Michael Meeks Says OO.o Project is "Profoundly Sick"

unassimilatible writes "Michael Meeks, who works full time developing OpenOffice, writes in his blog that the project is 'profoundly sick.' 'In a healthy project we would expect to see a large number of volunteer developers involved, in addition — we would expect to see a large number of peer companies contributing to the common code pool; we do not see this in OpenOffice.org. Indeed, quite the opposite we appear to have the lowest number of active developers on OO.o since records began: 24, this contrasts negatively with Linux's recent low of 160+. Even spun in the most positive way, OO.o is at best stagnating from a development perspective.'"

Comments

Re:That's because there DONE!

[arotenbe]

How about fixing some of the 12058 open bugs?

Re:It's 2009

[ta bu shi da yu]

Easy. All they have to do is refuse to take contributions from the rest of the community. Kohei's solver module is a case in point. He had a fully functional solver, and what did Sun do? They wrote their own.

OpenOffice.org is LGPL

[tepples]

Its not like people are going to be rolling much OO code into their own projects - which is where the GPL licensing breaks down. The cost (giving up your entire codebase) is probably "high" when its likely a small fraction of OO code that is wanted (say some paragraph breaking logic).

OpenOffice.org software is under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, which allows it to be combined with proprietary software. I don't see how use of LGPL modules in your code requires "giving up your entire codebase", unless perhaps you're on a platform that requires code signing and forbids end users to sign their own compiled apps.

Re:OpenOffice.org is LGPL

[TheRaven64]

It is worth noting that the LGPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2 (or, more accurately, GPLv2 is incompatible with LGPLv3), so it can not be combined with open source projects that choose this license and don't have the 'or later versions' clause.

Re:It's 2009

[je ne sais quoi]

I don't know what their deal is, but the grand-parent's comment about Sun not playing nice with volunteer developers is not a new one. The guys over at NeoOffice also started by trying to contribute to a Mac port of OO.o, except Sun rebuffed them much preferring to write their own which is OO.o native mac port. Here's a quote from one of the two developers for neooffice in response to some comments by a Sun employee:

While it is wonderful that Sun has put so much work into the Windows, Linux, and Solaris ports over the years (and I have no criticism with that), their behavior in the Mac area has been quite aggressive towards us over that last few years. We've taken Sun's open source license, implemented a huge hole in their code, and made no attempt to proprietarize the code. What did we get in return, lots of very negative pressure from the OOo managers and volunteers. So you are surprised when we view their grand magical Mac port as competition?

For a long time now, Sun has been pulling a bit of a bait and switch. They claim that they are open source friendly, etc. etc., but then they do everything they can to prevent any outside interference. That's they whole reason why NeoOffice exists, the guys who made it got tired of Sun giving them the run-around.

Re:But isn't that the idea?

[Chapter80]

Exactly! Print is hidden! How stupid!

The Properties are hidden too! (Personally, I take issue with Microsoft's logic that they are going to embed hidden properties (specifically, Title, Author, and Company name) in a place that they can't easily be found, so that when I post a document (or send it to someone), it can't easily be anonymous.) Now that I have found Properties, I routinely check it on documents sent to me, as it's always a source of entertainment, especially on Resumes.

For the record, Properties are conveniently located under "Windows Orb / Prepare" of all places!

... or how about the "Find" button. Holy shit, I have spent cumulative HOURS looking for that in each Microsoft Ribbon product, BECAUSE IT MOVES AROUND! In MS Word, it's on the Home tab, under Editing (but if the window is maximized then it appears to the right listed *separately*. If it's not maximized, then you have to click on "Editing" to discover it.

Oh, but in Outlook, in the Inbox display, I see "Find" under the "Edit" menu item (not sure why I don't see a ribbon, but I am thankful). Until I want to read an email - then the Ribbon appears, and "Find" is hidden to the right. This time, it's on the "Message" Tab, on a "Find" button, not an "Editing" Button as it was in Word... Until you press Reply. Then it's GONE. Of course, it's now moved so that it's under the "Format Text" tab under an "Editing" button.

But wait, there's more: In Excel, it's on the "Home" tab, under "Editing", "Find and Select". Intuitive!

Don't get me started about Excel. Want to insert a row? Oh there's an "Insert" tab - let's look there. Our options are..."Pivot Table", "Table", "Picture", "Clip Art", "Shapes", "SmartArt", "Column", "Line", "Pie", "Bar", "Area", "Scatter", "Other Charts", "Hyperlink", "Text Box", "Header & Footer", "WordArt", "Signature Line", "Object", and "Symbol". Is ANY ONE OF THOSE used more than INSERT A ROW??? NO!

I would say that Inserting a ROW is a FUNDAMENTAL Spreadsheet option, done (by me) more frequently than EVERY ONE OF THOSE options combined! But where is it?

Turns out "Insert a Row" is not on the "Insert" Tab! How intuitive! It's on the "Home" tab! Brilliant! And it's under "Cells / Insert". ("Cells Insert" can insert cells, sheet, sheet rows and sheet columns.) Clearly something is mislabeled: "Cells/Insert Cells" vs. "Cell/Insert Sheet Rows" makes no sense (that is, if inserting rows belongs under "Cells", then clearly it belongs under "Insert Cells" as well.)

Want to change the "Format" of an email that you're about to send? Change the "Format" from Plain Text to HTML? Clearly that'd be on the "Format Text" tab. ooooooh no. it's not. It's on the "Options" Tab, under "Format". Why would "Format" not be on the "Format Text" tab? What the hell!???? (probably no room for it there, because "FIND" is taking up space)

Who organized this shit? Usability experts my ass!

</rant>