Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Article Poll

Poll Would you use a web-based office suite?
Yes
No
Maybe
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:119 | Votes:999

OpenOffice Could Soon Become Web-Based Apps

Posted by Zonk on Fri Apr 20, 2007 01:02 PM
from the googling-it-up dept.
Software The Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Via Linuxtoday.com, a message from the OpenOffice Dev mailing list in which a new company is introducing the GravityZoo OpenOffice porting project. The unusually named group aims to bring OpenOffice to the Internet as a series of online apps. 'When OpenOffice.org is GravityZood, it will become a suite of productivity applications that are always available, online, via a broad range of devices. It will be possible to share and collaborate in real-time, to switch from one device (e.g. a PC) to another (Mobile) device. There will also be no need to save data, because everything you produce is saved automatically on the network. There is no need to download, install or update, the latest version is just available and accessible from any GravityZoo enabled client.'"
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

OpenOffice Could Soon Become Web-Based Apps 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • OpenOffice Could Soon Become Web-Based Apps

    GravityZoo is NOT, I repeat NOT converting OpenOffice into a webapp. I don't really want to detract from their idea, so I'll try to be succinct. Basically, GravityZoo has a special client that interacts with the application running on the server. The application on the server is always available, and autostores your data in a GravityZoo Object Storage database.

    Supposedly, it's an actual conversion of the application to a networked form rather than a simple remote desktop concept. If I were to make a W.A.G. of the Day, I'd say they're probably going to bus the normal IPC communications over the network. Not revolutionary by itself, but possibly nice if they have a good framework.
    • So...uh...how is this not exactly like X?

      More specifically, if I installed a chrooted nxserver [nomachine.com], and then made a series of launch profiles that I handed out that launched openoffice rather than running anything specific, wouldn't that be the same?

      Or is this like that, but also tacking on something like UNO/CORBA/SOAP/DCOM?

      This topic seems to be one such that it may be worth mentioning jooreports. [sourceforge.net]

      If your goal is to do version control on your content while keeping your layout separate this is probably ideal.
      • This is my guess from the limited faqs
        From what I can see it expands upon X in three ways.
        1. It allows you to use it from any device without installing anything (besides a web browser I would assume).
        2. It has a collaboration security model. So multiple people can be on the same session some can read some can read and write.
        3. It uses less network bandwidth than X and heavily relies on browser cache.

        • 1. It allows you to use it from any device without installing anything (besides a web browser I would assume).

          They explicitly say that you need a client and that it is currently only available for Windows.

          3. It uses less network bandwidth than X and heavily relies on browser cache.

          FreeNX uses less network bandwidth than X, but it doesn't use the browser cache.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xtracto (837672)
      Open Office code is famous for being a deformed beast without head or tail. It is by itself as an OS native app slow as a turtle...

      Yay, imagine the bloat of OpenOffice and Firefox together in one big horrible web based office suite :P

      On the other side, about the "would you use it?" question, I used to say "NO" until 2 months ago when I started planning my brother and mother's trip to the UK and our trip trough Europe. Google Docs is really a useful thing... of course it is more of a Wordpad than a Word repl
  • I have an Axim, and its great for a lot of things. Calendar, tasks, note taking, note recording, some light web surfing. But document creation. No. Even using Powerpoint on it is just horrendous. I have no faith that these apps with be nearly as enjoyable across devices that are not desktops.
  • These guys seem cool and all, but dude, get a proofreader
    "distributing Data, Information and Intelligence. A development that should not be dependent upon the whimp of a few very affluant and powerfull entities."
    http://www.gravityzoo.com/developers/openSource.py [gravityzoo.com]
  • I like the internet, I use it an awful lot, but for most uses I cannot see needing an Office package to be online.
    It will be nice as a compliment though for those very rare occasions.

    • Re:Error 404 ClosedOffice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cayenne8 (626475) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:57PM (#18815183) Homepage Journal
      "I like the internet, I use it an awful lot, but for most uses I cannot see needing an Office package to be online."

      I'm with you...I'm a bit queasy about keeping any mail I use on Gmail...but, since Katrina forced me on the run awhile back, I've not been able to set down roots and set up my email server again yet.

