Mac OS X Porting - contributions from NeoOffice

Introduction

Collaboration between OpenOffice.org and the NeoOffice -project has an ugly history. It is one of those things that one finds hard to be neutral about. You either hate NeoOffice, or love their work.

Despite this, there has been smaller and bigger contributions coming from NeoOffice to OpenOffice.org, every once in a while. It's very far from perfect, but it's something.

We at OpenOffice.org must stop hating others and spreading bad words. Our attitude must be honorable, no matter what others do.

The purpose of this page is to record all the contributions NeoOffice has done to OpenOffice.org. Maybe this makes one appreciate the history more.

The philosophical differences

Anonymous: The OpenOffice.org is a work in progress, and you'd better to support the real OpenOffice.org project, instead of propagate a big lie.

   As long as OpenOffice.org people have this kind of attitude towards NeoOffice, I see no reason why NeoOffice 
   people would want to cooperate with OpenOffice.
   
   - Mox

Anonymous: As summary : NeoOffice IS NOT OPENOFFICE.ORG

  With NeoOffice using & including something like 95% of the code in openoffice.org CVS, I find your 
  summary somewhat misguiding.
  
  This issue and the "not native because UI is partly(!) in Java" are clear signs how NeoOffice developers 
  (who are user-oriented developers) differ from OpenOffce.org developers (who are mainly coder-oriented)
  
  Have you seen this?
  "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then to the end user it's a duck, 
  and end users have made it pretty clear they want a duck; whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee 
  is irrelevant."
  NeoOffice and Aqua
  
  Users do not care if the UI is in Cocoa (the hot chocolate) or partly in Java (Coffee). To users the Java UI 
  is "Native" and NeoOffice is "OpenOffice derivative", because NeoOffice looks like OpenOffice, behaves like
  OpenOffice, has the (at least) the same functionality and same menus.
  
  As a developer you can disagree to this. But then you are not speaking to the people who use the actual
  application. You are speaking coder-speak.
  
  Now, the entirely different matter is that the openoffice.org _as organisation_ is not the same as the 
  organisation that builds NeoOffice. But that distinction does not prevent the NeoOffice being called 
  OpenOffice.org -derivative or similar things.
  
  
  "Hate leads to anger and anger leads to the dark side"    - Yoda.
  
  - Mox

Contributions in the OpenOffice.org 1.x timeframe (years 2000-2003)

The Mac OS X porting team in OpenOffice.org at that time consisted from three (3) core developers: Dan Williams (fa@openoffice.org) - After OOo 1.1 left completely the OpenOffice.org scene Ed Peterlin (?@oo.org) - After OOo 1.1 went to co-found the NeoOffice project Patrick Luby (?@oo.org) - After OOo 1.1 went to co-found the NeoOffice project

with some other contributors infrequent contributors such as: Terry Teague - maintainer of Start OpenOffice.org -script, which was needed for OOo 1.1

The three core developers worked on Mac OS X for X Windows (X11) port, starting completely from scratch. The linux/unix X11 port of OpenOffice.org of course existed already, but because of openoffice.org code base, the porting to Mac OS X was still a herculean task. Not the least because of the bridges -module, which requires platform specific assembler language(!) -coding.

Summary of major contributions:

Contributions during OpenOffice.org transition from 1.x to 2.x (years 2003-2005)

OpenOffice on Cocoa (the NeoOffice/C -project) years 2002-2004

Related links

Brief history, from NeoOffice perspective NeoOffice and Aqua