A Diatribe Against OpenOffice, But What's the Real Agenda?

by Sam Dean - Dec. 30, 2008Comments (11)

Matt Asay weighs in today on whether OpenOffice is "profoundly sick," as Novell employee Michael Meeks claims it is. Meeks argues that OpenOffice is "not getting better with age" and that a big part of the problem is that Sun Microsystems exerts too much control over the suite, not allowing more contributors to innovate and improve. Matt correctly points out that most big open source projects move along thanks to a small, core group of committers, but, whether Novell's Meeks is right or wrong here, I get the strong sense that he has an agenda that may not be apparent at first glance.

The key thing to notice about Meeks' diatribe against OpenOffice comes at the very end of his long, well-supported, graphical essay. I don't disagree with his basic argument about how Sun could pay more attention to the first word in OpenOffice (open), but this is what Meeks delivers at the essay's end:

"Will you help us make OpenOffice.org better ? if so, probably the best place to get started is by playing with go-oo.org and getting in touch, please mail us."

There are a number of forks availabe of OpenOffice, and one of them is the Novell-backed (and via pass-through, possibly Microsoft-supported) version called Go-oo. Go-oo is a lighter, faster version of OpenOffice, with its own team of core contributors. I like it and use it, but when I wrote it up in early November, more than 20 readers shot arrows at me for failing to mention the Novell/Microsoft connection. Here is one example from the reader comments:

"Maybe I'm off-base, but it looks to me like MS-infected OOo. It's coming from Novell (which I refuse to use), and is paid for by MS-license fees. Sure, I'm paranoid, but I'm not touching this..."

I do happen to find that a little paranoid, but I now recognize that the Novell connection should be called out when discussing this variation of OpenOffice. In his diatribe against the suite, Meeks saves his real message about Go-oo until the end, where his "please mail us" request appears. I agree with much of his post, and I like Go-oo, but let's be clear about mudslinging from the competition.

Am I above chastising myself for not mentioning the Novell connection when I wrote about Go-oo? No, although it was an oversight and not obfuscation, the readers were right that I should have mentioned it.

 


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11 Comments
 

I'm extremely aware of the findings of fact in the antitrust trial that show that Microsoft is an abusive monopolist, and of their Technical Evangelist training (see recent posts at BoycottNovell); I don't trust Microsoft further than I can throw them.


But I've also watched people and companies try and fail to get code into Sun's tree.


And I've watched Meeks posts over the years; he seems very competent.


In short: although I'm extremely pro-Linux, I trust Meeks.

His head and heart are in the right place.


0 Votes

Apart from some professional paranoids everybody admits that the current state of OOo is far from ideal and go-oo is a better alternative. You haven't mentioned this, but the go-oo version comes as a default with Ubuntu and several other Linux distributions.


Please don't take tinfoil-clad extremists like Roy Schestowitz seriously. They are on a crusade/witch-hunt that doesn't help the community.


0 Votes

A post worthy of PC Mag's accolades, Sam. (Congrats on that Top 100 recognition, btw.)


I, too, trust Meeks implicitly, but appreciate you calling this out. Microsoft or no, however, isn't a fork what Meeks *should* be calling for? If Sun really does hold too much sway over the core project, it would seem that a fork (go-oo or some other) is the right way to go.


Maybe a non-MS-funded fork of go-oo? (I have yet to use it, but will try it now on your recommendation.)


0 Votes

"anonymous user" said:


> ..."tinfoil-clad extremists"


Oh yeah... trust "anonymous user".


1 Votes

Two things that I see wrong with your theory.


1) Meeks has been saying this since 2004 or earlier; I saw his presentation at OOoCon in Berlin in 2004 and I don't think it was his first on this topic. His talks have always been focused on how to get other to contribute, which echo's with what he says in his analysis. He seems to have been at pains to try and change the Sun process and work as best with the Sun process.


Sure there could be some Novell person pushing this, but the weight of evidence and behaviour from Meeks over the years echo something completely different to your theory.


2) If you look at ooo-build which is the framework, developed quite a long time ago, that allows Meeks and other to work around what they see as problems in the Sun process. And who are those others?


ArkLinux, Debian, Dropline, FSF Hungary, Gentoo, GoOOo, Mandriva, Novell, OxygenOffice, Pardus, PlainLinux, spl2, SUSE, Ubuntu.


Everybody except Fedora/Red Hat and certainly all of the big name Linux vendors are present.


So anyone suggesting that they boycott this because Novell is behind it might want to move to Fedora or uninstall OpenOffice.org on their Linux distro and get that pristine Linux version from http://openoffice.org


GoOOo presents a real opportunity to work collaboratively and integrate features and fixes that most Linux users have been using for ages but just haven't realised yet that they're not in the upstream versions.


One thing I do disagree with though in Meeks' analysis is that he looks purely and people and commits and sees those decreasing thus the project languishing. However I think there are some critical activities that Sun has undertaken that don't show in commits but that take massive amounts of time. I can think of ODF1.2 and OpenFormula support, together with all the required committee work. But a lack of increasing outside contribution should be a concern to any project.


0 Votes

I'm not going to defend Novell, but what bothers me about the go-oo thing is that people see that Novell is involved and INSTANTLY the conspiracy theories and calls for boycotts start.


Roy et al, just answer me this: Why does Sun get a free pass? I won't bother arguing whether Novell are saints or not, but why are Sun "warriors of the light" here?


Is it Novell or Sun who has a product competing with GNU/Linux?


You aren't suspicious of Sun's refereeing of the code, given that they have a proprietary, monetized "value-add" fork of it? What's their real motive in keeping features out of OOo?


I respect you for asking the hard questions about Novell, now maybe it's time to start asking some hard questions to the other players in this game, instead of instantly declaring "good guy" anyone without a big red N.


0 Votes

Hi Alan,


Here is how I see it. Microsoft will try to put Novell in (greater) control of GNU/Linux distributions because Novell plays by Microsoft's rules (software patents, APIs and so on and so forth).


To an extent, Mono is a good first step because it 'wraps' many vital applications with an underlying layer whose evolution Microsoft pretty much controls (.NET is a model for Mono to follow) and legal terms are volatile. Remember that Microsoft need not necessarily sue as it can apply the "it's too similar" argument (like SCO with UNIX versus Linux) to openly accuse Linux users/vendors of "stealing" Microsoft's "innovations" without appropriate "compensation". Evidence is less of an issue this way because less work is required to produce some, even if the evidence is perceptual.


It must never be forgotten that Microsoft continues paying Novell a lot of money ($100 million this year, depending on how one views it). Novell's Linux business is still a fragment of its overall business (


1 Votes

@Matt, thanks much for the congrats on the award. Yes, I actually agree with much of what Meeks said, and I do see the logic in a useful fork. I like and use Go-oo. I just think it should be clear when the competition is writing about the competition.


Best, really like your blog,

Sam


0 Votes

Thanks, Sam (for fixing the markup/"less than" oopie), and congrats on the well-deserved award!!


0 Votes

It seems that the Go-oo team did exactly what the writers of the GPL intended. This is a Good Thing (tm). Sun stagnated and Go-oo is picking up the slack:

http://what-is-what.com/what_is/go-oo.html


0 Votes

wonder which it is heading now


Causes of chronic bronchitis


0 Votes
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