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Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

[Posted March 28, 2005 by ris]

NewsForge examines OpenOffice.org 2.0 and its dependence on a Java Runtime Environment. "One of the few technical arguments against OpenOffice.org's use of Java is that it undermines the project's goal to be a cross-platform office suite. Many operating systems currently supported, including FreeBSD and GNU/Linux for the PowerPC, have no official version of Java. Those who wish to use OOo 2.0 on such platforms must use GNU/Linux emulation or work with an often incomplete free Java implementation. Either way, the new requirement places new pressures on the already overworked teams of OpenOffice.org volunteers working on these ports."

(Log in to post comments)

Bug them to death

Posted Mar 28, 2005 19:35 UTC (Mon) by bluefoxicy (guest, #25366) [Link]

Easy. For each component requiring java, post a bug. Each maintainer replies to confirm the bug. If the bug is closed, reopen it. If it can't be reopened, post a new one.

If OOo keeps going towards java, then simply start supporting AbiWord and Gnumeric, Agnubis, and Dia, and help them all merge into the AbiWord development platform for a cross-platform office suite. Who needs OpenOffice when there's arguably better tools out there?

Bug them to death

Posted Mar 28, 2005 20:11 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

Or post OOo bugs when Classpath fails to be sufficient to support OOo. There's nothing inherently wrong with using Java, but, at this point, it means that the necessary work is pushed down to the Java libraries. If it gets done at that level, it's useful to more people anyway (at least, as opposed to just improving the OOo widgets).

Bug them to death

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:10 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Or post Classpath bugs when Classpath fails to be sufficient to support OOo.

Bug them to death

Posted Mar 29, 2005 0:39 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Or *fix* Classpath bugs where it is insufficient to support OOo.

Nothing wrong with Java?

Posted Mar 29, 2005 6:03 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

What do you mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with using Java? Of course there is.

Bug them to death

Posted Mar 29, 2005 2:50 UTC (Tue) by mem (subscriber, #517) [Link]

Apropos agnubis... is it going *anywhere* nowadays?

Base alternative

Posted Mar 28, 2005 19:54 UTC (Mon) by gervin23 (guest, #13977) [Link]

interesting article. i wonder how easy it would have been to integrate Rekall (http://www.rekallrevealed.org) instead of HSQLDB? it seems to me a more logical solution as it can hook into multiple databases (ODBC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, XBase/XBSQL, DBTC, etc..) not to mention run on OSX.

Base alternative

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:27 UTC (Mon) by idansof (guest, #13582) [Link]

There's a bit of confusion in your post..

Oo always had support for multiple databases(via ODBC/JDBC), but lacked _bundled_ database engine(Like JET for access). HSQLDB provides this service, but nothing stops you from using Mysql/Postgres/Firebird instead.

Base alternative

Posted Mar 29, 2005 4:21 UTC (Tue) by gervin23 (guest, #13977) [Link]

yes, i gave the external database hack a try a while back from some howto, however, i don't think OO ever had support for forms and reports did it? the only reason i mention rekall is that it does have a native database called xbase in addition to *optional* external DB drivers. another plus is python scripting. all this with win, linux, and mac runtimes. i'm not too sure i missed the point here.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 20:32 UTC (Mon) by a_hippie (guest, #34) [Link]

i read earlier reports that java was going to be a dependancy on OOo 2x.

two problems as i see it; java ain't free, java is slow (especially on aged hardware.)

abiword is nice, and the more i think about this OOo/java problem, the more i am glad that abiword has advanced well over the last couple of years.

good idea on the java bug reporting.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:04 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

OpenOffice is worse than merely `slow' on aged hardware in any case, so that point is moot.

(Not that I like this development any more than you...)

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:10 UTC (Mon) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> abiword is nice

Yeah, but Fedora is dumping abiword (and koffice and gnumeric) so that they can include more Java s/w such as Eclipse and OOo 2.

It kills me. I've been switching clients to Open Source for a decade but the Redhat/Fedora line is becoming impossible to justify.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:15 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

But Red Hat people are also busting their butts to produce free (as in freedom) Java, getting more and more Java apps to work with gjc/Classpath.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:39 UTC (Mon) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

Their willingness to bust their butts is not doubted. Their wisdom is.

It's going to be tough trying to keep up with Sun's output of new API's - Fedora is not close.

Shipping a performance/reliability downgrade to OOo, while simultaneously dumping the alternatives, effectively renders FC4 unusable for desktops.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 22:22 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (subscriber, #75) [Link]

Yeah, but Fedora is dumping abiword (and koffice and gnumeric) so that they can include more Java s/w such as Eclipse and OOo 2.

