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Google Hiring Programmers to Work on OpenOffice
massysett writes "Google is hiring programmers to work on OpenOffice.org. "We use a fair amount of open-source software at Google. We want to make sure that's a healthy community. And we want to make sure open source preserves competitiveness within the industry," said Google's manager for open-source software. Perhaps Google's work will address an oft-heard complaint about OO.o: "Google believes it can help OpenOffice--perhaps working to pare down the software's memory requirements or its mammoth 80MB download size.""
How about their free software for Linux first?
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
...but then I realized I read Ars Technica 2 hours ago.
maybe they can dedicate some Google programming talent to getting an Outlook-killing, cross-platform PIM introduced into the suite. 2.0 introduced a database component, and now it's time to even out the offering. I like Evolution but would like to see a cross-platform PIM in the suite as an alternative.
...since I've installed Office but is 80 MB really mammoth? That doesn't phase me. I only get mildly annoyed when I see a 500 MB or greater install, these days. Pretty crazy when you think back to the size of harddrives ten years ago.
"Whether or not you believe me, I'm right" -RWF
If Google's programmers can get OO.org to open as quickly as google.ca does, I'll find a way to pay for Open Office! That's about my only complaint left with Open Office, is that it should start taking input in a simple text window within seconds, and worry about filling in the rest of the program later. That way I can open it up, start typing, and not have to wait 20 - 70 seconds for the blank sheet of e-paper to show up.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Never say OO.o again.. I cringe whenever I see something that might possibly be an emoticon.
I am not being a troll but hopefully some of these programmers can help fix some of the http://qa.openoffice.org/iz_statistic.html 5721 bugs listed, some of which are from 2002!
My boss has made it a priority to seriously look at replacing MS Office with OpenOffice when that buglist gets below 1000. We shall see if that can happen.
Is there anything Google isn't involved in?
:)
Anyway, thumbs up
I am glad that Google is going to help out openoffice. I just installed OO2, and, although impressive, lacks the polish of a professional application. Hopefully Google can bring its minimalistic design to the codebase.
So much for ever getting a real Mac OS X version OpenOffice.org. Spare me your comments about NeoOffice and the X11 version working on OS X.
I know Google can't *stop* a Mac port, but they've got an awful track record of supporting Macs. I'm sure they won't direct any of their resources toward the recently announced new effort to build a Cocoa version.
Oh well. Pages is nicer anyway than OpenOffice, even if I do have to pay for it. It's a shame that the businesses and governments that would be willing to consider OpenOffice want it to have every ounce of the feature bloat that MS Office has.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
They have to make a nifty "GOO.ogle" logo.
I mean, yeah, I wouldn't fancy downloading 80 MB over a dial-up connection. But this IS an entire office suite we're talking about.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
Maybe it's just me, or does 80MB not seem like that much when you're downloading an office suite? It's been a while since I've download^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hseen people download MS office, but isn't it in the 1+GB range? Granted, it has more features/programs, but in my books, 80MB isn't enough to complain about these days.
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don't.
should read:
"And we want to make sure open source preserves competitiveness against Microsoft."
Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just find it funny that they don't just come out and say what we all know they are thinking.
Could Eric's attempts to kill MS be anymore obvious? IIRC 40% of MS' profits are from Office. If people (read: companies) realize that free (and higher quality) is better than $300-600 / license (and lower quality) the open source world could start to get the penetration it needs to hit a tipping point.
80 MB size is mammoth? MS Office is much larger (1-2 CDs) - OO.org is the winner here.
I can understand about the speed issue though. Wasn't it written in Java at some point?
NeoOffice runs fairly quickly on my G4.
or its mammoth 80MB download size.
Sure, its memory usage is a bit heavy (though it's worked fine for me), but 80 MB doesn't seem like such a big download, considering what you get. Microsoft Office now spans more than one CD. Even when you omit the media (images, clipart, etc.) that come with MS Office, OOo must still be considerably smaller.
Not that I'm criticising their intentions - if they make it even smaller than 80 MB I won't complain.
Google has the right idea. Their superior backend software and architecture might could allow them to extend their email service to other applications. Gmail offers better email than most large commercial clients, yet it takes up no footprint on the host machine and can be accessed from any browser. A pared down version of open office, that had almost all the features but a 90% reduction in size seems like a worthy project. It would be 10 megs, with procedural graphics and very efficient code so it would load instantly, have all the important features, and would be capable of all sorts of interesting functions via network access to google. It would work without a network connection.
Do you have any facts, references, sources of information, some kind of substantial data to back up your theory that Google is planning on hiring cheap Chinese or Indian workers to work on OO.o and paying them below minimum wage, or even below an accepted industry standard of wage for that particular job?
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Now, I'm all for making things smaller if they can be, but how exactly is 80 megs a mammoth download? I mean the pre-beta of MS Office 12(really different interface btw, not sure that I like it), is like 1.2 GIGS. If anything I think OOo needs to start including clipart/multimedia/etc. Screw file size, features will be more important than that to most people. And if there's actually some poor guy out there will dial up he can just ask a friend for it.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
The two things Google is known for are sophisticated algorithms and usability. The article (acording to the summary) touches on algorithm improvements. I just hope Google can also bring clean looks, platform GUI integration, user testing, and usability to OpenOffice. They need it. I don't like the current Office, but I like OpenOffice a lot less. Further Office 12 looks like it could really bring a lot of innovation to interface design, open source will need to follow suite to be competitive. Often techies forget that user experience is the biggest user-measurable quality.
This was reported last week in eWEEK.com
s p
;-)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1877924,00.a
More to the point, it seems to me that instead of catching news as it breaks, anymore Slashdot is days behind breaking news.
I won't even mention dupes.
Could folks be... I don't know, a little more proactive about what they turn in to Slashdot?
It's getting to be 'Old News for Nerds,' and that doesn't help anyone.
Jack
First off, kudos to anybody who steps in and gives the Open Source movement a monetary hand -- and I gotta figure they're one of the top contributors at this point.
This is absolutely the right move. Word processing software has probably the most unnecessary bulk of any class of software on your operating system (the e-mail client placing a close second.) There was a day these things could fit in 640K, and while there are certain advantageous features such as spell check we would all be benefited by a more modular approach to installation that asks you what you need and what you don't.
Really, this seems to be the tip of the iceburg. With the increasing price of oil, I can't help wondering what the face of computing is going to look like five or ten years down the line. The average computer uses as much as 140 jack-o-lanterns worth of coal to run on any given day. Much of this is spent on wasteful peripherals we could do without, such as fancy 3D graphics cards or optical mice, but even more is being spent on processing power well beyond the needs of the average user.
