Herding cats
Posted Sep 29, 2004 14:33 UTC (Wed) by
dkite (guest, #4577)
Parent article:
Marketing OpenOffice.org
There is no disputing that openoffice is appreciated as a generous gift
from SUN. It has allowed many of us to rid ourselves totally of Microsoft
products, opened the way for linux into new markets, etc.
When openoffice was released the pace of development in Koffice seemed to
drop off somewhat. There were stalwart individuals who maintained the
applications, but the feeling was why? Openoffice is a complete office
suite, why do we need Koffice?
In recent months the pace has stepped up. File formats have been reworked
to oasis standards. The spreadsheet is receiving TLC with a calculation
engine rewrite, many more functions, etc. KPresenter is a viable
presentation tool. The drawing tools are under active development, and in
the best traditions of foss, a gentleman came along, took up maintenance
of Krita, through good code and genuine enthusiasm and vision built up a
small team, with the results becoming apparent. There is a long way to
go. A full featured office suite is an enormous endeavor.
I really hesitate to criticize SUN. Their work with usability and
openoffice are free and benefit many. But foss is the development
community, not products. SUN seems to have difficulty convincing people
to give of their valuable time and expertise. Compare SUN's involvement
with IBM's, another huge monolith.
Ultimately it comes down to control. Who controls the project? Would SUN
put up with something like the EVMS decision in the kernel? In other
words, yield control to the community?
Derek
(
Log in to post comments)
