NeoOffice Development Roadmap

From NeoWiki

This is an unofficial look at where NeoOffice is likely going and roughly when it might get there. It is based on vague public statements at various places on trinity but is not endorsed by the developers of NeoOffice.

Releases and Milestones

NeoOffice/J 1.1 Roadmap

• OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 Mac OS X (X11) - June 27, 2004
  • NeoOffice/J 1.1 development begins roughly at this time using this codebase

• NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 1 - August 30, 2004
  • OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 codebase

• NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 2 - September 16, 2004
  • Aqua menus
  • lots of bugfixes

• NeoOffice/J 1.1 Beta - December 21, 2004 (Release Notes)
  • OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 codebase
  • New splashscreen and about box
  • Improved Finder icons for documents and the application
  • a number of minor feature improvements/additions (scroll-wheel, text drag-and-drop, 40 localized GUIs, etc.)
  • lots of bugfixes

• NeoOffice/J 1.1 Release Candidate (RC) - March 30, 2005 (Release Notes)
  • OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 codebase
  • lots of bugfixes from 1.1 Beta
  • Aqua NeoOffice/J menu (About, Preferences) [one of the 1.1 Beta patches]
  • Eudora and Entoruage mailer integration

• NeoOffice/J 1.1 - June 22, 2005 (Release Notes)

  First official release of NeoOffice/J

  • bugfixes from move to OOo 1.1.4 codebase
  • some lingering bugs from 1.1 Beta
  • use of system appearance colors in widgets [from RC Patch-1]
  • Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Spotlight support via NeoLight [from RC Patch-4]
  • "grey window" no longer needed to keep Neo/J open [from RC Patch-5]
  • Dock menu with "Quickstart" service items [from RC Patch-6]
  • Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" compatibility

NeoOffice 1.2 Roadmap

• NeoOffice 1.2 Alpha - November 23, 2005 (Release Notes)

  based on the OpenOffice.org 1.1.x branch but with significant NeoOffice-specific changes to require a major-point increment

  • Renamed "NeoOffice" from "NeoOffice/J"
  • OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 codebase
  • Java 1.4.2 on Mac OS 10.3.x and 10.4.x

  Mac OS X 10.2.x is no longer supported

  • bugfixes from 1.1 Final
  • Performance and compatibility fixes via the upgrade to Java 1.4.2
  • OpenDocument support (OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 codebase supports OpenDocument import only)

• NeoOffice 1.2 Beta - January 2, 2006 (Release Notes)
  • lots of bugfixes from 1.2 Alpha

• NeoOffice 1.2 - February 1, 2006 (Release Notes)

  Second official release of NeoOffice

  • lots of bugfixes from 1.2 Beta

The following roadmap is obsolete; see the item on Mac OS X on Intel in the Issues section for more information

We are here (February 2006)

NeoOffice 2.0 Roadmap

• NeoOffice 2.0 - TBD

  development "begins" 2005-11-26 when HEAD is set to attempt to build with unfinished OOo2/Mac X11 codebase

  • OpenOffice.org 2.0.x codebase
  • Full Aqua appearance ("look" but perhaps not "feel")
  • Heir of stability of NeoOffice/J and Aquafication of NeoOffice/C, thus renamed NeoOffice with 2.0 version number

Other Changes or Developments

Some other changes are not driven by Neo development plans but rather by changes completely outside of our control (i.e., Apple OS or component upgrades), so they will occur when external events require them.

• Move from Java 1.3.x VM to Java 1.4.x or 1.5.x
  • Will also involve converting much of the non-Java code in Neo/J from Carbon to Cocoa since Apple's 1.4 and above JVMs are Cocoa rather than Carbon
  • new Required for Mac OS X on Intel, which will not ship with Java 1.3.1
  • new Migration to Java 1.4.2 for Mac OS x 10.3.x and 10.4.x currently underway, tentatively targeted for an interim "NeoOffice/J 1.2" release
• Drop support for Mac OS X 10.2.x "Jaguar"
  • When OOo can no longer be made to build/run under 10.2.x or when running under 10.2.x holds back features/fixes needed for 10.3.x or 10.4.x
  • When switching to Java 1.5.x VM (unless Apple releases JVM 1.5 for 10.2.x)

    Mac OS X 10.2.x will likely continue to use the 1.3.1 JVM (due to the bugginess of 1.4.1 under 10.2.x) for as a long as NeoOffice/J supports Mac OS X 10.2.x

  • new The vast number of changes in Java and C++ (Carbon->Cocoa) code required to support JVM 1.4.x have made it impossible to maintain both a Java 1.4.2/Cocoa and a Java 1.3.1/Carbon implementation. Because the 1.4.1 JVM on Mac OS X 10.2.x is extremely buggy, this means NeoOffice/J 1.1 is the last release that can support Mac OS X 10.2.x. [1]

Issues

• The Mac OS X on Intel announcement throws a serious wrench in the development of NeoOffice/J (and OpenOffice.org as well) and renders the NeoOffice/J 1.5 and NeoOffice 2.0 Roadmaps obsolete. Patrick and Ed have discussed the numerous obstacles and issues and outlined a tentative plan in this thread on trinity; however, an Intel-based Mac is a prerequisite for much of the effort.
  1. "Platform-agnostic" changes (can be done without an Intel Mac but are prerequisites for Mac OS X Intel support)
     • Build system track
       1. Ability to build with gcc3 on Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" - complete, 2005-07-27 [2]
       2. Ability to build with gcc4 on Mac OS X 10.4 - in progress

          May need to implement gcc4 PPC ABI glue code for UNO if Kevin Hendricks has not completed this for LinuxPPC

     • Java track
       1. Move to 1.4.2 JVM on Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 - complete, 2005-10-25 [3]
  2. Access to Intel Mac
  3. Implement gcc4 Apple x86 ABI glue code for UNO
  4. Verify and tweak "platform-agnostic" changes on Mac OS X Intel
  5. Set up cross-platform mutli-OS-and-JVM-version build system to support current and recent versions of Mac OS X PPC (supported versions unknown) and Mac OS X Intel (10.4.x and above)
• OpenDocument support/OOo 1.1.5 codebase might fit in with the current plan to upgrade NeoOffice/J to Java 1.4.x as a first step towards Mac OS X Intel compatability [4]

Obsolete issues and discussion

• Patrick has posted updated thoughts about the direction Neo/J needs to take in order to remain useable over the next few years, along with time and cost estimates of required tasks, in this thread on trinity.
• See also these topics on trinity for a status update and more details: [5], [6], [7].
• The current OOo Mac porting team is only trying to build OOo 2.0 under 10.3.x or 10.4.x, but Terry Teague has an older milestone (m97) almost building under 10.2 (or not). This means that NeoOffice 2.0 will likely be able to continue to support Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar," unless serious bugs/useability issues arise in OOo 2.0 under 10.2 or in the future JVM transition (1.4.1 was buggy on 10.2 and 1.5 is not supported on 10.2 or 10.3).