Inefficiencies in microcomponent fabrication mean that a great deal of the electricity that goes into your computer is given off as heat. Techniques such as reversible or quantum computing hold much promise in the future for putting more energy into computation but today it is up to the consumer to safeguard the environment.
In a way, the argument is the same as with vehicles -- most people don't need a SUV or a top-of-the-line system but many choose to get them to compensate for inadequacies or because of marketing -- but with computers at least it is impossible to argue you are "safer" for having a faster system. Indeed, you are more likely to run viruses or worms without realizing it because you don't notice the hit in operating performance.
I've noticed that I've been holding on to computer equipment longer and longer these days. Oh sure, I have to fix a power supply here and a fan there, but besides slack engineering standards from software companies there is little reason to keep up with the hardware treadmill... and at least one compelling reason not to.
But much of the responsibility falls on the software developers to design for efficiency. That's not to say that they don't, but I think that as a priority in particular for software deployment to third-world nations operating efficiency will only rise as part of the software design philosophy.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
A - california programmers are horribly overpaid. sorry but your fault for living in the one state that the cost of living is horribly out of control.
B - Paying a programmer $50K and locating them in Iowa is a better idea. they live the middle class lifestyle at the lower class income level you get cheaper labor, happy programmers that can afford a nice home and a couple of cars.
C - locating your global business in california is pure stupidity. there is no valid reason to be in california. most businesses there need to get the fark out now and cut their operating costs by 60-70% right away.
Here's hoping that google CEO and CFO have 1/2 a brain and relocates to a sane location soon.
Improve OO.o? But that memory bloat and slow loading time is what gives OpenOffice character! Don't take that away from us, Google!
Getting the memory usage down would be a godsend. It seems that 'big' OOS projects seem to have tendancies to hog memory - Firefox, OpenOffice.org - what causes that?
:-)
The download is not that bad (how big is MS Office?). What is bad is that the update requires a new download rather than an update/service pack type thing.
Can 2.01 be a smaller download to update a 2.0 install, rather than a complete download that'll try to install itself to OpenOffice.org2.01?
Just my list of demands, feel free to ignore
That was a competition and this is hiring someone.
Besides what is wrong with rewarding people who most likely would have done that work regardless of the monetary reward? It just enables students like myself to work our crap job/internship less and work on what we love more.
And at least here in New Hampshire, $9.30 an hour is enough for a student job. I made $15 welding in a sheet metal shop but most of my friends were doing worse work at $8 an hour, all before taxes.
Their pay seems decent for students, their target for the competition.
Maybe they'll add some of the file sharing features that are in MS Office. This has been a major stumbling block to bringing OO into small to medium size businesses.
Sounds very much like a "Hey Bill, before you think you can take away our toy, make sure you don't lose yours" move.
The day Google starts to write their own Linux desktop is probably the one where you should really, really get rid of that M$ stock...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm in Mississippi, and will work for 30% of the wages paid
to a California. I'll code you under da table too.
You got anythin' to say 'bout that?
Or was your comment about foreign workers merely a
slur against other people, or a cheap stab at fear
mongering?
There is No such thing as a fair wage. This is free software, be happy that someone's getting paid at all.
Programmers should realize that software companies don't hire programmer A over B just based on salary. They also look at the return. If someone can give you 80% of the quality at 30% of the price, do it.
Do you buy at newegg over your local store? Why?
See the link the post of my you replied (which you did read). In the Summer of Code, they paid below McDonald's wages, and thus, well below programmers' wages. If any of the programmers in India worked longer hours, they were paid even less per hour.
I don't know what else you want me to show. Do you deny that Indians are going to offer to be programmers for this project? Probably not. Do you deny that they will have to underbid Americans, and will in fact underbid Americans? Probably not. Do you deny that Google will accept some of these offers? Probably not.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Grow up.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
there's a grain of truth in this, sure, but there are *lots* of good reasons for basing a business in ca:
talent - lots of good people are in CA, especially in the bay area... hiring good people is easier here than in des moines (no offense, i know some top notch people in IA city... y'all know what i mean)
expectation/investors - investors get all bright and smiley when there hear about your "san francisco-based company" in a way that they don't so much when you talk about your lincoln- or tucson- based company... location is related to marketing
Imagine if OO had the feel and usability of Picasa. *THAT* would be a killer app. I know that Google bought it, but Google's apps all have that kind of look and feel - from Google Talk to the toolbar and Hello. It's all very friendly and modern feeling.
By accepting that wage below what the Californian will work for, you are better off. There's nothing wrong with that. What minimum wage law proponents want to do is price you out of job. Actually, you'd still be making above minimum wage. That's why I brought up foreigners. Not because I'm racist, but because they would be priced out of a job if anyone actually enforced the insanity that is minimum wage law.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
I will agree that Google and Mac support just don't seem to mix well sadly. But, the "bloat" in OpenOffice is probably one of the things google is best suited to streamline. Lots of features does not have to mean lots of bloat if properly designed and implemented. That, imho, has been Microsoft's biggest failing over the years, and is largely responsible for the countless lurking bugs and security flaws.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Before anyone starts screaming about privacy and Google becoming too powerful, let me say that I find such a prospect very attractive for individuals and for small and medium size businesses. Let Google handle the backup issues and provide appropriate conversion utilities when communicating with others. While I am quite competent to handle such issues myself, I would be tempted to use a Google service such as this myself. It is so convenient having documents stored on a globally accessible server and not having to maintain that server oneself.
This is a powerfull message to anyone being involved in the decision process over the state of Massachusetts: "We do support the Open Document standard!". A welcome move at a critical time.
This is about 1000 light years off topic but ass rippingly funny! I literally fell out of my chair reading this.
Not to dissuade you from working against the man or anything...
/. comment and concluding that Google is out to destroy US programmers. Please stop tilting at windmills, and focus your energies on some wrongs that truly need righting.
But damn, dude WTF!? You made some huge leaps in logic, mushing an article together with a freakin'
I just downloaded OO.o yesterday and it was 240MB. I think that the 80MB refers to the RAM footprint - which is large compared to MS Office.
Website
How do you commoditize an operating system? One way is to make web services that can be accessed by any standards-compliant browser. Check.
How do you commoditize an office suite? By backing and improving a free-of-charge office suite, and by providing coders, money, and publicity to the project. Check.
I wonder what MS will do now? I think that if they have to fight to maintain a monopoly against Google, IBM, Sun, and the entire F/OSS community, they may well have a losing battle.
Eventually.
You bastard! I got Coke coming out my nose! You owe me for a new keyboard!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Well, let's just say, it can be messy in the long run.
Part of me doesn't like the idea of getting Google's financial interests involved in something like this. The reason a project like OO.o can work is because there aren't any big companies trying to tell anyone working on it what to do. I am not saying for certain that Google is planning on stepping in and trying to take over -- not by a long shot at this point -- but you have to at least recognize that this is a step in that direction.
