Re: GUI toolkit for Ada again

[hpk104@hotmail.com (Harris)]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in message news:<9ivhio$aia$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...
> I've got a question about this: It looks like this is set up by Sun to get a
> product created (at little to no cost to them) that helps them compete with
> Microsoft. The availability of OpenOffice creates a tangible benefit to
> them - translation: $$$. How is it I benefit as a contributor? Or is this
> just a thinly disguised attempt by Sun to get me to work for them for free?

Basically, yes.  If you're an open-source zealot, an open-source
competitor to MS Office, might be incentive enough.  Otherwise... I
guess Sun has nothing to offer you :)

> I'm guessing at the moment, but is all this stuff written in C? C++? Java? I
> quote from the web page:

Its written in C++ as it is.  If you have the bandwidth you can always
download the source for yourself and check it out.
 
> "We have made these binary versions of OpenOffice.org available for testing
> purposes only! We consider them pre-alpha code, and they are not stable or
> complete enough for daily usage. They might crash on startup. They might
> delete all your files and cause your computer to burst into flames. We put
> them here for you to try out and report the bugs you find. It's guaranteed
> that you'll find bugs, lots of them and we want to hear about 'em."
> 
> Very strong confidence building going on here, eh? :-)

Isn't that pretty much the point of making a product that is known as
"alpha" quality or less in the public domain?  To try and find bugs? 
OpenOffice is the next-generation incarnation of StarOffice(with the
sub-licensed parts pulled out)... if you want to see what Sun
considers "final" quality software, checkout the latest release of
StarOffice from sun.com.  Then again, the latest release might be the
same as when Sun bought StarOffice, I'm almost sure they only reason
they bought it was so they could open source it and try to build a
"free" competitor to MS Office.