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| <h2>Interview: Ed Peterlin and Dan Williams:<br> |
| OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X </h2> |
| <p><em>2002-07-25</em></p> |
| <br> |
| <h4>Introduction</h4> |
| <p>The first Mac OS X port of OpenOffice.org (638c) was released at Apple's <a href="http://developer.apple.com/wwdc2002/">World |
| Wide Developer Conference</a>, on May 7. OpenOffice.org was there in strength: |
| we had a very popular booth and Ed Peterlin presented an exciting demonstration |
| of the build before an audience of Open Source developers. (More on this soon.)</p> |
| |
| <p>In the months since then, the two community contributors primarily responsible |
| for the Mac OS X port, Ed Peterlin and Dan Williams, have substantially furthered |
| their work; although it is still a developer release, it now runs using OpenOffice.org |
| 1.0 and can be immediately <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html">downloaded</a>. |
| It also, with some limitations, saves files and prints. The following is a very |
| slightly edited e-mail interview conducted over a few days last May. The build |
| Ed and Dan refer to in conversation is the older build, 638c. If you are curious |
| about what the updated port (1.0) does and does not do, Dan prepared an excellent |
| <a href="../about_us/pressfaq_ooo-osx.html">FAQ</a>.</p> |
| <br> |
| <h4>The People</h4> |
| |
| <p>I have never met Dan Williams; but I did spend a lot of time during WWDC with |
| Ed Peterlin, and I would love to have the talent to put to paper his energy, |
| enthusiasm, and dedication to this project. Both Ed and Dan don't seem to sleep; |
| OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X is their hobby.</p> |
| <br> |
| <h5>Ed Peterlin</h5> |
| |
| <p>Ed's day job is at <a href="http://www.biopac.com">BIOPAC Systems, Inc.</a>, |
| where he is responsible for Macintosh development. In his words: "I write |
| software for displaying and analyzing physiological signals, such as heartbeat |
| and muscle response, that are acquired from our MP hardware." But what |
| drew him to OpenOffice.org?</p> |
| <p>"I grew interested in OpenOffice.org through using |
| StarOffice on Solaris boxes a few years ago. Having no other office solution |
| for a Solaris machine, I became quite impressed with its capabilities and |
| usability. Even at BIOPAC I've used OpenOffice.org when we ran out of licenses |
| for MSFT Office but had to read technical documents that were written in Word. |
| When I heard an OS X port was released to the open source community, I felt |
| interested in bringing this solution that had proven so useful to me in the |
| past to one of my favorite platforms. I joined the OpenOffice.org project |
| the weekend after I got a machine capable of running OS X, around July-September |
| of last year.</p> |
| |
| <p>"I became interested in Macs as an extension of the old Apple IIe, my first |
| computer. I was in an Apple-based school system, and after I outgrew my IIe |
| a Mac was the next best step. Not to mention that at the time I could get a IIe emulator |
| card and still play my favorite video games."</p> |
| <br> |
| |
| <h5>Dan Williams</h5> |
| <p>"By day I am an undergraduate Anthropology major |
| specializing in Archaeology (screw Cultural [Anthropology], Archaeology is |
| where the real fun is), which is partially where I get the time to work on |
| OpenOffice.org. I have fun making databases that store and analyze spatial |
| data, and have an active interest in Geographic Information Systems and developing |
| their potential in Archaeology.</p> |
| <p>"After hearing a lot about StarOffice, trying it |
| out on Linux, and seeing it as really the only viable alternative to Microsoft |
| Office on any platform, I became interested in OpenOffice.org. I looked at |
| it, said, This is cool. It had everything I thought should be |
| in an office suite, and I decided that MS Office wasn't anything special after |
| seeing how good StarOffice was. I thought that, since it wasn't on Mac and |
| I had Unix and Mac OS programming experience, I'd help it get there.</p> |
| |
| <p>"I got my start with an Apple IIe back in early elementary school, graduated |
| to a Mac LCIII, bought Think C back when it <em>wasn't</em> a Symantec product, |
| and taught myself Mac programming though books. It was amazing that I could |
| create programs that did stuff like professional programs did. From there I |
| kept buying copies of CodeWarrior and keeping up on new Toolbox stuff. When |
| I first used Unix I was impressed, but the Mac was still better to use. When |
| Mac OS X came along, I got very excited because of the power of its Unix base. |
| And because StarOffice was on Unix, it could be on Mac OS X too."</p> |
| |
| <br> |
| <h4>About the Port</h4> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "The build [638c for Mac OS X] was the first of many milestones |
| that the Mac OS X porting effort reached. For the last year, everyone working |
| on the Mac OS X porting project has been staring at error messages coming out |
