I am unashamedly an advocate for Open Source software. I run a small business that offers custom built, inexpensive computers with Open Source software preinstalled. I urge my clients to move to Open Source software whenever it makes sense for them to do so. This includes full systems such as Linux distributions and cross-platform software such as OpenOffice.org Office Suite. However, recently I have been disappointed by a test install of OpenOffice.org for a charitable organization client of ours.
You see, this client is trying to find ways to reduce costs. One method of cost reduction I always recommend is to evaluate free, Open Source software as replacement for expensive, proprietary, Closed Source software. This client, like many others stuck in the proprietary software upgrade loop, is going to have to move off of Microsoft XP Professional sometime before 2014 when it will no longer be supported. Their computers will almost all have to be replaced to be able to run Windows 7 well if they decide to stick with Microsoft. Of course I am asking them to evaluate Open Source, and they are. One of the decision makers has been running a Linux distribution on his new home PC with a VirtualBox install of Microsoft Vista for about two months now. He volunteered to do this so he could be well informed for making a decision about the future direction of the charity's software needs.
During a recent reinstall of one of the charity's office PC systems following a bad Microsoft Patch Day that only affected that PC it was decided to install OpenOffice.org on the XP Professional system rather than the expensive, proprietary, Closed Source software that had been on there. I gladly did this and put on the latest release of OpenOffice.org at the time, which was version 3.1. There were some complaints from the user as it did not do what her previous office suite did. She had taught herself to use key bindings in that other software to do things faster. She did not know how to do these in OpenOffice.org and of course the similar functions are not bound to the same keystrokes. However, this is merely a retraining problem that can be solved easily with some hands-on training time.
One problem that did crop up though was one I had never seen before while using OpenOffice.org on Linux. When this user tried to save some of her Calc spreadsheet documents she was getting an error:
Error saving the document filename-goes-here:
Write Error.
The file could not be written.
This had never happened with her other office suite. I thought perhaps this was a problem writing to a network share. I suggested saving to the local drive. Nope, the error persisted. The only thing she could do was close the document without saving it. She was able to copy the spreadsheet information to the clip-board first, then a subsequent Calc document did save it. So the data was not lost, but this was a regularly occurring problem. When OpenOffice.org 3.2 came out the user downloaded and installed it on my suggestion that bugs would be fixed and new functions would be available. I was correct about new functions, but this bug was still there.
This was now a serious concern and a broadside against my recommendation of OpenOffice.org for this client. I know Microsoft has deliberately made competitor software not work well in the past. I began to suspect this was an attempt by Microsoft to kill OpenOffice.org on the Microsoft desktop because we all know Microsoft is very concerned that its cash cow will be killed by OpenOffice.org. With some research I discovered I was wrong, this problem is not Microsoft perfidy. It is unconscionable, but none the less true, that this is perhaps a long standing bug in OpenOffice.org itself:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=69993
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=88318
I actually found references in the bug Issue 69993 to this exact error message going back to 2006(!). Now, I am aware that this error message may be triggered for several different conditions. One suggestion in the OpenOffice.org forums is a full temporary directory is the problem. But the temporary directory is not full in some of the cases. However, the fact remains that some people cannot on the first try save files to perfectly good file systems with a temporary directory that is NOT full. The fact also remains that these exact conditions have persisted for more than two years through several versions of OpenOffice.org. This problem does not just show up on Microsoft systems. It also rears its ugly head on Apple OS X and I saw at least one reference to this on a Linux system.
Understandably, we advocates for Open Source cannot have this type of long standing bug and expect to be taken seriously. A company that was relying on its software sales to make money and pay employees from those sales would have to fix a problem like this or go out of business. In Open Source we are not relying on sales to make money so some things that would be a software killer in expensive, proprietary, Closed Source software is allowed to continue under Open Source software. The voluntary nature of Open Source development means that in some cases unless someone cares enough to solve a bug then that bug will languish in the source code unfixed. It is not like one has to worry about being fired if one does not fix bugs in OpenOffice.org or most other Open Source software.
Yes, I know that much of Open Source development is now done by folks in paid positions in companies like IBM, Intel, Novell, Red Hat and so on. However, these paid programmers are working for the interests of their company, not the interest of free, Open Source software itself nor the Open Source community of users. While we should appreciate the efforts to develop Open Source by these companies we should also be aware they they do this work out of self-interest for their own benefit. Our benefits from their work in the Open Source community are just side benefits. It is still up to those of us that are voluntary programmers to take charge of bugs, own them and fix them as quickly as possible.
No, I am not a programmer and I do not have time to become one, so suggestions that I fix it myself are not welcome. This is true of the greater majority of software end-users.
Where am I going with this? What is my goal? Actually, I wrote this article as I thought it out. I did not outline it nor come up with an end-game goal for it. I simply wanted to air out what I see as a problem with "free" software development and perhaps get some people motivated to take action in cases where the software bugs are persistent but difficult to reproduce. In this case with OpenOffice.org, perhaps there is finally a resolution for this bug:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=108374
But we will have to wait for OpenOffice.org 3.3 to find out. It cannot get here soon enough in my opinion. If OpenOffice.org 3.3 does still have this bug then my client will likely see that as a reason to stop considering Open Source. That will be tragic because they really do need to cut costs and free, Open Source software can definitely help with that. But should the bug persist a "No" will be unavoidable in this case.
