Go-oo
Encyclopedia
Go-oo was an office suite
which started as a set of patches for the cross-platform
OpenOffice.org
office suite
, then later became an independent fork of OpenOffice.org with a number of enhancements. In September of 2010 Go-oo was discontinued and became the basis for the newer LibreOffice
suite and by late December of 2010 the Go-oo patches were incorporated into release candidate 1 of the LibreOffice fork
of OpenOffice.
The OpenOffice.org included with many popular Linux distributions such as Debian
, Mandriva
, openSUSE
, Gentoo
, and Ubuntu
used some of Go-oo patches before they officially moved to LibreOffice which is a fork initially based on Go-oo.
Go-oo/LibreOffice, as a variant of OpenOffice.org, supports the ISO
/IEC
standard file format
s OpenDocument
(full support) and Office Open XML (read and write) for data interchange, as well as Microsoft Office
97–2003 formats, among many others. Go-oo/LibreOffice has more complete support for Office Open XML file formats than OpenOffice.org releases produced by Oracle Corporation
(which require the addition of the ODF Converter Integrator extension in order to provide comparable functionality) as well as other enhancements that were not accepted into the upstream Oracle version.
The hybrid PDF export (PDF that includes original source documents), Sun Presentation Minimizer, and other functionality is directly available in Go-oo/LibreOffice.
in its various forms, Debian
and Ubuntu
, have cooperated in maintaining a large set of patches to the upstream OpenOffice.org
that for various technical or semi-political reasons have not been accepted or not even submitted upstream. Some of the companies behind those distributions have also offered Windows
builds of OpenOffice.org
offering the same enhancements compared to the upstream build. Windows builds include, for example, OxygenOffice Professional and OpenOffice.org Novell Edition. Go-oo is just a more concentrated branding effort for these patches and patched builds of OpenOffice.org
.
Michael Meeks, from Novell
, (who also works on OpenOffice.org and GNOME
), said that the differentiation was done because Sun Microsystems
wanted to preserve the right to offer its own version (StarOffice
) and even sell the development to the proprietary software market, like IBM Lotus Symphony
from IBM
. Sun was accused of not accepting contributions from the community.
Windows versions
Linux versions
Mac versions
Save/Export
Office suite
In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...
which started as a set of patches for the cross-platform
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
office suite
Office suite
In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...
, then later became an independent fork of OpenOffice.org with a number of enhancements. In September of 2010 Go-oo was discontinued and became the basis for the newer LibreOffice
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...
suite and by late December of 2010 the Go-oo patches were incorporated into release candidate 1 of the LibreOffice fork
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
of OpenOffice.
The OpenOffice.org included with many popular Linux distributions such as Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
, Mandriva
Mandriva
Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...
, openSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
, Gentoo
Gentoo Linux
Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
, and Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
used some of Go-oo patches before they officially moved to LibreOffice which is a fork initially based on Go-oo.
Go-oo/LibreOffice, as a variant of OpenOffice.org, supports the ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
/IEC
International Electrotechnical Commission
The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...
standard file format
File format
A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
s OpenDocument
OpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....
(full support) and Office Open XML (read and write) for data interchange, as well as Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
97–2003 formats, among many others. Go-oo/LibreOffice has more complete support for Office Open XML file formats than OpenOffice.org releases produced by Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
(which require the addition of the ODF Converter Integrator extension in order to provide comparable functionality) as well as other enhancements that were not accepted into the upstream Oracle version.
The hybrid PDF export (PDF that includes original source documents), Sun Presentation Minimizer, and other functionality is directly available in Go-oo/LibreOffice.
History
For a long time, various Linux distributions, including SUSESUSE Linux distributions
SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
in its various forms, Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
and Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
, have cooperated in maintaining a large set of patches to the upstream OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
that for various technical or semi-political reasons have not been accepted or not even submitted upstream. Some of the companies behind those distributions have also offered Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
builds of OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
offering the same enhancements compared to the upstream build. Windows builds include, for example, OxygenOffice Professional and OpenOffice.org Novell Edition. Go-oo is just a more concentrated branding effort for these patches and patched builds of OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
.
Michael Meeks, from Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
, (who also works on OpenOffice.org and GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
), said that the differentiation was done because Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
wanted to preserve the right to offer its own version (StarOffice
StarOffice
StarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999...
) and even sell the development to the proprietary software market, like IBM Lotus Symphony
IBM Lotus Symphony
IBM Lotus Symphony is a suite of applications for creating, editing, and sharing text, spreadsheet, presentations and other documents, and is currently distributed as freeware. First released in 2007, the suite has a name similar to the 1980s DOS suite Lotus Symphony, but the two programs are...
from IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. Sun was accused of not accepting contributions from the community.
