Why OpenOffice.org Failed - and What to Do About It (ComputerWorld UK)

Yes, the key point is that by using proprietary formats/interfaces, EVERY time you want to switch to another program, you pay huge costs. In contrast, using open standards, the switching cost is tiny (ideally zero). Which is why proprietary formats and interfaces subvert the usual role of competition: Normally, competition would force suppliers to continuously lower costs and improve quality, because customers would otherwise switch, but if they cannot effectively switch, suppliers can have high rents and low quality with near impunity.

In this particular case, there was no technical reasons not to switch, after all they did it in France, and I don't imagine it was any simpler.

The truth is that Microsoft spent "huge" sums of money to prevent that kind of migration, in fact the guy who is in charge of free software in the federal government is a friend of mine and you would not believe what he can tell you about those tactics. Were we in Africa that would be called corruption, but as we are an advanced democracy it is disguised as lobbying and interoperability :-)

Not so long ago, I was responsible for the IT in a small town (~20.000 inhabitants), we had no budget te renew our Microsoft Office licences in the schools, so I decided to give OO.org a try, eventually everybody was convinced that it was possible to switch, then the guy from Microsoft came in, offered free licences (Office, Windows...), added a few free PC and invited the mayor for a short family vacation disguised as a "Seminary".

To make a long story short, the schools are still using Microsoft products.

I have two PCs that are fairly similar in hardware - both are Core 2 Duo with SATA disks, 2GB+ of RAM, 2 GHz or more. One runs Linux and OpenOffice, the other Windows XP and Office 2007.

I just tested Word 2007 'cold startup' (i.e. first time since boot) and it took 11 seconds. I'm fairly sure this is no faster than OO Writer 2.4 on Ubuntu Gutsy, and it feels slower, but I can't test it right now. Office 2003 was a bit faster than 2007 I think, and generally 2007 feels quite a bit slower

The Windows PC as a whole pauses several times a day, refusing to echo typing or even move the mouse for a few seconds. Generally applications on Linux such as Firefox feel much snappier, and I almost never get pauses in echo/mouse movement.

I've just signed up to LWN entirely for the purpose of responding to this post. It is an incredibly insightful post. It should be read out loud to anyone who even *thinks* of touching VBA. Heavy weaponry and attack dogs should be extensively used to ensure the wannabe developer's mind is focused on the subject at hand.

However, I would question one of the claims here, that this development model is broken. From the point of view of programmers, even of amateurs like myself, this is clearly the case. A world where version control consists of thinking up a new cute name for your spreadsheet every few weeks is not a world in which I wish to live.

But, from the point of view of the managers in (e.g.) the pensions industry, the model works fine. It limits expenditure. It avoids hassle and political intrusions. It stops the IT dept stepping in and turning a two-hour job into a two-month fiasco. It prevents their employees being snaffled by real software companies.

Fundamentally, this is because the ten-year event horizon of a competent programmer is greater than the six-month event horizon of a competent manager. They're not worried about long-term maintainability; they're worried about whether adding in a market value adjustment can be done *yesterday*. They're not worried about verification; they're worried about spelling errors in the Most Holy Standard Wording. They're not worried about separation of concerns; financial professionals are used to being concerned about *everything*, all the time...

The only real silver lining I can see is that a sort of software middle class is emerging. People who separate their concerns, who know that code commenting is important, who are aware that GOTOs are bad... and who talk to each other, sharing best practices. More, they are able to explain the motivation behind these practices to managers.

As this element hits critical mass, I predict we'll see a gradual shift from the alchemy of the traditional VBA guru to the science of these new practitioners. Most of this science will be reinventing stuff that real developers already know, but eventually the two communities will reach feature parity.

One big part of this process will, of course, be developing better Office tools - proper spreadsheet/programming hybrids and the like. The main reason no-one does proper source control on spreadsheets is because you *can't*, not really. I'm hoping this will become a visible issue over the next few years.