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KOffice

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KOffice
Original author(s)KDE, Reginald Stadlbauer
Developer(s)KDE, Thomas Zander (maintainer)[1]
Initial releaseOctober 23, 2000; 23 years ago (2000-10-23)[2]
Stable release
2.3.3 / March 1, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-03-01)[3]
Repository
Written inC++ (Qt, KDE Platform)
Operating systemUnix-like, Windows
Size~70 MB (compressed source code)[4]
Available in27 languages[5]
TypeOffice suite
LicenseGPL, LGPL
Websitekoffice.org (Offline since September 2012)[6]

KOffice was a free and open source office suite, which was available for FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, and Windows. It contained a word processor (KWord), a spreadsheet application (KSpread) and a presentation program (KPresenter).

After the Calligra Suite was forked from it in 2010, the the KOffice.org website went offline as of September 2012.

History

Development Sprints
Year Venue Date
2000[7] Erlangen, Germany Sep, 23–25
2007[8] Berlin, Germany Oct, 26–28
2008[9] Berlin, Germany Nov, 7–9
2009[10] Berlin, Germany Jun, 5–7
2009[11] Oslo, Norway Nov, 27–29
2010[12] Essen, Germany Jun, 11–13

First generation

Initial work on KOffice development began in 1997, by Reginald Stadlbauer[13][14] with KPresenter, followed by KWord[15] in 1998.

In 1999, KOffice was cited in testimony in the United States v. Microsoft anti-trust trial by then-Microsoft executive Paul Maritz as evidence of competition in the operating system and office suite arena.[16]

The first official release of the KOffice suite was on October 23, 2000 when it was released as part of K Desktop Environment 2.0.[2] Versions 1.1 followed in 2001,[17] 1.2 in 2002,[18] 1.3 in 2004,[19] 1.4 in 2005,[20] and 1.5[21] and 1.6 both in 2006.[22]

Second generation

KOffice has undergone a major transition in recent years as part of the release of KDE Software Compilation 4 (SC4). Coinciding with the work on SC4, the KOffice team prepared a major new release – KOffice 2.0 – which used the new KDE Platform 4 libraries. Although version 2.0 was released in 2009, the release was labeled as a “platform release” which was recommended only for testers and developers, rather than production use, since the release was missing key features and applications from the previous stable release series – Kexi, Kivio, and Kugar were not included.[23]

Experimental port of KOffice 2.1 to Haiku.

This continued with version 2.1 in November, 2009. Regular end-users requiring a stable environment are still recommended by developers to use the stable 1.6 release series.[24] This version was also ported to Haiku[25] but the port was later not updated for newer KOffice versions.

In May 2010, version 2.2.0 was released and brings an unprecedented number of new features and bugfixes. Kexi was integrated again. Kivio has not yet been migrated. A new framework for effects on shapes and a new import filters for the Microsoft Office Open XML formats that are used in MS Office 2007 and later got added.[26]

Community split

The viewer for smartphones was dropped from KOffice

In mid-2010, following disagreements between the core developers,[27][28] the KOffice community split into two separate communities, KOffice and Calligra. Following arbitration with the community members several applications were renamed by both communities.[29] KOffice forked the KSpread spreadsheet utility to KCells, also the KPresenter presentation tool to KOffice Showcase, and the Karbon14 drawing tool to KOffice Artwork.

The community split coincided with the move from KDE’s Subversion repository to git. The Krita painting application, the Kexi database manager, and dedicated mobile platform GUI files were not migrated into the KOffice git repository.[30][31][32]

KOffice 2.3, released 31 December 2010,[33] along with subsequent bugfix releases (2.3.1–2.3.3[3]) was still a collaborative effort of both the KOffice and Calligra development teams.[34]

Beginning with KOffice 2.4 the developers aimed to release new KOffice versions every six months in sync with SC4 releases[35] but KOffice had seen no development activity since mid-March 2012.[36]

After two minor commits in August 2012[37] the koffice.org website was replaced by a placeholder in early September 2012. On October 22, 2012 KDE removed KOffice from their Quality Website Tools.[38]

Components

The last formally released version of KOffice included the following components:

KWord A word processor with style sheets and frame-support for DTP-style editing of complex layouts.
KSpread A spreadsheet application with multiple sheet support, templates and more than 100 mathematical formulae.
KPresenter A presentation program with image and effect support.
Kexi An integrated data management application, designed as a Microsoft Access or FileMaker competitor. It can be used for designing and implementing databases, inserting and processing data and performing queries. It has limited compatibility with the MS Access file format.
Kivio A programmable flowchart drawing program with dynamically loadable stencils. Developed by theKompany, which offered additional (non-free) stencils for sale.
Karbon14 A vector drawing application with a variety of drawing and editing tools.
Krita (Formerly known as Krayon and KImageshop). A bitmap graphics manipulation program, primarily designed as a painting program, with some image processing features.
Kugar and KChart Integrated report and chart generators.
KFormula An integrated mathematical formula editor.
KPlato A project management application that can create Gantt-style charts.

Competition

The main office suite in use today is Microsoft Office.[39] Microsoft Office has been released for Windows and Mac OS but no version to date has been released for Linux. In addition, users of the open source operating system have typically expressed a preference for open source software.

