Competition between friends

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Competition between friends
by not me on Thursday 30/Aug/2001, @14:50

I'm confused. So far theKompany and KDE have managed to stay out of each others' way for the most part, but this move puts theKompany and the KDE project in direct competition! What will happen to KOffice? Will developers lose interest and switch to using HancomOffice? Will KOffice continue to improve and eventually replace HancomOffice, hurting theKompany and Hancom? Do theKompany and Hancom hope to perpetually improve their HancomOffice product so that it is always ahead of the features of KOffice?

Some informed comment would be great here. David Faure, Shawn Gordon? Comments?

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Re: Competition between friends
by Craig on Thursday 30/Aug/2001, @15:03

I think your missing it. Koffice is strictly KDE while HancomOffice is a multiplatform solution allowing corporations to easily plug KDE and Linux into there networks. If anything it will help KDE and bring it into the mainstream. I don't think it will be a Koffice competitor. This is truly a good thing.

Craig Black

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Re: Competition between friends
by not me on Thursday 30/Aug/2001, @15:40

>I don't think it will be a Koffice competitor.

And why not? They each provide: a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation program, and a bitmap picture editor. If HancomOffice is better than KOffice, KOffice use will be very low. If KOffice gets to be better than HancomOffice, everyone will start using KOffice because its free. That's competition.

Also, distros such as Mandrake (employer of David Faure, main KOffice coordinator and programmer) may decide to license HancomOffice and stop sponsoring KOffice development. Programmers who would otherwise have worked on KOffice might decide to simply pay $99 and use HancomOffice. KOffice could be hurt by this.

Now, I'm not saying that HancomOffice is bad, I'm just confused by theKompany's move here. So far they have taken steps to keep their programs away from KDE programs, but now they're competing with a KDE project.

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Re: Competition between friends
by Craig on Thursday 30/Aug/2001, @23:24

Huh? Mandrake won't ship anything thats not gpl. So that just would'nt happen.

Craig

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Re: Competition between friends
by oliv on Friday 31/Aug/2001, @01:04

Well, actually, they ship many applications that are not gpl:
Xfree
Netscape
Enlightenment

etc.

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Re: Competition between friends
by Stof on Friday 31/Aug/2001, @01:10

Since when is XFree86 GPL'ed?

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Re: Competition between friends
by john on Friday 31/Aug/2001, @03:58

you wouldn't be able to download hansonoffice for free, certainly, as part of Mandrake8.1 ISOs.

But it could be included in the power pack cds, which contain some commercial software.

--john

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Re: Competition between friends
by Guy Smith on Saturday 01/Sep/2001, @16:42

Who cares? I live by the rule that the best idea wins. If Hancom delivers the best product at a price the market accepts, then they win. The alternative is for the KOffice folks to ramp-up and meet the challenge.

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