Submitted by After just over a year as chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz is moving into a new phase as the leader of Sun Microsystems. Much of his opening months was spent emerging from the shadow of the highly visible Scott McNealy, boosted by Schwartz’s high-profile blog. Now that the introductory period is over, Schwartz is working to show that the Silicon Valley stalwart can regain its former stature.
We appreciate Sun and the difference they are making in the market. They are changing the rules and making a difference. Thanks!
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OSNews Readers: http://opensolaris.org/os/project/ppc-dev/
R&B
There are a lot of opinions changing for the better about Sun recently, my own included. Schwartz seems pretty self-effacing, at least in public. Let’s hope that approach continues to get the results he — and we — want.
Quite simply, sun is doing some good things, opening java, opening solaris, and this makes people like them, and for good reason, Sun has in a relatively short period of time free’d lots of stuff, which is really really valuable.
When SUN was headed by McNealy, I had no consideration for Open Solaris. Schwartz has gone a long way to change my mind and I’m now entertaining the thought of using it. If problems arise and Linux is hindered, I will gladly use the Solaris kernel under GPLv3. I know SUN can battle off MS and I’m pretty confident they have more dirt MS is sure to want to keep under the rug.
And if SUN finally becomes the open corporation everyone had hoped they would have became, I will gladly switch hardware and buy SUN for both home and work. I’ve never used one but I’ve handled a couple and you can tell they make quality equipment.
One final thought. When I first got into Linux around ’99-00, the hope from the community, at least as I could perceive, was SUN was going to be the opensource Darling. But because of McNealy and the timing of IBM’s defense of Linux from SCO, IBM took that position and I don’t think a lot of people were that comfortable about it. I know I was hoping SUN was going to carry the Linux/OSS torch but it wasn’t to be, but Schwartz is changing that and for one, welcome it.
Here’s to hoping SUN gets it, and if so, they’ll get my business..
I think Sun have finally woken to the challenges in front of them and pushed aside the arrogance of their past. I truly do think Sun and Solaris have a lot more to come.
Sun got over one of its biggest obstacles: Itself. Schwartz in his blog admitted the fundamental issues that led to Sun’s decline (overprice, ignored what customers wanted).
Rather than admit they had a problem, they bashed Linux every chance they got (when they weren’t using Linux for the Java Desktop because Solaris wasn’t viable at the time). They pulled away from x86, even said no more Solaris on x86.
Now the biggest issue they face is how to turn the tide. They lost all the momentum, and Linux stepped up. Will Sun need to wait until Linux or someone else screws up like Sun itself did? Or will they have to claw their way back up, slowly and bit by bit (as they’ve been doing now).
The fact is, the tide is changing; those who moved to Linux because of the lack of Solaris x86 are now seeing that the grass isn’t always greener on the otherside – its also very important not to believe the hype put out by competitors; HP boasting about replacing a 15 year old SPARC machine at a university is hardly a ‘big win’.
Tearing down development of Solaris x86 was an easy task and only took a couple of months, but it will take years to repair the damage. It will take years to rebuild up not only the developers within Sun, but partnerships with Intel and AMD, bringing onboard third party software and hardware vendors.
Things take time, and its not going to happen instantly; the thing holding OpenSolaris back right now is the libc translations, once that has been written (since the code cannot be released) – it will then possible to create distibution from the ground up using fully opensource code.
Lets remember, even with that limitation, Solaris does have the fundamental cornerstones of having an operating system which can serve as a desktop, workstation and server operating system; once the opensource project matures, the question won’t be whether ‘Solaris will succeed’ but whether linux advocate are willing to allow it to be a participant within the opensource community. *BSD’s have invited Solaris in, is the Linux community willing to stop lying about Solaris and welcome it as another option for end users to use?
Nice nonsense. At least point to those “lies”
I cannot speak for anybody else, but personally I think everybody (or at least the majority) is welcoming OpenSolaris. Why wouldn’t they? Any Open Source OS is welcome.
Any Open Source OS is welcome.
How quickly you forget the stink made by Linux developers about OpenBSD developers taking Linux code from the Broadcom wifi drivers!
That has nothing to do with an Open Source OS being welcome. The problem with that particular situation was a license violation. License violations are never welcome.
One doesn’t need to look far for anti-Sun rhetoric from the cheap seats. Just look through osnews.com diatribes that reach slashdot like conspiracy theories about some sort of ‘axis of evil’ consisting of Microsoft, Sun and SCO.
