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Large FLOSS Study Gets the Real Facts
Hans Kwint writes "The European Commission's enterprise and industry department has just released the final draft of what could be the biggest academic interdisciplinary study on the economic / innovative impacts of free/libre/open source software (1.8-MB PDF). The study was done by an international consortium led by the United Nations University / University of Maastricht. The lead researcher, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, has overseen a large volume of FLOSS studies in the last few years, including ones on FLOSS policies and worldwide FLOSS adoption. This academic-grade study has a very broad scope and has collected real-world information that is valuable for both companies and government bodies thinking about migration. The study is about the economic impact of FLOSS, not excluding the hidden indirect impact. It compares scenarios of open and proprietary software futures of Europe. The study looks at the FLOSS's competitiveness compared to proprietary software and also provides a few TCO comparison case-studies.
I've never seen such a thorough and methodical compilation of real-world evidence in favour of F[L]OSS.
However, the 'proprietary vs FLOSS' debate is a battle which each day seems to more resemble the 'biblical literalism versus evolution' debate. Just like the biblical literalists who hang on to their denials of evolution, despite the evidence, there'll be those who'll never be convinced about the benefits of FLOSS, and will always be there as suckers to sustain the likes of Microsoft.
Kinda puts an ironic twist on the old adage: "To those who believe, no proof is necessary. To those who disbelieve, no proof is possible."
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Since when did Libre get added? Is this another lame attempt at a cute acronym? At one time it was open source, then the acronym weenies attacked and we had OSS. The GNU zealots came along and insisted that we beat the definition of "free" into the ground, thus FOSS was born. Libre? Idiotic.
< For someone who has actually studied religions, I deem it ill-advised to continue describing any contrary policy about how to use a legal framework as "religion"
It's obvious you've never been in an IRC channel during a flamewar on vi versus emacs, or gtk+ versus qt etc.
FYI, the word 'religion' has grown a new usage, largely in technical circles, to describe a dogmatic adherence to a choice or set of choices of software tools or components, where the adherent steadfastly refuses to be 'converted' to another, possibly superior set of choices despite even the strongest evidence in favour of making the switch.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Actually, I think the Netherlands are funding a national group which is working on the Dutch spellchecker and thesaurus for OpenOffice. They are funding the work that programmers don't do, that's why you're not seeing it.
As for the need for studies; I'm thankful they are researching before making decissions.
You seem to assume OSS is always better and think a government should assume the same. What studies like these show is parameters for when moving to OSS is a good idea.
There are already pretty large scale OSS migrations in the EU, so they are actually using OSS. I wouldn't be surprised if non-development related use of OSS is far greater in governments than in corporations at the moment.
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I must also add that considering Free and Libre are synonymous having them slashed in an acronym is very poor and a sad attempt at an acronym resembling a word. Much like "ASS" - Acronym synonymous synonyms. At least Free Linux Open Source Software makes logical sense without trying to skate by for an acronym that sounds like a pronounceable word.
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However, the 'proprietary vs FLOSS' debate is a battle which each day seems to more resemble the 'biblical literalism versus evolution' debate.
To me it's more like dogma. There are so many people who accept conventional wisdom without spending any time actually learning anything and refusing to listen to those who do. I'm continually surprised how many managers exhibit a depth of understanding of IT issues that one might get skimming an in-flight magazine.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Okay, smart one, then try to find a single document describing hierarchy of internal OO.o objects - accessible from such scripts.
OO.o documentation is ill with what I call "plug-in disease" and has very nice reference "everything is implemented with plug-ins and thus documented elsewhere" with link to dummy OO.o documentation page. There you can find the same plug-in reference quoted above. With no link to actual DOM documentation/specification/anything.
Analogy. In past we used to joke around "know how to program in assembler": knowing insn op-codes gives one nothing. Programming in assembler is impossible with knowledge of assembler syntax alone - knowledge of computer's architecture is essential. Syntax is simple and fits several documentation pages - computer architecture is described on many hundred pages. So here we have the same situation: I know Python/Java/etc but I can't program anything for OO.o in it since DOM - main subject of programming - is documented nowhere.
VBS is shitty, but you can always record macro and correct it to your needs. For sake of experiment try to record macro in OO.o and see/correct the results. Even "steep" isn't proper adjective for the learning curve.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Thank you for making these points! I've had to use MSO with VBA for years due to in-house automation requirements (joy), and while the language isn't exactly fun :\, the DOMs and application APIs are immediately discoverable thanks to 1) generally extensive and useful documentation, and 2) autocomplete. So I can get something simple up and running usually inside of an hour.
Meanwhile, in OOo land, I've spent hours simply trying to dig through the documentation to figure out the hierarchy of objects and APIs for one frigging object. Who the hell wrote the API docs? I'm not familiar with Java, but the docs seem very Java-oriented -- is that terrible disconnected API soup a Java thing? I'm baffled. And frustrated enough (by other things as well*) that I've been unable to seriously recommend OOo.
* Lousy Asian-language support makes OOo a non-starter in my field of Japanese translation. It's galling, because OOo is sooo close to being a good idea, yet falls painfully far from the mark. <sigh.>
"OpenOffice.org -- it's almost a Good Idea!" TM
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."