I agree. For an entire office suite 80MB is quite reasonable to me. We're not talking about a one-task webbrowser. You get a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, drawing tool and more in that 80MB. I haven't looked recently, but I'm pretty sure that MS Office is at least 2 or 3 times that size on the CD.
80MB may be awkward for those on a dial up modem, but put into context, it isn't that bad. I suppose that it would be nice to modularize it so that bits are downloaded as needed. A 20MB base download in one language with other bits downloaded in the background or as needed would bring the base download time for a modem user down to about an hour.
Memory size consumption and start up time are bigger concerns to me. Oh, and a small web-plugin to read OOo files off websites would be excellent.
To be recoded in C/C++.
Seriously.
It seems to me that if companies like Google need to hire programmers to work on the "less glamorous" aspects of FOSS applications, that points out a significant weakness in the FOSS development model. This has always been a pet peeve of mine regarding FOSS ... the applications never seem *quite* finished, or *quite* up to real commercial standards. True, many are very good, and true, many "commercial" products are lacking. But when you compare the best commercial products with the best that FOSS has to offer, FOSS always seems to come up short.
... OK, fire away!
Now please let me put on my flame-proof suit before I click "submit".
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Stripping all the Java crap out of there would be a good start.
Of course, this is essentially the same thing as Google paying programmers to work for Sun, with control over what they work on.
Neat arrangement. Kinda like the USA offering financial aid to a poor country, but with control over what that aid gets spent on.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The amount of memory open office uses, yeah memory... :)
Oh thats right a hundred other people already made that
comment, must be open office hogging all my memory again,
damn you open-office damn yooooou!
Arash
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
I suspect that you'd get a better reaction if your writing was more coherent. I eventually managed to figure out what I think your message is ("minimum wage laws are bad" - please correct me if my interpretation is wrong). But it took a while, and required reading your responses to other comments.
Just wait till he finds out that Google is hiring people that directly affects his bread and butter software -- Office. He'll throw a couch at the person who tells him the news...
Coderz 4 Life
Ballmer just shit his pants.
Why is it that whenever Google does something, everyone is ready to praise them for pushing OSS etc? Google has much to gain from OSS software and advancements in it, because they use so much of it. Like any other company, they want to save where they can and that's all they are doing.
What we should be really doing is thanking the developers of OO. OO is a great program, especially given that it is relatively young and has to have a lot of functionality. As others have pointed out, 80MB is not at all massive for a program like OO. I am not sure what these speed issues others bring up are, it is quite fast for me. Whether it uses Java or not is irrelevant to the majority of users. You have to understand that most people don't care whether Java is closed or not. It is the final product's functionality that matters most, so quit your bitching.
What I think OO needs is a better interface and more of the lesser-used features that make MS Office such a complete suite. I know many of you think MS Office suffers from feature bloat, but there are always people who make use of a lot of the lesser known features (like Format Painter!) - for the stuff it packs in there, Office is quite blazingly fast. One bad example of bloat would be Eclipse, because when you have lots of features, speed and interface matter a LOT more. Hopefully, OO will get this right.
My 2c.
Not the google/OO.o thing I mean, but efficiency in computer software/hardware design. A lot of people have talked over the years about the effects the breaking of Moore's law would have on the computer industry. As long as companies could rely on exponentially increasing computer speeds, efficiency was largely ignored for many years except, perhaps, in certain parts of the server/mega-computer arena.
Now that we are begining to aproach the end of the line for the current computer hardware technology, much much more emphasis is being placed on effeciency instead of raw speed. You can see this change in attitude reflected in everything from processor design, to modular software and operating systems.
In no small part, one of the reasons the *nix's have become so popular(other than low cost) is that they are extremely customizable. So, you can have all the features you need, but toss out everything else you don't. This allows for a much more effecient, secure, and orderly system.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
There. Done. It's now written i C and C++. Download the source and take a look.
(yes, there is some Java in there, but you can run it perfectly without it)
I imagine an interface similar to the one at sourceforge...
:)
the Microsoft bugs would say something like:
Blue Screen if I do this... (Open)
Crash If I do that... (Open)
Vulnerability in file... (Open)
Blue Screen if I do this... (Open)
Crash If I do that... (Open)
Vulnerability in file... (Open)
Blue Screen if I do this... (Open)
Crash If I do that... (Open)
Vulnerability in file... (Open)
Blue Screen if I do this... (Open)
Crash If I do that... (Open)
Boy, it'd really look interesting
Indeed, the article complains about the wrong problems and says nothing of the real problem. The article complains about a large memory footprint, this may be an issue but it isn't a really big one. The article complains about an 80MB download but, he must be joking 80MB is pretty good for all that is included in OpenOffice. Has he seen the size of Microsoft Office? It's >500MB! I think 80MB for a full blown office suite is awesome!
But, the real issue with OpenOffice, even 2.0 is speed. It is slow, very slow in comparison with MS Office. And for those that will whine that MS preloads, SuSE 9.3 and 10 also preload OpenOffice but, it is still very slow especially at startup.
Predictably there are a lot of threads already (and presumably will be many more) about how Google's intent is to either combat Microsoft by offering a free & competetive Office suite, or to further develop Open Office in the interest of some sort of Google offering of Open Office as a hosted application. There could be some truth in both of these, however I think the main reason Google shows some token support for open source initiatives like this is simply so that developers (/.'ers included) will sit around and talk about how cool Google is, since OSS is very en vogue helping it is a very way to stay hip. Why else would Google (and other companies) fund/support initiatives like Wikipedia, etc. Its a method of low cost, and fairly effective, brand advertising.
A smaller OO would be a Good Thing, but let's be clear; it would have a lot less functionality. A usability review which really took into account the actual needs of ordinary users and produced a cut down OO would probably improve speed and size quicker than rewriting the code base. If that's what you mean by "minimalistic design" then yes, I agree. I hope Google will produce a download-on-demand version of OO which starts with a minimal version and then downloads additional functionality as you need it, but I doubt that is what they intend for one moment, or that I can outguess the calibre of people that Google can recruit.
Pining for the fjords
Ive installed it on approx 50 client workstations so far (ranging from Windows 2k - XP), about 5 times it just didnt work. It would load up and lock up the system. I havent bothered to look into the issue (ive just been testing it out to see if its worth while), but it hasnt impressed me so far.
(and I wonder why nobody hasn't asked)
why are they doing this? What can Google possibly obtain? I know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend but... what's in their agenda?
I'm a little disappointed. I would really like to see Google focus on creating web-based office apps. Anyone else feel the same way?
Sometime open-source software don't have to be "free" (as in bear).