The continuingn lies that “OpenSolaris” isn’t fully opensource, the lies that Solaris only runs on SPARC, the lies that you have to pay for compilers and Sun hates Linux. The list goes on and on and on.
Obviously you don’t keep up with the hate-posts that are directed at Sun which seems to occur on a regular basis on osnews.com.
I really don’t keep up with those. I didn’t even know they (the hate-posts about Sun) existed.
I’m sorry but I’ve never seen those conspiracy theories. Since when has Sun been a part of MiSCOsoft? AFAIK Sun is releasing software here there and everywhere under OSI approved licenses. But yeah, I’ve probably been mentally sleeping.. sowwy
Heh… haven’t seen those lies. There cannot be many of those posts. I’d like to see links to these posts, because I haven’t seen any of those. I suppose they are extremely rare compared with hate-posts against Linux, Gnome, Windows and Mac OS X.
Who believes Solaris only runs on SPARC? O_o
One doesn’t need to look far for anti-Sun rhetoric from the cheap seats. Just look through osnews.com diatribes that reach slashdot like conspiracy theories about some sort of ‘axis of evil’ consisting of Microsoft, Sun and SCO.
Sticks and stones. There are some rabid anti-Linux (Open)Solaris fans and BSD fans, and quite a bit of it shows up on OSnews and Slashdot. It comes with the territory. You make an operating system, you’re going to get both fanboys and haters.
The continuingn lies that “OpenSolaris” isn’t fully opensource, the lies that Solaris only runs on SPARC, the lies that you have to pay for compilers and Sun hates Linux. The list goes on and on and on.
I don’t think anyone believes or has even asserted that Solaris only runs on SPARC. There was a time that Sun decided to stop releasing Solaris for x86, but that lasted less than a year if I recall.
And as for Sun hating Linux, they did (still do, in many ways), although it was more of a love/hate relationship. They hated that users ditched Solaris for Linux on the low and mid end in droves. They were happy to use the SCO lawsuit as a selling point for Solaris (McNeally did this, I can’t imagine that’s something Schwartz would do). McNeally especially has altnerated between loving Linux and saying that it has no business in corporate IT (right when Solaris for x86 was introduced, coincidentally). They had to use Linux for the Sun Java Desktop (which didn’t include the word Linux) because Solaris x86 had atrophied so bad as Sun’s red-headed stepchild most desktop hardware wouldn’t work with it.
Now they’re on the right track, but Sun’s misfortunes are entirely their own doing, not Linux.
I’m all for a good robust debate; and yes, there are Linux advocates who do take Solaris ot the cleaners and debate the merits. I have nothing against that.
Good robust debates allow both sides to point out the flaws, and then given the opportunity to correct them. What I am against is the knee jerk approach to Solaris, almost like a form of self defence.
But we have people who come in and claim “oooh, but you have to use expensive Sun hardware”, then claim that Sun doesn’t make x86 hardware. Just look through the past posts.
Pardon? Sun *NEVER* slammed Linux – they slammed Novell and Redhat – these are companies, not charieties. What Sun has bought up is whether these distributions are willing to stand up for customers when push came to shove over intellectual property issues – thats a perfectly valid issue to bring up! why slam him for that!
Regarding Java Desktop Environment; it was killed for reasons outside Solaris, but the opensource Solaris pretty much killed the need for it; it was now opensource and available free, and it could be extended by developers for free. It was now possible to offer Solaris as the ‘low cost’ as it is now opensource.
Of course, no one ever denied that. What angered many of us ‘Sun fanboys’ was the fact that Linux was gaining, and Solaris could have easily repelled this ‘invasion’ had Sun focused development in the x86 area. Johnathon see’s this, and has made changes.
The problem what I see is when people make stupid statements like “oooh, it doesn’t include top” then base Solaris sucks all on that. Completely ignoring the fact that Solaris has prstat which gives a much better over view, or better still, if they want indepth performance monitoring, they would be alot better off learning dtrace.
“But we have people who come in and claim “oooh, but you have to use expensive Sun hardware”, then claim that Sun doesn’t make x86 hardware. Just look through the past posts.”
There’s no accounting for human stupidity.
“The problem what I see is when people make stupid statements like “oooh, it doesn’t include top” then base Solaris sucks all on that.”
There will always be those kind of people. Heck, I use OpenBSD so I know everything about being on the irrationally hated end
What we should do is just ignore them and mod them down but I have to admit that it is oh so tempting to fight ignorance. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and likewise are forums littered with flamewars.
