I also purchased Softwood products, almost all of them in several versions. I also purchased Digita Wordworth (also Digita Office) in several versions and AmiWriter (H&P). To me, FW is the most ancient and crude one in look and feel and usage while it maybe has the most functions. AmiWriter is quite the opposite: modern GUI and functions but few of them. Wordworth was always in the middle between them. And there was also MAxon Word which I only know from screenshots and magazine reviews.

All of them could be a good base for a reworked word processor but at first comes the price. How much does Woody want to have? He has to name that first. It does not make sense to setup bounties with blurry goals like "let us collect muuuuuuuuuuuuuch money and then let's hope that he will give us the source". No. At first he and Softwood and Digita and Maxon and H&P or ... have to tell how much money they want to open the source. They also have to tell which programming language they used. Then they have to say which components are licensed and cannot be opened but must be replaced or reimplemented completely or re-licensed. ONLY THEN it makes sense to even think about whether one of these programs is worth collecting money for. Not beforehand. He who thinks that he can become rich the old days 15 years after selling the latest version of an ancient word processormust learn that in real world his program is worth nothing anymore because it cannot compete with Word, Open Office etc. It is his last chance to ever feel important about this ancient piece of code. His last chance to buy himself and his wife a pizza for it.

Maybe a more constructive way to approach it might be putting the product on sale at a fixed price, and run a bounty system in parallel, with both sales revenue and bounty pledges contributing towards the target price for open-sourcing.

That would allow people to get their hands on legacy software legally, give the developers some guaranteed cash, and give a reasonable gauge for whether enough people are interested.

If the target is never reached, then the 'bounty' contributors get their money back, the 'purchasers' get to keep their legally bought copies, and the IP owners get to keep the cash from the sold copies.

May depend any lingering distribution rights I suppose in some cases, but seems like a no-brainer really: win-win-win.

Why busy so many people with collecting money and probably sending it back when you do not know yet whether
a) you can buy the source at all
b) in what constitution the source is
c) how much money is asked for it
d) it is worth that amount of money
so all in all whether it makes sense to even think about it? Starting with steps 5, 4, 3, 2 before having done step 1 just busies and worries people.

I've always found FW GUI to be fresh and sophisticated. And other programs like Amiga Writer a bit unpolished or amateurish like WW. And I usually end up to use FW for word processing & printing I need...

But I don't know if there's much to gain with sources for it. It could be a big work to implement new features or support for more modern things... maybe the whole engine isn't up to it without complete rewrite? Porting current version to native MorphOS binary doesn't make much difference either... 68k version works pretty good itself. But if it could be get freeware or freewared by open sourcing with reasonable amount of money, so be it... although it sounds like it isn't going to be get with reasonable amount :/

What bounty amount would be attractive to (a group of) coder(s) in order to port Open Office? $50,000? $100,000?

Just curious.

I would be for a bounty for it. If there was a realistic plan, price, and goal...

I bought mutiple versions of softwood products and still use Final Writer on MOS 3.1 with any real isues.

There is no need for a big group of developers to do this. 1 - 2 motivated and knowledgeable people for a few months would be enough for an initial port and then it's a matter of incremental improvements.

The numbers you are quoting sound too high IMHO. The problem with past efforts was that it was attempted by guys with no background and that won't work out.

Personally, I'll settle for Cinnamon Writer.
It looks like a good base to expand on.

And we can't do a port of Open Office since we don't have Java.
Also, I have no idea why everybody so focus on FinalWriter.
It obvious that the author does not have complete control of the package AND he wants an unrealistic amount for it.

You don't need java for an OO port. Anyway, I agree that a homegrown application is nicer. Question is just if it's realistic to get it up to the level people expect with the very limited resources

Nadir,
Quote:

Sorry, hasty posting.
Older versions did make use of Java.
But then, older versions also relied on X11.
I haven't cleared up whether Java is still required or not (but then, most of Java is now covered by a GNU license making it a possibility too).

Now that I've looked up the basic requirements for porting, there doesn't seem to be that many hurdles.
Just a lot of work that a few skilled programmers might manage (with time).

Still, have you looked at the current state of Cinnamon Writer?

http://desler.be/modules/wfchannel/

Still not out of beta yet, but a pretty good start.