      However, in general, I just don't want a bunch of personal docs out there on a webserver, and I can't imagine a business with any kind of security concience would want to trust a web based office application with their work and possibly trade secrets.

      I'm just kind of amazed that there is a market for these web based office applications. I mean, if you've got a computer with you....don't you generally have your document processing software with you too?

      • what if your on some one else's machine? There are countless time before I bought a laptop where I wanted to access a document I had stored at home.

        I use gmail to store all my mail, but I also download it all to my laptop. Online or off I have access to that data now. I hardly ever use a full "office" sweet at home. all I really need is done with a simple spreadsheet, and word processor. of those two I use about 10% of the features found in each. So I consider Open Office bloated for what I use, but ha

        • what if your on some one else's machine? There are countless time before I bought a laptop where I wanted to access a document I had stored at home.


          scp?

          -matthew

        • Better yet, what if you have no machine?
          I can see this being a boon to those with less resources in the world. Cyber cafe, library, makes no nevermind. While you and I may not want our data on "teh intarweb" I can think of an entire class of computer user for whom this makes sense.
          -nB

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by hobo sapiens (893427)
        Am I glad to see you guys. Two other people who think this is a lame idea.

        First, can you imagine how much javascript code it would take to replicate OOo online? Ack! That's a lot of non-compiled code running on a multitude of platforms. So you are on your freeBSD / KDE box using Konqueror, happily typing away at your 65K "word" doc, and crash! Not fun. As someone who does a lot of AJAX development (w/prototype), I have to say I love ajax. But making an html document/javascript app (or whatever you wa
        • Fortunately the company that is doing this "OpenOffice port" is not going to use the browser. Sounds like they're using something more like X11. So I suppose it could work. Although it is still of limited usefulness. You STILL need to download and install something. I'd almost rather have regular OpenOffice (or perhaps something more stripped down) that runs locally and (optionally) talks to a common data store like Amazon S3. No, it most likely wouldn't run on mobile devices, but who wants to compose a doc
    • I agree with you totally about the public internet, but in a business environment with local servers, 'hosted apps' makes a lot of sense.
  • From www.gravityzoo.com: The GravityZoo Framework employs patent pending technology to achieve its goals. It can be divided into three major components, all fulfilling a special and important task:
    • Or they just used "patent pending" as a synonym for "good" without even realizing the phrase has a meaning, like so many people these days.
      • well said. I guess what they are trying to imply by saying that there is a patent pending on their technology/mechanism (or that it is patented) is that its 'innovative', 'revolutionary' and that they cannot find it elsewhere.
    • Patent pending does not imply they won't keep the technology available to use on other projects. I know nothing about GravityZoo so they may or may not be "evil" in the sense of patent abuse, but just because they have applied for patents doesn't automatically mean they are.

  • Licensing Unclear (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo (153816) <martin.espinoza@gmail.com> on Friday April 20 2007, @01:09PM (#18814455) Homepage Journal

    As per "Open Source [gravityzoo.com]" at the GravityZoo website [gravityzoo.com], [...]"this requires the involvement of a global community of Information Analysts, IT architects and Engineers from both the Open Source and Commercial environment. Open Source because to achieve an egalitarian development of tomorrow's information society requires the free flow of Data Information and Intelligence to those in need. Commercial because certain developments require upfront investments and thus risktaking, a step the Open Source community is not always willing or capable to take. In the latter case the risktaking should be rewarded by limiting the access on a for Pay basis.
    It is therefore that The GravityZoo Company from day one decide to implement a Dual Licensing model.
    More information about our Open Source projects and activities will be available at this page soon."

    Until they clarify their licensing, I refuse to be interested, let alone excited.

    There is also so far only a Windows client. They don't even have a beta for other platforms. So I'm not interested in that way, also.

    Also: if it requires a special client, it is not (repeat not) a web-based app. I don't fucking care how it's delivered. The web is browsed with a web browser - see how that works?