Oh how I wish for the good old days, when you had to earn the right to use a computer, the bar was set high and morons were relegated to playing their Atari 2600 whilst playing cops ‘in robbers with their friends.
I’m all for a good robust debate; and yes, there are Linux advocates who do take Solaris ot the cleaners and debate the merits. I have nothing against that.
Good robust debates allow both sides to point out the flaws, and then given the opportunity to correct them. What I am against is the knee jerk approach to Solaris, almost like a form of self defence.
Fanboys and robust debate usually don’t associate with each other. Not to say there isn’t robust debate, but most OS bragging is like the Sox versus the Yankees. And it could be said that Solaris users have a knee jerk reaction to Linux.
But we have people who come in and claim “oooh, but you have to use expensive Sun hardware”, then claim that Sun doesn’t make x86 hardware. Just look through the past posts.
I’ve seen comments against Sun that are fair, and some that are unfair. But I’ve never seen any of those two claims. Everyone in the Linux world knows, whether they like Solairs/OpenSolaris or not, that it runs on non-Sun x86 hardware. Everyone knows Sun started offering AMD systems a few years ago, and everyone was glad they did (the low-end SPARC processors were embarrassingly slow).
Pardon? Sun *NEVER* slammed Linux – they slammed Novell and Redhat – these are companies, not charieties. What Sun has bought up is whether these distributions are willing to stand up for customers when push came to shove over intellectual property issues – thats a perfectly valid issue to bring up! why slam him for that!
About a year ago I did some research on this, and found some really odd McNeally quotes. It really was Jeckyl/Hyde with him on the topic of Linux. One minute he was walking on stage in a penguin suit (really, he did) to show his love for enterprise Linux, and then he’s saying that Linux is a toy for hobbiests and “has no place in IT”. I’m not saying Sun shouldn’t compete with Linux, it was the love/hate thing that I found so strange.
And as for the SCO thing, that hurt them more than it helped them. Their entire market, the one they want to take back, is Linux users. The SCO suit is a very, very touchy subject for them, so when McNeally pulled that, pulled the FUD thing, it really soured a lot of people towards Sun.
As for Java Desktop, it took a while before they had fixed x86 up enough for the desktop (Solaris x86 was always great as a server) before it could replace Linux in the Java Desktop, and it was one of their priorities to do so. It was a little embarrassing that they couldn’t “eat their own dogfood” at first, so to speak, but they fixed that.
There was a time when Sun really needed Linux, and needed it badly. Solaris x86 had long been the red-headed stepchild of Sun. Disparaged as a toy platform, it didn’t get worked on much even when they were releasing it. Then all of a sudden, Sun releases that it needs a desktop platform, and it needs a better low-end offering, and SPARC isn’t going to cut it. Solaris x86, recently revived, isn’t ready yet, especially for the desktop. Sun falls in love with Linux.
Now, OpenSolaris and Solaris x86 are coming along, Sun is back to disparaging Linux. Fortunately, Schwartz is a mellower guy, who doesn’t seem to subscribe to the zero-sum school of competition. Or possibly, he’s just more pragmatic. He realizes Solaris growth will come from Linux, and pissing people off isn’t a good way to court customers.
Edited 2007-05-25 13:51
I don’t think the Linux community is lying about Solaris. I think you’re giving us more credit than we deserve. Many of us simply don’t know that much about Solaris, especially about the very recent developments in the OpenSolaris Project. We assume that it must be harder for community members to get patches accepted because it’s somewhat controlled by a single company protecting its unique business interests. The last numbers I read concerning community patches accepted into OpenSolaris was almost pathetic–less than 100 total, if I remember correctly. Maybe it’s 200 by now. That’s about a week’s worth of patches in the Linux kernel alone.
Solaris is not the first giant codebase that Sun has opened, and Java won’t be the last. But I’m still looking for a reason to believe that OpenSolaris won’t turn out the same as OpenOffice, where over 90% of the work is still done by Sun. I don’t doubt that they are trying, and I appreciate that they are fully embracing free software licensing, but their community building has to get a lot better. I’m not sure how you do that. I’d be hard pressed to name any project that lived a long life as a proprietary product and is now thriving as a community-oriented OSS project. That transition seems to be a challenge that not even the most OSS-savvy vendors have been able to solve.
