[CS-FSLUG] Ontario offers Sun's StarOffice to students

[Frank Bax]

At 10:20 AM 5/28/04, N. Thompson wrote:

>On May 28, 2004 5:39 am, Josiah Ritchie wrote:
> > On Fri, 2004-05-28 at 06:24, john-thomas richards wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 27, 2004 at 11:13:27PM -0600, N. Thompson wrote:
> > > > Thats certainly interesting, I wonder if Saskatchewan might follow
> > > > along eventually :-) .
> > > >
> > > > I've just noticed one potential problem with this, OpenOffice.org
> > > > doesn't seem to have filters for Staroffice except up to version 5.x.
> > > > Unless Staroffice also uses the OO.o format I don't think the two are
> > > > compatible with each other.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > openoffice.org and staroffice are essentially the same pieces of
> > > software.  the name is changed and some of the eyecandy is changed but
> > > the underlying mechanics are identical.  the file formats are the same.
> >
> > I've heard that isn't neccesarily true though I don't know. What I've
> > heard is that it is "cleaner".
> >
> > JSR/
> >
>
>If the changes are merely better support for MS Word files. slightly faster
>operation and clipart (which is so ugly I wouldn't use it anyway) then what
>is the point of buying StarOffice. Especially since the Future Shop here is
>still charging $99 for it while the Canadian Sun store (see the
>http://ca.sun.com catalogue section.) seems to have it on for $35 CAD.


I seem to recall reading that StarOffice is based on the OpenOffice code, 
but has several additional components that could not be included in 
OpenOffice because of licensing issues.  These include additional 
input/output filters like WordPerfect (Sun licensed code from Corel) which 
has been part of StarOffice for a long time, but only recently available in 
OpenOffice (input only, separate patch required).

Frank