I have been contacted by someone who knows a programmer outside the MorphOS community that may be interested in attempting a port of Libre Office to MorphOS3.x.

I know that in the past members here have pointed out that programmers who are not familiar with AmigaOS3.x, or MorphOS3.x, would have too high of a learning curve to make it practical for them to attempt porting software to MorphOS3.x, so most discussion about outside programmers doing any software development for MorphOS3.x has been dismissed as only talk and pipe dreams.

If some of the MorphOS programmers here could give me some specific list of reasons why Libre Office has not already been ported to MorphOS3.x, I will forward the list to this potential outside programmer (who is touted as being very talented), so we can have a discussion about the feasibility of him attempting such a project.

I am willing to donate one of my very capable MorphOS computers with a registration license for MorphOS3.1 to this potential programmer, but only if I can be assured that there is at least a slight chance that he will succeed in such an ambitious project.

It is my belief that such a project will take more than one programmer, so if this idea does bear any fruit and become an actual project, I would imagine that a bounty would be created, and hopefully more than one programmer will join together with who ever starts the programming project, and work as a team to complete this Office port which MorphOS3.x badly needs.

[ Edited by amigadave 29.01.2013 - 14:00 ]

I'm also giving away two G4 Powermacs.
So if anyone has some programming ability, I've got some hardware you can use.

I would think that NeoOfice could be a good candidate as well.

Hi,


I did some initial work on getting the build system to work about half a year ago or so. It took a few evenings to get it to a stage where it started to actually compile stuff. Then you need to go through a painful process of sorting out one compilation/build issue after the other until you get all the libraries to build. This part is very boring work and needs a lot of motivation but it's is not particularly hard for someone with a bit of experience.

The platform-dependent layers obviously require someone with experience of MorphOS programming but the migration to native code can to a large extent be done progressively. One would probably start with a cairo canvas and then move over component by component to mui. I looked a bit at this and I don't see large problems.

Actually, in my view, a Libre Office port is not really difficult from a technical viewpoint and a large team doesn't help either. You need the following:

**** 1-2 highly motivated people with a lot of spare time and good skills for this kind of task *****

That's it, but you might have a hard time finding such people!

I lost interest in this project since the work is rather boring and it's an application I have no need for on MorphOS.

Best,

Nicholai

p.s. I would recommend doing this work on a cross-compiler on Linux or so. Libre Office is a beast and this really saves time. There are also some blockers in the build system that are cumbersome to work around with our native toolchain.

@ Nicholai

Would it be possible to put you in contact with this developer?
He might have a few questions.

Sure. I can be reached at my +my first name+ at morphos-team.net

Best,

Nicholai

@Nicholai,

It is good to read that someone has attempted some work on this kind of project and that you think there are no programming obstacles that would make it impossible, or even impractical to complete a port of Libre Office to MorphOS3.x. I understand that much of the work would be very boring and how it could be difficult to keep motivation to complete the work, but perhaps this kind of software is important to enough other MorphOS3.x users, that they will donate to a bounty and that this money will help with the motivation.

I hope that you will consider joining this other programmer who has no previous experience with programming or using MorphOS, so you can advise him regarding the MorphOS system specific information that he will need to complete such a project. Would money be enough of a motivational tool to keep you interested in participating in such a project? If yes, we can begin to set up a bounty to pay you and this other outside programmer for your time spent working on this project.

I wonder if using Kickstarter for porting Libre Office to MorphOS3.x would be a good idea? I also wonder if combining it with a port of Libre Office to AmigaOS4.x would help to raise double the money we could raise if the port was for MorphOS3.x alone (I know that some MorphOS users will object to a combined port to both OSes, as they object to any kind of cooperation, but this outside programmer probably does not care, as he has no previous knowledge of the fighting that has gone on in the past and should not care, or want to exclude a port to AmigaOS4.x in addition to MorphOS3.x, unless it will cause too much additional work that he does not wish to place on the project)?

Either way, I hope that this project can go forward to completion, and that there are not any reasons that it can't be done, which Nicholai did not realize during the short time he was working on creating the port of Libre Office to MorphOS3.x.

I'd donate to a bounty.
An OS4 version could be back ported.
I don't think the developer has an OS4 machine (and they are rather expensive).

Jim,
Quote:

I'd have no objection to keeping the source open so someone could back port at some point, but I would rather this bounty to be MorphOS specific. It would keep things more simple for the programmer and wouldn't attach any boat anchors to the effort. I fear making it a dual MorphOS/OS4 effort would end up like the OS4 Spotify effort. Not trying to be harsh, JMHO.

On Kickstarter, I'm not sure enough money would be raised to justify Kickstarter. Even with Fraggle, It would still likely be in the low-mid thousands. Our numbers are simply too low.

