Hi guys,

We are a team of newbie techies planning to develop our own brand of
complete office suite software  which can rival the best in the market
let it be Microsoft , Easy office or Star office. So now my questions:

1. We need know where we can get the complete source code for free or
a small fee to start our work of customisation. We indend to make it
work in Windows, Linux & if possible in Mac as well.

2. Also know any kinda forums/ group of techies who can help us in
guding us at a small fee along with our team of 6 product developers.

3. I need to know which is the best & robust platform (VB, Java, VC++)
to develop inorder to support all the three operating systems (Windows
/ Linux / Mac).

4. White papers / Research papers to guide us in the development cycle
process for this project as well.

I am ready to pay an extra tip as well if i can get some great
solutions for all my queries.

Cheers!
Arun.

Hello Arun

Thank-you for your question.

OpenOffice.org is by far the best open source office suite available
and in my opinion the latest builds are superior to Microsoft Office. 
Please let me answer each of your questions in turn.

1) Where can you get source code?
OpenOffice.org is really your only option if you wish to have the
source code for free or cheaply.  It is extremely unlikely that
Microsoft would make their software open source in the near future and
no other suite comes as close to Microsoft Office as OpenOffice.org
does.

OpenOffice.org provides the source code for their office suite for
free at the following location:

http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

You also have the option here of downloading their SDK (Software Deveolopment Kit):

http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sdk/index.html

As with any open source software you should take time to read their
licencing agreement to ensure what you wish to do with their code is
legally allowed.  For instance some open source software allows you to
go on to develop commercial products from their free code, others do
not.  In your question, you have not indicated down which road you
will be progressing.

2) Where can you find support for your work?

OpenOffice.org provide a number of mailing lists and newsgroups where
users can ask questions and help each other out.  Detailed information
on this is found here:
http://www.openoffice.org/mail_list.html

These mailing lists and newsgroups are excellent resources and are
invaluable to the OpenOffice.org community.  You are always able to
find someone there who has experience in your problem and can help you
out.

3) Which is the best language (platform) to develop your software?

This is essentially a matter of personal choice and should be guided
by which language your programmers are most proficient in.  The "best"
of anything is *always* a subjective answer!

If you are wishing to port your program to other systems I would tend
to favour programming in Java or possibly C++.  Additionally he
OpenOffice.org SDK gives you more examples in Java and C++ to get you
started.

The answer is also somewhat guided by the source code from answer 1). 
Unless you wish to re-write masses of code you will be "forced" to
follow the programming language that is used in developing
OpenOffice.org.

OpenOffice.org have a project devoted entirely to ensuring their
source code runs on as many systems as possible:
http://porting.openoffice.org/

4) Where can you find documentation for the project?

The major list of documentation can be found here:
http://development.openoffice.org/

For instance, writing scripts and macro information is here:
http://development.openoffice.org/#SCRIPTS

Extend and integrate:
http://development.openoffice.org/#COMPONENTS

Build and fix:
http://development.openoffice.org/#SOURCECODE

Porting to new platforms:
http://development.openoffice.org/#PORTING

I hope this answer has provided you with some of the information that
you require in what will be a massive project for you and your
programmers.  The OpenOffice.org website also provides users with the
opportunity to work directly with them on future builds of their
software:
http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html

If you require any help on the links I have provided you please ask
for clarification and I will do my best to respond swiftly.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by arun_p-ga on 22 Aug 2005 00:55 PDT

Hello Palitoy,

Thanks for taking time & reverting to me. We have actually tried downloading the
source code from open office,but,it isn't commericially viable for us.
So, i would like to know is there any other alternative for this.
Further in the future we plan to sell this software commercially & it
wouldn't be possible with open office, we all guys are going to put in
alot of time & efforts we would definitely look for an commericial
angle for the same. So let me know what can be done.

Your complete answer is corelating to openoffice,so it isn't helping
us much. So let me know a better option.Thanks & look forward to your
reply.

Cheers!
Arun.

---

Clarification of Answer by palitoy-ga on 22 Aug 2005 01:13 PDT

I am sorry my answer was not sufficient for you before you rated the
answer.  Your question did not specify you were planning to develop a
commercial product and from my knowledge of the area it is unlikely
you will find anyone to give you their source code for free (or a
small fee) and then allow you to develop a commercial office suite
from their hard work.

As the information I provided you indicates, this task is a
substantial one and one with only 7 developers, as you have, will take
years to complete.  I wish you well in your project.

Hi,

The answer given was that of an open source code of open office.org,
which we already knew. When i asked him to revert to me of an source
code of other than open office which isn't commercially viable, he
just replied by stating that there is no other code available and
closed the question. So,i will need an refund as i am unsatisfied the
way the answer was ended without clear information to us.

Cheers!

The answer was something that we already knew (generic) & we needed a
more specified answer for our query.

Just a small clarification.  Software like  Open Office can be sold. 
Star Office is just Open Office re-branded with some extra bells,
whistles, and support.  The rule with open products is that you have
to include all the source code - not that they necessarily have to be
free.

Most are free - but that is not mandatory

Dear Palitoy,

Hi i wasn't hasty to add a rating for your reply. This is the first
time i am using google answers section. I was trying to state what i
felt, i am sorry if you felt bad. Coz now, i am paying out for
something that we already knew & i didn't know that once you give the
answer i cant ask for more details & the payout happens. Anyhow,if you
can help me out with some clarity as to how to get things started with
this source code from other source it will be helpful..I will try to
wait next time before i give an rating..

Cheers!!
Arun.

Hi Shad2,

Thanks for your info, also can you let me know if openoffice work in
MAC? And if the license agreement allows us to commercially sell it
without any legal problems..

Cheers!!
Arun.

From OpenOffice.org's FAQ (http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/mostfaqs.html):

Can I sell and otherwise distribute OpenOffice.org?

Yes. Our licenses, the LGPL and SISSL, allow anyone to sell and
otherwise distribute OpenOffice.org binaries (executable installation
sets; the application people can use), provided that the source is
always made available to all, either by link (to www.openoffice.org/)
or by inclusion. If you are interested in selling CDROMs of
OpenOffice.org or distributing it via OEM computers, please visit the
CDROM and OEM projects.


From OpenOffice.org's Download Page
(http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html):

Supports Mac OS X 10.2+.