Hello,

We're looking for office productivity tools which are affordable and
are non-MS biased.  We've looked at StarOffice Suite from Sun and that
gave us an idea of where the alternatives for Microsoft have gotten to
and have improved so much since they've initiated their efforts.

What is required is the following:

1. Online sources for the listed products & their price. Preferably
downloadable purchases.
2. Reviews of those products.
3. They be either commercial, shareware or freeware.
4. Ideally, though not necessary, supports Linux as one of the
operating systems along with WinXP for desktop applications. Server
apps should be Linux.
5. Supports the most common and popular file formats so we don't face
issues when dealing with other environments which may be entirely
Microsoft based. :-)
6. Should support Unicode or depend on the OS for language issues.

a. Office Suite - An exampe of that is Sun StarOffice Suite. A word
processor, spreadsheet and presentation software are the least.
b. Programming language editors which cator to ease via coloring
language specific elements and nifty features to help developers code.
c. A source code library for a development team.
d. Graphics tools to assist with web design needs.
e. Utilities to allow Win workstations to talk comfortably to Linux
boxes (Heard of SAMBA.).
f. Secure FTP Server/client.
g. Flow charting and diagram drowing software. Prefer those, if
available, which can save in PDF.
h. PDF creator.  Can be on the OS level where the user can easilly
produce PDF files without adding complexity.  Heard there was a
printer driver that does that.

The list is hefty, but it's typical. :-)

/Lizardnation

Hello again.  I have attempted to organize all of your questions into
a common template, to be sure that all of your questions are covered
in the way you desire.

Here we go:



a. Office Suite - An example of that is Sun StarOffice Suite. A word
processor, spreadsheet and presentation software are the least.

	http://www.koffice.org/

        Requires KDE desktop http://www.kde.org/

1. Online sources:

	http://www.koffice.org/


2. Reviews: 

http://www.mslinux.com/reviews/koffice.html
http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2812025,00.html

3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

   Freeware- Open Source



4. Supports Linux:

   Yes 



5. File formats: All common (doc xls, etc)

    


6. Unicode: Supported






b. Programming language editors which cater to ease via coloring
language specific elements and nifty features to help developers code.

    Runtime Revolution

1. Online sources:

http://www.runrev.com/


2. Reviews: 
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Reviews/2002-01-29.01.html

http://www.macuser.co.uk/xworlds/php3/openframe.php3?page=http://www.macuser.co.uk/xworlds/printreview.php3?id=35776


3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

Commercial



4. Supports Linux: Yes



5. File formats: Multiple




6. Unicode: Yes









c. A source code library for a development team.


There are many, many open source sites. See online sources, below.

1. Online sources:

http://www.linuxapps.com/

http://freshmeat.net/

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php



2. Reviews: 
    
   Hard to find for libraries, but this page is interesting: 

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_refs.html



3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

	Mostly open source, sites require registration.



4. Supports Linux:

	Yep.



5. File formats: You name it. All languages represented.




6. Unicode: Depends.







 
d. Graphics tools to assist with web design needs. 


   Many available, see below.

1. Online sources:


http://www.linuxapps.com/?page=category&category=multimedia





2. Reviews: 




3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

   Various 

4. Supports Linux: Yes



5. File formats: All popular




6. Unicode: Most do.









e. Utilities to allow Win workstations to talk comfortably to Linux
boxes (Heard of SAMBA.).

TotalNet

1. Online sources:

http://www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storageapp.html



2. Reviews: 

http://www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storageapp_perspectives.html



3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 
   commercial



4. Supports Linux: Yes




5. File formats: 


http://www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storageapp_featurelist.html


6. Unicode: yes











f. Secure FTP Server/client. 

See link below, many, many secure FTP servers for linux listed and
reviewed.

1. Online sources:

http://serverwatch.internet.com/ftpservers.html

2. Reviews: 
See above


3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

   All of the above



4. Supports Linux: Yes



5. File formats: N/A




6. Unicode: 










g. Flow charting and diagram drawing software. Prefer those, if
available, which can save in PDF.

