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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
You need to read "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman.
California minimum wage laws don't apply in India! Even if the company hiring them is in California.
I don't like outsourcing anymore than you do, and it is the primary reason I boycott Walmart, but it is what it is.
I commend you for being passionate about it and trying to do something about it. But you won't change the nature of outsourcing. You can avoid it, boycott it, and discourage it, but personally I don't think you can change it.
Thomas L. Friedman hits the nail right on the head, and America needs a boot to the head if we're going to survive the new transition.
Otherwise we'll end up just like stage coaches or any other industry that failed to adapt and tried to hang on to old models.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
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.
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.
The logic in that post is flawed:
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.
3. Google Summer of Code != (does not equal for the layman) Current Plans to work on OO.o.
4. Your original argument stated below minimum wage, which last time I checked, was WELL below $9.30/h.
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.
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?
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
To be recoded in C/C++.
OOo is coded in C++, for the most part. A few plugins use Java. I don't know about 2.0, but 1.1 was perfectly usable without a JRE installed.
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
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!
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
#
Tinfoil wrapped a little to tight there?
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
Some macros or all? I didn't think StarBasic or UNO was related to Java.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
...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"?
Thanks for asking. I went back and checked again, and it turns out that I was fooled by a bug: If you turn off Java, and then choose "Tools->Macros->Run macro..", you're greeted with the dialog box that says: "OpenOffice.org requires a Java runtime environment (JRE) to perform this task. However, use of a JRE has been disabled. Do you want to enable the use of a JRE now? [Yes] [No] [Cancel]". But if you choose "No" or "Cancel", you still get to run your macros! So the dialog box is completely wrong. (Macros linked to menus or keys work without any stupid lying dialog boxes.)
So, I have to correct myself: If you disable Java in OpenOffice.org 2.0 you have to put up with stupid dialog boxes that bug you to turn on Java again.
You mean like open-sourcing their Darwin base OS code? Or contributing their improvements to GCC to the world? Or providing the world with a free open source streaming server system? Or making Zeroconf an open standard and releasing a free reference implementation? Or contributing improvements to CUPS? Or to KDE's HTML renderer? Or releasing their unified replacement for cron, init and rc as an open source project?
Right now you are making a fool of yourself in public. Either that or you're trolling.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
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.