In order to meet the demand for a Linux-based office suite, several projects have produced open source office suites for Linux including LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice, Calligra Suite, and KOffice. LibreOffice is likely the most popular office suite for Linux as it ships in the default installs of many popular Linux distributions, like Debian, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and Fedora. However, OpenOffice and its fork LibreOffice have drawn criticism for its speed and memory usage.[40][41]

Technical details

KOffice applications are developed using Qt and KDE Platform. All its components are released under free software licenses and use OpenDocument as their native file format when possible. KOffice has been released separately from KDE SC 4 and can be downloaded from KDE’s FTP server.

KOffice underwent a large overhaul to use Flake and Pigment as much as possible within applications. KOffice developers planed to share as much infrastructure as possible between applications to reduce bugs and improve the user experience.[42] They also want to create an OpenDocument library for use in other KDE applications that will allow developers to easily add support for reading and outputting OpenDocument files to their applications.[43] Automating tasks and extending the suite with custom functionality can be done with D-Bus or with scripting languages like Python, Ruby, and JavaScript.[44]

See also

References

  1. ^ "KOffice Overview". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  2. ^ a b "KDE 2.0 Release Announcement". KDE. 2000-10-23. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  3. ^ a b "KOffice 2.3.3 update". Lists.kde.org. 2011-03-01. Retrieved 2013-09-19.
  4. ^ ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/koffice-latest/
  5. ^ "KOffice v2.3.1". Ithov.com. 2011-01-21. Retrieved 2013-09-19. This version of KOffice is translated to no less than 27 languages.
  6. ^ Template:Wayback
  7. ^ Dre (2000-09-30). "German-Sponsored KOffice Meeting Report". KDE. KDE.News. Retrieved 2011-05-21.
  8. ^ Inge Wallin and Boudewijn Rempt (2007-10-30). "Second KOffice Sprint in Berlin Focuses on Release, Polish". KDE. KDE.News. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  9. ^ Jos Poortvliet (2008-11-11). "KOffice Sprint 2008". KDE. KDE.News. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  10. ^ Boudewijn Rempt (2009-06-13). "KOffice 2009 Sprint In Berlin". KDE. KDE.News.
  11. ^ Jos Poortvliet (2009-11-29). "Second KOffice Developer Sprint 2009 Kickoff". KDE. KDE.News. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  12. ^ Boudewijn Rempt (2010-06-25). "KOffice 2010 Summer Sprint Report". KDE. KDE.News. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  13. ^ "koffice/kpresenter". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  14. ^ "Reginald Stadlbauer". Behind KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  15. ^ "koffice/kword". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  16. ^ "Microsoft's 3rd man speaks out fear of KOffice". KDE. 1999-01-30. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  17. ^ "KOffice 1.1 Release Announcement". KDE. 2001-08-28. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  18. ^ "KDE Ships KOffice 1.2, an Integrated Office Suite for Linux/Unix". KDE.News. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  19. ^ "KOffice 1.3 Released". KDE.News. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  20. ^ "KOffice 1.4 Released". KDE.News. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  21. ^ "KOffice 1.5 Released". KDE.News. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  22. ^ "KOffice 1.6 Released". KDE.News. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  23. ^ "KOffice 2.0.0 released". KDE. 2009-05-28. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-06-07). Retrieved 2012-05-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)
  24. ^ "KOffice 2.1 released". KDE. 2009-11-24. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-06-07). Retrieved 2012-05-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)
  25. ^ "KDE applications available for Haiku!". Tiltos.com. Retrieved 2013-09-19.
  26. ^ "KOffice 2.2 Released". KDE. 2010-05-27. Archived from the original on June 17, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-06-17). Retrieved 2012-05-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)
  27. ^ "KOffice split". KDE. 2010-10-23. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  28. ^ "Re: KOffice split". KDE. 2010-10-26. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  29. ^ "KOffice arbitration is finished". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  30. ^ "CALLIGRA_HAS_MOVED_TO_GIT". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  31. ^ "KOFFICE_HAS_MOVED_TO_GIT.txt". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  32. ^ "KOffice Repository". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  33. ^ "KOffice 2.3.0 Released". KDE. 2010-12-31. Archived from the original on June 17, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-06-17). Retrieved 2012-05-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)
  34. ^ "Calligra Suite Goes Active". KDE. 2010-12-06. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  35. ^ "Re: Platform support / Roadmap". KDE. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  36. ^ "KOffice activity (Note: Script Kiddy is an automated maintenance bot, not a developer)". KDE Projects. 2012-07-18. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  37. ^ "KOffice activity (Note: Script Kiddy is an automated maintenance bot, not a developer)". KDE Projects. 2012-08-19. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  38. ^ "KDE Quality Website Tools activity". KDE Projects. 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  39. ^ "Forrester: Microsoft Office in No Danger From Competitors". PCWorld Business Center. 2012-04-27. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  40. ^ "How to speed up Open Office". The Inquirer. Retrieved May 1, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  41. ^ Ou, George (October 25, 2005). "Performance analysis of OpenOffice and MS Office". ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on November 10, 2010. Retrieved November 10, 2010. It doesn't matter how fast the CPU is, OpenOffice is simply bloated. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate=, |date=, and |archivedate= (help)
  42. ^ "KOffice 2.0 Alpha 5 Released". KDE.News. Retrieved 2013-09-19.
  43. ^ "KOffice ODF Sprint Report". KDE.News. Retrieved 2013-09-19.
  44. ^ Kross Scripting Framework
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