FAQs
$:ID $
 |
|
Overview  Source & Technology Issue Tracker Licensing Community Mirrors Asian FAQs Other |
| These faq have been compiled over the span of OpenOffice's lifetime. Most of the information is now out of date. See the OpenOffice FAQ page on our official wiki for up-to-date information. If you find instances that need updating, let us know by sending a note to dev@openoffice.apache.org. |
Other: Questions 
- Why is Sun's copyright being maintained on some of the documents available on OpenOffice.org?
- How did Sun deal with source code where it does not have copyright?
- What external code is required to build OpenOffice.org?
- Why should we say "Apache OpenOffice" instead of simply "OpenOffice"?
- When will OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X be available for download?
- What are the different invocation syntaxes used by OpenOffice.org binaries?
- How should I refer to OpenOffice.org in my documents?
- How can I get OpenOffice.org in some language other than English?
- What are the differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org?
Other: Answers
- Why is Sun's copyright being maintained on some of the documents available on OpenOffice.org?
Some of the documents available on OpenOffice.org are used internally and for this reason require Sun copyright to be maintained.
- How does Sun deal with source code where it does not have copyright?
OpenOffice.org includes some source code which has non-Sun copyright notices that is referred to as external source code. The external source code is available under a number of different licenses but is in general freely available, re-distributable and modifiable. Sun has identified URLs where the external code can be sourced, documented the process of downloading the external source and provided a patch process. All external source code retains original license and copyright notices.
- What external code is required to build OpenOffice.org?
Sun has attempted to obtain permission to have external source code hosted at OpenOffice.org in the cases where the copyright notice indicates it should be possible. Respondents to date have been willing to allow their source code to be hosted at OpenOffice.org but have asked that modifications are returned to the original project and that OpenOffice.org uses the latest versions.
The list of external source code can be found at http://external.openoffice.org
Other software is required to build OpenOffice.org on certain platforms and available with toolkits on those platforms. This will be documented in the build documentation.
Why should we say "Apache OpenOffice" instead of simply "OpenOffice"?
-
To avoid ambiguity and to acknowledge that we are part of the Apache Software Foundation. "Apache OpenOffice" is our trademark and is an important element of our brand.
- When will OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X be available for download?
It is now. See http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/
- What are the different invocation syntaxes used by OpenOffice.org application (binaries)?
The invocation syntax for the entire program is "soffice."
/opt/staroffice8/program/soffice -help
StarOffice 8 680m124(Build:8945)Usage: soffice [options] [documents...]
Options:
-minimized keep startup bitmap minimized.
-invisible no startup screen, no default document and no UI.
-norestore suppress restart/restore after fatal errors.
-quickstart starts the quickstart service (only available on windows platform)-nologo don't show startup screen.
-nolockcheck don't check for remote instances using the installation
-nodefault don't start with an empty document
-headless like invisible but no userinteraction at all.
-help/-h/-? show this message and exit.
-writer create new text document.
-calc create new spreadsheet document.
-draw create new drawing.
-impress create new presentation.
-base create new database.
-math create new formula.
-global create new global document.
-web create new HTML document.
-o open documents regardless whether they are templates or not.
-n always open documents as new files (use as template).-display <display>
Specify X-Display to use in Unix/X11 versions.
-p <documents...>
print the specified documents on the default printer.
-pt <printer> <documents...>
print the specified documents on the specified printer.
-view <documents...>
open the specified documents in viewer-(readonly-)mode.
-show <sxi-document>
open the specified presentation and start it immediately
-accept=<accept-string>
Specify an UNO connect-string to create an UNO acceptor through which
other programs can connect to access the API
-unaccept=<accept-sring>
Close an acceptor that was created with -accept=<accept-string>
Use -unnaccept=all to close all open acceptors
Remaining arguments will be treated as filenames or URLs of documents to open.
- How should I refer to OpenOffice.org in my documents?
If you need to use the term "OpenOffice.org" in documents or papers or any formal communication(not including email), we suggest you to follow the following conventions:
1. Always use OpenOffice.org as an adjective.
2. When using the phrase "OpenOffice.org" when speaking about something
specific, we suggest you use one of the following forms:
a. For the WebSite: "The OpenOffice.org Web Site", or "The OpenOffice.org
Community"
b. For the binary: "The OpenOffice.org Application"
c. For the binary in a standard context: "The OpenOffice.org reference
implementation."
d. For the code: "The OpenOffice.org source code" or "The OpenOffice.org code"
Now for the obvious question: Why?
The reason is: Someone else owns the phrase "OpenOffice", and we want to make
sure we do not get into trouble.
- How can I get OpenOffice.org in some language other than English?
See /projects/native-lang.html for a full list of supported languages (and then some).
- What are the differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org?
The key difference is that StarOffice includes some elements not present in OpenOffice.org and gives uses more legal protections. See Sun's page on StarOffice for more information about the product.