It is good that some companies/users consider "giving back" to the project by funding development. It is common to hear complains that something is not working and no one is willing to fix it, rare is it for the same people to contribute money to hire developers to fix those problem. Problems don't just magically disappear because it is "open-source", someone still need to do the hard work.
A developer can be motivated by they own interests or money, don't really matter, the main thing is that they produce good code.
Imagine individual/government/company spend just a small portion of their annual software/license budget to fund open-source developments, projects like OpenOffice will greatly benefit from this sort of support.
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
There are good reasons to locate your business in a place like california or where i live, seattle. Many people like to live in cities where there are things to do. Most of the good colleges are located in major population centers. Therefore, you ahve more available talent to hire. Try getting a Stanford or Berkley grad to accept a job in Des Moines. Or move someone from MIT to Wymoing. Or telling the UT Austin grad that you'd like him to work in Tulsa.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Well we can only hope that it will leave Google leaner and meaner and then the feature requests will roll in. Then when a PIM is good enough to enter the suite maybe Google will tweak it again and then we'll have the Office killer.
I've never had the great experience of using Outlook and/or Exchange; but it must be tackled to replace Office in many environments.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Free software is free software and there should always be free software. But let's face it, if you can help and you enjoy the fruits of another's labor, express your appreciation for it. If you're a poor person who can't even part with a dollar (like me) at least send an email and say "hey! you guys are doing great!" If you can send a few bucks, there's probably more than a thousand people just like you sending in 5 or 10 dollars... you do the math... and some people want to send more and that's just great. But when a company uses free software, they too should show their appreciation... especially if there's some sort of non-profit, tax-deductible-thing going on there.
I definitely wish I could part with more than I have, but I have definitely sent hardware and money to various projects in the past and I will continue to do so as I can. It is as it should be.
Google is investing in OO.org for the same reason that Sun, Red Hat, Novell, and even IBM (to a certain extent) are investing in OO.org. If Google can make OO.org a more useful competitor to MS Office for a nominal investment then that investment is definitely money well spent. This has little or nothing to do with Google's use of Free Software, and everything to do with the fact that with Microsoft Office is vulnerable. OO.org is actually pretty competitive, and Microsoft's upcoming format shift means that people are going to have to deal with format incompatibilities no matter what they decide to use.
Google execs know that Microsoft begins to lose sales of its ridiculously profitable office suite to OO.org that investors will demand that Microsoft stop focusing on new endeavors (like MSN) and focus on its bread and butter businesses. Increasing the viability of OO.org is almost certainly Google's most cost effective weapon in its fight against Microsoft.
Can you say YAY to Google adds as they index all of the words in your documents. Maybe they can incorporate a banner at the top of the program, kinda like Opera. Oh boy, that would be fantastic.
I don't think I want Google knowing everything about me, including my personal literature.Math
I don't know what all of you are running on your computers but when I run any of the OpenOfiice 2.0 programs they each take up around 30 Mb of memory. Most of the Microsoft Office programs take up that much memory on my computer. Also, the OO programs will load within 3 or 4 seconds, about what Microsoft Office programs do. I'm not sure why people say it is slow and takes up a lot of memory since it seems just as fast as Office. Of course I am running a dual 6.8 GHz Pentium 5 system with 16 Gb of RAM, maybe that has something to do with it.
I'm really on a 2 GHz P4 with 768 Mb RAM with XP Home (agggrrrhh, that's blasphemous here!).
An 80 Mb dl is pretty small. It's great that Google's getting into this though. Paying people to work on open source software usually has excellent results.
Why is it that every comment asking, "Why is Google doing this?" come to the conclusion that Google's intent must be related to money in some way?
I don't trust corporations (look at my posting history). But, I've been very impressed with the impression I get from Google. Yes, perhaps they are doing this for the PR, or to turn Microsoft's cash cow into hamburger and yummy, yummy steaks; but might it also be that Google is doing this because it has some extra cash, and since it benefits so greatly from free software, is just trying to give something back?
Maybe?
Anyway, in the end, it doesn't matter, as well *all* benefit.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
And Google demonstrates once again how to privatize OSS. Just wait till they move onto a closed development model similar to Firefox's. Add in the marketing blitz and even if the source is available and the competitor is better (for whatever values of "better") the marketed version will still dominate the user adoption.
Let's see who buries who...
(I wonder if someone is regretting a certain lawsuit and idle threats right about now)
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
Office simply loads most of the necessary dll's at boot time, which slows down boot, but makes office snappy -- only a relatively small exe must load at that point. This is probably a little harder to do in a cross platform piece of code, and the moral implications of this I leave to the reader. Most serious MS developer types have the tools to confirm this, I did when I was one of them. Gave them up at win2k and devstudio 6. Everything after that is intended to make us run in place and have to learn new frameworks while they continue to use the old stuff themselves to "innovate". Viva Linux!
> NOTHING!
And here you are, contributing to it.
Good point, although I shop at Newegg because it is 150% the quality at around the same price. :-)
ok i get the need to reduce ram footprint, but calling 80mb a "mammoth download size" is crazy, considering how hugely bloated MSoffice is by comparison. 80 mb is not that big if you ask me...on a decent broadband connection i have downloaded OO.o in maybe 5-10 minutes depending which mirror i choose. seriously...it's no biggie....
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
Tha OpenOffice development team is anything but small, and it's definitely not some loose collaboration of volunteers like some other OSS projects. Most of the current core developers are Sun employees and are paid for their work on OO.o. If things get messy it will be because Sun and Google have different goals, not because of corporate money-grubbing clashing with GNU/ideology.
0 1 - just my two bits
You guys just don't understand that there's a difference between a guy getting a blow job and a guy fucking the whole world, do ya?
The world gets improved OSS. And MS may get less $$$.
http://frank@franklinharper.com/
It does kinda look like a People's Eyebrow®1 with a right ear tuned to get what they didn't quite hear the first time. Or a three-eyed People's Eyebrow.
(Either one would be my reaction if someone says "You gotta use .doc format, sorry", I'm sure.)
1sans the eyebrow, of course
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
IIRC, Google wanted some sort of web interface to the OpenOffice suite. If that means allowing OO to be ran through the browser, 80MBs is quite a lot for not installing anything. Imagine the load times on the web, compared to the 4-5 seconds when installed. I doubt many can do 16MB/s.
Your comment just made an evil and twisted idea hit my radar screen.
1) Promote OpenOffice
2) See Microsoft lose most of its money
3) Buy MS Stock
4) Own MS
5) Profit!!
to GOO.ogle
Er, it is a professional application. The code base is from the Star Office app, which Sun bought.
Hopefully Google can bring its minimalistic design to the codebase.
