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List:       openoffice-discuss
Subject:    Re: [discuss] KDE 3.1 and OOo
From:       David Legg <david_legg () tiscali ! co ! uk>
Date:       2003-02-20 21:40:10
Message-ID: 1045777232.2380.72.camel () cartman ! 22syd ! net
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On 20 Feb 2003 08:08:02 -0500 Selva wrote

> Hi Francisco,

> I actually did not try it yet but was just asking to
> find out if OOo was compatible with the new KDE3.1.
> I guess by your answer, it is.  Thanks.

> Rgds,
> Selva

Selva, Francesco,

Issues such as a particular application being able to run on a
particular desktop environment (KDE, Gnome etc.) do not exist on a Linux
distribution because the application can be independent of the desktop
environment unlike with Windows, of course. Provided you have the right
libraries and dependencies installed for your applications you can run a
KDE application like KWord on Gnome, a Gnome application on KDE like
Gnumeric or any other combination of window manager/desktop environment
like IceWM quite happily, even though they may use different GUI
toolkits or libraries from 'KDE' or 'Gnome applications'. Go ahead and
run a Gnumeric app or Open Office in KDE or any combination you like -
nothing stops you.

Since all these applications, and Open Office for that matter, are
basically entirely compatible X server applications along with their
window managers and desktop environments you can run any application on
anything, provided you install the right stuff for your apps.

The only problem you may have is the more complex parts of the desktop
environment like OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) in Windows speak,
such as being able to embed a KPart (an object in a KDE application) in
Open Office or Gnumeric, for example, which you cannot do since they are
based on different technology (as far as I know). However, if you
exclusively use an office suite like Open Office for particular purposes
then this issue should never arise and will be something you will never
even consider. Quite frankly the 'compatible Windows programs' and the
'many incompatible KDE, Gnome... programs' is a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty,
Doubt) rumour spread primarily by Microsoft and Windows advocates who
haven't used a Linux distribution in their lives. You here this
incompatibility thing time and again and its wrong, simply because every
Linux distribution is built on common 'freely' available kernels, tools
and X Servers etc. It is generally only in specific implementations that
they differ.

Granted perhaps standards should be established in the future so that we
could embed a KPart of KOffice in Open Office and vice versa and Open
Office or any app, when run under a particular desktop environment like
KDE or Gnome, would 'inherit' the look and feel etc. of the 'parent'
desktop environment that they are running with. Under these
circumstances a bit more 'unity' could be achieved between different
apps without sacrificing choice. I don't know whether any standards such
as this have been discussed by organisations such as the Desktop Linux
Consortium and on mailing lists but they would certainly be interesting
and could become part of something like the LSB, although they may be
difficult to achieve. Give people choice along with the integration that
is sometimes required.

Go and run Open Office under any window manager/desktop environment you
like, because you can. It really doesn't matter. I'm running under KDE
3.0.5 and I also use Ximian Evolution (a GTK (Gnome) based e-mail,
contacts, calendar et al client) although the KDE PIM (Personal
Information Manager) stuff is looking seriously good now.

Hope that provides a little bit of background.

regards,

David

PS. Must commend some people on their postings - things are looking a
'little bit' neater :).



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