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Sun Urged to Give Up OpenOffice Control
inc_x writes "Developers from OpenOffice.org are urging Sun to set the project free and bring it under a foundation. Sun's dominance over the project makes other companies such as IBM, Redhat and Novell reluctant to contribute more. Both Mozilla and Eclipse managed to attract an increasing number of developers after the projects were moved over to an independent foundation."
It's now clear that Sun understood it's possition in the linux/unix world. It's to open up or die eventually. Will Microsoft ever get this?
The next logical step - should have been done allready. I can't really se OO go very much further unless they go this way.
Without Sun's beneficient guidance, how will OpenOffice truely embrace the awesome power and control that can only be offered by Java(TM)!!?
How can OpenOffice hope to succeed without object-oriented interfaces with sandboxed wrapper pardiagm extensible intuiative platform-independant mainatainable code... paradigms?
Only Java(TM) with its mastodonicly magnificant API can hope to keep OpenOffice afloat!
May the Maths Be with you!
And doing what they say is quite another. I wonder if Sun will let OO go?
Million dollar sig.
Were movoing to cobol man, COBOL!
But, I also understand that this doesn't stop someone taking the OOo code, removing all the OpenOffice.org references, and releasing it under another name without giving the changes back to Sun.
I for one.. Just kidding. I don't actually see why Sun would not agree with this. But on the other hand I'm thinking from the user aspect and not corporation aspect. More developers sounds good for me, usually more and better features. But putting OO under its own foundation probably means less money for Sun?
If Sun were to sever all ties to the project, and coders are more willing to contribute, that would be beneficial to pretty much everyone - including Sun, since they can still polish up the end product and release a commercial version, no?
Plus, it might make it easier for someone to take the Mozilla route and split the suite up into smaller components, for those of us who don't particularly need a spreadsheet or presentation tool but would love a lean version of Writer.
S'pose this is one of those, 'If you love it, set it free' kinda things.
If Sun is interested in goodwill, then this seems a great way to go. If Sun is interested in hurting Microsoft, then this is a great way to go. If Sun is interested in a broader partnership with Google, then this can't hurt that either.
I'm not as informed about all this as I could be, so who can say what the downsides are for Sun if they release this to a Mozilla-like foundation?
Anything that keeps OpenOffice going, helps it become faster and less of a resource hog, and further forces open document standards on the proprietary office suites is a good thing to me.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Mozilla, for all the support it has, still hasn't achieved any of their goals. 4 years later it's still essentially NS code, and it's plagued by code nobody likes, and bugs both inherited and introduced.
With Sun at least you've got one company at the wheel so to speak.
Genuine question - did Mozilla and Eclipse gain developers because they were "set free", or is that just coincidence? (Remember - just because B followed A, doesn't mean that A caused B)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
That's strange. We do hear that request from IBM.
But in fact I heard that most FLOSS developers are turned down by the size and overall (low) quality of OOo code.
As one developer said on blog (I failed to find that remark again) the thing is only paid Sun developers would work on it. And only because they are paid to do so. Compilation take ages and level of requirements for development is high - that all creates entry barrier to FLOSS developers, most of whome work in their own spare time.
To put in prospective: what would you want to spend you time on: hacking Linux kernel and then in 10 minutes seeing your changes or waiting N hours when OOo compilation finishes?
I never looked into OOo sources. But the pace of progress project makes - and the kind of progress it makes - tell quite much about how project is organized. I truly hope that KOffice would be able to run on Wind0ze - in office unfortunately I'm completely confined to the M$ Wind0ze. At the moment only OOo can read the SXW files OOo produces upon import from M$O... AbiWord fails completely to pick up styles in such documents. KOffice 1.4 is quite close to render the files the way as OOo does.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Mozilla has gotten new developers since Firefox, NOT because it's not controlled by AOL/Netscape anymore.