So a 'professional' app has a 'minimilistic' design. Then I guess Microsoft Office isn't 'professional' by your def either then?
I think OO.org should be built on Gecko and XUL. Gecko is superfast, crossplatform and the UI architecture would be competing directly with Microsoft's future UI: XAML+Avalon. Gecko even has a vector graphics engine that works with SVG. OO.org Draw could use something like that. Wouldn't it be cool if OO.org becomes the standard studio for creating SVG graphics? This would also mean that XUL gets a bigger community, more developers and more support. This way XUL will become the standard for building user interfaces, paving the way for abstraction between the OS and the UI. Then finally "our UI" will be truly platform independent, proprieatary-free and we won't be needing M$ OS anymore. :P
For the love of god work on an amd64 port!!
The ONE feature I want out of OO.o is the ability to compile it in a 64 bit environment. Everything about 1.1.4 is perfect, except that I can't compile it
Since Microsoft is known as the industry standard among most people, techies with non-techies, "the industry" would be enough. (sad but true.)
Still, an increasing lot of non-tech people know about Java and some of it's applications. (Net-banks, cellphone/online games, etc). I find that encouraging.
Excuse me for being contrarian (and I don't have all the links), but TFA's headline is a good example of what's wrong: "Google throws bodies at OpenOffice"
r g_heilig.html:
... when you start making it complex with $n+1 dependencies and steps the project either gets refactored or dies (and "Large(tm)" corporate invovlement generally has higher resistance to both the refactor and die options, as some areas seem to be personal vanity areas or have other political rather than technical motivations ... aka: Java).
OpenOffice is not self-sustaining. It only exists because people are being paid to work on it. I believe a decent link is the following...
http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/interview_joe
"""What is your role now in OpenOffice.org/StarOffice and what was your role in architecting the OpenOffice.org project at its inception?
I am responsible for the StarOffice engineering and in this role also responsible for all engineering work on OpenOffice.org done by Sun employees. At the time of OpenOffice.org's inception I was responsible for StarOffice's base technology and involved in all the engineering discussions around open sourcing StarOffice. """
IANAOSOSC (I am Not an Open Source Office Software Contributor)... but contrast that statement with AbiWord, KOffice, Evolution, InkScape, etc. (AbiWord and KOffice both had their versions of kernel-traffic-like summaries which allowed me keep up with various development issues and see how their insides worked at one point or another. OpenOffice needing an FTE to manage other FTE's who are writing code is a recipe for "code because we tell you to".
It seems like certain types of companies exist solely to make the most complicated build processes, technology decisions, etc. This is as opposed to the OSS way of "Keep it Simple, Stupid"
http://ooo.ximian.com/hackers-guide.html:
"""Building and hacking on OpenOffice.org (OO.o) entails climbing a fairly lengthy incline. Hopefully this document will make the learning curve somewhat steeper and more abrupt, and will give you a walking stick to help you out."""
Which isn't to say that having somebody "big" like Sun behind an office suite is all bad. It's because of them that we have the clippy-like thing, the chm-like thing, the templates, wizards, import filters, and all the other mostly boring "feature checkboxes" that we do now in OO.o.
If I could wave my magic wand and have everything the way that I want, I'd split out the OO input filters (seem to get really good reviews and good personal results). Kill the really-tight integration between Presenter, Writer, Drawer, etc... (although if that's the way MSOffice handles embedded tables, etc., maybe it's a necessary evil?). And a healthy helping of de-cruftify, especially the preferences panels. Maybe a FireFox-like project to strip down OpenOffice would be helpful.
Just my outsider's perspective....
--Robert
Why is an 'agenda' relevant?
They are willing to pay people to improve an already useful tool and turn the results back into the public domain.
What a great idea !
What if the killer cross-platform PIM comes from the browser suite instead of the office suite?
>There is No such thing as a fair wage.
That is completely untrue. A fair wage is a wage that your average worker can survive on and not be in poverty. There is no way that a single mother with 3 kids can provide food and shelter for a family in the USA for $6/hr without some sort of governmental assistance. Especially on the coasts. However, $6 a day can be a living wage in Iraq.
>Do you buy at newegg over your local store? Why?
I will buy from local stores provided they have the best price and best products. Unfortately, many local computer stores, at least around where I live, don't survive more than a year or so. It is sad.
This is less a free-market and competition problem, as you insinuate, but a "how to run a successful business" problem. For example, there are approx. 300 farms in the U.S. that raise old breeds of "heritage turkeys" like the Red Bourbon and the Nargassett. They are sold for about $40 to $120 a bird. Unfortunately, there are no farms in driving distance from where I live to buy from a local farm. So I went onto the internet, and found 5 farms that sell frozen turkeys on the internet. I found 3 that would delilver. It was a larger family farm. (www.marysturkeys.com if you are curious) I would have bought from a smaller farm, if more of these 300 farms got on the internet.
Now that I feel bad for spending $80 for two turkeys, I am going to finish my $20 compensated dinner and get my ass back to work.
Microsoft is finally looking seriously at the nexct logical step in the licensing chain: licensed remote hosting of the software. Buy a license, have web access FOR ONE YEAR to the MS Office suite. Renew as necessary. Forever. Just like in the bad old days that STARTED the microcomputer revolution in the 70s.
This is an old idea, but even MS now says they are seriously considering it. It guarantees a steady revenue stream to them, rather than all you slugs that are still running Office 95 or earlier just keep going ad infinitum.
Of course, MS says the benefit is to guarantee the latest features to their esteemed customers. The fact that they could change data formats on you at their own discretion adn keep competitors guessing of course never enters the discussion.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
"Screw file size, features will be more important than that to most people. And if there's actually some poor guy out there will dial up he can just ask a friend for it."
Can I be your friend?
As somebody else pointed out the last time OO.o was discussed on Slashdot, bundling all those applications together was more of a marketing innovation on Microsoft's part than a technical innovation. The idea is to create a perception that you get better "value" when you buy all those apps bundled together, even the ones you probably don't need to use very often. When all the apps are free, however, is there really any reason why you should have to install them all at once? Seems like you should be able to install one "core" package that includes any shared libraries and then add whichever of the apps you want.
Breakfast served all day!
The office suite is still missing Outlook, and without a suitable drop-in replacement most companies will gladly stick with Microsoft. Outlook just works, and works nicely...
-everphilski-
Apparently, an aged Richard Stallman has been recruited by Google to help them in their efforts. After taking one glimpse at the code, Stallman said he "recoiled in morbid disgust". "Jesus f***," he said, "I'm going to have to re-code this thing from the ground up... using LISP." Stallman's project is said to be under the codename "emacs" and will be useful for everything.
This guy is BS, only thing worse is that he is modded informative-- mod it down
If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into your own beliefs?