[ Edited by Jim 05.10.2012 - 02:56 ]

Nadir,
Quote:

Problem with a home grown solution is the coder can and most likely will pick up his toys and go home at some point. The community could throw a bunch of money at it but there is no guarantee of anything. If the community threw a bunch of money at porting something like OO and actually got it ported, the source code would always be open. If the coder(s) gave up and moved on, someone else theoretically could pick it up.

Maybe we could just pool our resources and have Fab cloned.
I'm sure a few copies of that guy would get the job done.

> Older versions did make use of Java. [...] I haven't cleared
> up whether Java is still required or not

"Make use of" is not the same as "require". Fact is that older versions made the same use of Java that current versions do, but it's not required and never was. See:

http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Java_and_OpenOffice.org

@connor

+1. Let's not forget that in the 90s the GUI may be OK but nowadays we are used to MUI and it may feel like a step back. I don't think the sources worth more than 1000 EUR.

I cleared up my mind to the point that I had the libre office build system running and some stuff starting to compile. That took a few evenings but at least gave me a feeling of what is involved in porting this beast. It is feasible to do it but quite boring.

It seems CW made some nice progress but don't underestimate how much it takes to write a full word processor. It's a huge task.

The problem I see with Cinnamon Writer (the same is true for Scriba) is that it is closed source. It depends all on the developer. Best arguements against CS are Wordworth, Final Writer or Amiga Writer - those were all nice programs, but they stalled because developers gave up on it and community couldn't pick it up because of CS. I wouldn't want to see that repeating again, but instead support an OS solution.

[ Editiert durch Zylesea 05.10.2012 - 13:45 ]

In my opinion decent wordprocessor can't be written by single developer. We have four options:

1) take some old code (and pay authors)
PROS: huge amount of code is already written
CONS: no mui, large amount of money required
2) Scriba
PROS: mui, seems progressing, using typical MorphOS components
CONS: definetely premature, prebeta state, German docs :), gui
3) CinnamonWriter
PROS: seems progressing
CONS: own gui (no mui)
4) LibreOffice
PROS: it's Libre Office, Nadir has working build system :)
CONS: port all dependiences

I vote for Libre Office :)

Yeah, Java was never needed for OO for the most. Where ever I've installed OO I've skipped Java.

+1 for Libre Office and lets talk Nadir over to do it ;)

The open source argument is a good one. What happens when a developer can't do the work anymore?

With such a small base, we're very vulnerable to manpower losses that aren't easily replacable.

>"Make use of" is not the same as "require". Fact is that older versions made the same use of Java that current versions do, but it's not required and never was. See:

http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Java_and_OpenOffice.org

Strange, since the first line of the link you post reads this, Andreas

>Java is required for complete OpenOffice.org functionality

Zylesea,
Quote:
Why do you favor a CS OS then?

connor,
>Why do you favor a CS OS then?

MorphOS is done by a team, not a single individual. This team has a proven track record and said something like when they eventually may feel it would be time to give it up they wouldn't fire and bury the code, but make available. And most important: it fits my needs best.
Look, I am not a burning OSS evangelist, but with a micro community where applications are usually programmed by single individuals (_nothing_ against that!) OSS may be the most promising assurance for a software not stalling when the developer gets bored/no time.

>> "Make use of" is not the same as "require". Fact is that older
>> versions made the same use of Java that current versions do, but
>> it's not required and never was. See:
>> http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Java_and_OpenOffice.org

> Strange, since the first line of the link you post reads this, Andreas
>>Java is required for complete OpenOffice.org functionality

Not strange at all. Java is not required to run OpenOffice.org. I used it to write my master's thesis and for that didn't rely on any functionality requiring Java. Thus, "complete OpenOffice.org functionality" is something I think most people can live without.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

That's cool.
Personally I don't need anything except the word processor.

BTW - What did you get the Masters in and what was the title of you thesis?

> Personally I don't need anything except the word processor.

OpenOffice.org (or LibreOffice) Writer needs Java just for some wizards and for some export formats. Nothing essential.

http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Java_and_OpenOffice.org#OpenOffice.org_Writer

> What did you get the Masters in and what was the title of you thesis?

Let's take that to PM to not risk boring anyone here to death ;-)