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Lack Of Developers Delays OpenOffice.org
bonch writes "OpenOffice .org contributors spoke this week at a conference in Canberra. Among other things, one of the issues raised was the lack of developer contributions and a source tree that is 'just too big.' Version 2.0 was originally going to be released around this time but will now be delayed until at least June or July."
seperate all the different apps so users have the choice of which components to install and developers can focus on a single part of the code.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Nuff said.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Maybe what happened to the Mozilla Suite needs to happen to OpenOffice? No doubt this would be a huge undertaking, but I wonder how plausible it would be to componentize OpenOffice? Instead of OpenOffice.org Writer, how about Writerfox, or BirdWriter, or .... um... ThunderWriter...
I can vouch for this... the OO.org 2.0 beta has so far required non-RPM Linux users (or those who want to have a single-user installation of the beta version) to build from source--and I can say that it is a frightening endevour! (This coming from one who has built Gnome from source in the past and who is still daunted by the prospect of building OO.org)[1].
I was recently looking at open source projects that I might contribute to, and-- in my case at least --OO.org was counted out on the basis of build complexity. Cloudscape and other projects are where I've been putting my free time simply because becoming a 'casual contributor' to OO.org seems to be an unduly complicated process.
The solution? Simlplify the build process for the casual coder. This will have the added benefit of helping other Linux distros and UNIX versions more easily support bleeding edge OO.org. And on the development side, potential contributors of the odd functionality (as I would characterise myself) will not be scared off.
As I understand it (probably imperfectly), Linux has gone through the same growing pains in arriving at its current module architecture. I think this is a housekeeping step OpenOffice.org needs to dedicate resources to, and needs to dedicate them NOW, to clean things up to at least the level of the what the 1.x versions had where it was easy to compile[&|]install a single-user version, unlike the 2.Xs where it's a real workout.
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[1] And this is also from one who also has no problem with contributing Java code despite the recently publicised Java issues in OO.org 2.0.
OO.org is 10 million LOC, now. That's bigger than most developers ever touch let alone see. Hell, I used to work full time on a program that was only 100K LOC, and I couldn't imagine wrapping my head around 10 million.
As much as I love using StarOffice/OO.org, I'd be hard pressed to become a developer in my spare time. I think what would serve Sun best is to invest heavily in their dedicated OO.org devlopers--give them the best workstations, the best debugging tools, the best profilers, etc. No holds barred, just make their time well spent.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I'd like to see the hardest stuff done in C or something else a bit (faster and) more debuggable than C++ and invoked from a Ruby shell.
Wait a minute - you think the solution to a lack of developers is to switch from a mainstream language to what is, if you'll forgive the intrusion of cruel reality, a language known only by a vanishingly small minority of coders, which has a reputation for being very slow (not good for desktop apps) and for not being able to do Unicode (not good for office apps)?
As I suspect you're the only person in the world who thinks rewriting the OOo framework in Ruby would be a good idea... well, it's down to you. You'd better get cracking, it's gonna take a while. I look forward to seeing the results: Ruby needs a big impressive project like this to lift it out of the "toy language" backwater it's stuck in.
They certainly have a worse public image than IBM, and I wonder if people use OO because its free, but don't really feel part of the project because the SUN associtaions.
It seems to me that IBM and others (like Oracle), aren't playing nicely with SUN so much.Which is all a bit of a pity, because OpenOffice is the single main application that advances Linux as a useful OS on the desktop.
At any rate, I was one of the first non-Sun employees to contribute. This was before Novell, if I recall, about 3 years ago. I believe I'm still one of the few people outside Sun and Novell to hack on the C++ side.
So here's a little insight from the inside. I have had a *lot* of frustrations over the years working on OOo. I know why there aren't many other developers outside Sun working on it. Getting to the point where you can hack on stuff and do your edit/compiler/debug cycles requires dedication. If you aren't being forced into it, it'll never happen. I work on OOo at my job, or I'd never have made it either. It took 2 or 3 weeks to get the OOo 2.0 enivornment set up to where I could edit/compile/debug. Part of the problem is that they aren't distributing solvers for 2.0 snapshots due to resource limitations. The reason it takes so long is because I don't have a spare machine to compile on, so I let it build overnight. Of course, when there's an error, you don't see it until the next morning. If you're not comfortable editing makefiles (and non-standard makefiles, OOo uses dmake, not gnu-make), or working with CVS (some files had to be manually retrieved from the attic), working with a unix shell (I'm a bash guy, but they use tcsh which drives me nuts), etc, you stand no chance in hell. And yet, I am *thrilled* by the progress that's been made over the last few years. The build is a million times better/easier than it was. I'm pretty confident that these last few wrinkles will get ironed out, and when 2.0 final comes out, you'll be able to follow the instructions and it'll "just work."
Now, once you get to the point where you can hack, you'll run into the next problem. While the code may be open, the development process is only sort-of open. Since all the main coders work at Sun, you pretty much stand no chance in hell of doing work on core components, except bugfixing. So, for example, don't expect to sign up to the mailing lists and have any clue what people are working on. Don't expect to be informed of major changes coming down the line unless you have somebody on the inside to give you the scoop. Don't expect to get involved in design discussions, don't expect to have any input on scheduling, don't expect to be consulted about anything except when you're going to fix bugs in your code, don't expect to gain influence in the project over time as you become an established, respected developer. In short, don't expect anything that you would normally expect from an open source project. You will perpetually be an outsider, a non-employee, unpriviledged. Don't get me wrong, you'll gain respect and credibility over time--it's just that won't turn you into Sun management (duh), and Sun management makes decisions for the benefit of Sun (duh) without consulting Joe Random Developer (not too surprising). However, that said, if you want to work on peripheral things, plugins, extras, etc, and don't care much about when or if or how your stuff gets included in OOo official, the devs are really good about helping you out. Also, if you do this as your day job, you may be able to muster some more clout, especially if your company is going to make serious ongoing contributions.
