Alright, I'm sitting here, looking at an ISO for Shift 0.6 Gnome that is about 700MB. A lot of that is from OpenOffice. So I'm wondering, should we just get rid of OpenOffice?

Vote in the poll. We'll probably have a simple shortcut to install OpenOffice in the Office menu, which would run the apt-get command for you.

I know Knoppix uses some kind of super-high compression and decompresses on-the-fly to fit more software in a CD. You could try keeping an LZMA-compressed archive of OpenOffice and then launching it via a script that decompresses it to memory/virtual memory before launching the actual binary.

Just a thought.

Everything is pretty well compressed already (Casper is what we (and Ubuntu) use, iirc). I don't think that's the answer, unfortunately.

Get shot of it and put a apt-get link on the menu like you suggested or on the desktop or something. Anything that decreases dwonloads is a good thing.

I don't really like OpenOffice, but AbiWord is outstanding!

That's how I am, too.

I think I'll at least get rid of OpenOffice Draw, since it's a fairly niche product. It's not very good, either.

I can't stand OpenOffice. It just feels "incomplete". I haven't tried the others on the list though.

I can live without an office suite on my Linux box. If there's something I really need to do, I'll do it at work. I voted no and no.

I'd say most people who have Linux will have no need for a complete office solution anyway. Abiword will do.

We have reasons why not, and yet the poll says for us to include it...

I'm thinking at this point that the comments outweigh the results. Anyone have a reason why we shouldn't just put what's essentially a quick installer for OpenOffice in the Office menu?

We're talking about saving a lot of space here.

Meanwhile, I found more stuff to delete, so it's a bit smaller now...

Call me a stick-in-the-mud, or say that I am pandering to the masses, but most *nixers kind of expect OO.o. I would keep it, if at all possible.

And, in a fit of contradiction, I also voted for Abiword and Gnumeric. Especially for fluxbox (where I would actually recommend to drop OO.o, as the flux version is targeted to lower-end computers).

Haha, just trying to make things difficult, aren't you . I see your point, though. I have an ISO building right now, and we'll see if it's a reasonable size.

Just a quick correction, it's squashfs we're using, not Casper.

I like Open Office myself. The main issue with it, as you stated, is that it takes up lots of real estate on a live cd. The app is very good, in my opinion, but if we use it, it may be at the expense of something else we might want. Abiword is a decent alternative, but as Mark said, most *nix fans expect OO.o in a distro.

I voted for it, none the less.

Alright, good news: we're at a human size right now: 635MB.

Shift Lite won't include Oo.o, it's Lite, remember? Using AbiWord and Gnumeric as replacements.

I voted no for a smaller size since it's so big, and performing updates on it = drag, at least when I last played with it in Ubuntu about a year ago.

I voted yes because its the only presenations/word processor/spreadsheet suite that's not KDE dependent and aleady has full MS Office support. Abiword is great for distros that target old computers

Couldn't you just keep the Open Office Writer?

Also, I think a apt-get link to it would be the best option, as it would reduce the size of the os (1) and it would allow the user to have a more up to date version (2)

No because OpenOffice is one giant program

Actually, we could only include OpenOffice Writer, but after looking into it, we would only save about 10MB. If we removed everything OpenOffice related, it would be a lot more.

I like to install and use Koffice myself so I would be OK with no Office.

Well, I suggest using Abiword and Gnumeric for the Lite and GNOME versions, and KOffice for the KDE version. But OO.org should be an option...

I don't expect it, except in an all purpose distribution.

Abiword is still premature but usable. (I should start a blog critiquing open source projects at some point.)

Anyway, be sure to remove any extra language packs. For example, KNOPPIX contains "Openoffice-de-en" which adds an extra 30mb onto the iso! I hate to be English oriented, but 30mb is too much for a single language, I'm sure there's another way to get language support.

as a linux user who has migrated from windows, i still need to wine install MS office anyway (blasphemy i know but i really dont feel like reformatting lots of documents like my resume just for the sake of using openoffice...)

I only use LaTeX for documents. You should redo your resume in LaTeX, it will look more impressive.

OpenOffice is completely compatible with all MS Office documents. No reformatting is needed.

Agreed. It is common to have formatting/pagination issues when moving .doc files from one computer to another (different user margin/printer settings, etc).

I like .pdf for document fidelity, anyhow.

Had to edit some things to make it load docx docs....

truthtfully its a really wierd suite.
i mean actually not quite a suite at all--it feels very incomplete...im running office on ubuntu to get the office fix...

But PDF is what I like to call a presentational document as opposed to a working document like a Word Document or LaTeX source. Shame that most Microsoft users don't get this and think that a Word Document is a presentational document (a side effect of WYSIWYG editing).

Even a LaTeX source can be different when compiled on different LaTeX distributions, but how often do you get document emailed to you as a LaTeX source?

Opening other peoples working documents isn't an issue for me. If I do get sent a Word document, I send it back! (with a message)

i agree we should have a simple shortcut to install openofiice in the office menu, which would run the apt-get command for you