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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.""
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, Google Earth on a Debian box would be unspeakably cool....
Google Desktop Search might be better done as a GUI for many pre-existing Linux tools, though. Grep, locate, find, etc. all with a pretty Gnome or KDE wrapper.
Having said that, I've never used GDS, and it might have some incredibly cool functionality that isn't replicated by any of the above. Even so, they could still probably write that functionality as a command line program and tie it into the same GUI, though....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
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.
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.
or how about forget the memory usage, just make it start up fast, i mean seriously i would switch the OO.o if they would
(although i must admit, reducing memory usage and speeing up startup does overlap)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
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.
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
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.
Well, KOffice is 19 MB, for example (in source form). Binaries seem to be similar in size, depending on what exactly you do and don't need (debug info, for example), of course, as well as on your architecture, distro etc. That's a quarter, and KOffice is not significantly less full-featured than OOo.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
And what ends up disabled because of turning that off?
If its nothing signifigant, than cool! But if half the program ceases to function...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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-
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
#
I agree that the startup time for OO.o is a problem, especially on my Windows install. However I was pleasently supprised to find that the OpenSuse team seems to have been working on this problem.
On windows it can take up to 20 seconds to start and open a large file. On my new Suse 10 install, the same file is open in about 5 seconds.
Karma? Hey I just call it as I see it.
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
The listed cost for a Microsoft MSDN Universal subscription is $2799/year. I don't know exactly how much was actually paid for it in my case, as my employer pays mine and they bought a site-licensed arrangement for the approximately 20 developers where I work. In any event, it's *substantially* less than the total cost of all of the OS versions and application software included, and it's very useful to be able to get the pre-release versions of different packages that are often available.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
...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"?