1. Online sources:

Kchart, part of koffice.

http://www.koffice.org/


2. Reviews: 

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2812025,00.html



3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

Open source freeware

4. Supports Linux:
Yes


5. File formats: All common




6. Unicode: Yes












h. PDF creator.  Can be on the OS level where the user can easily
produce PDF files without adding complexity.  Heard there was a
printer driver that does that.


Koffice

1. Online sources:

http://www.koffice.org/kword/features.phtml

2. Reviews: 
http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2812025,00.html



3. They are commercial, shareware or freeware. 

Free

4. Supports Linux: Yes



5. File formats: PDF




6. Unicode: Yes



I hope this will get you started in your search, please ask for any
clarification, if needed.

Thanks,


Colin

---

Request for Answer Clarification by lizardnation-ga on 11 Jun 2002 14:48 PDT

Hello Colin,

Great answer, though I would like you to arrive at specifics in
replies to the following points:

b. Programming language editors which cater to ease via coloring
language specific elements and nifty features to help developers code.
 
Runtime Revolution 
http://www.runrev.com/ 

Mycomment: Doesn't seem like an editor, it's a development environment
with its own language.  Or I maybe mistaken.  What I need is a
programmer's editor to edit scripts that s/he writes.

c. A source code library for a development team. 

There are many, many open source sites. See online sources, below. 
http://www.linuxapps.com/ 
http://freshmeat.net/ 
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php 

Mycomments: What I meant by a source code library is a program that
stores and helps organize and index sourcecode that a development team
has created.  All their functions, proceedures and general libraries
so that they can reuse them and not make them exclusive for the
developer who created them since the source code library will hold and
and allow the author to document them and show how to re-use them in
other projects.  My apologies for the lack of appropriate description.
 An example is www.bitkeeper.com.

e. Utilities to allow Win workstations to talk comfortably to Linux 
boxes (Heard of SAMBA.).  
TotalNet 
http://www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storageapp.html 
2. Reviews:  
http://www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storageapp_perspectives.html

Mycomments: I have the impression that their solution is more to unify
storage under multiple platforms and OS's.  That may allow Windows
workstations to talk with Linux boxes better, but what I had meant was
in terms of network connectivity and protocols as well as file
serving/sharing cross the OS's in a network.  Look at www.samba.org,
as mentioned in the original message by name.

---

Clarification of Answer by colin-ga on 12 Jun 2002 05:38 PDT

Hello again:

	Glad to clarify.

Programming language editors:

Kdevelop

For C/C++  
 
http://www.kdevelop.org/  
   
Free

++++++++++

IBM WebSphere® Studio Application Developer

Building J2EE applications with HTML pages, servlets, JavaServer™ Page
(JSP) files, and Enterprise JavaBean™ (EJB™) components
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/ad/studioappdev/
Commercial

++++++++++

Eclipse
All languages
http://www.eclipse.org/
Free/open source

++++++++++++


A source code library for a development team

This is really nice. Programmers can access source through the
internet and collaborate.

	Sourceforge Enterprise Edition :  Commercial

“Software development for any platform is supported. (The
SourceForge.net reference site, for example, supports active
development for Linux®, Windows®, Mac OS®, Palm® devices, embedded
systems, web projects, the X–Windowing System, and a number of
proprietary operating systems. Over 40 different programming languages
from Java, to C#, to Pascal are represented as well.) ”


http://www.vasoftware.com/products/sourceforge_enterprise_edition.php


++++++++++++


Utilities to allow Win workstations to talk comfortably to Linux  
Boxes. 


Here are some alternatives to Samba (although Samba gets rave reviews)
See review here:

http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1131114

Here is an alternative:

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/82/prosuite

This one from Germany looks very interesting:

http://www.helios.de/products/PCS/PCShare.html
Ans one more:

Mitel Networks SME Server

http://techupdate.cnet.com/enterprise/0-6133429-720-7614302.html

I hope this offers you more choices. As always, answer clarifications
are greeted cheerfully, and promptly.

Thanks again,

Colin

Thanks Colin,

Did a great job! :-)

/Lizardnation