The Guardian: If This Suite's a Success, Why Is It So Buggy?

Dec 10, 2005, 05:00 (30 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Andrew Brown)

"Of all the myths that have grown up around open source software, perhaps the most pervasive is Eric Raymond's aphorism that 'Many eyes make bugs shallow,' suggesting that if lots of people can view a program's source code, they will find and fix its errors more quickly than commercial products whose code is jealously guarded. The only problem with this is that it's not true--certainly not in one of the flagship projects of open source, OpenOffice.

"This project is most often quoted as the threat to Microsoft's cash-generating Office suite. The free suite comprises a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program; and graphics, equation editor and database programs if you want..."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• eWeek: Why OpenOffice.org 2.0 Is Your Best Choice(Oct 22, 2005)
• Editor's Note: The Empire's New Clothes(Sep 24, 2005)
• ONLamp: Opening the Potential of OpenOffice.org(Sep 20, 2005)
• IT Manager's Journal: The New Normal: No Room for Open Source?(Jun 10, 2005)