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On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 20:27, Derek Martin wrote: > OO is an important software package to the Free software world; if Sun > abandons it, I believe it will be picked up. Given its importance, the community should be involved now while OpenOffice is still in Sun's good graces. The transition to a more community oriented project would be a lot smoother. OpenOffice is too dependent on a Sun business decision, and Sun as a business is in murky territory. But the community isn't (after about 4 years?) Apparently, despite its importance as a desktop solution and widespread use, there aren't enough people who enjoy trying to wrap their minds around a bazillion lines of OpenOffice code. They see an already solid program, but the consideration of the resources required to support that codebase isn't there. There is no sense of urgency to become involved. Sun is taking care of it. I wonder if the community at large is even aware that Sun shoulders that much of a load and is having a lot of difficulty attracting OO community-driven developers that they don't have to pay? One reason why high-profile projects like OpenOffice are troublesome from an open source perspective is that although the code is available, the community involvement is low. Just seems like a small army of paid Sun employees and a few saints. Some people talk about OpenOffice's success as an open source project in the same vein as say the kernel, but OpenOffice's programming resources are mostly supplied by Sun whereas the kernel is mostly done by a community. To me, they are very different beasts. The process and programmer community surrounding the Linux kernel grew as the requirements of the kernel grew. It is sustainable. It is not overly dependent on an organization or even person because a lot of people got involved *early* while it was relatively easy to get into the code. The community, its process, understanding, etc. grew as the code grew. But the process and programmer community of OpenOffice is Sun-dependent, and the project is very large. If Sun drops support tomorrow, there will be a large knowledge, organizational, and resource vacuum that will take considerable effort to stabilize. Sure, it can be done...eventually. But if the community had more of a sense of urgency in becoming involved, this possibility could be lowered quite a bit. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure, and all that rot. You see the "mooch behavior" in all sorts of social activity where the costs required to do something are separated from the people benefiting from it. You have very few people doing the work for many, and if something should happen to those few, lots suffer (and deservedly so). The lower the mooch %, the stronger that community becomes and vice-versa. To me, that is why open source applications that have a high overlap between the developer and user base are the most successful. Steve (Hey, nobody would be happier to be wrong on this than me!)
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