The problem with (Not so) OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (download for Windows | Mac) has a range of problems: Monolithic architecture, declining interest in fat-client software, etc. But it's primary problem may be its corporate ownership, as Michael Meeks, long-time OpenOffice developer and Novell employee, notes:
I think one of the sad things we see at the moment is the decreasing amount of interest in investing in OpenOffice.org. So we see Sun cutting back their developer count on OpenOffice.org, while we still see them demand ownership for all of the code, which kinda retards other people investing in it....
But the sad thing is [Sun's] failure to build a community around it, getting other people involved. And that's tied to Sun owning OpenOffice.org. It's a Sun project. They own all of the code, they demand ownership rights, and that just really retards developer interest. I mean: [Who] would want to work cleaning someone else's gun?
This isn't just a Sun problem. Michael's comment speaks to a much broader problem as more and more open source goes corporate: How do you encourage development as a corporation?
This is much easier for non-profits like the Linux Foundation, Mozilla, Eclipse, etc., even when the contributors are overwhelmingly corporate in nature. It's more palatable to contribute to a community than a company.
Yes, companies do receive contributions, but they tend to come from partners and customers, and not as much from the organic, unaffiliated community. Is this a bad thing?
I'm not sure it matters. That's just the way it is. But I understand Michael's point, and think that OpenOffice.org is not strategic enough to Sun to justify keeping it under its corporate guidance any longer. It needs to be given a foundation's guidance, and a foundation's ability to attract outside development. OpenOffice.org has largely been an effort between Sun and Novell for too long.
It's time to open it up.
Discovered through LinuxToday.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
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After four years of hoping, I became more dependent on MS Office (Mac & Win) and then iWork came out. Keynote and PowerPoint are absolutely better than OO's offerings, and Pages and Word beat OO as well for interoperability.
After several years of letting the then-awesome StarOffice languish in extended repose - and it's still in "beta", I see little reason for Sun to waste any more time working on OO. I downloaded the latest Mac beta just a few days ago - same old bugs, same old incompatibilities. Sigh.
*) FInancial - members of the community are given the chance to receive some profit from the success of the product, directly or indirectly.
*) Recognition - the developers who actually contribute are recognized for the efforts publicly.
*) Social/Philosophical - the ethos of a 'community product' is respected and that is the licenses remain open (even if there is a dual option), the community remains open and communication remains open.
*) Intellectual - the product owners don't expect the community to do the intellectual dirty work only (testing etc.).
I don't actually know the Alfresco community so I can't comment on how you guys are balancing this. But I believe from my own personal experience that community respect is really important to keep an active community going. I'm sure there are lots of other factors like the 'cool' factor of course, just how cool is it to be a committer on project X, but I reckon the foundation is respect.
SpringSource for example was certainly initially was able to keep most of these factors strong, I'm interested to see how they will fare in the future as commercial pressures strengthen (read that as 'new VCs are onboard').
Of course there are negative examples, but flamewars are not my thing :)
And does it really matter?
Cloud computing is a fad that idiots flock to yet will find out how dumb their move is once their precious business data starts leaking out or they lose days of man hours when they can't access it. There will always be a strong market for desktop applications.
The best work in open office is usually from Novell, not Sun. It is a complex enough project that few people will be able to significantly contribute outside the core developers. That is no different than any other large open source project.
The problem is your posts are increasingly advertisement vehicles for your company.
I await your well thought out and considered reply yo both this and Matt's followup post but, given the amount of well though out and considered content in this comment I won't hold my breath.
His company does pretty much what he is complaining about, so it is in play.
How difficult is that?
Which was part of my point.
Now, starting from the top, is there any point at which you've actually known what you're talking about? Is there any point at which you're going to look at the study regarding OSS community building?
- by Lerianis July 29, 2008 12:14 PM PDT
- OpenOffice is just not a good product as of yet. It does not support .docx (which I save all my files in today because it is a VERY robust format, that is almost impossible to corrupt).
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(12 Comments)It also has some problems still where features that are exceptionally easy to find in Microsoft office are almost IMPOSSIBLE to find in OpenOffice.