| of the development tools, and the 638c developer build represented the first |
| time we'd been able to get OpenOffice.org to launch.</p> |
| <p>"I have been impressed with just how much of the |
| software appears to be functional, a real testament to the engineers who originally |
| designed OpenOffice.org with the foresight that it would be moved into new |
| platforms. Even while watching people play with the demo machine at WWDC I |
| was continually amazed to see just how much works. That said, there's still |
| quite a ways to go.</p> |
| |
| <p>"Our Quartz native graphics layer is not yet complete, so we can't run the first |
| build on Mac OS X without additional software to allow us to use the X11 graphics |
| layer. We are still lacking several key features, such as printing, and have |
| issues with saving files. Other features such as the ability to use Java code, |
| Mozilla LDAP support, and play sound during presentations are also broken. There's |
| a whole litany of missing features on our <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/roadmap.html">roadmap |
| webpage</a> that need to be implemented before we reach 1.0.</p> |
| |
| <p>"When 1.0 is released [it's just been <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/">released</a>—LSP], |
| we'll have one of the best office suites available for Darwin and Mac OS X. |
| It will be feature complete with OpenOffice.org 1.0 on the other first tier |
| platforms, and it will still look like OpenOffice.org does on other platforms. |
| After that, we want to make the best <em>Mac</em> office suite possible for |
| Mac OS X. I hope we'll have enough developers to begin including the Aqua look |
| and feel, use sheets and drawers, implement collapsible toolbars, and perhaps |
| even integrate with QuickTime and other features of OS X. This will help us |
| to truly deliver a great Mac OS X experience without sacrificing the familiarity |
| and power OpenOffice.org brings from its Windows and Unix heritage."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong> "First, the Aqua VCL build needs to actually compile, |
| then we need to fill in the missing implementations. Next, the look and feel |
| needs to be customized to match the Mac OS X user experience and the nuances |
| that Mac users have come to expect. I believe that that's where the most work |
| lies, and that's where the most fun will be had: watching a real office suite |
| take on an Aqua L&F [look and feel] and come out usable and shining, a pleasure |
| to look at and use.</p> |
| |
| <p>"But not to forget the X11 VCL build either: There are no full office suites |
| available for Darwin, an OpenOffice.org will be the best one when we're done |
| with it. I don't think either of these will happen for months, but we're working |
| toward these goals, having a lot of fun and frustration getting there, and feeling |
| that we're contributing something that will be much used and greatly appreciated."</p> |
| |
| <br> |
| <h4>The Group</h4> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong><em> How many of you were working on the project?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "There were about ten overall contributors to the OS X port |
| since before it was open sourced. All were volunteers from the community and |
| played around with OpenOffice.org in their spare time, mostly looking into how |
| to fix up the errors that made us unable to compile the project. Three developers |
| were active during the few months leading up to our initial milestone release."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong> "Like Ed said, there were about ten people in various levels |
| of participation on the project. When it was released, some people took a stab |
| at it, but there wasn't a critical mass of committed enough people to move it |
| forward. I guess they got discouraged and probably put OpenOffice.org aside |
| for a while. Then others came along and began to slowly move forward (and I |
| mean slowly) with the build. Once a couple of people had an idea of what was |
| going on and how to get things going, that attracted more people. Along the |
| way a number of small but significant successes (X11 build, VCL bug in 10.1) |
| contributed hope and the sense that <em>something</em> was happening."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>How did you arrange work?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "We ended up arranging our work just through contacting |
| each other by e-mail and instant messaging. We were all kind of doing the same |
| thing, fixing build errors, until the final push when we just decided what we |
| wanted to do: come up with installers, write frequently asked questions, etc. |
| With only a few people, it was relatively easy to find hard lines between tasks … |
| one person to author it (or program it), and another to proof it (or test it). |
| When more people join the project, however, it will be essential to use a good |
| collaboration tool such as CollabNet provides. Not only does it provide a good |