I wish developers would be less pretentious about their choice of projects. Surely successful projects
which have significant amounts of corporate backing, both financial and in terms of management, are some
of the better projects to work on. You have defined goals, a great infrastructure to work in, and nobody
ever complained about the way Mozilla was being run before The Foundation (in fact The Foundation works
exactly the same way for every developer in terms of bug tracking, IRC events, software testing and
releases, as it did during AOL's tenure)
OpenOffice could get more developers if it had some unsubstantial hype or managed to get a bunch of new
features it already had (get rid of Java and implement everything the same way, some other way
not just because Sun would have dropped it. I actually think OpenOffice (like Seamonkey becoming a tiny
little sideproject in view of Firefox's popularity) would suffer for it.
From what I've heard (and seen, to an extent), OpenOffice.org has such a complex codebase that the only developers willing to work on it are those paid by Sun. No one will be interested in learning such a weird and large codebase.
In my view OO.org biggest problem is not that SUN pays most engeneers but huge complexity of OO.org. I've heard even some rumors that OO.org contains ASSEMBLER language in some parts!!!
To make much more flexible whole project needs to become much more modular (which equals trash all existing codebase and start from scratch):
- file modules (input/output) - in ideal world OO.org would share this part with AbiWord, KOffice etc...
- "processing" module (document "managment", scripting etc.) - imagine running OO.org without GUI (some server document processing etc.)
- "GUI" module - native Qt, GTK, Windows, MacOS, etc..
But I'm 99% sure that this will not ever happen. More probable is that KOffice will become much more usable and supported on Windows/MacOS.
I don't really see much of a problem with OOo as it is. It seems to be developing at a fair pace and it is free (at least as in beer which is all I care about). Ok, so it uses Java, so what. I don't generally find Java slow but then I have a machine that is fairly up to date.
I think part of the problem here is that a good portion of the Linux community runs what most people would consider very old boxes. There is nothing wrong with that but I don't agree that we should hold back development to cater for it. I don't care if an application sucks 200MB of memory as long as it does what I want it to do. If I have a problem with it I'll stick in another GB of RAM to deal with it. There is a limit to this approach but we are no where near it yet.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
OOo is at the same stage as Mozilla was: a functional but bloated and messy codebase and system. Unfortunately, that's what big companies tend to produce (I think it's a consequence of having too many engineers, many of which are mediocre).
What needs to happen to it is what happened to Firefox: the thing needs to be split up, the GUI and cross platform toolkit need to be overhauled (or even replaced with Gtk+), and Java needs to be exorcised from it.
And, yes, severing the connection with Sun would be a good thing for OOo, and ultimately for Sun as well.
It is not only OpenOffice, Linux kernel development also should bring under a foundation and set an example for the open source community. The "Linux" trademark also should bring it under that foundation.
"In an ideal world open source should not be dependent on the capriciousness of any one corporation," OpenOffice.org project leader Louis Suarez-Potts told vnunet.com.
It's already not dependant. It's open source. Do with it as you please. IBM already has.
IBM used the OpenOffice source code last year to create a separate version of the suite as part of its Workplace offering, which is allowed under the application's licence.
Oops, IBM already forked it, so what is Louis talking about again?
A fork is considered inappropriate for open source projects, as it forces the developer community to spread its attention over multiple, yet similar, projects.
*cough*, bullshit.
"If OpenOffice did become independent we would be interested in talking to Sun about it, but it's not holding us back in any way," he wrote.
So IBM officially doesn't care one way or the other, so what are Louis' real motives. That's easy. It's all about corporate hatred and biting the hand that feeds you.
In my opinion this is utter nonsense.
Its like saying that Linus should give up on the kernel and move all the decisions about its development in a seperate group. Wake up call: that is not going to work since it will only slow down development. I know its but a movie, but to give the geeks something they can relate to: The endless debates in the senate (Star Wars - first trilogy) are actually based on real-life politics. If the system works, don't change it.. Second puzzle: is it these people to do about the product or prestige and more important: when will they be satisfied?