So I'm hopeful that once OOo 2.0 comes out, more of a community will form as the build difficulties ease up. Will the community ever take control and set the direction of OOo, where Sun is just one player? Doubtful. Will the community fork OOo becuase of this? Maybe. Does it matter right now? No. Sun's doing a pretty good job, IMHO.
To those saying "it's the legal troubles and fear of Sun": it's true enough that Sun's copyright assignment stance, licensing, etc are responsible for the NeoOffice fork and, to a large extent, the lack of corporate contributions, but the fact that contributors do retain (dual) copyright and that the GPL/LGPL licensing is irrevocable should mitigate that enough for community contributions.
To those saying "Break it up into components, like Moz": I don't think the problem is that OO.org comes as a whole as that the framework on which all of the apps are built is extremely complex.
To a smaller extent, Mozilla did have the same problem. Splitting the suite was a relatively minor (and thus far somewhat uneffective, as the problems with getting a shared GRE show) move for Moz compared with the momentous decision to ditch so much of the NS 4.x- pre5.x codebase in favor of Gecko, Seamonkey, etc. Even after that and years of improvement, Mozilla development is still known as rather difficult to get into well. Cleaning and simplifying the framework of StarOffice will be even harder.
What burns me up about SO/OO.o is that I cannot VISUALLY see a sensible metaphor or user interface for dealing with master/detail documents. That is, When I create or use an existing document and want to include newly-created or other existing, disparate documents within that first document, I NEED to see the flow from page one through to the end.
Currently, as I've seen from SO/OO.o since day one is some kludge where you open the main document, then when you insert another doc, it "goes" into some "rule" or in between two horizontal lines, the text of which is mysteriously "somewhere", but not flowing, not even in print preview.
I've asked Sun and OpenOffice.org over the the years to look at other suites, particularly at Lotus' SmartSuite's WordPro, the outgrowth from Ami Pro. LWP has a BRILLIANT, flawless, intuitive, and working interface, and just like spreadsheets that became ubiquitous and nearly unpatentable, so should the WordPro interface.
As for Base... ughh, don't get me started. I feel a sense of "DEBASE" the users. It boggles my mind that Lotus Approach, Borland/Corel Paradox. and mshaft abscess have for YEARS, no, make that almost 2 decades, had stable, mature USER INTERFACES.
I am SICK of the "for-dev-kludge-interface/ me geek, for --me" syndrome that is fostered by the "we are a different app maker, we don't have to do what they do..." political shortsightedness. Yes, in this forum I rant like hell, but usually for things, reasons beyond myself and far beyond bean counters and piss-ant politicians. Lotus, Borland/Corel, and mshaft have collectively spent BILLIONS on user interface R&D, yet OO.o STILLLLLLL has one hell of a primitive, geek-oriented interface that relies too much on calc.
Base should NOT be dependent upon the spreadsheet app, nor the spreadsheet interface metaphor, except for TWO (maybe more) things:
1. worksheet interface
2. macros/scripts interrface
Beyond that, the END (not GEEK) user needs and interface that as much as possible (legally, practically and programmatically) mimics Lotus Approach.
I really wish--since the IBM/Sun rancor won't go away anytime soon-- that IBM, now that it is going into the "services sector", opens up Lotus SmartSuite so that people such as myself, who are developing apps and interfaces sequestered to Lotus Approach and Lotus 1-2-3, could ONCE AND FOR ALL join in on the dev action. I am not a programmer. I am an end user. But, I end up making many of my own interfaces because no one else out there makes quite what I want, or refuses to add features I need, compelling me to do it on my own. For example, I am an aspiring fiction author. I have created a base of characters, their environment, and their basic personality or personal information. I cannot possibly do this work in SO/OO.o with the ease that I have had with Lotus SmartSuite. I would never dream of doing it in ms abscess, as abscess demands TOO much programming once beyond a certain point. I also tried Paradox, but when I found, or was given, a copy of Approach (well, Lotus SmartSuite for windoze 3.1 and for OS/2) by a former manager and his manager who saw my plight and ignorance in using a word processor and spreadsheet to manage, I was in heaven. Even the venerable FileMaker (which took too damned LONG to get to windoze, and Alpha 3/4/5, which were close but not quite as neat and streamlined as Approach) couldn't do for me what I needed.
Now, I've tried various Open Source alternatives, and for the stage at which I've gone, they cannot compete. They lack various features, have very little developer commitment, or just have geeky interfaces that I won't DARE pass on to end users for profit or for free. I need a simple approach like Approach, which is a non-geek, non-programmer front end to relational databases who DON'T want to program.
Over the years, every single time at which I thought I was at crossroads in having to learn to program, Approach or Approach users in forums gave me tips or insight that yet a
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
> Sun is still the largest contributor to the
> project with some 50 developers in Germany,
> followed by Novell with about 10 contributors,
> and only four active community developers. [italics mine]
This gives you an idea what degree of community support an OSS project can expect. Ought to be quite a shock for those who think that they can attract hordes of developers just by opening the source.