Office suite is a killer app on any desktop platform. What about other companies (and what the hell - governments too!) who support and use open-source software get some money into the conquer of making OpenOffice better/usable? It is good PR for them and just good for all openoffice users. Well... is it too good to be true? The time for www.spreadopenoffice.org has come!
I'd love to see Picasa ported to Linux... right now I'm stuck using VMPlayer w/ a W2k virtual machine. It works, but not very nicely. On the other hand, GUI performance on Windows is quite good, I have a feeling it wouldn't run quite as well under X at the moment.
# fuser -v
#
Now I hate Google speculation as much as the next guy.. But could this be an effort by google to get a feel for Open Office to pave the way for a future Google-run, GMail style web interface version of Open Office?
Oh who am I kidding, I love google speculation.
I see a lot of coments speculating on why google is doing this. Yet, the most obvious possibility is left out: what office suite does Google use?
Really, guys, Google is soooo cool. I can't barely contain myself in expectation of the Google ads in OpenOffice.org and the suite itself! It's gonna be so cool. Hey. what about having Google indexing all our office files as well!? This is great stuff! Google is my favorite corporation ever. We shouldn't even have Web 2.0 but Google Web! Go Google! Open Source needs you. I mean, where would we be without Google playing around with OSS?
P.S: If you didn't get it, all of the above was sarcasm.
P.S.2: Who the hell stole my username (Saoshyant)? It's almost trademarked by me.
Unattractive squares should stick to Linux and Windows. Skinny chic is for different thinkers.
Im thinking this is for googles gain,were probably going to be seing enhancments in gmails formatting and even some sort of online document creation tool, will we make the logo now "google office Beta"
Sometimes it is a lot better to use several programs that work instead of one that does many tasks badly. There are many other options instead of the free mail client that comes bundled with your OS or the slightly better free mail client that comes bundled with your office suite. Without third party tools to recover corrupt mailboxes (which can take up to 12 hours if all you have done is just gone past that nasty 2GB mark that kills OE mailboxes) both programs are useless in a widespread deployment.
Google should hire developers to improve OOo documentation. I was writting some macros lately and it was a horror. I found more usefull informations on Sun's site than in OOo docs.
As you know, their may be chairs flying out of them ...
i just wish they would release their web server.. i want to take a good pick at it..
but they got to get start some ware to start giving back to the comunity
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
People who drive Hummers and buy expensive computers that look like alien spaceships are not necessarily manipulated by marketing or psychologically perverse. On the contrary, they may simply enjoy some things that they do not (by your standards) need. Why begrudge a person that?
Get serious man. Adobe doesn't do it. Macromedia doesn't do it. Nobody's going to put that much work just to make the fanboys happy. Quick ports along the lines of NeoOffice are about the best we can expect, I'd say...
Ballmer "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo, I'll kill them (Google), I'll kill them! (Google)"
I can hear him from here......and I do live in Canada.
No sig for now.
The password is "Web Services".
Oh, I don't even mind hearing the "new paradigm" thing once in a while, even though it makes me cringe...but if somebody says "synergy" in the same breath, I am gonna puke!
At what point does this kind of behavior become anti-competitive?
... you'd all be screaming if Microsoft did this kind of thing.
Selling a product below cost in order to kill a competitor is potentially illegal anti-competitive behavior.
Conspiring with other companies to offer a product below cost to kill a competitor is definitely illegal.
As Google is paying for the development of a product that will be offered without charge, and since Google is in competition with Microsoft, this seems very akin to dumping.
Yeah, I know it's Microsoft, but
Then again, Microsoft does this all the time. (eg Internet Explorer)
I wish some companies look towards and invest money in http://www.tug.org/ and http://www.latex-project.org/ as well.
TeX is a far-far superior way of formatting and writing documents compared to any of the word packages.
Creativity uninhibited www.kreeti.com
If you turn off java, the startup is almost instantaneous on a pentium 3.0 off a 7200rpm drive.
And I read here today that the next java (1.6) is supposed to have faster startup.
I agree with you. Memory is pretty cheap these days- $160 for 2gig. $320 for 4gig.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm using "Star Office" not "Open Office" but it is the same code base
I just double clicked the "star office 7" icon on my desktop and stated counting to myself "one onethousand, two onthousand...." I got to "six" and I was counting fast. I figure it at five seconds from the double clock to the point where I can begin typing a document. Now I'm closing the application. Now I'm running it again. Comes up in about 2 or 3 seconds. I figure it is faster the second time because it's all cached in RAM. (I have 4GB RAM instaled)
How much faster do you guys want? Can't you wait three seconds. I'm running Solaris 10/X86 Maybe you guys are running Windows or Linux or something but it's fast enough on my Solaris system.
It is most certainly not less than 10 seconds for most computer users, to load up OO.o, especially if they don't have the quickstarter app pre-loaded. Text entry is about the simplest task a computer can do, so I can understand why it takes longer than a few short seconds for a program to get ready to take input from the user, and worry about drawing the fancy screen with tool and menu bars later. If notepad.exe can do it in 2 seconds, why can't OO.o or MS Office? We're supposed to be making advancements in computing speed, not introducing 20 second+ delays to our users.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
How about a bunch of nerds at an online tech news site?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The Eclipse development SDK I use at work is bigger than 80 mb. Hell, I work on a product with an install size of well over 3GB. 80 megs is nothing.
OpenOffice, nee StarOffice, was originally a German product, and half of the comments are in German. If they can find Chinese and Indians who can write good code, and speak English and German, more power to them! But why would these highly skilled trilingual workers work for so little?
You're arguing with an anarchocapitalist. To him, the word "fair" is defined by the free market.
Anarchocapitalists, in general, see the free market as an omnipotent, omnipresent force that can do no wrong; even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that anarchocapitalism is a religion.
All this talk about the size of OO and this guy only gets 3 points? And don't give me that "well you can't compare OO to that crappy Microsoft Office". OO truly is a clone of MS Office, and not a very good one at that.
I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
from TFA :
which are programs developed in the open and available for free
Not all OSS is available for free as TFA seems to believe.
...companies to pull off one of the few FS/OSS business models that's sound, simply because of Google's size. The model?
1. Release FS/OSS.
2. Short stock of Proprietary competition. Or, drive dollars away from them towards you; since shorting is an unpopular tactic that might cause PR or even legal problems.
3. Profit. Oh yeah, big time!
Hate to burst the bubbles of people who still have them when it comes to the big G, but human attempts to create large, idealistic organizations have a nasty tendancy to end in failure. Exactly what is "not doing evil" when your only choice is the Google office suite?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
KOffice is the Office suite developed as part of KDE, and from personal experience I can say that it is a whole lot snappier at boot-time, requires less memory, and needs far less hard-drive space to install.
