Why shouldn't Evolution merge with Openoffice?

[user1397]

Think about it...

what Openoffice really lacks (application wise) is an email program, as a direct competitor to Microsoft Outlook.

Now, do not tell me that "No, it's not about competition, let Evolution and Openoffice do what they want," because that IS Openoffice.org's main goal---to grab a slice of Microsoft Office monopoly in the business/productivity office software field.

Since Evolution seems to be a solid alternative to Outlook, and as it is already included in so many distributions of Linux, it just seems logical to bundle it into the Openoffice suite of applications.

Then Openoffice would have an application to match every application of Microsoft Office Professional, and then some:

Microsoft / Openoffice
Word / Writer
Excel / Calc
PowerPoint / Impress
Access / Base
Publisher / Draw?
? / Math!
Outlook / Evolution?

I do realize the amount of people that want Thunderbird to replace Evolution, but the truth is that Thunderbird is not as alike to Outlook as Evolution is, as of yet.

Thoughts?

[Dimitriid]

Well why Evolution, why not Thunderbird? I do not follow on your "alike" line of though and honestly, Thunderbird has/had Firefox behind it. Open office + Firefox and Thunderbird makes a lot more sense than throwing Evolution into the mix.

[jrusso2]

Thunderbird would by my choice but Evolution has exchange connector

[-grubby]

Why not use Thunderbird, it doesn't matter that Evolution looks more like Outlook

[jpeddicord]

I honestly can't see this happening. Evolution is from GNOME, OpenOffice.org is from Sun. Evolution is GTK+, OpenOffice.org is Java. They just don't mix very well. I suppose one could rewrite Evolution in Java, but I highly doubt that will happen.

Besides, Evolution is already "paired" with the GNOME office suite (Abiword, Gnumeric, etc).

[user1397]

I honestly can't see this happening. Evolution is from GNOME, OpenOffice.org is from Sun. Evolution is GTK+, OpenOffice.org is Java. They just don't mix very well. I suppose one could rewrite Evolution in Java, but I highly doubt that will happen.

Besides, Evolution is already "paired" with the GNOME office suite (Abiword, Gnumeric, etc).ah, yea I forgot about that in my calculation :(

I guess then that Openoffice should develop its own email client.

[50words]

Thunderbird is an e-mail client. Outlook and Evolution are personal information managers. Why don't people get that?

[luvdemheels]

openoffice was Supposed to develop their own. They had a code name and everything and no I have no clue what happened. I do agree that they need something.

[Buffalo Soldier]

Thunderbird is an e-mail client. Outlook and Evolution are personal information managers. Why don't people get that?

I totally agree with you. I keep seeing people confused about this all the time. My guess is it comes from people who have no need or use for Personal Information Manager.

[user1397]

I totally agree with you. I keep seeing people confused about this all the time. My guess is it comes from people who have no need or use for Personal Information Manager.no, I do understand the difference...I was just generalizing Evolution as an email client since that is its primary function, and the most related property of it to my thread...

[Frak]

Sun Microsystems (creator of OO.o) does not like Novell (known for Novell DOS 7, openSUSE, SUSE, Novell, and the "dirty deal"; creator of Evolution)

As long as both devs don't get along, it won't happen.

Though, it'd be cool if Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird merged with OpenOffice.org

[Dragonbite]

Think about it...

what Openoffice really lacks (application wise) is an email program, as a direct competitor to Microsoft Outlook.

Now, do not tell me that "No, it's not about competition, let Evolution and Openoffice do what they want," because that IS Openoffice.org's main goal---to grab a slice of Microsoft Office monopoly in the business/productivity office software field.

Since Evolution seems to be a solid alternative to Outlook, and as it is already included in so many distributions of Linux, it just seems logical to bundle it into the Openoffice suite of applications.

Then Openoffice would have an application to match every application of Microsoft Office Professional, and then some:

Microsoft / Openoffice
Word / Writer
Excel / Calc
PowerPoint / Impress
Access / Base
Publisher / Draw?
? / Math!
Outlook / Evolution?

I do realize the amount of people that want Thunderbird to replace Evolution, but the truth is that Thunderbird is not as alike to Outlook as Evolution is, as of yet.

Thoughts?

Some might argue that Scribus could take the place of Publisher, but as a Publisher user I havn't successfully been able to use Scribus to replace Publisher (yet).

I will admit a fair portion may be my unfamiliarity with Scribus but I'm working on that. I also have not tried Draw in this capacity, though it seems to be different.