Do note, though, that "dumping" in this case means that they're moving those programs to Extras, not getting rid of them completely. And since FC4 is supposed to come with Extras pre-configured and ready with the main release, that means that adding Abiword, Koffice, and Gnumeric can be as simple as "yum install abiword koffice gnumeric". Not as nice as having them included on the install disks, but not a terrible ordeal, either.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 29, 2005 0:42 UTC (Tue) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

> And since FC4 is supposed to come with Extras pre-configured ...

There's no FC4t1 Extras as such. Some FC3 Extras were dumped in a development tree which may one day become FC4 Extras but they were incomplete last time I checked and weren't even recompiled to work with FC4.

If Extras were maintained and integrated and tested - but just not shipped on the CD's - there would be much less of a problem. As it is, Extras are distinctly fourth-class citizens.

If one accepts that some applications have to be relegated to Extras, where is the sense in relegating stable applications to make way for pre-alpha Java apps? Would it not make more sense to put the Java stuff in a separate repository or CD?

Koffice, Abiword, and Gnumeric are needed on-CD to convert office workers to open source. The few developers that want to use Eclipse are quite capable of downloading it. Where is the sense in putting Eclipse on CD and relegating valuable office apps?

As for OOo, it's been my main office app for two years now. I hate the way they're cramming Java into it. Don't know yet whether I'll settle on Abiword or Kword.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:50 UTC (Mon) by idansof (guest, #13582) [Link]

There's nothing in the java language which makes it much slower than C++ code, or looking it in another way, Oo being written in C++ does not make it fast and thin:-)

VM's and GC's have obvious disadvantages of course, but is constantly improved by advanced JITing,native compilation(GCJ case), and better algorithms.

Fact is, a well written Java code can run faster then poorly written C++ code. there was a time when Jython ran faster Python, for instance.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 29, 2005 0:46 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

This isn't a technical argument over the merits of java vs C++, as there are plenty of valid arguments on both sides. This is a question of the wisdom of a core component of the desktop having non-free dependencies.

If Kaffe could support modern Java code then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 29, 2005 6:10 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

If pigs could fly we wouldn't be having this discussion. Sun will always be able to crank out more ABIs than Free Software can afford to maintain. Kaffe etc. will never catch up until finally Sun abandons Java as a strategic weapon; that's Java's raison d'etre. Once they abandon it, though, it will become instantly irrelevant, and the faddists will begin chasing another rainbow.

the Java crawl

Posted Mar 31, 2005 3:44 UTC (Thu) by pjm (subscriber, #2080) [Link]

There's nothing in the java language which makes it much slower than C++ code, or looking it in another way, Oo being written in C++ does not make it fast and thin:-)

The following aspects of the java language tend to make it slower than C++ (off the top of my head), even if one compiles to native code and discards things like separate compilation and binary compatibility:

Enforced garbage collection -- can't use programmer knowledge of object lifetimes. Thus for example it's harder to do stack-based allocations.
The everything-is-a-reference model typically results in many small allocations, and more pointer-dereferencing -- worse cache usage.
Enforced array bounds checking.
Weaker typing, leading to more dynamic casts. The weak/unsafe genericity in the newest Java version papers over the syntactic need for casting without removing the runtime casting itself.
Floating point model requires software floating point on architectures like x86 that lack good IEEE floating point. E.g. on x86 one must force rounding to 53-bit significand after each operation, even with nostrictfp option (or however it's spelled).
Inlining and template specialization is harder and makes greater demand on compilation and/or dependency tracking, due e.g. to lack of header files.

I believe there are some aspects of java that can make it faster than C++ for some operations. Possibly lack of multiple inheritance is one of these.

Apart from these things inherent in the languages themselves, C++ has a significant head-start on Java, resulting in greater maturity of compilers. Gcj still needs effort on correctness before concentrating much on speed. If you go with Sun java then you can add to the above list various slowdowns due to separate compilation, interoperability etc.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 28, 2005 21:16 UTC (Mon) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link]

Good article.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Java. It is certainly easier to program in Java than C++, and that translates to more OOo features quicker. Which can only be a good thing.

ASSUMING that it will someday (soon) run under a Free JVM or Java compiler. I hate to see crippled OOo builds in Free Linux distros, so this needs to be resolved. But I'm reasonably confident that gcj/Classpath will resolve this within the next couple years. At that point, there really will be no disadvantage.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 1:58 UTC (Tue) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link]

For people used to sane programming languages there are many things inherently wrong with Java.

If this dependency isn't removed, I'm quite sure my company won't be "upgrading". Already some of our users have been switched to Abiword due to various OO.o bugs and bloat.