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by squoozer (730327) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:10PM (#18814489) Homepage
    This has about a much chance of flying as your common or garden stone. Aside from the fact that the article appears to be fundamentally flawed who would really want this functionality? Networks are just too slow for this to really work well. Even dumb terminals have lag and they are generally connected via a high speed network with minimal hops. Factor in the Interweb and this is just another web 2.0 pipe dream. Why is there this obsession with putting everything on the network even when it's not suitable for it?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by afidel (530433)
      Have you ever used Google Applications? Because I have and I have to say they enable collaborative editing in a way I have never experienced with bolt-on products. I'm not sure that the first iteration of this would accomplish that kind of ability, it seems more an alternative to Citrix, but I'm fairly confident if it's open source something similar will eventually be added.

  • Business plan (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats (122034) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:21PM (#18814639) Homepage

    1. Put open source desktop app on server.
    2. Sell as web service.
    3. Profit!

    Another great Web 2.0 concept.

    Some days I think the Web peaked at HTML 3.2.

    • Some days I think the Web peaked at HTML 3.2.

      That's because it did. Everything since is at best a veneer. Useless animation, cute tricks, and advertising delivery platforms. I don't think there is a single site I visit that has a feature that actually benefits me that isn't trivial in Netscape 3.0.

      The part that caught my eye was "patent pending', which my cynical self read as locking up OSS software into a for profit container. Not that they shouldn't get credit for doing something unique, but I'd wager wha
  • I can't see how this is different to what you can do already with FreeNX, except that FreeNX is available now, and this is vapourware.

  • Sure this will work (Score:5, Funny)

    by Seraphim_72 (622457) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:26PM (#18814711)

    'When OpenOffice.org is GravityZood, it will become a suite of productivity applications that are always available, online, via a broad range of devices.
    ...and when that fails I hear there is good money to be found in verbing nouns.

  • Firefox (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dan East (318230) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:27PM (#18814719) Homepage
    What I'm looking forward to is a web-based version of Firefox.

    Dan East

  • Great Idea, Ok not... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheNetAvenger (624455) on Friday April 20 2007, @01:31PM (#18814777)
    Ok, we all kind of understand that there will come a time when bandwidth allows profile concepts to be moved to a universally accessible secure location. But it will have to be a highly secured and trusted service or user created server service. (i.e. A home BSD box or even Windows Home Server for example for home users.)

    However, I don't want my personal documents stored on their servers, and I know most business policies will not allow documents to be stored in this manner.

    Also, why are they 'reinventing' the wheel with patented technology to do this? There are many known and secure remote app technologies that could be already put into place for something like this.

    I'm open to ideas here, but I don't see how this is 'Open' or a good thing...
  • Although the title of this story is a little misleading, I should point out that it is possible for something like a web-based OpenOffice to come into existence.

    OpenOffice is built using a retargetable GUI framework -- that's what allows it to work on both Windows and Linux without the need to resort to cheap and sleazy WINE tricks. So, theoretically at least, it's possible to build a front end to OpenOffice that targets the browser as a remote desktop.
    • Err... no... not really.

      An html/css/javascript frontend could be written for it... POSSIBLY
      The core code can support hundreds of users accessing it via a web interface... NOT LIKELY

      I think it would be safe to say that this is far from a simple GUI replacement.

      I like the idea of web based apps... but don't so much care for storing my data on a 3rd party's servers. I wish Google would create an apps appliance (I'm sure they will someday)... or even release their code so that I could freely install it on my o

  • Can't do it (Score:4, Funny)

    by ichthus (72442) on Friday April 20 2007, @02:03PM (#18815269) Homepage
    I just can't use a product associated with the name "GravityZoo." GravityZoo sounds too much like GravityGlue... which sounds too much like CavityGlue... which sounds just a little too close to CavityJew... which reminds me of the dentist (sorry for the anti-Semitism -- I needed this for the joke to work. I love you guys. Shalom!) Anyhoo, so... the dentist. I don't like the dentist, and so, logically, I don't like GravityZoo. QED.

  • Somebody has found a way to make OpenOffice slower! I am in awe.