Part of the animosity from the Linux crowd, particularly from the knowledgeable fraction of the Linux community, comes from the fact that Sun wants to split the bubble. The GPL works by establishing an intellectual property bubble that protects our work from proprietary vendors so long as we all share the same bubble. Unfortunately, the GPLv3, as good as it may be, represents a new bubble that isn’t compatible with the slight variant of the GPLv2 used by the Linux kernel. Sun wants to build there OSS kernel in this new bubble, unable to benefit from the work being done in the Linux bubble, and vice-versa. This is as much Linus’ fault as it is Sun’s fault. IMHO, the removal of the “or later version” provision was a mistake that we cannot easily fix.
Choice is regularly cited as either a key strength or a fundamental weakness of OSS. I think choice is generally a good thing, especially if users have a choice of vendors that make the difficult choices for them. But choice is bad if the different projects cannot share. A choice between Linux and Solaris would be awesome if they could share their work wherever it makes sense. But a choice between two source-incompatible kernels is just not that appealing.
It’s especially not very appealing to Linux kernel developers. I doubt that many of them would have a problem working on a hypothetical GPLv2 OpenSolaris, where their work could benefit both kernels. But Sun is asking Linux kernel developers to quit working on Linux and begin working on OpenSolaris, where their work cannot benefit Linux. The vast majority of Linux kernel developers are very happy with the way the project is going and don’t want to leave it behind. I think that a smaller majority of Linux hackers are interested in OpenSolaris, but not enough to undertake what amounts to a religious conversion.
If OpenSolaris is to take off, then it has to target two main constituencies. First, as Schwartz noted, they’ve got to reach the college kids, and even younger kids. Once they start hacking on Linux, they’re very unlikely to leave that behind, as I just argued. Many college CS/CE students show up to freshman orientation these days with Linux on their laptops. At that point, Sun has all but lost the battle. Next, they’ve got to get hardware and software vendors involved in development. Linux has had success in this area, and I think that a large part of this has to do with the fact that Linux is not bound to any big computer giant. These giants have no problem collaborating on Linux even as they compete vigorously with one another. But would IBM and HP feel comfortable contributing to Solaris? Intel wants their chips in Sun boxes, but do they want to contribute lots of development resources to Solaris?
Sun’s growth as a predominantly free software vendor will be interesting to watch. I hope they don’t fragment the development community as I fear they might, because that wouldn’t be a good thing for users. I hope the Linux kernel project can find a way to eventually get most of their code under the GPLv3 so that OpenSolaris and Linux can share. Maybe the projects will eventually converge back into one. Maybe we’ll see the evolution of common driver interfaces. I think we need to ask ourselves what problems are only being solved by one (or none) of the projects. Can we get around these issues by mutually adopting GPLv3? Are these differences deeply technical or philosophical to the point of being irreconcilable?
As long as Linux and OpenSolaris can collaborate to advance free software systems, then Sun has my support on their OpenSolaris efforts. But if they can’t, my allegiance remains with Linux.
The last numbers I read concerning community patches accepted into OpenSolaris was almost pathetic–less than 100 total, if I remember correctly. Maybe it’s 200 by now. That’s about a week’s worth of patches in the Linux kernel alone.
A number of problems with your argument:
1) Solaris is much more advanced than Linux so naturally the number of bugs are smaller
2) Most of the Linux patches are for software coded by college kids. Do you see the same number of patches for code done by Linus or Andrew Morton or other seasoned developers?
You work on AIX – do you think we’d be seeing the same number of patches as Linux if IBM were to open up AIX?
When reading that post from you compared with your earlier post makes me think “double standard”.
His point is that people can’t easily contribute to OpenSolaris, which is true. To submit code you have to run it by a Sun staff member first, and there is a whole process to doing that. Sun knows this isn’t typical for OSS (and I assume they know it sucks), and they’re said to be working on it.
I can imagine how hard it would be for a closed software house to open their work up to joe on the street.
But whatever you do, don’t think that OpenSolaris has few community patches because it is less buggy. It has plenty of bugs and even more room for improvement. 69 fixes were delivered already today, for instance: http://bugs.opensolaris.org/search.do?process=1&category=&subcatego…
Yes, but at the same time, look at their arc process; rather than simply merging in code, and working out the issues later; its actually tested; making sure that the code is up to the coding standards set by the OpenSolaris community. If it means that some impatient submitters don’t come on board, then so be it, its a small price to pay to maintain code quality.