And of course only our most naive users use WYSIWYG toy systems, everyone else uses a text editor; it's amazing the amount of crap people can come up with for things where plain UTF-8 is perfect. Text is text, what matters is what you write, not how you uglify it. And having a wonderful toolset to manipulate it just under /bin also helps.

Now, if only the (l)Unix world could wake up and get some decent UTF-8 libs.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 16:41 UTC (Tue) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link]

I'm familiar with C and Python. C is *not* a suitable language for higher level business logic type apps, which is part of the functionality Java is being used for in OOo. Java's strong typing is IMHO a significant advantage over that provided by Python. Plus, Java compiled to native code with gcj has *got* to be faster than Python code.

But yes, I'm sure Python could be used for some things Java is being used for, and that would be fine. Would add even more bloat though.

Regarding switching to Abiword, last time I used it to create a document, it crashed, leaving the XML file in a non-well-formed state, and I had to edit it by hand to get my document back! That was 2.0.x, perhaps that bug was fixed in 2.2. I should try it I guess.

Also, OpenOffice even without the Java parts probably has significantly more functionality than AbiWord.

Not that I don't support AbiWord and KOffice developments -- I think they need to continue, if for no other reason that we (the OSS community) are at a serious risk by having only OOo. Its code is far too complex for most people to contribute to, and if Sun pulls support, we could be up a creek.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 20:15 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

I'm familiar with C and Python. C is *not* a suitable language for higher level business logic type apps, which is part of the functionality Java is being used for in OOo.

Whatever.

I worked for over four years as part of a development team that wrote, debugged, and supported a "business logic type app" in C. It eventually grew to nearly 2 million lines of code, and seemed to be functioning in a quite suitable fashion when I left the company. I guess I must have been hallucinating.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 30, 2005 2:08 UTC (Wed) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link]

Perhaps "suitable" wasn't the best word. Of course you can write business-logic apps in C. But why in the world would you want to deal with C's memory management, pointer arithmetic, and occasionally cryptic syntax for that type of an app? Especially if it's a GUI, in which the objects involved can get overwhelming quickly.

I agree it is great for things like operating system kernels and database engines. But certainly any of Python, Java, or even C++ is far better than C for any kind of business logic, in terms of programmer productivity.

Just my opinion of course....

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 30, 2005 2:53 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

Of course you can write business-logic apps in C. But why in the world would you want to deal with C's memory management, pointer arithmetic, and occasionally cryptic syntax for that type of an app?

This was in the mid-to-late 90s. Most of the programmers were experienced, so memory managment and pointer arithmetic wasn't much of a problem. Syntax certainly wasn't a problem. We used Purify on the final builds, or anytime something seemed to be really horsed up. Occasionally it was.

We did initial work on porting the app to Java, but at the time Java was just too dang slow. The proof of concept program was a dog, and it didn't even do anything very useful. Maybe Java has improved enough to make it feasible now.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 30, 2005 2:21 UTC (Wed) by bluefoxicy (guest, #25366) [Link]

> I'm familiar with C and Python. C is *not* a suitable language for higher level business logic type apps, which is part of the functionality Java is being used for in OOo.

Uh. Can you code? I can code. I can understand logic, and even with high level languages I balance my memory in my head, even though they try to garbage collect and fuck things up for me. C, BASIC, perl, C has got to be the easiest language I used. Objective-C was also nice.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 21:39 UTC (Tue) by kokopelli (guest, #11341) [Link]

Bwa ha ha!

There's a lot more to choosing a language than just being frizbit. ("frizbit" being any individual attribute, including subjective and complex ones like "sane".) OO in particular has to balance several difficult needs if it wishes to avoid the same problems as Word. E.g., Java has a well-defined and well-supported sandbox model so it should be reasonably safe to trust third-party extensions. I can't think of another mainstream language with the same functionality.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 28, 2005 22:06 UTC (Mon) by dan_ (guest, #28710) [Link]

Its just a pity that Openoffice has seen so much more progress in the
development of MS Word import filters than Abiword of Kword. I used to use
openoffice just as a converter but it takes so long to load that now once
it has loaded I now feel that I may as well use it. I like Kword a lot
better though.
The most likely feature to pull me back to Windows has always been Ms Word
since so many people insist on sending documents in word format. I really
believe that Linux's success on the desktop depends on good word
processors with good .doc support.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 4:34 UTC (Tue) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link]

>> I really believe that Linux's success on the desktop depends on good word
processors with good .doc support.

of course better .doc support can't hurt, but come on, its 2005, linux won't live or die on the desktop due to word processing. browing and multimedia are far more important, and we are covering those bases too.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 10:43 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

linux won't live or die on the desktop due to word processing. browing and multimedia are far more important, and we are covering those bases too.