| way of disseminating information outside of a core group, it provides historical |
| archives and perspectives. Without the ability to see what had been written |
| and coded between April and September, I wouldn't have been able to get up to |
| speed on the project as quickly as I have."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong> "I think the biggest problem that faced the project up |
| until about February 02 was the organizational aspect. There was no one person |
| in charge of the port and so no one had a sense of organization. Everyone felt |
| like they were about the only person working on the thing and that there was |
| so much to do. But now with Ed being the nominal project head, there's more |
| of an idea of how the project is going and what's going on.</p> |
| |
| <p>"There is no formal to-do or responsibility list. People basically just volunteer |
| to work on something. This of course means there is duplication of effort in |
| some areas, but there are still not that many people working and there's lots |
| to do. Besides, more people looking at a piece of code or a build error means |
| more people with ideas on how to fix it. During the ramp-up to WWDC there were |
| about 4 or 5 people who were part of the core Mac OS X/Darwin team who were |
| working on stuff and a couple of people inside Sun [and CollabNet] who were |
| on the marketing part. It was hectic and a bit unorganized but it was a lot |
| of fun and people just kept stepping up to make sure the job got done. Stuff |
| gets done because people volunteer to do it, not because responsibility gets |
| doled out. And because they volunteer, I think they have more of an active interest |
| in getting it done, and are more likely to do a better job, because they want |
| to. Since there were only a couple of people working, it was fairly easy to |
| organize stuff informally, but this will get harder over time as more people |
| join."</p> |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong><em> And how was the group formed?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "Things formed just from people looking at the websites |
| available on OpenOffice.org and through e-mailing each other on the dev@porting |
| list. There was never any official organizational effort, just a bunch of guys |
| who were interested enough to plod through the very raw and incorrect original |
| material up on the websites, correcting it for each other, and starting to help |
| others get on board quickly. We've continued that style of effort, and hopefully |
| we're making the entry curve for the project a lot easier for newcomers."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong> "Like Ed says again, people just got interested, made contact |
| with other people who were also interested, and started asking questions. Those |
| with some answers to give stepped up, and people stuck with it. Those who tried |
| and didn't stick with it probably got discouraged because there was no critical |
| mass of people to work out things with—not enough people who knew what was |
| going on. We hope they come back now: we need them.</p> |
| |
| <p>"There was also a big discussion earlier this year about whether to fork a separate |
| project for the OS X port or whether to keep it in the porting one. We could |
| have had a separate mailing list just for Mac OS X, but we decided to stick |
| within the porting project since that was easiest and guaranteed easier access |
| to other developers who knew what we did not (i.e., general OpenOffice.org stuff |
| and not just Mac)."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>Towards the end, the group was working tightly and |
| somewhat in secrecy; at least not all of the communications were out in <a href="mailto:dev@porting.openoffice.org">dev@porting</a>. |
| What effect did that have on your group?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "A lot of issues that we faced came back to a lack of time. |
| Being able to simply IM [instant message] each other when we were available |
| or communicate off-list allowed us to really concentrate on what we needed to |
| do: code. It unfortunately takes time to answer people's questions on mailing |
| lists and help newcomers to the project, and we simply didn't have the time. |
| As more people join us, we'll be able to divide our efforts so someone can spend |
| the time to continually update our website and respond to the community mailing |
| lists. With only two to three people working two hours a day in varying states |
| of sobriety and trying to hit a major deadline, expending any effort away from |
| coding would have not allowed us to move with such speed."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong> "As of a couple weeks before WWDC, all the important traffic |
| about the OS X/Darwin build was off-list. It was kind of unfortunate because |
| those few people that did post on dev@porting with questions and who were not |
| on the private list didn't know they were out of date, or would be in a week. |