I've read that Eudora is now going to be developed open-sourced (Penelopie?) so maybe that could be thrown in the mix since it's still early and has time to be made to fit?!

[Phil Airtime]

Some might argue that Scribus could take the place of Publisher, but as a Publisher user I havn't successfully been able to use Scribus to replace Publisher (yet).

I will admit a fair portion may be my unfamiliarity with Scribus but I'm working on that. I also have not tried Draw in this capacity, though it seems to be different.


Scribus is more aimed at the professional publishing market, similar to Quark on the Mac. I use Quark with work and while Scribus isn't nearly as intuitive, I can see where they're going with it. Publisher was designed more for people who want to use a wizard to make a birthday card with clipart of a racing car on the front. Linux doesn't have an equivalent to that.

[bruce89]

Though, it'd be cool if Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird merged with OpenOffice.org

OO.o couldn't get any worse anyway.

GNOME-office all the way.

[Dragonbite]

Scribus is more aimed at the professional publishing market, similar to Quark on the Mac. I use Quark with work and while Scribus isn't nearly as intuitive, I can see where they're going with it. Publisher was designed more for people who want to use a wizard to make a birthday card with clipart of a racing car on the front. Linux doesn't have an equivalent to that.
I don't use Wizards, but I use Publisher for page layout control, between text and graphics.

I don't know if Scribus has it but one thing that I routinely use Publisher is for business cards and labels (like for my home-brewed beer :) ), where I only see the space available for 1 business card / label and the system then creates the whole "sheet" when it goes to the printer.

Does scribus have that, or do you see the whole sheet with guidelines and you have to work one and copy-paste it into each location?

I'm trying to install Scribus and to use it when I get an opportunity but none has come around yet.

[sicofante]

OO.o couldn't get any worse anyway.

GNOME-office all the way.
I totally agree, but Thunderbird is as buggy as OO.o, so they might get along well. ;-) (I'm playing bad guy here, not a serious comment.)

[jrusso2]

Thunderbird is an e-mail client. Outlook and Evolution are personal information managers. Why don't people get that?

There is a plugin for Thunderbird called lightning that gives it the calendar and PIM.

[Erunno]

OpenOffice.org is Java.

As far as I know OpenOffice.org is mostly written in C++ with some Java dependencies thrown in.

[Frak]

As far as I know OpenOffice.org is mostly written in C++ with some Java dependencies thrown in.
Correct, and the Java components can be removed without much fuss.

[Tasogare_Mike]

I totally agree, but Thunderbird is as buggy as OO.o, so they might get along well. ;-) (I'm playing bad guy here, not a serious comment.)

:) Hey but you forgot to mention that you could use Outlook with OO and get the full gamut. Also since Outlook is used to the bugs that it deals with in Windows, it will feel right at home with OO. (BTW, is Outlook available for Linux?:guitar:)

(I'm playing the nutjob here, not a serious comment.)

[Mateo]

Evolution is NOT part of Gnome-office. At least not on Ubuntu.

[Frak]

Though, it'd be cool if Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird merged with OpenOffice.org

Once I look back, I was an idiot. :P

[Tasogare_Mike]

Seriously now:

I don't think a PIM should be bundled with OO unless there is a functional reason for it (e.g. OO spell check is used in the PIM or the text editor for the PIM is Writer.)

If it isn't integrated significantly, I don't see a reason for it. It makes sense to have Writer and Calc bundled because we know that they can't be separated (nor is it worth it).

As a marketing strategy, (in order to appease those who are looking for a complete MS Office replacement) I think that the various options for a PIM should be "optionized" during the downloading process. That is to say, make it so that the people have an option to DL or not. A system akin to Dell's system customizer or even a checkbox system like the usual "If you would also like to install Google Toolbar, check this box" kind of thing would be a great alternative to just tacking a PIM on for the heck of it. The options can be explained and then the DLer can then choose. OpenSource software is about freedom and what's freedom without choice. But as I said before, if there is a REAL reason to combine them, then we can limit choice.

[Canis familiaris]

OpenOffice.org is targeted at basic home users and office users. Now very few home users need a PIM. A standard e-mail client did the job. Most home users I knew had Microsoft Outlook installed with MS Office and still used Thunderbird and web mail and for similar people using OpenOffice, a mail client will be an unnessecary addition. For office users they could always install Evolution or whatever PIM they require.
So IMO, Evolution shouldn't merge with OpenOffice.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Evolution merging with OpenOffice would be 100% dumb. They use different user interface toolkits and different human interface guidelines (actually I take that back; OOo doesn't appear to have a HIG, except maybe an echo of the Windows one). They are both built in very different ways.
Evolution is a full PIM suite, not just a mail program; the Evolution Data Server is also used by Pimlico, for example.
Granted, they both succeed at looking and feeling really ugly within the GNOME desktop environment, but one app there is specifically not intended to.

