I am posting this message is several forums that I frequent.

Has any thought, or discussion gone on about adding Lotus Symphony to our repositories, as an alternative to Open Office? IBM has recently released the product as open source and mention that Red Hat and Suse are starting to incorporate it.

The website regarding the product is:

http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotu ... /home.jspa

It looks like a complete office suite, but with a little different approach than Open Office. It will read Open Office and M$ Office file formats. I don't want to create a huge burden as you work on your next release, but I think this could add a little more polish and credibility to all Linux OS's in general.

Thanks for the consideration.

Hawkeye

I did some further research, and although they are offering it as a free download to Windows and Linux users, it is NOT a GPL product. It is governed by something called an 'International License Agreement For Non-Warranted Programs'. If anyone is actually interested, they can google the title and read what it says.

Without a clear, clean, right to distribute, I am afraid I shot my mouth off WAY too early. I think this is something for the Suse's, Fedora's, and Ubuntu's of the world to take a position on; then other distro's can make their decisions based upon what the 'big boys(and girls)' found out, and on the merits of the product itself.

My apologies to everyone for spouting off without enough information.

Hawkeye

I dont mind distributing non GPL software if its feasible to distribute. My question would be who would want this vs OpenOffice.org and with OpenOffice 3.0, what would the benefit be. I would consider distribution if I had enough call for it.

Hawkeye52 wrote:I did some further research, and although they are offering it as a free download to Windows and Linux users, it is NOT a GPL product. It is governed by something called an 'International License Agreement For Non-Warranted Programs'. If anyone is actually interested, they can google the title and read what it says.

Without a clear, clean, right to distribute, I am afraid I shot my mouth off WAY too early. I think this is something for the Suse's, Fedora's, and Ubuntu's of the world to take a position on; then other distro's can make their decisions based upon what the 'big boys(and girls)' found out, and on the merits of the product itself.

My apologies to everyone for spouting off without enough information.

Hawkeye

pcos08 wrote:I dont mind distributing non GPL software if its feasible to distribute. My question would be who would want this vs OpenOffice.org and with OpenOffice 3.0, what would the benefit be. I would consider distribution if I had enough call for it.

Hawkeye52 wrote:I did some further research, and although they are offering it as a free download to Windows and Linux users, it is NOT a GPL product. It is governed by something called an 'International License Agreement For Non-Warranted Programs'. If anyone is actually interested, they can google the title and read what it says.

Without a clear, clean, right to distribute, I am afraid I shot my mouth off WAY too early. I think this is something for the Suse's, Fedora's, and Ubuntu's of the world to take a position on; then other distro's can make their decisions based upon what the 'big boys(and girls)' found out, and on the merits of the product itself.

My apologies to everyone for spouting off without enough information.

Hawkeye

I can not verify its quality vs. OO. My only thoughts were 1> adding to the diversity of choice for linux users, and 2> adding a 'name recognition' product for all those MS users who might be riding the fence over whether Linux was a quality option to Windows (inference marketing that says Linux must be pretty good if IBM wants to distribute a product through that OS).

I have posted these thoughts on a couple of other forums, and received very negative response. I felt like I was on Windows forums hawking Linux! Either it was an 'inferior copy of OO (an interesting position), or the non-GPL licensing was a 'show stopper'. I felt.their inclusion might, in some way, tip the scale to someone new considering Linux. If the product was inferior, it wouldn't take a new Linux convert long on the forums of their chosen Linux distro, to hear about the virtues of OO vs. almost any other office suite.

In my opinion, OO is the best there is on either side of the 'OS war'; not feature for feature against MS Office, but most of their additional features are just fluff that 98% of computer users would never use. Koffice is enjoyed by many, but can't compare to OO for usable features and 'fit and finish' issues. I wasn't trying to propose the addition of a currently superior office suite, just the addition of one that could help market Linux; there are a lot of inferior products, in all categories, offered in Linux repositories. They are there because they have Linux roots and are published under the GPL, and therefore represent a diversity of offerings. Many distros trumpet how many applications reside in their repositories, not how good each choice is.