Hi,


Well, to be honest, money is not really a very strong incentive when it comes to what I do on my spare time. I would likely donate anything I made on a bounty towards some other MorphOS project .

I only find motivation to work on projects that I have any use for myself or that are intellectually stimulating. That's why I came up with things like Scribble and more lately the new NetStack.

However, I will be available to help with hints if someone puts some serious energy into this (and is capable enough). I believe other MorphOS developers would as well.

Once the platform independent stuff is working, it would probably be easier to attract more serious help from someone with MorphOS programming experience.

I wouldn't bother to work on an OS4 port from the start. It's only going to slow things down for no reason and limit the OS components that can be used.

Best,

Nicholai

As Nicholai suggested, it would be better for the developer(s) to use a Windows, or possibly a Mac, or Linux system to cross compile the project, as such systems have better programming tools and can compile code many times faster, so compiling twice, once for MorphOS3.x and once for OS4.x, would not be a burden. Testing would be the only obstacle and I have no doubt that there would be dozens, if not hundreds of users from both camps that would gladly volunteer to test the code as it was produced. There would probably be programmers from each camp that would also be glad to join in the effort to complete a port of Libre Office to both systems, so I don't see adding a port to AmigaOS4.x as a detriment to the project, and it could be a great asset to the bounty effort.

I understand the reluctance of some people here, and the resistance to this idea. It obviously is not a popular idea to present on a MorphOS website. That is okay, I don't blame anyone for their viewpoint and opinions against my ideas.

I agree with Nicholai that there is no reason or need to work on any AmigaOS4.x parts of the project in the beginning, and an AmigaOS4.x programmer can be located late in the project to work on completing that part of the bounty, after all the non-specific system programming work has been done. The same applies to the MorphOS3.x specific parts of the code.

[ Edited by amigadave 30.01.2013 - 11:18 ]

> I also wonder if combining it with a port of Libre Office to AmigaOS4.x would help
> to raise double the money we could raise if the port was for MorphOS3.x alone

The OS4 port is already taken care of:

http://www.a-eon.com/news/21-10-2012.html
http://www.a-eon.com/news/30-12-2012.html

Thanks Andreas

That ends the debate about including an OS4.x port to the bounty for this proposed project. It is just a shame that two separate programming efforts will be duplicating the same work, when they could be working together and possibly complete the work in about half the time.

That's where you go wrong in my opinion. Doing it together would take double the time or more.

To make this thing happen, one needs to focus on the task. Faffing about with several architectures and plenty of people testing is just not the right approach. The drag from supporting different architectures is not primarilly related to the compilation or testing time as you suggested. It's just a mess to maintain the build system and all dependencies for two different architectures when it comes to a monster like Libre Office.

Seriously, 1 -2 weeks of dedicated work by one guy to make the thing actually run wihout any native GUI on one single machine is what is needed initially. Later on, one can discuss if it makes sense to share code or not.

> I fear making it a dual MorphOS/OS4 effort would end up like the OS4 Spotify effort.

...or like the OS4 OOo4Kids/OOoLight effort, to stay more on topic :-)

Quote:

Surely there must be some contract workers within MorphOS team (you don't all have real, permanent, full-time jobs, right?). At ~E1500 per week, I'm pretty sure we could raise the cash to actually *contract* the right person for the job, subject to availability.

(EDIT: After discovering that Google docs had the limitation of outputting graphics within word/excel documents at a lamentable resolution (~75pdi), I've given up on it for business use. Letter-headed invoices, documents, specifications, calculations and quotes are not something I can do without, or live with at such pitiful resolutions.)

[ Edited by boot_wb 30.01.2013 - 21:11 ]

Doesn't Kickstarter have fees? I know that quite a few interesting projects have gotten started and promoted through Kickstarter but, aside from privately organised bounties, I think there's a free alternative to it. Just can't quite remember what it's called...

amigadave,
Quote:

Camp OS4 will be playing 'hide the source code' on their port, no doubt.

Well, you can bet with A-Eon exclusively funding the port of LibreOffice, you'll be hard pressed to find any documentation on how it was accomplished.

In case I am sounding too negative, I want to make clear I would support such a bounty. I would contribute something to such a bounty.

amigadave,
Quote:
Linux. Using anything else is just asking for trouble.

Piru,
Quote:

Linux on what kind of system?
I'm prepping an MDD for this developer and I have a 250GB hard drive divided in half with partitions for OSX and MorphOS.
Would there be any benefit in making this a triple boot system or would the Linux development be best done on an X86 system?

> Linux on what kind of system? [...]
> would the Linux development be best done on an X86 system?

From Nadir mentioning time saving as one reason to use Linux I'd conclude that he refers primarily to Linux on x86.

Jim,
Quote:
i7 3970X