resources. That said, we've also heard here that the commercial sector may shy away from such a venture because Innotek is knee-deep in this already. Golden Code, perhaps? I doubt we'd get Serenity to foot part of the bill, and I don't know what their financial situation currently is. No matter; I don't see this as insurmountable. We should be able to figure something out to fund whatever needs to be funded. On 10/06/2004 05:41 am, Dave Saville thus wrote : >Well the OS/2 stuff was ripped out. But what I believe would be >fairly trivial would be to get a *nix version to run under Xfree. No >UI problems in that case and OS/2 is fairly friendly to *nix ports. > > I have my reservations about an X11 interface, Dave, though you do make a good point. From a user's perspective - and an administrator's one - one desktop is enough to manage. I might not be opposed to setting up XFree86 on my own station (again - I haven't had a working X desktop under OS/2 in five or six years), but setting up such an environment for a large group of workstations is a bit much. As an administrator, I want one desktop on all the systems, with relatively little deviation from the norm. One desktop is enough to manage. From this persepctive, I'd like to see a native PM port. On 10/06/2004 08:10 am, Stefan.Neis at t-online.de thus wrote (in direct reposnse to Dave's statement, above) : >Depends on the libraries being used. For example it _might_ be using >GTK-2 and tons of other stuff that currently just aren't ported to OS/2. > And this may be the real gem of the project, after all. Dave's solution makes more sense to me if we had a fully functional Everblue, for example. However, I'm still more inclined to invest the time in a PM port. On 10/06/2004 09:39 am, billn thus wrote : >It seems to me that if this project is undertaken as native or unix >port, the version we should start with is 2.0, not 1.x. 2.0 may need >more effort, but when we are done, we will have a current version rather >than be a major jump behind. > Absolutely, 100% agreed. Excellent point, Bill. This is where I believe we should be focusing our attention. On 10/06/2004 11:01 am, Kris Steenhaut thus wrote : > Incidentally, I still have a list of people prepared to pay a real (or > almost real) native OOo would see the light. > So, if it would turn into doable reality, do send me a note. Good news, Kris. I'm sure this will come in handy, should this figment of our collective imaginations actually begin to take real form. On 10/06/2004 11:59 am, Dave Saville thus wrote : >Maybe we could organise a meeting of interested parties at Warpstock >Europe? > > Ditto for Warpstock Denver, even though time is drawing close. If we have enough people there, even an informal brainstorming session would be helpful. I am volunteering to coordinate such a meeting; anyone interested, please feel free to send me private email. In fact, I run dotProject on my server (Apache 2.0.52 on OS/2, of course!), and would be happy to host discussion there, in the forum, as well as play host to the entire project. If a mailing list would be preferable, I'm happy to add one to my hosted lists. Okay, some interesting links: According to http://porting.openoffice.org/porting_overview.html, the last couple of fellows involved in the OS/2 port were/are Jochen Schaefer (josch at bluenetkl.de) and Brian Smith (dbsoft at technologist.com). Anyone here know either of these guys? http://porting.openoffice.org/ has several links which include required reading for the task. From http://porting.openoffice.org/porting_overview.html: Compiler One of the main issues for porting the office suite is to have a working C++ compiler. The following C++ features cause the most difficulties for compilers: * Use of the Standard Template Library (STL). The office suite uses STLport 4.x, which is an SGI STL adaptation. Conflicts can arise with native includes. * Deliberate use of templates as a whole. * Namespaces. * Exceptions, using exceptions over shared library boundaries (run the ehtest suite in STLport for verification) * Order of initialization and destruction of global objects, especially since there are a lot of different but dependent shared libraries involved. * Usage of GCC on most platform recommended (2.95, 3.0 and 3.1 currently supported) (There is much more info on that page.) FWIW, the current compressed source for the October 6 snapshot weighs in at 292MB, and is available from http://ooo.ximian.com/packages/SRC680/. Note that this is a snapshot and the live stuff is really (as expected) in CVS. Everyone interested in this "project" should have a look at http://tools.openoffice.org/builds/, which lists available branches and their descriptions. Another good place to visit before moving much farther along this path would be http://tools.openoffice.org/build.html, which has links to different toolset pages for various OSes (obviously, OS/2 isn't listed, though I would assume we should have a good look at the Linux link). Finally, it might be wise if at least one of us made contact with dev at porting.openoffice.org. From the bottom of http://porting.openoffice.org/: There is a cerain demand for doing a port e.g. for HP/UX. AIX, OS/2 etc. At the moment there are no efforts visible for such a port. Create one ! -- Lewis ------------------------------------------------------------ Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA Rosenthal & Rosenthal Accountants / Network Consultants New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com Team OS/2 / NetWare Users International www.novell.com ------------------------------------------------------------ **= Email 9 ==========================** Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 12:09:16 +0200 (CEST) From: Stefan.Neis at t-online.de Subject: Re: Native port of OpenOffice...possible? Lewis G Rosenthal schrieb: > I might not be opposed to setting up > XFree86 on my own station (again - I haven't had a > working X desktop under OS/2 in five or six years), If you are using eCS, HOB-X11 is a nice alternative for XFree86 providing something you could call "seamless X11". Copy&Paste is a problem, though. > From this persepctive, I'd like to see a native PM port. However, this is only a real alternative, if the old OS/2 code is available, IMHO. Otherwise, porting from either the X11 or the Windows interface to PM is just requiring _way_ too much time. I do see how long it takes to just port wxWindows toolkit to PM on a volunteer basis (IIRC more than five years by now and it still is only usable for "small applications", i.e. if you avoid stuff that turns out to be problematic (or if you fix it, but somehow almost nobody seems interested/able to try and do that). I don't think porting OO-"toolkit" is going to be _much_ faster > However, I'm still more inclined to invest the > time in a PM port. Basically, me too. However, if that means that it's going to require twice as much time or likely even more, then I'm not so sure any more. > different toolset pages for various OSes (obviously, OS/2 > isn't listed, > though I would assume we should have a good look at the > Linux link). Only marginally helpful, if you want a PM port, though. In that case, the Windows version is probably more interesting. Regards, Stefan