Having said that, if such a merge also meant that the rest of OpenOffice went to GTK and started using a GNOME-friendly interface, I would buy into the idea completely.

[Foster Grant]

OpenOffice 3.0 will include Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client, according to this story (http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/52472).

And for those of you who are still lost in the fog and think Thunderbird is "just an e-mail client," install the Lightning extension (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/). And Thunderbird can also be configured to work (http://fourforces.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/setup-mozilla-thunderbird-to-work-with-microsoft-exchange-server/) with MS Exchange (http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/03/30/howto-thunderbird-and-ms-exchange-server/?), so Evolution doesn't have an advantage there either.

(If you're in the Czech Republic or the Slovak Republic, there's also an extension that lets you check your TV listings in Thunderbird (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7635). Cool, if you're either Czech or Slovak and you want to do that.)

[Dragonbite]

If Mozilla (Thunderbird/Lightening) or Evolution could access my Gmail via IMAP *and* my calendars (2-way) *and* my contacts (2-way) (yeah, I know about Apple's new pony trick) then I would use it regardless of if it is bundled with OpenOffice or not.

Personally I would prefer Mozilla Thunderbird because I can easily have it on all of my systems including Windows!

[jethro10]

Personally I would prefer Mozilla Thunderbird because I can easily have it on all of my systems including Windows!

And if this ever happened, there is the ONLY reason that matters I would guess, to coose one over the other.
Thunderbird is cross platform like OOo.
Evolution seems to be linux only?

J

[Solicitous]

Two reasons I can think of.
1) Not currently ported to the win platform. For OpenOffice to integrate Evolution they would have to port it over so they can release identical versions of OpenOffice for both win/linux platforms (I'm unsure about OSX).
2) Evolution doesn't have good support for multiple email accounts and mail boxes. Thunderbird handles this in a far more effective way.

[fatality_uk]

Two reasons I can think of.
1) Not currently ported to the win platform. For OpenOffice to integrate Evolution they would have to port it over so they can release identical versions of OpenOffice for both win/linux platforms (I'm unsure about OSX).
2) Evolution doesn't have good support for multiple email accounts and mail boxes. Thunderbird handles this in a far more effective way.

Evolution does have a Win32 port. I used it a while back. It's only about a year out of date but there was a port!

I agree here. It's a little messy getting two account open. All they have to do is nick the Thunderbird way to do it ;)

[lisati]

Unless I'm mistaken, Open Office is a derivative of Star Office (? from Sun) - the copy I have on CD includes email.... I wonder why it was dropped.

[sicofante]

I don't think a PIM should be bundled with OO unless there is a functional reason for it (e.g. OO spell check is used in the PIM or the text editor for the PIM is Writer.)
That "functional reason" is a fscking good reason in my book. Spell checking should be desktop-wide (and Linux is in an excellent position to do that, since almost everyone uses a derivative of Aspell to do it) and rich text editing should be desktop-wide too. While that doesn't happen, it should be possible to use a word processor instead of the poor editors integrated in e-mail clients (both Evolution and Thunderbird suck in that area).

Those two features kept me using Outlook for years, until I decided I wanted my e-mail stored in a non-proprietary format. I do miss them so much, though. Editors in e-mail programs are just bad.

However: OO is a terribly designed suite, IMO (it's the perfect demonstration of why developers should innovate, not imitate). Abiword would be much better suited for such a functionality: it's faster, lighter and provides enough tools to make beautifully formatted e-mails. Why Abiword can't be used as an editor for Evolution or Thunderbird is beyond me (although it probably has to do with the geeky obsession for plain text e-mail).

[timzak]

Thunderbird is an e-mail client. Outlook and Evolution are personal information managers. Why don't people get that?

Because people use the Lightning calendar extension with Thunderbird. It doesn't do everything that Evolution does, but it does probably 90% of it, and that 90% is less buggy and quirky.

[Dragonbite]

Is KDE's Kontact and KOffice well integrated? I've used them seperately, but mostly use OpenOffice and I wonder if they are already integrating these two pieces in a way OpenOffice and Evolution/Thunderbird can learn from.