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| <h2>Community |
| Articles: Opinions, Interviews, Analyses</h2> |
| <p><a href="//lspintro.html" target="_blank">-Louis Suárez-Potts</a></p> |
| <p>12 April 2001</p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <h4>What Must Be Done: The Mac OS X Port </h4> |
| <p>It's no exaggeration to say that the Mac community has been eagerly awaiting |
| the release of the OpenOffice.org port to Mac OS X. And I have to count myself |
| among them. Thus, when I learned of <a href="//www-announce/msg00045.html" target="_blank">Sun's |
| decision</a> to hand over further development of the port to the Open Source |
| community, specifically OpenOffice.org, my feelings were mixed.</p> |
| |
| <p>On the one hand, I confess to being a little disappointed. I was looking forward |
| to using StarOffice this month on my brand-new, utterly beautiful Mac, and grumble |
| now that I'll have to wait until the port is completed by the Open Source community. |
| </p> |
| <p>But this news--that the Open Source community is now responsible for the port--is |
| hardly disappointing. In fact, from my perspective as an Open Source advocate |
| and Mac aficionado, the news is rather exciting. For what Sun has done is take |
| the Open Source community at its word and offer it what is in effect the chance |
| to prove itself.</p> |
| <p>Specifically the <i>Mac</i> Open Source community, which now must finish the |
| work that Sun has begun--and Sun has gone a long way already. In this sense, |
| then, it is indeed a radical transfer of responsibility and management: from |
| a corporate structure, largely opaque to outside eyes, in which engineers craft |
| the software as a finished commodity for consumers, to an Open Source community, |
| where there is a strong, structural, and active link between the maker of the |
| product and the user of the product.</p> |
| <p>I'm not sure that theorists of Open Source play up that angle enough, and it's |
| important. So I'll emphasize it here. The link between the maker and the user |
| is, in Open Source, a <i>working</i> link that is ultimately pragmatic in a |
| way typical commodity relations never can be. That's because the Open Source |
| work addresses the real needs the consumer (no: user!) has and at a cost (often |
| close to free: as in beer) that is compelling both for the large U.S. corporation |
| tired and no longer so economically able to divert thousands upon thousands |
| of dollars for incessant, meaningless upgrades ("upgrades" that deal |
| merely with prior problems), and for businesses overseas that must deal with |
| a wholly different economic environment and a language far removed from the |
| default English in which the software has, without a doubt, been written for. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>In contrast, Open Source software resolves the needs of a company both by being |
| responsive to user demand--developers constantly work on a project, and no project |
| is ever deemed finished, for users constantly raise new points--and by being, |
| very likely, actually affordable by the users who need to use the software in |
| the first place. But all this propaganda for Open Source is old hat, at least |
| for the OpenOffice.org community: we've heard it before. Yet, not only is it |
| good to hear again, but I recite these truths to situate the real value of having |
| the Mac OS X port to OpenOffice.org code available now for development.</p> |
| |
| <p>And it needs development for that value to be realized. More accurately, the |
| port needs the developmental efforts of the vaunted Mac community--<i>now</i>. |
| Individuals can certainly build the port--the instructions are clear enough |
| and the engineers did a beautiful job. But to shape the code into something |
| that will provide what users need--that will require more than a team effort; |
| it will require a concerted <i>community</i> effort. </p> |
| |
| <p>So I call on the Mac developers in the OpenOffice.org community and even outside |
| our community to start the race. Of course, this means that we will have to |
| reach out to Mac developers who might otherwise not venture to this community. |
| Let us, then. We can email developers in OS X communities, post messages and |
| notices, and emphasize what the stakes are and what the rewards are. Both are |
| high: a superior office suite designed to run natively in Mac OS X (Apple's |
| soon-to-be default OS), designed for real users, and supported by the Open Source |
| community. </p> |
| |
| <p>And we must start now.</p> |
| <p> </p><h4>Mac OS X Porting Information</h4> |
| |
| <p>For OpenOffice.org information on the port, see <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac" target="_blank">Mac |
| OS X: Porting Information</a>: <a |
| href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac">http://porting.openoffice.org/mac</a>. |
| </p> |
| <p>For links to Mac OS X developers, see, as a start: </p> |
| |
| <p><span style='color:black'><a href="http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/mail.html" target="_blank">Apple |
| Open Source Mailing Lists</a>: </span><span style='color:blue'><u>http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/mail.html</u></span></p> |
| |
| <p><a href="http://osx.macnn.com/" target="_blank">MacNN OS X</a>: <span style='color:blue'><u>http://osx.macnn.com/</u></span></p> |
| |
| <p><a href="http://forums.macnn.com/" target="_blank">MacNN Reader Forums</a>, |
| <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/">http://forums.macnn.com/</a>, and scroll |
| down to the forum on Mac OS X for a list of topics.</p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <h4><a href="editors.html">Previous Articles |
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