Where is the AJAXy word processor that reads OpenDocument released under the GPL?
The organization that I work for has been struggling to find a way to exchange editable text documents across platforms (Windows, OS X and Linux) without also exchanging viruses or relying on a server at the far end of our T1 line.
What I really want is an AJAX word processor like Writely, but released under the GPL. Writely looks decent, and I found a mention that they plan on supporting OpenDocument by Thanksgiving 2005. Unfortunately, I can’t run Writely on our local network, because the Writely folks, like most proprietary software companies, will not share their code. This means that if our rather shaky Internet connection were to go down, we’d lose access to all our documents, which is not acceptable. I also have some concerns about the security of our data on their servers, but given the lax security of our network, it’s not as much of a concern as network unreliability. Maybe it will turn out that Writely will let us run a precompiled local version on a server on our network– if we can afford it, that could be great.
FCKEditor, on the other hand, is released under the GPL and sports the AJAXy goodness, but doesn’t support OpenDocument yet. I haven’t seen any mention of FCK adding support for ODF, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.
We’d also consider Microsoft’s new Office Live, when it’s released, but we’ve previously had trouble with Word files as a virus vector. Given that history and the price (I’m guessing around $50 per user, similar to the price we pay now for Office), I’m hesitant to stay with them.
Anyone else know about any competitors I’m missing?
January 5th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
[...] While the mainstream media has offered only relatively superficial coverage of the OpenDocument battle in Massachusetts, Brandon’s reporting has been far more extensive (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). And Brandon has not been afraid to take on the mainstream media when he believes their reporting to be misleading or erroneous. For example, he takes Boston Globe reporter Stephen Kurkjian to task for sloppy reporting that may have lead to the forced resignation of the Massachusetts CTO. But Brandon did this with the kind of grace and civility that Mena Trott and others have lamented as being absent from the blogosphere. In one of his chastisements of Kurkjian, Brandon is careful to temper his criticism with a compliment about Kurkjian’s previous Pulitzer Prize winning work at the Globe. If only some of the more vitriolic voices in the blogosphere could learn from Brandon’s tactfulness here. [...]
January 5th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
[...] While the mainstream media has offered only relatively superficial coverage of the OpenDocument battle in Massachusetts, Brandon’s reporting has been far more extensive (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). And Brandon has not been afraid to take on the mainstream media when he believes their reporting to be misleading or erroneous. For example, he takes Boston Globe reporter Stephen Kurkjian to task for sloppy reporting that may have led to the forced resignation of the Massachusetts CTO. But Brandon does this with the kind of grace and civility that Mena Trott and others have lamented as being absent from the blogosphere. In one of his chastisements of Kurkjian, Brandon is careful to temper his criticism with a compliment about Kurkjian’s previous Pulitzer Prize winning work at the Globe. If only some of the more vitriolic voices in the blogosphere could learn from Brandon’s tactfulness here. [...]