X11 no longer needed in new version of OpenOffice 3.0 - tommmyboy_sf

thank God - I could never get it to install and run on my G5 PPC, where I do all my heavy duty office busy work, because of the damn X11- it kept gettin stuck in some loop and drove me insane for 2 years. (Let me just say before continuing, this is NOT AT ALL a bag on OOo... oh I have much love for OOo, I actually worked very closely with a dev trying to figure out what my problem was because it worked on my laptop! And on other people's machines. I mean everytime a suitable usable RC or release hit the streets, he was here banging away on the keyboard. No, OOo, me love me some OOo.)

I tried all the different release candidates and actual releases, installing and re-installing, sandboxing it onto it's own lil partition with absolutely nothing but base Tiger then Leopard systems installs (with X11 included of course) and it just looped and looped every single time. I tried the portable version all gussied up and ready to roll by the saintly Carlo Gandolfi and his cohort Paolo Portaluri from the FreeSoftware Mac User Group www.freesmug.org.

I was the lone reporter, the uninstallable amongst the installed. My dev just had to throw up his hands and say "ghost in the machine." But then he'd be back a couple months later with an update or something ready to bang away again.

I did eventually end up in NeoOffice which was up and running in a jiffy - thank you NeoOffice - and in many circles it is preferred over OOo prior to OOo v.3 as it has always been Mac native. There's just a tinge of bad vibe goin on with NeoOffice that seeps into your brain the moment you log onto their website and just doesn't go away. I won't even pretend to know the severity of exactly what transpired to cause the spin off - I mean, I've read the cleaned up version on Neo's website, at least I hope it's cleaned up, and as the story unfolds its still easy to read a lot of pent up emotion in what's written, it's also clear there's such an intense degree of passion driving their mission and to see the project continue to grow is a testament to drive and talent the Neo people have...it's reassuring to see that commitment in open source... but like going on with life after a 30 year marriage ends in divorce, even success can be bittersweet leaving with you just a tinge of resentment that echoes in a lot of what you do and people see. and I think Scott McNealy needs to reach in his pocket for a wad of bills and send OOo knocking on Neo's door and off they all go to therapy.

And the only reason I am whining on and on about it like a loon here on VersionTracker is because it did make me loony! Oh that damn X11!!!

Granted, there still isn't an official PPC release yet, but I am running the latest dev from Nakata Maho and by God if it isn't almost near perfect. Go Nakata go!

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Monday, May 25 2009 @ 06:37 PM PDT