This article has this many unique views:
| free hit counter |
Notice: All comments here are approved by a moderator before they will show up. Depending on the time of day this can take several hours. Please be patient and only post comments once. Thank you.
Edit Mon May 10 18:34:12 CDT 2010: Clarify the sentence about temporary directories by splitting it into two sentences with more detail.
Actually, it seems like 3.2.1 is the next milestone.
3.2.1 Release Client came out the other day, check it to see if the problem still exists.
Captain Canuck (comment #1), thanks for the heads up! I’ll get the client to download that and check it out.
Edit: Unfortunately the 3.2.1 “milestone” is not yet an actual production release. I can only use production releases for most of my company’s clients. Including the one mentioned in this article.
Gnumeric 4 Microsoft Windows
There is a build of 1.10.2 available. Please report bugs here. Here is a list of known bugs for the Win32 build. Note: this build does not work on Win9x and since GTK+ will probably never support Win9x, that is not likely to change in the future.
Your complaint can just as easily be applied to closed source software. Hard to figure out bugs don’t discriminate based on licensing.
Perhaps you could start a donation drive for financing the fix of this particular bug?
eug (comment #4) thanks for reading.
The point of using OpenOffice.org is it is an all-in-one replacement for proprietary office suites. It comes bundled in a single install package for Microsoft systems. It is also integrated somewhat. While Gnumeric is a decent spreadsheet application it is not a part of an all-in-one office suite like most of our clients want and prefer.
That said, I will pose it as an option for this charitable organization client. They may be willing to go for discrete applications instead of a bundle like OpenOffice.org.
[...] Open Source: OpenOffice.org We Have a Problem ? The ERACC Web Log blog.eracc.com/2010/05/10/open-source-openofficeorg-we-have-a-problem … http://bit.ly/at2TZ7 [...]
Ah, a FOSS “programmer” calling himself BrainInAJar brings out the knives on reddit in this comment:
Here’s my take on it.
Who gives a s??t. If you don’t pay for it, and you don’t contribute code to it, you’re a drone at best and should be ignored.
I write open source because I feel like it (an itch to scratch) and in hopes that other people will make software that I use better. If other people want to use it then that’s cool but affects me not at all negatively or positively.
What a narrow minded, self centered “take on it”. I contribute my “abundant” free time to help answer questions for free on Freenode IRC channels for Open Source software and Linux distributions. I started a local Linux User Group (LUG) and do the work to organize it for free. Yet, this dink says if I don’t code and I don’t pay, I’m a “drone”. This sort of crap attitude needs to stay out of the FOSS community. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to alienate all of us who are not programmers, and probably some who are.
So you are a great advocate of open source software but not to the point of actually fixing anything? You couldn’t even hire someone to do it? I’m sure it wouldn’t be super cheap, but if you really care about FOSS it’s not a big sacrifice.
One thing you should remember is that many open source programmers have no great desire to see their program take over the world.
The motivation for you to “help answer questions for free” may be to help “spread the word”, or “save costs” or something similar. Only you can explain your own motivation. But it’s helpful to remember that the ORIGINAL purpose of open source software was freedom to tinker. Freedom to program yourself, solve your own bugs, etc.
The motivation for someone to release something as open source can often be tied to this. I give you source to solve your problem. When you find a bug, you fix it and give the fix to me. When you improve the program, you may solve my problems too. We share our programming resources.
So, you as an advocate, as a person who performs support, someone who “started a local Linux User Group”, what is the motivation for that programmer to help you?
That in a nutshell seems to be what the rude “BrainInAJar” was saying. From the perspective of some programmers of open source software – you contribute nothing to THEIR goals. A “drone”.
When I was reading those bugs, the most common request was for a “repro”. I see you saying that you experienced it as “a regularly occurring problem”. I see nothing in those bugs about you offering exact steps to reproduce this problem. Is it perhaps that you can’t find a way to make it happen either?
Sometimes in these situations you can say “I have this happen about once every two weeks, I’m willing to run debug versions, please help me help you find the problem”. And then you’re contributing something. And then the programmer can provide you with a version of the program that explodes with extra information (instead of the unhelpful “Write error”).
But I don’t see you contributing that either.
So, Gene, may I ask… what HAVE you done to contribute to fixing this problem that you so loudly state “We” have.
Enginerd (comment #8) thanks for reading.
What part of “… I am not a programmer …” did you find it difficult to comprehend? I cannot fix broken source code since I am not a programmer. What part of I provide “free support” on IRC and “free support” for a Linux User Group (comment #7) are you unable to understand? Here is another thing for you to understand, if you will make the effort, I cannot afford to hire a programmer to fix someone else’s bugs in FOSS. Most people are in the same position I am in financially. We do good to pay the bills and feed our families.
Not all contributions to FOSS are done by programmers or moneyed investors that can hire people to fix someone else’s mistakes. Until some FOSS programmers get over their “it is ‘free’ so suck it up or fix it yourself or pay someone to fix it” bad attitudes I suppose we will keep having substandard software with four year old (or older) bugs.
I sincerely appreciate those FOSS programmers that take responsibility for their code and actually work to make things good for plain old end-users. I will do all I can to help those people do what they do. I’ll even learn their software and provide free support for it when I can. Support is as important as writing code. The others with the nasty attitudes and self-centered thinking, not so much appreciated.