OpenOffice Vs. Google Apps 336
jammag writes "Both OpenOffice and Google Apps are free, so the choice is purely down to which is better. Bruce Byfield, after looking at both, concluded, 'comparing Google Apps to OpenOffice.org is like clubbing a staked-out bunny — Google Apps is so far behind that the whole exercise seems like an exercise in pointless cruelty.' Ouch, that hurts."
Depends.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Apps gives me what I want: A browser-based place to write stuff and make spreadsheets and store the documents where I can access them whenever I like.
Thus, Google Apps is fine for me.
Accessibility (Score:5, Insightful)
This is pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone expect a web app to come close to a heavy hitter like Open Office? It serves a different purpose; it will edit documents from any decent web browser at any location. The computer doesn't need access to my files as long as Google has them and it doesn't need any special software, either.
Google docs isn't special because it's a great office suite; it's special because it's convenient.
What needs to be discussed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing Tulips to Oranges, are we ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because that's what it is, right ?
A locall?y running suite to an online suite...
I mean, I'm all for opensource and stuff, but this...
Let's compare my wallet to my bankaccount...
Wallet wins hands down because I can pay a cabfare with it...
Re:Depends.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the last missing link in OOo's suite of tools is an answer to MS Office's SharePoint server.
A good implementation of collaborative document editing would complete OOo's competition with MS Office as well as remove one of the big drawcards that Google apps has.
Personally, I don't use Google apps, as a JavaScript implementation of notepad.exe doesn't come close to satisfying my document management needs, and I can't imagine any serious business would disagree.
Given the extremely rudimentary functionality of Google Apps, I can't for the life of me figure out how there's even a discussion around it's potential use in business.
To the OOo team: Give us an answer to SharePoint! (Please).
Re:This is pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't necessarily say that. And what's more, I would like to see tests like how it handles very large files.
Frankly, what I would like to see is "OpenOffice.org-server" that will host those apps on a network server... preferably one under user/admin control and doesn't require live internet.
Apples and Oranges, people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apples and Oranges, people...
GoogleDocs, for example, is merely a quick, easily accessible and SHARABLE online tool.
OpenOffice is a full suite of office software with an actual footprint on a single existing computer.
Not even worth comparing at this point. Not until we get more into a blur of web-based software and installed software.
Re:Why even bother comparing them (Score:5, Insightful)
O Rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
As everyone has (and will) pointed out, they serve different purposes. It's like comparing the OS on my phone to the OS on my laptop, and then saying 'wow, you can do so much more with the laptop OS'. Duh, mofo.. shortage of article ideas this month?
And don't mean to sound so harsh, just too much coffee I'm thinking.
Re:Why the Vs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there something wrong with using both?
If I have net connection, it's Google.
If I'm offline, it's OpenOffice.
We live in a time of extreme opinions. Ever tried expressing a liking for two supposedly opposing products in a room full of geeks, or here? I have, it ain't pretty.
I use OpenOffice, MSOffice 2003, and Google docs. I think MSOffice is better, but I like OpenOffice for my Linux laptop, and Google docs when I'm away from my main machine.
I also like and routinely use both Windows and Linux. I'm an open source developer of six years standing, coding for both platforms, and I STILL get blasted by clueless f**ks who think that just because they've commented on a slashdot story they are fully able to preach 'though must prefer open source and hate Microsoft' to me.
It does grate some times, I have to say.
Re:Depends.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it a little strange that you or anyone else believe locking your own data in some remove server in some proprietary format is fine, and having to work on your files through a slow internet link and browser, and paying for use on a per-hour basis is a good idea.
But what I'll never understand is that anybody would deem Google worthy of trust as far as data privacy is concerned.
This web-app business is another web-two-oh fad that will never work because nobody want the concept of it. Software company would love it though, and if it ever gets forced upon users, it'll be a sad day in computing.
Freedom matters. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm... no. One is free of charge only, the other is both free of charge and free as in freedom. One stores your data on computers you have no control over and leaves you at the whim of unexpected feature changes [slashdot.org] by a publically-traded company whose customers are their advertisers and whose product is your eyeballs; the other leaves you firmly in control over your own data and your own software. These are serious considerations.
