OpenOffice.org release?

[Noah Silva [Mailing list]]

Hi,

Two questions.  Neither is strictly Severn specific, but...

a.) Ximian has made quite a few nice patches to OpenOffice.org (Except for
the default save format being .doc...).  Ximian has stated that these
changes would be contributed back to OpenOffice.org.  There is no
other mention of this on either the Ximian or OpenOffice.org site, so I
assume there will be no release from OpenOffice.org with these changes
integrated anytime soon.  Is Redhat planning to use any of these changes,
or simply wait until OpenOffice.org picks them up?  (I assume the latter,
from the sound of the new upstream change policy).

b.) If you look at the enhancement plans for openoffice here:
http://tools.openoffice.org/releases/q-concept.html
They are quite ambitious, but will probably take a very long time to
complete.  Also, since OpenOffice.org is such a large project with its own
build process, its own object model, it's very difficult to get into
developing it as a hobby on just a few hours a week (I have tried!).  Does
Redhat contribute directly to this?  Might they in the future?  I have a
feeling that Sun has done 99% of the work since it has been open-sourced,
just because it is so difficult to hack on.

Of course I don't purport to say what anyone "should" do with their time
or money, I just think that OOo is an important project, and I see it
rejected too often for superficial and incorrect reasons.  (If I hear
anyone else say it's written in Java, the stick is coming out!)

 -- noah silva