Let's face it, databases are only minimally human-readable. In fact, to anybody who's not an accountant or a computer geek, reading databases can be downright intimidating. However, this limitation is partially compensated by the fact that reports in Base are quick and easy to create and are displayed and printed in Writer.

The same application performs differently on different platforms. Differences include compiler brand (Microsoft Visual C++ vs gcc), compiler version (gcc 3 and 4), operating system characteristics, and file systems. These OpenOffice.org 3.0 benchmarks measure vanilla OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, Go-oo, and Portable OpenOffice.org on 3.0 on Microsoft Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).

OpenOffice.org has a reputation for being the premiere office suit for the Linux platform. Maybe so but these days, it’s not exactly a lean slab of software anymore, particularly if you just want to try a component and don’t actually want the whole box and dice. Netbooks are one device category that comes to mind, for sure.

With the final release two months away and an alpha version available, it's time to look at OpenOffice.org 3.1's new features: eye candy, better charts, replying to notes in the margin, overlining, macros in Base, RTL improvements for Arabic and Hebrew, and (believe it or not) better sorting. Download and report any bugs you find.

Update on OOXML, ODF, OpenOffice.org deployments, and OpenOffice.org FUD from Novell

Our new interview with an independent OpenOffice.org contributor

Sun explains the importance of quality assurance in OpenOffice.org

AbiWord has been my favorite open source word processor for a long time, and it's now out in a new version 2.6.5, which adds some excellent features. If you haven't used this application (for Windows or Linux) before, definitely download it, and if you already use it, go for the upgrade.