Re:Convenience (Score:5, Insightful)
"Google Apps are a new paradigm in software, having commonly used applications entirely on a server so that multiple users can use them."
You are being funny right?
This is the very old way of doing things. Anybody that worked on a PDP-11, Vax, 360/370, Model 38, AS400, or any number of other mini or mainframes would tell you the same thing.
Google Apps are really a great example of. Good enough.
They are good enough for most people.
As to Convenience. No network no programs, no data as well.
The internet isn't everywhere yet so if anything Google Apps are less convenient than carrying you data on a USB drive.
Re:Convenience (Score:4, Insightful)
Some new paradigm indeed. What you describe is how computing was done before (servers and terminals) before PCs got powerful enough for software to become decentralized, which until recently, was viewed as a major advance in computing.
Nowadays, people seem to think it's such a great idea to go back to the past, but I suspect it's a concerted effort by software companies to go back to the days where they could control everything and charge everybody anything they please through centralized server.
Biased agenda. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this says it all.
"But if Stallman's observations aren't enough to stop you from using network apps, a comparison of a leading example like Google Apps with free and open source software (FOSS) such as OpenOffice.org should be."
I really like OpenOffice. Version 3 is very good but this is clearly based on an agenda.
Google Docs are.
1. Good enough for most people. Guess what folks if a program does what you need it too any other features are meaningless.
2. Stores your data online. Great for anything that isn't extremely private. Even better because Google will probably do a better job of backing it up than you will.
3. It works most every where. No need to install it or keep it updated.
4. Works with many common file formats just like OO.org.
If you need OO.org than Google docs will not work for you. But then if you need a feature in Microsoft Office that OO.org doesn't support then you need Office.
But for a lot of people Google Docs are great.
But since both are free as in beer. You might as well use both.
Re:Convenience (Score:4, Insightful)
"The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."
-Harry S Truman
Re:Depends.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"documents where I can access them whenever I like."
except for when you dont have internet connectivity, then you cant get them even if your life depended on it.
Collaborative editing (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen anybody hit my own personal reason to use Google's applications: collaborative editing. If I'm working on my own document, I want it right here under my control, so I'll use OpenOffice. (Actually, I'm more likely to use vi and latex.) But if I'm working with someone, who may not even be in the same country as I am, I'm going to go to Google. My alternatives are to email copies back and forth and manually deal with merges, or to set up a revision control repository of whatever flavor I like. That's more of a pain in my work day than I like.
This also isn't something where OpenOffice can improve. It requires having the infrastructure in place to conveniently share documents, and that's just not part of the OO paradigm. Sure, a repository makes it possible, but I don't want to run a repo, I want to work on documents! Google can do it "out of the box."
Next comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
An answer to SharePoint! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why spend resources on that when there are far too many other CMS systems out there already.
Re:Depends.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a good world, Google Apps would collaborate with OOo, and we'd get OOo with use anywhere functionality. You can use it stand alone, or when away from the office/home/computer you can use your data via web based tools. IMO, that is the best possible outcome, what I would like to see. For now, I use a USB drive to port things around where I need them because Google apps doesn't quite get me what I want and need.
We use it all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the extremely rudimentary functionality of Google Apps, I can't for the life of me figure out how there's even a discussion around it's potential use in business.
We use it all the time. Not for polished docs we're going to hand off to a client, but certainly for internal stuff. We share out docs with staff so application testers can submit comments, saves us writing a custom app to track change requests. For developing content quickly and gathering input from multiple users, it's really nice.
No, the formatting options may not be particularly deep, but I can dash off a quick letter and it looks fine. And that's particularly helpful when I'm starting it here and finishing at home. Saves me an rsync operation and version problems.
If there are cheaper, easier and more convenient ways to solve these problems I haven't found them. GoogleApps works for us.
Fight each other. (Score:1, Insightful)
After all, they are still in Beta. :)
Yea, I noticed that. Whenever I have more than one app open [wikipedia.org], they will fight until one of them dies. It really sucks because it'll take my machine down with them.
Context, please (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
Because it's online. I work with people across the country and across the world. For many of these people, attaching a document to an email is asking a lot. Not to mention the version control headaches (documentA.doc, documentA2.doc, etc) that inevitably arise in document-sharing situations. Google Docs stops this kind of suffering. I've used it with technologically illiterate people to great effect.
In a quantitative comparison of features, yeah, OO has more. Clearly. *cough*. I don't think that was ever a question. If you're a power user, or you're trying to write complex documentation or something, then yeah, you probably need OO. But for sharing simple docs across geographically dispersed people, Google Docs wins hands down.
The question isn't proprietary vs FOSS vs web-based vs desktop. It's "what do you want to use it for". A Blackberry isn't a replacement for a laptop, but if all you want is mobile email, it's probably fine.
It's a no brainer... (Score:4, Insightful)
...for any kind of regulated business unless you plan to do due diligence on the security, confidentiality and availability of data held by Google.
Can you guarantee that Google won't pass your customers' personal data to a backup site that's not in your home country? Can you be certain that no Google admin will pass your confidential downsizing proposals to the media? Does Google offer guarantees that important correspondence is available within the timescales required by a regulator? Does Google guarantee to delete obsolete data in accordance with local data protection laws? Is the answer to these questions supported by an enforceable contract?
Google apps has its place for personal correspondence. But if your using the cloud to store corporate or customer data without answering questions like these, you're professionally negligent.
Re:Context, please (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds a bit odd...
You have people that can't be bothered to attach a document to an email but
you expect them to run an alien office suite? That sounds like one big fat
contradiction.
I would expect that they would be clinging onto msoffice as if their life depended on it screaming in fear of anything different.
Bad Formatting (Score:2, Insightful)
Google Docs sometimes has a nasty habit of badly formatting tables.
Re:An answer to SharePoint! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why spend resources on that when there are far too many other CMS systems out there already.
Because Microsoft's applications do something that most of the alternatives don't - integrate with each other.
Re:Depends.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:An answer to SharePoint! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Depends.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a good world, Google Apps would collaborate with OOo,
No. In a good world, people are free to do as they see fit, as long as they can do so without harming others. The whole "people *must*collaborate* to make it a good world" thing is nothing but idealism, which in practice would take the freedom away to do anything but join the existing one party with a project going on.
Come on. If someone wants to create something new, it's his decision, just as it'd be his decision to collaborate with an existing project. Nothing good or bad about it. Things might or might not work out the way the person had hoped for but that's a whole different story.
I, for one, like the google competition. Let's just send them a clear message: "NOT good enough!" and hope they'll get Document up to Writer's level. If they don't, nothing is lost, because we still have Writer. If they do, it might give Writer a nice push, or perhaps even leave Writer in the dust.
and we'd get OOo with use anywhere functionality. You can use it stand alone, or when away from the office/home/computer you can use your data via web based tools.
Or, you might find out OOo is unsuitable to build a web app from, and start from scratch anyways after a long frustrating delay trying to get a large complex codebase to do something it won't.
IMO, that is the best possible outcome, what I would like to see. For now, I use a USB drive to port things around where I need them because Google apps doesn't quite get me what I want and need.
IMHO, you're doing better right now than a web app could deliver. Yes you'll need to carry around an usb drive. You could use one of those 16Gb USB sticks, that should be *plenty* for a complete Linux system with anything you'd otherwise use a web app for. That's not like lugging around a zip drive or external hdd or anything.
Your biggest advantages? It's faster, you don't depend on an internet connection and a working service, you keep control over which version of the software you're running, and you keep control over your data.
Google can *keep* its web apps as far as I'm concerned :)
Re:What needs to be discussed? (Score:1, Insightful)
Exactly. I tried to mod you +1 Exactly, but I had to go for "informative" instead.
Try sorting by two or more columns in Google Spreadsheet, you can't. Try doing the same thing in OOo, fucking easy.
Re:What needs to be discussed? (Score:1, Insightful)
and you don't know what Google is doing with it.
I'm pretty certain that Google is storing it on a massive distributed computer system, and serving it to me whenever I request it. I doubt they are doing anything else of significance with it.
I trust them with my email much more than I'd trust my ISP with my email. So why not trust them with some documents?
Re:Depends.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I was just thinking that I'd like to see an online, Google-Docs-style version of LyX.
Or even just add LaTeX to Google Docs. There could be a source code pane and a display pane, which would update every few seconds. Just click on Export to get a version in .doc, .rtf, .odt, .pdf, .dvi, .ps...