Sun buys StarOffice. People are dissapointed and some protest because it was free. Sun gives in and branches OpenOffice, the free alternative, while keeping their finger on it. Everyone was happy. And now, shortly after the release of 2.0 and when its picking up some momentum (cooperation with Google comes to mind) people suddenly want it to become more open?
This is just my idea but I think some people hold a double agenda.
Key difference between Sun and Microsoft: Microsoft on the up and up, has total market dominance, and won't be dead at any point in the near future. I once read somewhere (But don't ask me to substantiate this remark because I can't!) that Microsoft has enough cash on hand that it could stop selling all of its products and keep going for five years without firing anyone. So I don't see how Microsoft could possibly learn the lesson, "Open up or die," when staying closed is doing pretty well for it so far.
In other news, here is the thing about Sun. I agree that it would be good if they opened up on OpenOffice. However, if I were them, I would feel pretty crappy about doing all that work on OpenOffice for everyone, then everyone turning around and telling me that I couldn't keep control of it. I guess a company can't really feel crappy, but if it were a person, I bet that's how it would feel.
OpenOffice.org began life as StarOffice, a closed-source product. The closed-source heritage becomes obvious when you study the code: there are things in there that whoever wrote them, was evidently banking on nobody ever seeing them. OO.o 1.x would not even compile at all on 64-bit, and even on 32-bit the make output is riddled with warnings.
What's really required is for somebody to sit down and start afresh in reimplementing the whole of OpenOffice.org from scratch. Whilst it's nice to talk of code reusability, the reality in this case is that the nice, reusable bits are buried too deeply in nasty, gicky stuff to be retrievable. I say ditch the bathwater, the baby and all; go back to square one, and do it properly this time.
{And if the new OpenOffice.org doesn't contain significant amounts of old OO.o code, then it won't be a derivative work, but a new work in its own right; and so can be placed under a different licence. BSD if the team are prepared to fight tooth and nail against proprietary forks, GPL if they aren't.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
i am always buffled with the ignorance of the people who thinks Java is causing the problems with the OpenOffice project.
- Java is used in a small amount of the OpenOffice (database and some less known seperate components). i wish it would be used more. Especially in the GUI part, check NeoOffice if you want.
- Bloat is caused by the C++ side of the application. And not Sun's fault it was already rotten when Sun bought the company.
- Complexity is caused by the C++ side of the application. it would be hell if they tried to use C++ for all the database part.
- People thinks everybody will rush to participate code if it would e an organization are dreaming. if Sun does not pay, it will be in the hands of one or two stinky hacker. coding C++ code is no feast especially for this magnitude of the project. Firefox has a bunch of core developers and one million people who just rub the developers back, thay are suffering grately. Eclipse is lucky on that side because they use a better and easier programming language (Java).
Let's face it, OOo is pretty lame. I hate to say it, but it's true. The user interface is simply atrocious (ever tried using outline numbering? Or perhaps you could try outline numbering instead? Yup, two different features with the same name. Neither of which works properly.) For complex documents (eg legal agreements) I'm reduced to accessing my firm's Word 2000 installation under Citrix. :-(
A lot of the people here have high hopes for OpenOffice to be the killer app that could bring enterprise users to Linux. Hence the many suggestions and ideas about what Sun should do with it.
But to me, the key is not OpenOffice but OpenDocument. With the widespread adaptation of an open document format, in a few years people will stop caring what Office suite you are running - just like I don't care about your brand of email client, I just assume you can read the emails I send you.
For that reason, Suns ownership of OpenOffice has been all for the good - they could probably not have justified the expense to their shareholders if they had just given it all up to a foundation - and we should all be very grateful. Now we have ODF, we have a working implementation (OO.o), and all FOSS developers can choose to work on their Office software of choice, as long as they are ODF-compliant, which will in the end lead to real choice for all of us that are mostly users.
As for Sun keeping OpenOffice or giving it to a foundation - who cares?
