Farewell to Android
Klout is FarmVille for grown-ups
Does Flash matter on mobile?
What is Twitter?
The office suite NeoOffice for Mac is no longer free as of version 3.2. The popular package, which is based on OpenOffice but has been modified for Macs, has always been free up until now but those that want to download the latest version are required to make a donation before doing so. The developers have posted a message on their download page saying:
The NeoOffice project is funded solely by donations from NeoOffice users like yourself. As a way to thank our donors who make the NeoOffice project possible, NeoOffice 3.2 can be downloaded by all NeoOffice donors who have donated US$10 (or €7 or £6 or CA$10 or AU$10 or ¥834) or more within the last year.
$10 is still a very modest contribution to what is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office. However, version 3.1.2 is still free although unlike 3.2.0, it's not prepared for the forthcoming release of Lion so don't be surprised if it stops working when you upgrade.
A download link for NeoOffice 3.1.2 and 3.2 is available here.
And, you can get the source and build files for 3.2 free (if you know what you're doing with such files!)
I do not know how to compile 3.2 from the source code. ¿any clue or tutorial? I do not want to donate. $10 is " a very modest contribution" indeed, but the mandatory thing is the problem.
The developers are very disingenuous, it seems. They claim to follow the GPL by providing source code and build instructions. However, their build instructions our only for 10.5 and state it will fail under 10.6 or 10.7. Of course, one can't even contact the developers without "donating" at least $10 to ask for the correct build instructions for the "free" version. VERY SHADY.
You can't compile 3.2 from source if you're running any OSX other than 10.5 (Leopard). From the README accompanying the source:
Steps for building on 10.5 Leopard for Intel ----------------------------------------------
At this time, the NeoOffice build only supports building on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for Intel only. Building on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher will not work, and as a result isn't supported.
Although they are probably technically in compliance with GPL since the source code is available, it is clearly a violation in the SPIRIT of the GPL in that the released code is "crippled" and not the full/final version the internal developers are using. A pure slap in the face of former supporters of this project.