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OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 2:34 pm
by mbnoimi
As I'm living in Syria SUN company punish all people in Syria by prevent all Syrian users to visit http://www.openoffice.org/

I'm using OpenOffice from 2 years ago and all my documents written by it, beside to that I'm working on spreading it by many ways, but I didn't expect that http://www.openoffice.org/ will be forbidden to Syrian people !

For that I became hate it :x

Why American companies punish whole people in single country!, many Syrian people (I'm one of them) contribute in Arabic edition of OpenOffice

damn to politic.

But I didn't lose the hope, so I'm using OxygenOffice Professional which is an enhancemed distro of OpenOffice.

I don't know how I can solve this problem with SUN, but I can say one sentence to them.

Sham on you SUN

So please if you can contact with SUN company help us by sending our voice to them, by any way you can.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:05 pm
by Caracalla
Damn politics yes, but there's not much Sun can do about it. As a US company they have to obey US law they're not allowed to export anything to Syria (Syria is not the only country hit by this kind of embargo Iran, Cuba, North Korea and others are as well) so they can hardly allow you to visit their download site. Even when the law does not make much sense, or is counterproductive they have to obey it. If you want to petition someone petition the US government.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:00 pm
by B Marcelly
Hi,
There are some proxies available on Internet to allow you to surf anonymously.
example http://www.multiproxy.org/multiproxy.htm

If you want to download OpenOffice, you just have to address directly one of the numerous Mirrors, most of them are outside USA. Within a mirror site, directory names and file names are self-understanding.

A short list taken from http://distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/#mirrors
Each one contains US and localized versions.

Belgium, HTTP
Belgium, FTP
Germany, HTTP
Grece, HTTP
Russia, HTTP

Switzerland, HTTP, extended mirror
Switzerland, FTP, extended mirror
Ireland, HTTP, extended mirror
Ireland, FTP, extended mirror
These extended mirrors have also development files

Hope this helps.
______
Bernard

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:07 pm
by mbnoimi
If you want to petition someone petition the US government.
This is the central point, US government
A short list taken from http://distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/#mirrors
Each one contains US and localized versions.
as I mentioned before, I can't access to openoffice domain so i couldn't get its mirrors
These extended mirrors have also development files
they contain on development files, but how i can contact with others, I'm a contributer, usually I'm using mail-list to contact with other developers.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 9:03 pm
by B Marcelly
mbnoimi wrote:as I mentioned before, I can't access to openoffice domain so i couldn't get its mirrors
Did you really try the mirror addresses I have painfully copied in my post :?:
These are outside USA. So they are not (yet) under US laws. You should have access to them.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 9:19 pm
by DrewJensen
As for mailing lists - they are all archived by other services, most allow you to respond via the archive site. Gmane for instance is one way and I believe they are hosted in Norway.

Finally though - and I hope I don't move this in the wrong direction - not every blockage on the internet comes from the US government. Facebook comes to mind.

Although I think in this case it is the Syria Embargo Act at play :(

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 10:03 pm
by B Marcelly
DrewJensen wrote:As for mailing lists - they are all archived by other services, most allow you to respond via the archive site. Gmane for instance is one way and I believe they are hosted in Norway.
Yes, Gmane can be accessed through web, NNTP newsreader, RSS. Here is the page for mailing list dev@api.openoffice.org
Many people prefer to read the mailing lists through Gmane interface.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:04 am
by mbnoimi
B. Maecelly wrote:Did you really try the mirror addresses I have painfully copied in my post :?:
These are outside USA. So they are not (yet) under US laws. You should have access to them.
Yes, and thanks a lot, I've tested the mirrors and
I'm using them, they are working well.

Thanks again :D

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:19 am
by mbnoimi
DrewJensen
Yes this is true, we can access to Gmane, but how we can know that this project has an account on on Gmane in case we can't access to the official website to get the links?!

for solving this problem we contact with users outside on Syria to give us links, this is not nice solution for every case.
DrewJensen wrote:Facebook comes to mind.

Although I think in this case it is the Syria Embargo Act at play
Honestly, I couldn't understand you!

I looked for this Facebook word, in many dictionaries (like this one), but I couldn't find it, so I couldn't understand you well!.

but I can tell you that there many of US websites forbidden by Syrian government.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:49 am
by DrewJensen
Well I'm glad you can get to Gmane - I am fairly certain they carry all the mailing lists.

if you can access this forum I assume you can access the wiki also - the wiki is being used for more and more things it seems.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:06 am
by acknak
Well I'm glad you can get to Gmane - I am fairly certain they carry all the mailing lists.
Many, but not all.

I think it might be as simple as a request to Gmane to get them to carry a particular list.

Re: OpenOffice is bad choice for people

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:54 pm
by Corfy
mbnoimi wrote:as I mentioned before, I can't access to openoffice domain so i couldn't get its mirrors
I'm curious, then, how you got to this forum, since it also uses the openoffice.org domain.