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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.
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.