I have seemed to have created a 'tempest in a teapot'. If IBM truly wants Linux users, and their website seems to indicate that, it appears they are going to have to alter their marketing approach. They actually have instructions for Ubuntu users on how to download and use their product, but fail to understand the nuance in Linux that there is an important intermediary in the usage process; the distros -- their owners and devs. Without the necessary groundwork with the distros, they will garner few Linux users to their product at this time.

IBM's Lotus Symphony will eventually start showing up in distros, even if they are inferior to OO. But it appears they have some marketing lessons to learn first. For PC/OS it may be better to be a follower on this one, rather than an 'early adapter'. You do have an awfully lot on your plate right now.

I feel sorry now that I advanced this idea -- right now there are more yellow and red lights than there are green ones.

Sorry for the distraction....

Hawkeye

Dont take me as being negative. I think its an awesome idea, diversity encourages competition. So with that in mind. I will look at packageing Lotus Symphony and possibly adding it as I do for the newer OpenOffice packages.

pcos08 wrote:Dont take me as being negative. I think its an awesome idea, diversity encourages competition. So with that in mind. I will look at packageing Lotus Symphony and possibly adding it as I do for the newer OpenOffice packages.

Thank you for your thoughtful and courteous response. I was a little shell-shocked at the reception from the other distros. If IBM truly wants to be open source, they are not dummies and will learn the 'ropes' of how things are done. They will also be competitive enough to ensure they do not stay the third horse in a three horse race. There is also something that just tickles me that another big company is 'thumbing its nose' at MS; I know that's small of me, but it still feels good.

Thanks for the kindly reception.

Hawkeye

Ok, after looking at IBM Lotus Symphony, downloading and installing, there is no easy way to get it working properly, it relies on the user being an admin and it relies on Xulrunner 1.8, the default installed is Xulrunner 1.9. Im going to get in contact with IBM to see if there are workarounds, their forums are useless but below are some screenshots of what to expect should you try to install.

Hawkeye52 wrote:

pcos08 wrote:Dont take me as being negative. I think its an awesome idea, diversity encourages competition. So with that in mind. I will look at packageing Lotus Symphony and possibly adding it as I do for the newer OpenOffice packages.

Thank you for your thoughtful and courteous response. I was a little shell-shocked at the reception from the other distros. If IBM truly wants to be open source, they are not dummies and will learn the 'ropes' of how things are done. They will also be competitive enough to ensure they do not stay the third horse in a three horse race. There is also something that just tickles me that another big company is 'thumbing its nose' at MS; I know that's small of me, but it still feels good.

Thanks for the kindly reception.

Hawkeye

Hello,
It is my understanding that Symphony will be added to Ubuntu's partner repos soon.

Hello;

I am new to PC/OS, but not new to Linux. I used Xandros for years, until it finely got so old that I just could not take it any more. I am a admitted Slacker. I use Vector Linux as my stable base, but I am taken with PC/OS, and its blend of apps. But that's off the subject.

I downloaded the Symphony 1.2 deb, and it installed without mishap. And my first impression is favorable. In fact, this my first document in Symphony and PC/OS, But they will both have to pass the “bullet proof test” before I install on my home network.

As for Symphony, I am a writer and I do an occasional spread sheet. Writers have foibles and in-grained habits, and I have more than my share. I use Abiword, because, simple put, I like like it better Open Office Writer. But neither of them truly suits me. I'm hopelessly outdated in my “Me First” attitude. The early word processors, Wordstar, Wordperfect. Amipro, had it. Even Displaywrite, which if I recall correctly, would not have enjoyed the popularity it achieved if IBM had not given away, for free, with every computer they sold, had it. In my thinking, word processing has steadily gone down hill while they play follow the leader. Unfortunately, the leader is slightly myopic and can't see passed the dollar signs. But I digress...

Symphony has a clean interface, and I like the tabbed browser and text editor. I think the menus are clear and (some-what) logical and they don't overwhelm me with options like Open Office some time does, and they don't seem sparse like those in Abiword. I think they are a good balance. And I can already tell you that the spell checker is my favorite of the trio.

I like it, and I'm going use it. It would make fine addition to your repository.

//skyekeeper