Undoubtedly the most powerful Office suite for Linux is OpenOffice.org/StarOffice (aka: OO.org.) It has most of the features of Microsoft Office and many many features that are not available in MS Office. The biggest problem with OO.org is its overall lack of UI integration with any Linux desktop. Sure it looks and acts fine but it does not fit with the rest of the desktop when using something like KDE or Gnome.
Ximian has worked to fix this by “Gnomizing” OO.org through their OpenOffice.org Bonobo Integration project (which has evidently died since being bought by Novell.) But that still left the best Linux desktop environment out in the cold. Well that has changed. The OpenOffice.org KDE Integration Project has been made an “incubator” project by OO.org (meaning that if it continues well it will be come an officially “accepted” OO.org project.)
This is good news for the KDE desktop community. The interesting part is that lots of KDE/OO.org integration has already taken place. KOffice already had plans to switch its file type to OO.org’s document type; and there is already an KPart for OO.org files in Konqueror (the founder of that project is also the founder of the OO.org KDE Integration Project.) The X11 calls have already been replaced and work will hopefully start on a KDE NWS.
I\’ve been waiting for this for YEARS. OpenOffice made no technical sense with GNOME. It really doesn\’t surprise me that they found it difficult to integrate this C++ project with its own componant model to Bonobo, a C and CORBA based componant model…that\’s used only by a tiny fraction of GNOME programs, anyway.
KDE is a C++ based, highly integrated desktop system that\’s already been designed to talk with other componant systems…including bonobo.
The OpenOffice/KDE fit is a natural. I really do like the design for KOffice, though. I wish OpenOffice could be broken into a nice set of KParts and then just integrated part by part into the existing KOffice. Alas, KWord is frame-based….so that might prove difficult.
I am eagerly awaiting this project…and actively looking at the StarBasic componant.
Matthew