Oh, and in reply to the, quite frankly, bullcrap spread by Butters, Sun *DOES NOT CONTROL* OpenSolaris – they are but a couple of players on the OpenSolaris board; OpenSolaris is now overwhelmingly controlled by the community *NOT* Sun.
This is more anti-Sun rhetoric from IBM and IBM employees; they’ve now got nothing to whine about now; Java is being opensourced, Solaris is being opensourced and ported to PowerPC and x86 support is improving.
IBM would like you to think that Sun is dying, that SPARC is dying, that Sun isn’t committed to Solaris or x86. As rapper said “don’t believe the hype” – this is the case with IBM. Don’t believe the hype, look at the facts.
> His point is that people can’t easily contribute to OpenSolaris, which is true. To submit code you have to run it by a Sun staff member first, and there is a whole process to doing that.
This is not correct. As somebody who has direct commit access to certain OpenSolaris projects and not employed by Sun, I can that the rules of contribution is project dependent.
1) Solaris is much more advanced than Linux so naturally the number of bugs are smaller
I’m sure you realize that patch != bug. Most patches are new functionality (including new hardware support) or assorted improvements (improved interfaces, performance enhancements, simplifications, etc). Also, the Linux kernel development model relies on keeping patches small and splitting large code drops into a series of logically distinct patches.
2) Most of the Linux patches are for software coded by college kids. Do you see the same number of patches for code done by Linus or Andrew Morton or other seasoned developers?
This is either ignorance or trolling, and since I know your history on OSNews, I’ll go ahead and call you out for being a troll–and a bad one at that. About 10% of all Linux kernel patches come from Red Hat alone. IBM, Intel, Novell, HP, Oracle, and Sun are consistently among the top contributors to the Linux kernel. Linux kernel development is increasingly dominated by an alliance between the world’s largest computer giants and the commercial Linux vendors. It’s still the kernel of choice for aspiring hackers in college, but Linux depends on that more for mindshare than for development bandwidth.
do you think we’d be seeing the same number of patches as Linux if IBM were to open up AIX?
I reject the premise…
Patches, AIX hehehehehe
Wandering slightly off topic here
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netstat -r still isn’t working right and we still get LVM lockups under heavy IO where I work.
In Solaris this stuff just works. Like it should if it was written properly in the first place.
The reason Linux needs so many patches is that its not mature and the code is in constant flux – the original poster is comparing apples and oranges. Compare Opensolaris patches to *BSD ones for a truer picture, maybe its red apples and green apples, but apples none the less.
I think that comparing the open source paradigms of Linux and Open Solaris is a bit like comparing apples (excuse that) to oranges. Linux is a true community project from the ground up that is firmly founded on the philosophy of FOSS. Open Solaris, on the other hand, comes from Sun, which exists to make money by selling its boxes. And this latter point is key – Sun wants to sell more boxes. Solaris was one of the carrots used to get people to buy Sun boxes.
Opening up Solaris is one way to get more people on board with the Sun “religion” and building a pipeline of people who will want to buy Sun boxes now or later. The other thing that Sun hopes to gain is improvements to the Solaris code base from the OSS community. Here, the issue of licensing becomes important. Sun still sells a non-open version of Solaris for its own boxes. They want to ensure that they can continue to use code developed for Open Solaris in their for-sale versions of Solaris. Can they do this with GPL? I don’t think so, at least not with GPLv2 (please correct me if I am wrong on this). I think that the whole Open Solaris paradigm is similar to that followed by Darwin (for Apple) before it became defunct. But I will say that Sun is following through with this much better than the Darwin project ever did, and is providing some great capability to the OSS community.
As for the quality and maturity of Solaris code, it is close to the top of the list of the various *nixes out there. I have used it extensively in the past, and even several years ago it was very solid and reliable. And Sun builds excellent boxes to run it on.
Finally, a comment about statements made about a possible conspiracy between Sun and MS (lets forget about SCO). I have worked with Sun for many years, and I can categorically say that until very recently, the mere mention of MS in Sun circles was enough to be branded a pariah. I have worked for major Government integrators for years, and with more and more requirements surrounding the Sun core customers (Intel and Command and Control) being mandated to be based on MS products, I and my colleagues asked Sun to develop interoperability solutions. I won’t say that I was spit on and kicked back then, but it came close. But recently, under Schwartz, the tide has turned and a number of viable interoperabiltiy solutions are available and actively marketed.
There’s my two (or maybe three) cents – flame away ;-)!