  • Common data store (Score:3, Interesting)

    by misleb (129952) on Friday April 20 2007, @03:41PM (#18816787)
    Ok, it seems to me that the single biggest draw for these online desktop-like apps is to have access to your files from anywhere. Assuming that is correct, they why aren't we seeing more traditional apps that are capable of drawing from a common network data store such as Amazone S3? I know Amazon provides an API. Seem like you could extend OpenOffice to talk to S3 (or similar) directly and you'd have your "documents just about anywhere" feature that everyone (on Slashdot) seems to think is so useful. Really, it is such a relatively simple solution considering compared to trying to coerce a web browser into doing things God never meant it to do.

    -matthew

  • I liked this idea better... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by realinvalidname (529939) on Saturday April 21 2007, @06:34AM (#18822733) Homepage

    ...when it was called ThinkFree Online [thinkfree.com]. Oh wait, we have to hate ThinkFree because it's written in Java. Even though it works well, lets you use your own fonts and printer, opens and saves real MS Office docs, and installs into the JVM cache faster than an MS Office or OpenOffice install.

    Oh well, trying to write an Office suite in Ajax has kept people busy for a few years, now they can try to get the native OO.o app working in a browser. Maybe next we can port it to Flash. That'll be fun.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo (153816)

      Do anyone care? openoffice has about one third of the options of Microsoft Office... No serious user can be satisfied with openoffice.

      You appear to be under the mistaken assumption that you are a serious user.

      But anyone who would use any part of microsoft office but excel and perhaps outlook is by definition not a serious user.

      Powerpoint has support only for crap low resolutions. Word is a pathetic joke in terms of layout and typesetting ability and publisher frankly is not noticeably better. Access? Don

      • I will refute your OO.o argument with one word:

        Landscape.
        • I like landscapes. I have a nice view of one out of my front window. Lots of trees, and a Southern exposure.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Bucc5062 (856482)
        "Access? Don't fucking get me started"....sigh, why not get started, you did on most of the others.

        I'm no fan of Office or of OO.o. Both are tools and as such open to personal opinion for their good and bad traits. However, when you slam something give me an alternative Ican review, test, and try as comparison. I've done well received presentation with Powerpoint. Not many have the time to create "video", not does video work for a teaching or instructional medium.

        Do you know of a better tool then powerp

        • Do you know of a better tool then powerpoint that is simple to use, costs little, allows high res images, and wont take forever to create a result? Not busting, that is a serious question.

          To be honest, I haven't used Impress, but it doesn't seem to be much harder to use, and I know it supports higher resolutions.

          In the interest of full disclosure, everything I know about Impress is second-hand. If I wanted to create a presentation I'd use Scala InfoChannel Designer (it being the easiest way I have to crea

          • Um. Apple uses CUPS in Mac OS X, so that sounds like it must be some sort of a configuration issue. It's certainly never happened to me. But, driver support is such that I've always used good ol' sneaker net for my printing. And when I have been able to almost get it to work, it's always seemed quite flaky. So I'll generally agree with you, but your problem must have some resolution...
        • You'll be amazed what you can get LaTeX to do with the right packages installed. It is about as complex as HTML, and of course free. I have seen perfectly good presentations made using it, as well.

          I've seen a couple of people mention problems with getting directories to line up correctly, but there are complete distributions which have decent documentation on this sort of thing.

      • But in terms of casual use of an office suite, which is all office is good for anyway (again, with the exception of excel, IMO Microsoft's only worthwhile program period full stop) there is simply nothing significant missing from OO.o.

        As a *nix user who loathes Microsoft in general and Office in particular, but who also owns a Tablet PC (which only really works well in Windows) and frequently takes notes in class, I have one word for you:

        OneNote.

        I couldn't care less about Word, PowerPoint, or even Exce

        • So tired of the fanboys....you would have come off so much smarter if you had just said "Office costs too much" and left it at that.

          I don't care what some slashbots think of my level of intelligence. Some people will get more out of my comments than others. I'm okay with that.

          The simple fact is that office doesn't cost too much for an actually useful application suite. But instead it's made up of a bunch of total crap. Word is fine for writing letters and such (Word -- write letters n' shit, yo) but usele

    • Sounds like it to me... and it wouldn't suprise me. Makes me want to develop an "Open Slogan".

      Open Source -- Innovating where others have already innovated before.
      or maybe
      Open Source -- We'll have that feature soon, too.

      Open Source -- So many cooks that no one has been fed in years (except the cooks).

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.