Migrating to OpenOffice (without losing your head) Dan Kegel 4 March 2004 Presented at http://la.uuasc.org/ Archived at http://kegel.com/openoffice OpenOffice is a free office suite * Roughly like Microsoft Office '97 * has nifty features like Export As PDF * source code is also free Migration to OpenOffice is Economically Inevitable * It's CHEAP * It WORKS * It uses OPEN, LICENSE-FREE, PATENT-FREE DATA FORMATS * Anyone can improve it (e.g. translate, test, or fix) * It Runs Everywhere (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOSX) It's CHEAP * Moore's Law means: * MS Office now costs twice as much as a computer * Computers are fast enough that even slow software is ok Anyone can improve it * Users are actually translating it into 10 or so languages * Users like me have helped triage 5000 bug reports * Users are building OpenOffice from source for minor distributions of Linux * A few brave souls are actually wading into the code OpenOffice 1.1 Not Perfect * Loads slower than MS Office '97 * Can't load all MS Office documents properly * Not very intuitive for people switching from MS Office * Stability problems * Awkward installation OpenOffice 1.1.1 Better * Many stability, performance, compatibility, usability fixes * but many more left to fix * see ooo111.html and release_notes_1.1.1rc.html OpenOffice 2.0 Better Still * All the "hard" fixes * Explicit plan for achieving world domination * see q.html and q-concept.html So What's the Plan? * Pick a set of "must support" documents * Install OpenOffice 1.1.1, verify those documents work * Create intranet web page with local FAQ and links to help sites * Have volunteers switch to OOo 1.1.1 * As they run into problems, note them in the local FAQ with workarounds * Monitor OOo 2.0 snapshots for fixes to problems * Vote for the problems you run into * If you have problems not noted in OOo 2.0 plan or bug tracking system, submit them as new bugs * When working well, roll out to larger group of users, repeat Examples of Votes * bugs-with-votes.html * enhancements-with-votes.html * features-with-votes.html Books * OOoSwitch: 501 Things You Wanted to Know About Switching to Open Office.org, by Tamar Granor, Hentenwerke Publishing * StarOffice 6.0 Suite Companion, by Solveig Haugland and Floyd Jones, Prentice Hall * Taming Openoffice.Org 1.1 Writer, by Jean Hollis Weber * OpenOffice.org for Dummies Online Tutorials * suned.sun.com * www.digitaldistribution.com Online Help * Outline of Existing OpenOffice.org User Resources * Taming-Openoffice-Org.com * getOpenOffice.org * etc. How to Help QA OpenOffice * http://kegel.com/openoffice/ Example Bugs Fixed in OOo 1.1 * bug12936 Word processor crashes when opening file (V) * bug14053 pre-1.1 Import/Export crash bugs with test cases and stack dumps (V) Example Bugs Fixed in OOo 1.1.1 * bug6044 General GUI performance very slow, especially on remote X server * bug17727 ~EntryList_Impl() trashing heap? (V) * bug21113 ms word doc file causes openoffice to hang Example Bugs Fixed in Latest OpenOffice 2.0 Snapshot * bug13857 text box in wrong location when importing .doc or .rtf file from Word * bug17567 WW8: Negative vertical graphic positioning * bug20184 Fix problems detected with valgrind (V) (See also valgrindingOOo.html) * bug25268 memory overwrite in _InitCore() (V) Example Bugs Not Yet Fixed * bug4999 Envelope Printing via insert Envelope * bug12701 Race cond with WM when opening new window * bug18466 User can't figure out how to add fonts with spadmin Examples of progress in OpenOffice 2.0 snapshots See 2.0 trunk releases page. * m34, Apr '04 * m32, Mar '04 * m30, Mar '04 * m28, Mar '04 * m26, Feb '04 * m24, Feb '04 * m22, Jan '04 * m20, Jan '04 (Scroll down to bottom of each to see what problems were reported against earlier snapshots, too)