Open source mouse

OpenOffice.org yesterday announced the release of the OpenOfficeMouse, a multi-button mouse designed for OpenOffice.org applications

The new mouse, developed by WarMouse in partnership with the OpenOffice.org community, has 18 programmable buttons, a clickable scroll wheel, an adjustable resolution from 400 to 1,600 CPI, an analog joystick and and support for 52 key commands. The OpenOfficeMouse's design is described on the OpenOffice.org website as:

is intended to provide a faster and more efficient user interface for OpenOffice.org applications such as Writer and Calc than the conventional icons, pull-down menus, and hotkeys presently permit.

Its setup and customization software will be released as open source under the GNU license in the first quarter of 2010. The OpenOfficeMouse supports Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems and will retail for $74.99. Soon it will be available online at OpenOfficeMouse. However, reactions so far have not been all that positive. A comment on this site) reads, "The design is ugs, but the idea is great." Another commenter ased, "How many fingers do we have? How many hands do we want to use on this mouse?" And finally, another commenter opined, "An octopus might find that thing useful."