KOffice developers are also quick to note that they find it a whole lot easier to work with a codebase that was designed from the beginning to be lean. Staroffice (the commercial, closed-source predecessor of OpenOffice.org) was initially designed to be completely self-sufficient so as to run without many dependencies. That accounts for part of OpenOffice.org's current bloat.
The six billion people of the world cannot today all be paid a fair wage. It seems that the next fairest thing to do, then, would be to pay them all an equal, minimally-unfair wage. But as it is now, billions of people must live as destitute peasants in order to provide Californian programmers with their fair wage. That is a disgustingly unfair policy.
In other words, the same logic that demands a fair wage for Californian programmers also argues most convincingly against that same wage. Since you mentioned God---Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. (Sorry, I couldn't resist; I don't claim to follow that advice and my point here is not to talk ethics but only to point out the paradox that lies within your own principle of wage fairness.)
Please please google...use your might GUI powers to help openoffice turn impress into something that well...impress us.
The following packages will be REMOVED: openoffice-de-en 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 1254 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 307MB disk space will be freed.
I think I'm going to stick to using KOffice.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Talk to your vendor.
Have you noticed how major corporations like Sun, IBM and Novell contribute to F/OSS projects, because it's in their commercial interests to do so?
Is it too much to ask that Apple, after taking so much from the F/OSS community, contributes something back? Apple is a parasite on the F/OSS community and Apple users are in no position to make demands until they and their vendor are contributing along with the rest of us.
Right now Apple is amongst the worst of F/OSS pariahs, in the same category as GPL violators. Contribute or fuck off.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Could this move see corporate organisations in the future controlling open source software? For example, pretty much now Linus says whats goes in the kernel right? Although i would assume there are plenty of people to set him straight every once and a while...
With google hiring people, if these people work their way up within an OSS project and eventual gain some sort of elite nature in that project these people, Or google, could have the final say in how projects are run or what is included... Is it a possibility?
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
perhaps working to pare down the software's memory requirements or its mammoth 80MB download size
Doesn't sound like they're related to me - more like 2 seperate complaints.
So... When will OpenOffice Beta come out?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Buy the CDs. They _are_ for sale.
But they are for download, too.
service, he said. Its Linux core begins not with software from a company such as Red Hat, or Novell's Suse Linux, but rather from the version that project leader Linus Torvalds posts periodically to the kernel.org Web site.
we are talking about an office suite here.
80 mb is pretty small compared with a commercial competitor like microsoft, which tips the scales at between 250 and 650 meg depending on what version you're installing.
just saying..
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
WOW! Thank you, that worked like a charm. My OO.o 2.0 loaded in about half the time, maybe faster than that.
Tools ->
Options ->
Java ->
Uncheck use Java environment, save it, and you've "fixed" OO.o.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Since when is an 80mb download size mamoth? Unless that's a typo that's supposed to read '800'.
2 things that really really bug me about OO.0
1) Can't print envelopes directly
2) No label making support
These are just two little additions that need to be made. I keep going back to 'Open With - Microsoft Word' because when I click on the documents that I need to create labels and envelopes with I can't do it in the (now default) OO.o. It would be really great if I could uninstall Microsoft office completely...oh wait...then I'd be able to dump windows completely too! I am holding on to all this stuff due to my laziness in writing envelopes...oh yeah, and the need for them to look professional and well done. -hence run them thru the printer.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Don't forget Bonjour (aka Rendezvous)
The point is that OpenOffice is written by people who know absolutely nothing about marketing. (Calling it "OpenOffice.org" is the best example of that. That's a website, not a product.)
It's pretty much a similar situation as with Mozilla: Firefox isn't that different or better than Mozilla (actually, to be honest, I still prefer Mozilla's preferences), it also isn't faster. The difference is that Firefox was marketed much better than Mozilla, so it really took off while Mozilla never gained a significant userbase.
Google will hopefully do something similar with OpenOffice. Actually most people only need the Writer-component and are also pretty likely to only get Writer-documents by email or on the web. (Spreadsheets and presentations are pretty rare in comparison) So it would be great if a Writer-only version would be created, so that when somebody stubles across a .odw, he can download a 10-20MB OpenOffice-Writer. It doesn't really matter wether it's faster than the whole suite, people will think it's faster when you tell them. (Just like people think that Firefox is faster than Mozilla, which it never was. However Mozilla has the image of being slow and bloated and people didn't even want to try it. Firefox was essentially the same (being "stripped down" only affects download time and used disk space, at runtime they are pretty much the same), but with a new image of being lean and fast, which made all the difference.)
There should also be consistent names (OpenOffice.org is the name of the website and the community that is creating OpenOffice, the product), but Google unfortunately doesn't have the power to change that...
Also Google is getting a really strong weapon against Microsoft. What do you think will a small text-only link on Google.com to OpenOffice cost for Microsoft? One billion? 10 billion? More?
If they really want to put Microsoft in a world of pain, they could just do some dirty tricks like convert every .doc they find in .odw (instead of .html as they currently do) - everytime the server holding the .doc is down you would need something that can read .odw. Yeah, that would piss quite some people off and it would contradict Google's motto, but if Microsoft declares all-out war it could break the Word-stranglehold within half a year and destroy Microsoft's cashcow.
WTF. Why do we need to reduce the downlaod size of OO? 80MB is tiny for a fully featured office suite. How big is the office install? A quick search for an office torrent will show it weighing in at 1GB+ I am sure and people are happy to download that. I wouldn't be supprised if most of the 80MB is graphics and other such material. If you want it to look nice there isn't a lot you can do about that. Rather than make it a smaller download why don't they focus on making it faster and more stable. Oh and of course properly finishing the features that are already present.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Programmers. In America.
And this is Slashdot front-page news.
OpenOffice is not self-sustaining. It only exists because people are being paid to work on it.
Almost all open source work is paid for. And there is nothing wrong with that: that's the way open source is supposed to work. The real problem is not that Google pays for OOo, but that not enough people have reason and cause to pay for other useful open source project development.
You are right that OOo's particular heritage and codebase discourages contributions and community development. That is a big problem. But I think if anybody knew how to fix that problem, they'd have found a silver bullet for software development. Once you decide to build a full-featured, integrated office suite in C++, an OOo-like mess follows. The Gimp, despite its community roots, is only slightly better (e.g., they have been unable to integrate 16/32 bit patches for many years now).
FOSS projects will only get more open and more hackable once people move to other languages and runtimes. C# and Objective C are modest improvements in opening up software, but we probably still need more than that.
Actually it does support printing envelopes and labels, but they're both a real pain to use.