McNealy ran the car off the road when he decided to focus Sun’s public image on beating Microsoft; despite the fact that Sun didn’t really compete head-to-head against Microsoft in the Office market. Was this merely sleight-of-hand to keep investors from noticing that Sun was getting dinged in the server market by IBM, HP, and others? Who knows.
My hope (for Sun) is that Schwartz keeps his eye on the fact that “Sun” == “Servers/Workstations” and “Sun” = “Solaris/Linux”, rather than “Sun” == “Java” or “Sun == “StarOffice”. It’s the only way back to prosperity for the company.
If you look at their stock price and filings then I would say Sun is gone. Here is what is wrong:
1) Services: Caught on way too late and there are already others out there that do it better.
2) CPU’s: AMD and Intel are eating Sun’s lunch with respect to CPU’s. HP was smart enough to move architectures when they did.
3) Hardware: You name it and other companies have better hardware without the drop of the side of the cliff problem.
4) Java: Ok there is some interest in Java, but Sun has consistently shown how incapable it is making money off it.
5) OpenOffice: Oh yeah come on this one is lost. As sad as it sounds Microsoft Office is the premier package.
There is no real way for Sun to carve out a niche for itself that others have not already filled.
As for 2) and 3) they are no longer true. They have switched to AMD for many of their machines and their new sparc based CPUs really are different from anything else on the market. On the hardware side the new Sun AMD based servers can match anything else on the market in price, quality and performance.
> 1) Services: Caught on way too late and there are already others out there that do it better.
To make your statement true you should have stated “rob you better”. Sun are better at engineering and very bad at hype.
> 2) CPU’s: AMD and Intel are eating Sun’s lunch with respect to CPU’s. HP was smart enough to move architectures when they did.
Yeah, do HP make good printers…
> 3) Hardware: You name it and other companies have better hardware without the drop of the side of the cliff problem.
I can tell that you have never owned any Sun equipment. You are just plain wrong.
> 4) Java: Ok there is some interest in Java, but Sun has consistently shown how incapable it is making money off it.
Other than server,software, and licensing, A couple of years ago MS gave them a hell of a lot of money to settle a certain court case and patents.
> 5) OpenOffice: Oh yeah come on this one is lost. As sad as it sounds Microsoft Office is the premier package.
I haven’t used MS office for years, and I don’t miss it! Maybe you should ‘think’ before you hand over money to Microsoft next time you upgrade MS Office. It is NOT worth it!
He he he. I love when people bring up; its like killing an elephant with an atom bomb; it doesn’t require much work.
HP simultaneously killed off Alpha and MIPS (which was used in the Tandem computers sold) in favour of Itanium – yeap, like thats been a roaring success. Within one quarter, Sun sells more SPARCs than the whole of the Itanium market did in a year. Pretty pathetic given that Itanium was mean to go head to head with the old school RISC vendors.
Maybe that is the problem, Sun’s hardware is *too* good
you can update and upgrade existing hardware without dumping the whole machine; for enterprise customers, a Sun machine is seen as a 10+ year investment, not something that can be rolled over every 3 years because some new fad has come along.
Compare that to IBM and their policies on compatibility, both hardware and software – little wonder that even with fastest machines put out by IBM, Sun is still shipping more machines in volume than IBM; and unlike IBM, Sun is actually turning a profit on their whole UNIX business.
I think the issue is; what is missing? everytime I hear a bashing from the cheap seats of this, I ask, what is missing. I’m sure there are some things but those who complain can never put their finger on it. Its the excuse of saying something sucks without giving justification.
“what is missing?”
For me personally, a revamped UI primarily. Functionally, OOo has what 95%+ of people require out of an office suite. I know I’m in the minority here, but I actually like the new UI in Office 2007 – it is a step forward, and something did need to be done. Release after release before it, if there was a new feature that couldn’t be found a more suitable home then it got added to the Tools menu. Fine at first but the Tools menu within the relevant Office 2003 apps just became a collection of completely unrelated components.
Also, a fairly high number of feature requests (over 50% IIRC) were for features which were already available – it was just that people obviously didn’t realise they were there.
So I commend MS for their efforts on the new Office UI. However, that said I wouldn’t want OOo to mimic Office’s UI – far from it. The OOo devs could come up with a better solution and whilst the product is feature-complete for a majority of people I think now is the right time in the product’s development period for ‘nicities’ to be given more attention.
Just IMHO…