Only just found out about this, and can’t tell you whether it’s any good yet. Best get cracking if you want it…
[edited title - sorry, misinformed, thought it ended tonight, should’ve checked… ;)]
Umm…
That’s about all I got on that one Mike.
Confused… :\
I actually think it’s quite good, having had a look…
And I presume it’s not considered spamming to let people know about such a promo…
Sure, it isn’t open source, but it’s potentially useful.
So go on… Enlighten me… 
[Ah! Perhaps I see the problem. There is a linux version, which works fine on SUSE, if you click through…]
It wasn’t intended as spam, I know - But some might well consider it that.
As you say, it’s interesting to enlighten folks, but I was just wondering why on earth we would even consider it. OpenOffice or KOffice can provide a suitable office installation without the hassle of Vendor codes, registration, and general lock-in. Not to mention who knows what is packed with it.
I assumed that spam was either unrelated to the content of the board, or stood to benefit the person posting - I apologise if that is considered spamming… Obviously it’s your call whether to delete / lock the thread.
I’ve had problems with openoffice compatibility with .docs and general bugginess. I’ve been looking for a suitable alternative (koffice, lotus symphony and abiword aren’t there yet), and this does look well put together… Just thought others might think it looks useful.
[incidentally I’d rather not use .docs either - but my uni, for example, doesn’t take anything else…]
I said, some might consider it that. I’m leaving it as it is.
If you dare, you could run XP in Virtual Box and use M$ Office
Or Install M$ Office in Crossover (I can let you have a freebie)
Virtualisation does look appealing… Having a ‘reset’ button that actually resets Windows to factory state would certainly help. 
I’m awaiting getting my new (well… old, donated) desktop together, then I’ll consider my options. Thanks though.
not to confront unnecessarily but in what way do you feel it is
superior to OpenOffice or KOffice?
does it have the ‘look and feel’ of Redmond software (ugh!! that is
absolutely not be something to cause me to want to PAY for it…would
i have to ‘tune’ it to ‘look and feel’ like real, open source, native
Linux openSUSE software )
i guess, i feel like even no cost proprietary software is not FREE!
my personal opinion would be that if Norton (or anyone) started giving
away their very best anti-virus (or anything else) closed source
package which ran on Linux, it would be a waste of space and bits to
trumpet that here…ymmv
this is OPEN-SuSE, for a reason…
–
palladium
Why use proprietary software? Why not, if it’s better than the open source equivalent?
With my economics hat on, except in the case that the social cost of the proprietary software outweighs the individual cost of using an inferior open equivalent, you should use the proprietary version. Measuring social cost is notoriously difficult, but I don’t think that’s the case here.
So, it makes sense to avoid giving money to a company with a track record of abusing its monopoly position, frequently even when the company makes better software. If Windows were better than Linux, I would still use Linux where I could, because I believe Windows has a substantial paralysing effect on software (and thereby ultimately social) development. I have no such concerns about Softmaker as an individual company.
It would only make sense to avoid using proprietary software entirely if open source software were generally worse (or at least were generally driven out of the market) when made in competition with proprietary offerings, but software (or society) would be better off if all software were open. This is Prisoners’ Dilemma reasoning; you could boycott superior closed source software, taking the principled stand that even if it would be better for you in the short term, it is desirable to bring about the globally optimal shift to openness.
But, if you believe as I do that open source software is generally better because it’s a better development model, and thus that eventually pretty much all software will end up open through an inevitable development process, then there’s nothing wrong with a stint of pragmatism in the meantime.
If Textmaker is more compatible with .docs than Open Office (and many reviews say it is), it does no harm to use it if you need to write .docs (and I do). Open Office is, sadly, just plain broken in many ways. KOffice is not yet ready to be used as a main office suite by most people - the developers have said as much themselves. I’ve not yet come across any other realistic alternatives.
Many will also argue that an increasing amount of proprietary development on top of Linux is to be taken as indicative of Linux’s success - even encouraged, rather than seen as a blight to be at best tolerated. I can see their point; I have a problem with monopolies, not to mention rubbish operating systems that remove me from control of my computer, crash constantly, and are rather too easily infected with malware, but not with closed source software per se - I believe it will always be a part of the software ecosystem.
Finally, I can’t help but wonder: if you don’t believe in pragmatism, why are you using a distro whose parent company made a deal with Microsoft? To me, I don’t see it as an issue, because I think Microsoft have been systematically undermining their market dominance for years, simply by mistakes in the product. They’ve obviously taken the bet that the deal with Novell gives them a net benefit; Novell saw things the other way - and as a side effect, that hopefully benefits the rest of Linux. I agree with Novell, because I think what Linux needs now is hardware/vendor support and exposure - but I don’t think that’s the kind of reasoning that a purist can engage in.
OK, this is a tricky one.
Linux clearly has a weakness in office software. Now it all depends on how you use office software, but I can only speak for myself and I use it mainly for writing books, articles etc (I’m an academic). Now OOo is not bad but it cannot, for me, replace MS Office as long as it doesn’t offer a useable outline mode, not to mention some of it’s other problems. I do use OOo, but when it gets serious I retreat to MS Office (don’t even mention KOffice, that’s for spotty teenagers writing love letters). Softmaker Office is in many ways better than OOo: it’s faster (lots), more compatible with MS Office, but it’s also uglier than OOo (that’s saying something) and it’s closed source.
It’s horses for courses. Depending on your need for “office software”, you may be able to get by with Abiword or KOffice. Maybe OOo will meet your needs beyond that (it meets most of mine). But there’s nothing wrong with going for a paid, closed-source solution if that’s what meets your needs. For myself, I make do with a combination of OOo and MS Office 2007, but I admit that Softmaker Office 2010 (when the Linux version comes out) might be an option to consider.