There are a billion Indians, many of which are as qualified or more qualified than Americans and most of which are willing to work at least as hard as your average Californian. They want jobs that go beyond carving wood figurines. Their cost of living is low, so they don't need California minimum wages. Of course, they are going to underbid American workers, and what the hell is wrong with that?
The US pushed for an open world economy, the US electorate consistently elected leaders that pursued those policies, and the US imposed this on other nations against a lot of resistance. Now that it's happening, people like you are whining and complaining about the consequences. What did you think was going to happen when you open borders for goods and services? Of course, the US standard of living is going to average out with that in other nations. And while that may actually mean a short term decline in US standards of living, in the long term, it's good for everybody, including the US, in terms of increased security.
Sounds like you mainly have a beef with California minimum wage laws, rather than outsourcing.
I don't really see a contradiction: if California decides that any job done in California must be paid a certain minimum wage and that wage is above what certain jobs can pay, then those jobs simply won't be carried out in California. Where's the problem? Seems like a sensible policy to me.
If that means that joblessness rises and companies move out of California, the cost of living in California will drop to the point where minimum wages will be lowered.
California minimum wages are so low anyway that they really do represent a minimum below which it is hard to exist in California.
If google realy want to help open office it could release print.google.com in open document format...
I worked in helpdesk for a 9 month period, the majority of mac users I dealt with were not that bright and chose to use macs because they were easier to use (apparently) and didn't fuck up as much as windows.
And what do most mac users do? just basic simple email and net browsing! Nothing more advanced than a simple windows user...
Back in a sec.. just gotta tell grandpa that blah.exe won't run on his mac...
Unless you don't earn in dollars, or euros.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Open Office is written in C++, right? and it still has 5200+ bugs. We all want the best software there is, and we spend millions of work hours working on hour programs...
But we we don't spend a few weeks learning a better programming language? I bet that if a better programming language was used, Open Office and Evolution would be much better applications, with much less bugs.
We (as humanity) still base our efforts on primitive programming languages like C/C++ (and Java, to some extend). Without wanting to open language wars, doesn't every one think it is time to move beyond those languages?
To be more complete, you could even cite FireFox as an exemple of a successful "keep only vital core stuff in package and all bells and whistles as plug-ins/extension".
(The only drawback is, some upgrade of the core can break extension compatiblity. I've switched to 1.5 beta but some of the plug-ins I use aren't ported yet.)
AbiWord is an exemple of software which tries to provides less used functionnality in Plugins to avoid to bloat the base installation.
And, since 2.4 it works with OpenDocuments too. And it runs on Windows.
So yeah, there are plenty of exemple proving that the parent is right : plug-ins are an interesting solution that still provides a small installation, but enables users to have their favorite kitchensink enabled software.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That's true, but you would think that anyone who would continue to use a computer that continually 'fucked up' when there were alternatives would be the bigger idiot.
Google could do worse than devote a developer or two to a project that slows down that gravy train. ...
On that thought, it might make sense for Sony and Nintendo to throw in a few developers to work on OpenOffice as well. Put some pressure on Microsoft's XBox unit.
Yes, many companies are grossly underestimating the importance that M$'s ~$40,000,000,000 per year income has on their own competitiveness. The free market is dead when a company is subsidised to that extent.
In software M$ is basically doing nothing more than polishing a dozen programs mostly written more than a decade ago. Their costs, despite what their accountants are claiming, are comparatively small. On the other hand they probably have more unproductive hangers-on and internal politics/competition reducing their efficiency than they used to.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
...mammoth 80mb download size...
Do these people not know how obese MS Office is? Christ, at 80MB, OpenOffice is downright svelte.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I realize that some folks laugh at Word's grammar check, but at least it is there and it does help. (I also realzie that Slashdot doesn't care much about grammar anyway, but others in the world do.) Honestly, I use both OO and Word for writing. I like OO's text prediction to help speed up the writing process and I use Word to get a 2nd opinion on spelling and grammar. I'd rather just use OO. Well add grammar and fix Calc please. Startup time isn't that big of a problem to me.
1. The math used in the link assumes 40/h weeks for an entire summer? Google paid for the project, NOT for the hours. I could have just as easily worked 5 hours on a project and make several hundred dollars per hour.
2. It was more like a grant, or even a contract. There was no requirement that the participant work X hours, or a particular timeframe. Google paid for the project, not for the hours worked on it.
These are actually the same point, but if you feel the need to artificially inflate the appearance of support for your position, I completely understand.
According to you and only you, if I hire Mexicans to pick fruit for me, but pay them per-fruit-picked such that their wages come out to be under minimum wage, that's 100% acceptable, violates no laws, and should not be illegal. So I guess you don't really support minimum wage laws, you just support laws regarding how employers have to phrase their compensation.
3. Google Summer of Code != (does not equal for the layman) Current Plans to work on OO.o.
(Note: this is actually the second point.) Of course not. The point is Google is buying labor at below market rates, and they'll probably try the same thing for this project by digging up cheaper labor.
4. Your original argument stated below minimum wage, which last time I checked, was WELL below $9.30/h.
??? Oh, I understand. What you're trying to say is (thought in a rather roundabout way) is that you're not familiar with the laws of California and the cities therein. That's all you had to say.
By the way, I think the point was that if the project took longer, they could have been paid even under the federal min. wage.
What about other projects? Should we boycott Linux because thousands of Linux developers have been underpaid, or even gasp, not paid at all for contributions they've made to the kernel? Maybe you should think about boycotting Slashdot, the infrastructure is supported by open source applications written by developers who were either paid very low, or not paid at all.
If you look back at my original post, you'll see that it's satire. How refuting satire got you to +2 informative, I have no idea. Yes, it's good thing when people willing to work for less than the market rate contribute labor. I'm merely mocking the argument of those who claim it "steals jobs". Get it?
So again, I ask, what do you have to actually back up the statement that Google is going to underpay Indians and Chinese people to work on OO.o?
I have none. If what you actually meant was the claim that Google will pay them below what California programmers would get, and potentially below California's minimum wage, see... well, just reread everything I've posted.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
+1 so obvious why didn't the first guy think of it?
downmod self -1 redundant
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
They can save some of the DB bloat by using a great single file compact database, like SQLite. It's the fastest thing out there too. That would eliminate most of the java compilation slowdowns, etc.
Java really shouldn't be used for things like desktop apps, since one can't easily hide it's startup time while the user is expecting something else.
And yes, someone mentioned that the important things should load up first, like the virtual paper and cursor, ready to take in your input, while the rest of the components load in lower priority, not to make anything feel chunky.
-- Robi
To their type, the difference is that the blowjob is morally wrong while fucking the whole world is morally right.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Umm, are you guys sure Apple created Zeroconf? I thought it was created independently and then Apple started using and shipping it in a bunch of programs.