I know this subject has been discussed in the past, but…
I was curious about the current situation concerning the Gobe Productive 2.0.x source code and are any of the x-Gobe engineers keeping up with the happenings of the Haiku project? It would ge great to get the Gobe Productive 2.0.x source code. I realize that probably some of the code is enamored with some licensed code (via libraries, etc…) not written by the Gobe guys that would have to be flushed out, but it would be great to get that code.
On another note, it would have been great to have gotten the source code to Personal Assistant (from Omicronsoft) as well. I talked to that guy some years ago and he claimed he lost the source code
I emailed Bruce (the former founder/owner of GoBe) a year ago about this and got some initial replies from him indicating that the source to GoBe 2 was forever lost, but GoBe 3 could possibly be open sourced. After exchanging a few emails about that, I haven’t heard back from him in a long while …
I did send another followup email about a month ago, but I’ve heard nothing.
I’m sad to hear about the Gobe 2 source code being lost. It would be great to get Gobe in the hands of the Haiku project for inclusion with Haiku. Keep pinging the guy
The Haiku project has more important things to do (like, you know, writing an OS). Please don’t wait on them to do everything.
Anyway, we have Calligra now, LibreOffice is making progress, and I think someone with enough motivation could also port OnlyOffice Desktop. I thnik all 3 are largely more useful than GoBe at this point. Time to move on!
I concur that the ports of Calligra, LibreOffice, and OnlyOffice Desktop will fill the needs of an office suite familiar to users coming to Haiku from other platforms. After-all, office suites are complex applications to learn and switching over from one to another is never fun.
On the other hand, the dream of getting Gobe Productive source code will likely live on for a very long time. It was after-all the third iteration of an integrated office suite for its original developers (ClarisWorks, AppleWorks, Productive). It was also developed from the ground-up making use of the capabilities offered by the BeOS API.
Maybe there should be a “pinned” post about the state of Gobe Productive so that anyone new to Haiku can read it rather than creating a new post about the dream?
The last time I played with Calligra (on a 64bit install a few weeks ago) it was broken and not usable… it didn’t even install the toolbar icons.
As for Gobe and usability. I found it quite useful on BeOS as I actually own a licensed copy and I think is the perfect compliment to Haiku if the source could be rescued and cleaned up.
I’m not yet sold on the Qt apps as I have experienced both lack of Haiku nativeness as well as user preferences not persisting (Qupzilla and Qmmp being perfect examples).
I am excited about LibreOffice as that is my that is my goto for both Mac and GNU/Linux. Never heard of OnlyOffice.
That’s probably why I like Gobe Productive so much. I was an avid AppleWorks user and even kept a PowerPC Mac around mostly for access to AppleWorks until weening myself off of it (eventually) in favor of iWork.
Of course it would be great to have it available. But all attempts so far over the years have failed or had unfavorable conditions attached. Feel free to try again to get it released from whoever owns it these days… most of us have simply given up on it.
As much as I’d like to have native office suite, the people who own GoBe code now won’t open source it and there’s no point in wasting time on re-porting / reimplementing outdated proprietary garbage. We should rather focus on polishing CalligraOffice and LibreOffice ports. But that’s just my opinion.
The question for me is, is Gobe Productive 2 now Abandonware and can it be offered for free?
It runs quite nicely on Haiku (trail version installer with brought version executable)…
Thanks, but there is also an abondonware site out there that offers the package… and i would host it too if someone (official) confirm me, that it is indeed legal to offer it
The Haiku devs have nothing to do with abandonware softwares.
Nobody would take the risk to say it is legal.
Nobody will take the resposibility for what you are about to do.
“abandonware” means “no one knows who ows the rights” and is abit special: you are not legally allowed to distribute it, but no one could sue you for doing so, unless they can prove they have author rights.
In this case, the ownership is clear. What could be done is ask Bruce if he would agree to make it freeware. As far as I know this was not attempted so far.
Bruce may be willing to make it freeware yet may be bound by whatever agreements exist with respect to the proprietary third party code/libraries embedded within Productive.