Versions
Stable builds of Go-oo were usually available a couple of days after Oracle OpenOffice.org stable builds. Windows builds have a different last number in the version's number than Linux builds. A stable version for Macintosh computers is available.Windows versions
| Version | Available from |
|---|---|
| 2.3.0 (unstable) | October 8, 2007 |
| 2.4.0 | April 30, 2008 |
| 2.4.1 | June 10, 2008 |
| 3.0 | October 22, 2008 |
| 3.0.1 | February 4, 2009 |
| 3.1.0 | June 2, 2009 |
| 3.1.1 | September 16, 2009 |
| 3.2.0 (3.2.0-13) | February 26, 2010 |
| 3.2.1 (3.2.1-11) | July 21, 2010 |
Linux versions
| Version | Available from |
|---|---|
| 2.3.0 (unstable) | November 14, 2007 |
| 2.4.0 (unstable) | February 20, 2008 |
| 2.4.1 | June 26, 2008 |
| 3.0.0 | November 21, 2008 |
| 3.0.1 | February 5, 2009 |
| 3.1.0 | June 2, 2009 |
| 3.1.1 | September 5, 2009 |
| 3.2.0 | February 26, 2010 |
| 3.2.1 | July 21, 2010 |
Mac versions
| Version | Available from |
|---|---|
| 3.1.0 | May 28, 2009 |
| 3.1.1 | September 4, 2009 |
| 3.2.0 (3.2.0.13) | February 26, 2010 |
| 3.2.1 | June 4, 2010 |
Advantages
- Go-oo works faster in some operations than OpenOffice.org. This makes it perform faster than OpenOffice.org on older computers with less RAM.
- The OpenOffice.org 3.0 installation no longer includes a large number of dictionaries for writing aids (spell checker, hyphenation and thesaurus), as this impacted application performance. Localised releases may include dictionaries for particular primary and secondary languages. Dictionaries are now available as downloadable extensions, separately for each language. Go-oo installation from version 3 on includes dictionaries in many languages, as a single extension, being a part of installation files. Inclusion of a large number of dictionaries in a default installation may affect performance.
- The first time OpenOffice.org is started, a wizard opens to guide a user through the setting of user name and the registration process. This wizard is disabled in Go-oo.
Features
- Go-oo can write OOXML files, and not just read them.
- Go-oo includes 3-D transition effects in Presentations (Linux).
- Use of the GStreamer multimedia framework in Linux for multimedia content;
- Go-oo uses a combo box in place of the zoom button in stock OpenOffice.org. Newer OOo 2.x feature releases have a clickable status bar item for a zoom menu. A zoom slider was introduced to OOo 3.0 Writer and later added to OOo 3.1 Calc, Impress and Draw components.
- Go-oo Calc 2.4.x has a built in function called "Solver". It is a little different from the Solver function of the same name, which is available from OpenOffice.org 3.0. OpenOffice.org 2.4.x has no Solver.
Filetype support
Import- Go-oo 2.4.x has built in support for opening Office Open XML files and brings this function also for Windows 98/ME users. (Note: OpenOffice.org 3.x has built in support for opening Office Open XML documents, but those versions of OOo cannot be installed under Windows 98/ME.)
- VBAVisual Basic for ApplicationsVisual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...
macro support; - MS Works filetype import;
- Lotus Word Pro import;
- Go-oo Draw has built-in functionality to open SVGScalable Vector GraphicsScalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
files. OpenOffice.org Draw requires an extension. - The PDF Import extension is included by default in Go-oo 3.0.
- Improved EMFWindows MetafileWindows Metafile is a graphics file format on Microsoft Windows systems, originally designed in the 1990s. Windows Metafiles are intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector graphics and bitmap components....
drawing; - WordPerfect Graphics import.
Save/Export
- From version 3.0 on, Go-oo can save password-protected XLSMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
files. It uses only one basic encryption method compatible with many spreadsheet applications (for example GnumericGnumericGnumeric is a spreadsheet program that is part of the GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. Gnumeric version 1.0 was released December 31, 2001. Gnumeric is distributed as free software under the GNU GPL license; it is intended to replace proprietary and other spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft...
). - Go-oo 3.x can save Office Open XML files such as docx, xlsx, pptx by using Novell OpenXML Converter. Because Go-oo for Windows and OpenOffice.org Novell Edition for Windows are similar, Novell OpenXML Converter can work with Go-oo 3.x.
Disadvantages
- Go-oo localizations are available only as language packs to the English installation. Translations of the user interface and dictionaries for different languages in Go-oo are in some cases not the same as in OpenOffice.org.
Other differences
- Go-oo uses "TangoTango Desktop Project]The Tango Desktop Project is an open-source initiative to create a set of design guidelines and to provide a consistent user experience for applications on desktop environments. The project has created a set of icons known as the Tango Icon Library, which is described as a "proof of concept"...
style" application shortcut icons, quick launch icons and icons for associated files. - Go-oo installation files are usually available for download a couple of days after OpenOffice.org builds are released.
- Go-oo for Windows is similar to OpenOffice.org Novell Edition for Windows. For example Go-oo has version 3.0-19 and Novell Edition 3.0-22.
See also
- List of word processors
- Comparison of word processorsComparison of word processors-General information:This table provides general information about selected word processors.-Characteristics:This table gives characteristics of each word processor.-Operating System Compatibility:...
- Office Open XML softwareOffice Open XML softwareThis is an overview of software support for the Office Open XML format, a Microsoft document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents.The list here is not exhaustive.-ECMA-376 1st edition implementations:...
- OpenDocument softwareOpenDocument softwareThis is an overview of software support for the OpenDocument format, an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents.-Current support:...