Maybe at a home desktop, but there the lack of games is much more bigger problem. In the office nowadays when my manager sends me a reasonably complicated Excel sheet, I have to walk to the Windows machine and edit the file there, because oocalc has problems with merged cells.

Bye,NAR

License incompatibility?

Posted Mar 28, 2005 23:17 UTC (Mon) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link]

Mixing GPLed OpenOffice code with non-free Java libraries (supposed they can't be replaced with free Java implementations) should create the same license incompatibility, and the same breach of the GPL, as years ago the combination of L/GPLed KDE code with the Qt library when was still non-free. This smells like a case where the FSF should get involved fast.

Florian

License incompatibility?

Posted Mar 29, 2005 15:29 UTC (Tue) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link]

The GPL has always allowed you to link to things considered part of the system, such as the C library or the kernel, if such things are reasonably part of the platform that the program runs on. Otherwise no GPL code would have been able to run on any platform until the Linux kernel was already working (well, I suppose there was the BSD kernels).

So I don't think linking to the java runtime libraries constitutes a GPL violation.

Now, whether or not OOo using the JVM as a component of itself is a violation, I can't say, but this isn't really new, OOo has had some Java support/dependency for a long time.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 2:58 UTC (Tue) by patrickbakker (guest, #25247) [Link]

The Red Hat team working on GCJ+Classpath have been integrating the work they and others have been doing on a free Java Virtual Machine (ie. GCJ+GIJ), an implementation of the standard Java libraries (ie. Classpath) and packaging conventions (ie. JPackage) into Fedora 4. Caolan McNamara has been working on making sure the Java portions of OpenOffice 2 work. Anthony Green has posted a summary in his blog. It does not appear that running the Java code will be a problem using free software. A preview is available now in Fedora Core 4 Test 1.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 3:00 UTC (Tue) by patrickbakker (guest, #25247) [Link]

The Classpath project link should be http://www.classpath.org

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 4:31 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

Do you happen to know about the timeline for getting JDK 5 language features into gcj? I used gcj for a while before the new JDK release, but the new language features allowed me to remove enough cruft from my programs to justify using the JDK, at least temporarily, even though there aren't any build systems which work with the 5 language features and give reliably correct builds without building from scratch.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 29, 2005 7:08 UTC (Tue) by patrickbakker (guest, #25247) [Link]

I'm not certain as I only know what I glean from periodically checking on the progress of gcj + classpath. However, Tom Tromey posted an update to the java gcc mailing list a few days regarding the new java frontend for gcc, called gcjx, he has been working on. See this post from March 26. Assuming that Java 1.5 features will be added when the gcjx work is more complete - which, I should stress, is my assumption - then his posting probably has a reasonable answer:

"gcjx can parse all 1.4 and most 1.5 language features. There are still some bugs in the 1.5 support, and generic methods remain basically unimplemented."

and

"I still hope to get this merged to the trunk sometime this year. That may be optimistic."

Actually, running OpenOffice's Java portions seems close

Posted Mar 31, 2005 4:57 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

There's been a lot of ongoing work to make Openoffice.org run on OSS/FS Java implementations (mainly gcj plus Classpath). Success for the critical portions was reported in January 2005, and by March 2005 even more success was reported. This shouldn't be too shocking, since Eclipse now runs without Sun's JDK.

See OpenOffice.org issue #46241, which asks to have OpenOffice.org run on an OSS/FS Java Virtual Machine. See also the OpenOffice.org Java policy to allow multiple Java implementations; It states that the Java baseline is 1.3.1 and only official Java APIs are allowed to be used.

Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)

Posted Apr 4, 2005 23:13 UTC (Mon) by brianomahoney (subscriber, #6206) [Link]

As usual, the discussion here has rapidly become unfocused.

This is sad (a) the first issue is that, like Mozilla, the OO code-base and (b) the build process is byzantine and over complicated. Making both accessible and simple is needed to really open OpenOffice.

The real question is (c) what does Java bring to the party? and Why do not core OO developers explain why they think this is a good idea?

Personally I think that the whole Java thing is another huge mistake, far too much of it is still a 'work in progress' not a polished tool. E.g. contrast Qt with SVG, Swing, AWT ..., that the contrast is not with C++ or C but with Perl and Python, or Lisp where both Introspection and GarbageCollection are possible.

In the final analysis Java is an un-imaginative sucessor to C++ and C# is much nicer. HINT get "Hello World" running in both and see what you had to do.