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Google Hiring Programmers to Work on OpenOffice

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the money-and-open-source-like-peas-and-carrots dept.

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.""

7 of 538 comments (clear)

  1. It's been a while.... by sfeinstein · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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
    1. Re:It's been a while.... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Size of the install seems an odd complaint. How big is MS Office? If people find that offensive, they can always send away for the CD. I would, however, like to see some of the memory bloat taken out.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  2. So much for Mac support by illtron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  3. Go Google! by openfrog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Commoditization by wolfemi1 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is brilliant! If memory serves, the only two things Microsoft consistently makes money on are their OS and their office suite. Since MS has already "declared war" on Google, the smart thing to do might be to return fire, by commoditizing the operating system and office suite markets.

    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.

  5. Re:Doesn't this point to a weakness? by potpie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    One may also say that if companies like Google are willing to hire programmers to work on those aspects, that points out a significant strength in the FOSS development model.

    --
    Esoteric reference.
  6. Makes Perfect Sense by Jason+Earl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.