January 12th, 2009
What Meeks means by OpenOffice being sick
Michael Meeks (right), a Novell employee tasked to Open Office development, caused a firestorm this weekend with a blog post calling the office suite “profoundly sick.”
Meeks was explicit in his meaning at the blog, saying Sun is disengaging from the project, that its participation is not being replaced, and that improvements are grinding toward a halt.
Is he right? Eileen Yu at ZDNet’s Singapore office put out an all-hands alert today, coming up with lots of quotes on its governance issues and legal troubles, but no consensus on what needs to happen.
I think Meeks’ whine could snap OpenOffice out of its funk, which is linked directly to Sun’s fading business prospects and has no direct impact on the consumer market, where it is strong and getting stronger.
Sun cannot, and should not be expected to, bear the continuing costs of OpenOffice’s maintenance and governance. A solution starts with the company admitting that.
Second, those companies with a stake in its success, which include Sun but also Novell, IBM and others, need to get a handle on its licensing and governance issues, and reach a negotiated settlement.
Third, OpenOffice needs a clear chain of command. Who is in charge of the project — not a company but a person. Who is its project manager? Who will take responsibility for driving its success?
That success includes development of a working business model, whether based on SaaS or something else, that will make OpenOffice self-sustaining and independent.
My guess is that Meeks is correct in seeing a future where OpenOffice.org is governed through a structure similar to Eclipse and other multi-company projects.
Those who are predicting the imminent demise of the software are way off base. The stuff works, millions of users depend upon it, and that would remain true even if the organization supporting it disappeared tomorrow.
I relied on a 1997 copy of Microsoft Office for nearly a decade before Open Office came along. Office suites are mature software. I got along. I will again. So will others.
But it would be nice if the stuff were better, if add-ins came more readily, and if I could be as confident in the governance of OpenOffice as I am of Mozilla and Eclipse.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 01/12/09
