I came across an interesting project this weekend that is basically a proof
of concept for an idea I've been wrangling with for a while now. But this
project actually exceeds my expectations, which is what makes it so
interesting. It goes like this: What would happen if a group of developers
got together and created a word processor that duplicated, say, 90% of the
functionality in Microsoft Word? And then they released this product, for
free, over the Internet? In my imagined version of this scenario, this
product would run on Linux, not Windows, of course, since that's where you'd
be likely to see this sort of development occur.
Well, it's happening. But it's much more exciting than what I had imagined
because the product--called AbiWord--is in active development and it runs on
Windows 9x/NT/2000, Linux, Solaris, and the Be OS. The creation of this word
processor is happening under the banner of Open Source, so the source code
is freely available; only the AbiWord name is copyrighted (as is Abi, the
name of the company creating it).
What's most amazing about this project, however is that its native file
format is XML, not yet another proprietary format. And it also reads and
writes HTML, RTF, plain text, WordPerfect, and Microsoft Word documents for
compatibility.
AbiWord is also beginning to support some of the more advanced Word
features, such as on-the-fly spell checking, though the current version
doesn't yet support that nice right-click correction feature we're used to
in Word (remember, this thing is in active development; it's not done yet).
In its current form, AbiWord isn't complete and certainly can't replace
Microsoft Word on any typical user's system. But the kernel of the idea is
there and you can see that this is going to be something special, a true
competitor for Word. And it's free. In the future, when this product is
"feature complete," it will make a compelling case for foregoing the expense
of Microsoft Word. And it runs on Linux and the Be OS, which makes it
compatible with the other leading Intel x86 OSes.
For more information, please visit the Abi Web site.
The Windows download is currently less than 1 MB, which is pretty
impressive; it also makes one wonder why Word 2000 is so huge. Granted,
you're not going to get all of Word's features... yet. But I suspect most
of the important ones are on the way. This is definitely a product to watch.
--Paul
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Walker October 19, 2003