| We couldn't really answer their questions. Anyway, I think the off-list discussions |
| and communication, while not the best for the port as a whole, did enable the |
| members to get the WWDC build working in a very quick and efficient manner with |
| a minimum of static. Plus, the whole press thing, where we could not afford |
| to have the general Mac community get all worked up over a <em>developer</em> |
| build and then get subsequently let-down when they figured out it actually <em>was</em> |
| a developer build. I think the off-list list also enabled the people involved |
| to get to know each other better and to work better as a team to get what needed |
| to be done."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>How long did it take your group to get to this point?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "We did not have a reproducible build process until towards |
| the end of march, and a major bug preventing the OpenOffice.org Writer module |
| from launching wasn't fixed until about the middle of April. It's taken since |
| last April to get this far."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>What was the main stumbling block?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "Technical difficulties present within Mac OS 10.0.x. When |
| Apple released 10.1.x with dual level namespaces, a big roadblock was removed."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>Were there periods when it seemed this effort would |
| fall apart?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "When I started to see the compiler fail on certain |
| files that worked on gcc on other platforms, I started to think that it might |
| not be possible to make headway until Apple fixed the compilers to not segfault. |
| Thankfully a few clever people were able to find workarounds for the faults |
| in the tools. The next set of development tools from Apple should be a lot better |
| for C++ programs and should solve those problems that we didn't have the expertise |
| to solve easily."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>LSP:</strong> <em>Where would you suggest people start?</em></p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Ed:</strong> "I would suggest that everyone start by downloading the |
| pre-alpha milestone binary and start playing with it. :) The amount of time it |
| takes to get up to speed with the initial compile is a while, but I hope that |
| seeing how good the product can be will convince people that the effort is worth |
| it. Also, end users should start there so they can witness what we may be capable |
| of in the future.</p> |
| |
| <p>"The next step is probably to read the <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/roadmap.html">roadmap</a> |
| for the port. It shows you (roughly) where we've been, where we are, and what's |
| left to go. Again, the roadmap is just a reflection of what's been discussed |
| by the community of both Mac OS X and non-OS X porting developers in the past |
| and is always up for commentary or change. Perhaps if we get enough people to |
| help we could even start putting potential dates of completion on it as well …</p> |
| <p>"After getting a compile started from reading the |
| build instructions, it's probably best to start reading some of the white |
| papers describing the architecture of the program. It's quite large and is |
| difficult to get a grasp on without the documentation. Also, it'll help get |
| people familiar with the terminology and acronyms thrown about on the dev |
| lists and other sources of information.</p> |
| |
| <p>"There are links to the binary installer at the top of the <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/">Mac |
| porting page</a>, and there's a pointer to the white papers at the bottom."</p> |
| |
| <p><strong>Dan:</strong>"I'd suggest they sign up with the <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/">Porting |
| project</a>, and <a href="mailto:dev-subscribe@porting.openoffice.org">subscribe</a> |
| to the <a href="mailto:dev@porting.openoffice.org">dev@porting</a> list, then |
| follow the build instructions; and most important, <em>ask questions</em> when |
| things don't work, so we can help. If they just get discouraged and walk off, |
| that doesn't help anybody. But if we can help people see that things can work, |
| then great. We need the help.</p> |
| <p>"I'd like to thank everybody who helped of course, |
| but mention Ed specially, because he's the nominal head of the project and |
| someone had to do it. We can all whine to him when things don't work out and |
| ask him to make it better. But then he'll just tell us to deal with it ourselves |
| and report back how we did."</p> |
| |
| <p>The new version, OpenOffice.org 1.0 for Mac OS X is <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html">available</a> |
| now. Thanks Ed, Dan, and the rest of the <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/">Porting |
| Project</a>.</p> |
| |
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