It seems to me that there is a double agenda here. This is what I hate the most about the open source community. They think all software should be open, regardless of what the developer of the code actually wants. Mr. Torvalds (I applauded btw, when he stuck with GPL v2) can release the Linux kernel under what ever license he wants to, since he's the one who developed it. Likewise, OOo is Sun's baby, and they should be able to do with it what they want. Now, before you all think I'm a troll I like open source. I like the fact that I can go into the code and figure out how it works. I even run Linux as my main desktop OS at home, and I use it to run my home-built media center and firewall. However, it should be up to who ever owns the code...and in this case, it's Sun. This is a free society right?
Wow. They release the best office suite for Linux/Unix, not to mention the only truly cross-platform office suite, under the LGPL and it still isn't enough. No, they have to set up a foundation.
Come on.
The only reason for the Mozilla Foundation was because AOL/Netscape wanted to stop bleeding money into a project that was giving them nothing. Sure, it's been a good move for Mozilla projects, but Sun's ongoing commitment to OpenOffice/StarOffice just shows how strongly they believe in the project. If OpenOffice was languishing, then it might be time to ask them to step aside and establish a Foundation. This is clearly not the case. Moreover, OpenOffice's license is very cut and dried. You can easily fork the project (as has been done with Workplace and, to a lesser extent, with NeoOffice.) Heck, you can even fork it and setup a foundation. Good luck replacing those Sun engineers, though.
OpenOffice is hugely important to Linux, Unix and Open Source in general. For the most part, I think that Sun has been doing an outstanding job with the code. Why ask them to further distance themselves from the project now? It's not like they're doing it a disservice. (As was arguably the case with Netscape/Mozilla.)
And another thing, people taking potshots at OOo 2's use of Java in Base should realize that this was yet another significant contribution to the project from Sun. Base, even with it's faults, works very well. In fact, it has already allowed me to use MySQL/OOo in place of Access at work. Sure it uses Java, but this was done for legitimate reasons with an eye on compatibility. The proof of this being that Red Hat et al. were so quickly able to port Base to the gjc. I highly doubt that the relative ease of this task was a coincidence.
Really, that this has come up at all is a true shame. I fear that it shows that even if Sun were to open source Java, people would still find some way to complain. Sun certainly does some strange things, but their contributions to OpenOffice have been nothing short of fantastic. They should be commended for Giving Microsoft their first real competition in years.
If Sun releases control over the project, that will make it more likely that an independent project will split OO.o into a server and AJAX clients. And that another project will cluster the OO.o server. Then Web forms and GUIs can finally have the kinds of editing control we deserve in the 21st Century. Like automatic version control. Or anything that beats these slate-like TEXTAREAs.
--
make install -not war
I thought the goal was to get more companies to open source products?
Sun has spent a lot of money on this product, and now people are demanding that they give this up too? I don't get it. Wouldn't this discourage people from opening up their projects to OS?
You can already fork this and do your own thing right? There's no incentive for Sun to "give up" more control over this, unless they want to fire a bunch of developers Sun pays for to lower their costs.
- sigs are for wimps.
... from the IBM P.R. department with the title: "IBM urges Sun to give up OpenOffice control"
... more than half of the OpenOffice.org developers are Sun EMPLOYEES! So how could _OpenOffice.org_ want "Sun Microsystems to give up control over the OpenOffice productivity suite, and donate the intellectual property to an independent not-for-profit foundation" (quote from the article)? And what developer would consciously use a term like intellectual property in the first place?
The truth is that if a high enough percentage of the OpenOffice.org people wanted to break up with Sun nobody could stop them - they could just FORK. But wait
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
I think Sun is really being urged to remove Java from OO. Its the main reason why OO is always slower than MS Office 2000. We dont enjoy java being shoved down our throats, and just a clean C/C++ interface with GUI wrappers that will work with any GUI will do.
OO is a great project, but it doesnt quite smack of freedom as does gcc.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky