Java Developer Says He Built, Launched Basic Open Source Office Suite In 30 Days 266
alphadogg writes "A freelance Java developer claims it took him only 30 days to build and launch a basic open source office suite that runs on multiple OSes. Called Joeffice, it works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux as well as in browsers, according to the developer, Anthony Goubard. It includes a very basic word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation program and database software, Goubard said. The office suite was built with NetBeans and uses many popular open source Java libraries. That allowed him to built the program in 30 days, he said, a process that he documented daily on YouTube (video). The suite was released as an alpha version, which means that not everything works yet. Goubard's Amsterdam company, Japplis, launched the suite, which is available under an Apache 2.0 license. This license allows companies to change and redistribute the code internally without having to share the new code publicly, he said."
30 days? (Score:0, Insightful)
It took him a whole 30 days? Facebook was releaed in just two weeks.
Re:Sills will be all over this. (Score:3, Insightful)
This, so much this.The question is not 'can you build an Office suite in 30 days', the question is, how much functionality can you deliver in 30 days, keeping it consistent, extensible and maintainable? Surely, I can build "Photoshop" in 30 days, even make it look the same. But will it be valuable software and an improvement over previous iterations? Deploy this kind of software in a large organization and watch hell unleash. This article says more about the ego of the developer.
Re:Sills will be all over this. (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't write an office suite in 30 days (Score:5, Insightful)
He assembled components together in 30 days. He can't get from those components to a competitive product, he would need to rewrite each of those netbeans to bring the functionality up to the level of the competitors in order to actually make an Office Suite.
But as a way to show off Java as a development environment that's good.
But a Microsoft guy could do the same, dropping in a load of stock rich text edits and grid controls to product a very similar quickly.
Sounds like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
This dude is just trying to get himself attention and Slashdot is obliging. I mean for one, building an "office suite" is not necessarily impressive. All that office suite actually means is a program that does word processing, spreadsheets, maybe presentations. Well, there can be a great range in that. High end office suites, like Microsoft Office, do a whole lot of complex shit and do it well, and has a bunch of well built tools (like a spell checker and so on). However a crap office suite might do little more than you'd get out of Wordpad and SSS.
Then there's the fact that "alpha" has traditionally meant in software "feature incomplete, still under heavy development." These days given that beta often seems to mean that (it used to mean feature complete, working on bugs) alpha might mean "Well, it complies now and runs sometimes!"
It would not be very hard to set a rather low goal for what constitutes an "office suite," bash the basis of that out, and then call it an alpha. I can't try it, since I do not care to install Java on my system, but looking at the screen shots, it looks like he did precisely that. It looks exceedingly simple, largely using a bunch of the built in Java controls. That's fine and all, but I don't find that really that impressive for 30 days of work. Part of the point of managed languages like Java, C#, that kind of thing it to be able to bash together something basic pretty quick.
So ya, I'm voting that he's just publicity whoring. If he wants to call us back when 1.0 comes out, then I'll have a look. Maybe then it'll be something cool, but I kinda doubt it. Personally I'd stick to MS Office, Google Docs, Libre Office, or whatever your current preferred suite is.
Re:He built an Alpha in 30 days (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, he did a very nice job of it. Why do coders have to be so jealous and dismissive of other people's knowledge/achievements?
I applaud the guy for taking sacrificing his time and energy on software that could have been a failure. By taking a risk, he's accomplished something impressive.
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:2, Insightful)
Where does that stupidity stem from? I'd like to know.
The Open Source community. Apart from the enlightened few, it's long on zealots and short on knowledge
He didn't build it in 30 days. (Score:3, Insightful)
"it took him only 30 days to build and launch a basic open source office" and "The suite was released as an alpha version" mean's he's got the 80 (visible) percent done that take 20 percent of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle [wikipedia.org]
I wish people wouldn't get headlines with this sort of claim. It helps push the entire profession towards cutting corner in order to under bid each other, which does not speak well for the quality of future software.
Speak instead of prototyping. That's much closer to the truth.
Dismissing comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Get your nerd on and lets see other people build something better in 30 days solo. Be nice if
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:5, Insightful)
There ain't too many zealots that follow ESR. If you were talking about RMS, he'd take umbrage at your referring to his followers as the 'Open Source' community. Liberated software, or as they prefer it, libre-software, is more like it.
To answer the GP, part of the reason is around GPL3. Linux is well understood to be GPL2, so while GPL2 was the norm, it wasn't a major showstopper. But once GPL3 came along, w/ its patent termination clauses, its 'anti-Tivoization' clauses and so on, it was rightly perceived as being hostile to business. So guess what, businesses became more hostile to it. Also, enough lawyers have come to a consensus that using GPL3 would open a can of worms as far as company practices go, and hence the ban on GPL software in offices.
Abies above hit the nail right on the head. There is always a chance that one may want to give some variation of the software to a client/subsidiary, and that's where the differences b/w copyleft licenses and others kick in. With BSD, they wouldn't need to bother about any implied obligations incurred as a result of the redistribution. With GPL, they absolutely would. The reason not too many worry about Linux is that not many, aside from say router designers would worry about tampering w/ that code. But any application software that is GPL is another story altogether.
Why all the hate? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sure, its not 'feature complete' yet, nor is he claiming it is. What the hell is with all the bashing? Lets see what *you* have done for the community lately, instead of complain and attack.. Put up or shut up.
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:5, Insightful)
It's quite simple really.
1) FSF's position on dynamic linking is retarded
2) A large corporation consists of multiple legal entities. It's not difficult to trigger "distribution".
3) If any "distribution" doesn't abide by the terms of the GPL, even when to a wholly-owned subsidiary, the organization could lose all rights under the GPL.
4) Therefore it may have to "include" source code for an entire application + vendor libraries
5) It literally won't be able to, since it may not own all of them, or some may be extremely commercially sensitive.
6) an individual developer, manager or department head can't just decide to commit a large corporation - that's why they have legal
7) Whatever a dev know about licenses won't accurately transmit to legal anyway
8) None of this stuff has been tested in court. "Making sense" or "I think" isn't enough.
Linux won't count for primarily three reasons
9) vendor distributions - if there's a problem with closed source binary drivers, practically speaking they'd have to take out Oracle, RH, SUSE first
10) the GPL specifically excludes use of e.g. common OS APIs in dynamic linking, so applications a firm distributes internally can stay closed, as long as they don't add anything GPL that is NOT part of the OS
11) There's probably nothing of real value that they add to e.g. Linux anyway. Do you want to see thousands of poxy scripts added to configure up the HTTP proxy and new hostname generation in every large enterprise?
Re:Sills will be all over this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite an analogy, no pun intended. I think everyone needs to realise that some things reach a peak of maximum functionality and then can't be improved upon no matter how much you want/need to sell the next generation office suite. Business requirements are usually standardised, unchanging, and not terribly exotic. Fix bugs, speed the code up, add functions if really required, that's it.
In other words, Microsoft should have sold Office to CA, where good software goes to die a long lingering death...
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct in all your points.
You are, however, missing one: The philosophy of the FSF.
These guys are about software freedom, not about having the largest possible market share. They literally don't care if an important part of the license is problematic for large corporations. As a metaphor, I'm sure you can easily adapt your list to the issue of slavery/emancipation. That wasn't a reason to not do it.
I'm with the FSF on that issue. Large corporations can get something worth many thousands EUR/US$ for free if and only if they are willing to accept the responsibilities that come with it. If they don't like it, they can buy or write their own software.
These are not very high barriers. Many corporations, including most of the Fortune 500, do use Free Software extensively. Quite frankly, most of the team it's just legal being conservative (I don't blame them, it's practically part of their job description to be that way) and not wanting to get into all the tricky details of what that means and how it changes the contracts with, say, the contractors that work on it.
I don't think the goal of Free Software should be to move aside and make commercial compatability be a driving force. That's one of the moves that I dislike about the Open Source rebranding. Freedom and capitalism have a tricky relationship, and they are as much enemies as they are friends. The relationship is only positive for the freedom part if you keep a careful distance - not too far away, but not too close, either.
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:3, Insightful)
To that extent, the GPL is working well, but the main barrier is "dynamic linking" seems not only unnecessary, but goes against most developer's notions that dynamically linking to a library doesn't form a combined single product (hence the vague twaddle about "common OS components", not least since the GNU project couldn't have got started if that had been imposed by the then UNIX vendors).
Well, they created the LGPL to cover that angle, and the developer can decide if his work should carry the GPL or the LGPL, so I don't see what all the fuss is about. If I write a library and pick the GPL as its license, than I'm making a clear statement that I don't want my lib to be part of any non-GPL distributed code.
If you don't like it, nobody forces you to use my code. :-)
Re:He built an Alpha in 30 days (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a project featured in PCWorld and NetworkWorld last month. While I'm not the parent, I think I understand his point and can speak from a better position.
Why all the hate? It looks like a brag on the part of the developer, intended only to impress people who don't know anything about development.
Considering the long list of bugs, missing features, and (lofty) promised utility, it's pretty obvious that this guy is a long way off from completing the project. He didn't write an office suite in 30 days, he started writing an office suite 30 days ago!
It doesn't look like Network World put the spin on the project. The arbitrary 30-day time frame was clearly a goal of the project -- not for extra challenge, but to make it appear more impressive. It's deceptive and dishonest.
As many Slashdot users know, it's not difficult to tell when a personal project is going to get some press. This looks like it was tailored specifically to get that kind of attention. That really bothers people.
So, we've got a not-that-impressive project from a less-than-respectable arrogant press-monger.
A lot of people here also think that they could do a *better* job given the same constraints. A cool project should make you go "how'd they manage that?" not "I could easily do better."
I don't know that "envy" is the right word for that so much as "injustice". After all, we've seen tons of cool personal projects on Slashdot that get little other than praise. If envy were driving the hate in this case, wouldn't we expect to see a similar reaction to other personal projects?