From: F J Franklin (F.J.Franklin@sheffield.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 03:28:46 EDT
3 e-mails here, my correspondence with Jamal who filed Bug 3551.
He seems to be particularly interested in the Windows port, claims to be
in talks with two (paid) developers, is willing to pay royalties, but is
clearly unfamiliar with the GPL.
Regards, Frank
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 09:50:15 +0100 (BST)
From: F J Franklin <mep95jff@gold.shef.ac.uk>
To: Jamal A Mohamad <mail2jamal@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Thnx - Abiword Enhamcement
Hi,
With your permission, I'd like to forward this correspondence to the
abiword-dev list. As I mentioned originally, parts of your proposal will
be of interest only to particular developers.
Also, I suggest you read back through the AbiWord Weekly News for a
summary of activity on the developer's list to get a sense of what
will, does and doesn't work in AbiWord.
Regarding packaging, I can probably help you if it's Linux or MacOS X, but
if it's Windows then you will need to speak to others on the AbiWord team.
Finally, I urge you to read up on the GPL. AbiWord's source license is GPL
which means that any plugins or patches you plan to distribute must be
released with a compatible license.
> Table Insertion
This is currently being developed and will be part of the next major
release of AbiWord. AbiWord v1.0 has very limited support for tables.
> Advanced Clipboard Management
Clipboard management varies with operating system / desktop.
Are you targetting Windows, UNIX, Linux, or MacOS X?
> A digital StickyPad
Interesting. Do you mean for sticking notes to a document, or as a
separate application for sticking notes to the desktop?
> A informative help system
AbiWord already has help documentation, though more is needed and
translation to other languages would no doubt be useful. I suggest you get
in contact with David Chart and Jesper Skov.
> More compatibility with MS Word
MS Word compatibility certainly isn't easy. Currently Word import is very
good, though AbiWord v1.0's lack of table support means that Word
documents with tables render badly.
MS Word export is not good. Currently we export to RTF which MS Word
imports perfectly.
Most of the MS Word support is provided by wv, which again is GPL.
> Advanced grammer and dictionary integration.
AbiWord supports all the ispell dictionaries I have been able to compile,
and any aspell dictionaries. We have the Aiksaurus plugin which is an
English-language thesaurus. And we have a plugin for link-grammar, a
grammar checker, but there is an unresolved licensing question.
> A lil of personalization tool etc.. (more as I keep exploring abiword
> from a users view)
I'm uncertain what you have in mind here, but sounds okay.
Regards, Frank
==========================================================================
> First I would like to give ourself a brief introduction, NanoSoft
> Corporation is a nano (small startup) software company started by
> individuals with no programming background but with business skills to
> produce and market software packages. Our aim is to make daily often
> used software affordable to everyone and as our first product we are
> working on releasing a Word Processor Code named ANT as an alternative
> to the big boys like Microsoft Word , Word Perfect and Star office Word
> Processor.
>
> Well that's about our little company, coming to the point the
> enhancement that I would like to make from the view of an average
> WordProcesor are
>
> Table Insertion
> Advanced Clipboard Management
> A digital StickyPad
> A informative help system
> More compatibility with MS Word
> Advanced grammer and dictionary integration.
> A lil of personalization tool etc.. (more as I keep exploring abiword
> from a users view)
>
> For now these are the enhancements or add-ons I would like to add to
> abiword to make it a real alternative for MS Word and like word
> processors. And for this I need someone from inside Abiword Developer
> society to bundle the add-ons or enhancement from other developers of
> the respective add-ons.
>
> Your work would include of providing technical/programming detail to the
> other outside developers who are willing to work with nanosoft Corp..
> and intergrate their product/codes into abiword. And already Iam
> negotiating with two programmers for Clipboard and Sticypad enhancement,
> and they seem to be really interested in working with us so as of now I
> need a developer from, as told before from abiword society who knows
> about the abisource well with programming skills.
>
> The payment is a % share from each copy, and the work is to bundle diff
> enhancement to abiword.
>
> You need more details, mail me with the specifc details you require.
>
>
>
>
> Thank you
>
> Best Regards,
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Jamal A Mohamad
>
> nanosoft Corp..
> _______________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: F J Franklin [mailto:F.J.Franklin@sheffield.ac.uk]
> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 1:04 PM
> To: Jamal A Mohamad
> Subject: Re: Thnx - Abiword Enhamcement
>
>
> On Sun, 9 Jun 2002, Jamal A Mohamad wrote:
> > Thanks Franklin for the reply, I know lil about the GPL but can you
> > giude me lilttle as to how I get developers to pack the enhancement
> > bundle, if I aint bothering you too much, cause I have no programming
> > bacjground but I can sure market them Iam confident about it.
>
> It is difficult for me advise you until I know more. Please tell me:
>
> (1) What enhancements are you thinking about?
> (2) What operating system(s) are you targetting?
>
> Regards, Frank
>
> Francis James Franklin
> F.J.Franklin@shef.ac.uk
>
> "No, she really likes me. She told me I look like Britney Spears, and
> why would you say that to somebody you don't like?"
> --- Elle
> Woods
>
>
>
>
Francis James Franklin
F.J.Franklin@shef.ac.uk
"No, she really likes me. She told me I look like Britney Spears, and why
would you say that to somebody you don't like?"
--- Elle Woods
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