Expectations--2007-01-02

It's conventional to make predictions this time of year: around the first. It's equally the case for those predictions to fail in coming to pass. The future, fortunately, is a little more exciting than conventional pundits' imagination would let on and things happen that not only would no one expect but in ways that defy expectations. In a word, it's a trap. So I'll refrain from plunging into the prediction trap and rather list what I would like see occur.

(Well, time passed from the above and I re-read Samuel R. Delany's excellent essays in Shorter Views, in particular, his "Politics of Paraliterary Criticism," which I refer to in my essay on his Atlantis stories. That, and it was exceptionally warm today, well over 45° F, probably close to 50, and so despite the general damp and dark, a perfect day for running through Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. Then night, and we rented Sympathy for Lady Vengeance," which I highly recommend, if only for the beauty of the scenes, a beauty that owes as much to their naïve presentation as to their allusiveness.)

But to wishfuls:

...well, even here it is hard to dive into the simplified bullet points. After all, if I'm thinking wishfuls, then why not wish for Microsoft to abandon its monopolistic practices? Why not wish for it even to open source Windows (something I once asked Jason Mutasow and Bill Hilf about; no, it's not going to happen, I was informed, too complicated) or Office? Why not wish for universal peace? And so on.

So to expectations. I’m afraid these are very obvious, but still:

• ODF will take off. Right now, numerous governments are considering ODF implementations--applications that use it. They haven't committed yet, at least not publicly, but will as the year progresses and as they come to understand the shortcomings of the alternatives. Those shortcomings: With ODF, one is able to use a range of applications and have more say in the design and configuration of them. With the alternatives (or alternative), OOXML (or whatever it's called now), one is left with Microsoft. That's a limiting option. The future, we have seen, lies in add ons and ad hoc innovations. ODF implementations support these, Microsoft Office does not, afaik.

• OpenOffice.org extensions will continue to grow. I fully expect to see us have as many extensions available for download as Firebox--if not more. Arguably, there is even more commercial interest in devising these extensions. And I would certainly hope to see a greater convergence of our extensions and Firebox's.

• OpenOffice.org passes 100 million downloads. Of course the problem is counting them all. The thing about open source downloads is that unless one designs it right, there is no way of knowing how many people are using your application. Sure, some applications, such as Firefox, can be more easily measured, as it’s easy to tell what sort of Web browser one is using. But for OOo, the issue is a lot more complicated. You can find out by seeing how many ODF attachments have been passed around, but that, obviously, doesn’t tell you much, as OOo saves as .doc or whatever. And then there is the fact that many users may have both MS Office and OOo....

I don't expect that all 100M downloads will be by new users; most will probably be by people who are simply upgrading--one has to download the entire thing, after all. And this raises the (often asked) question: how many users are there of OOo? Who can say? I routinely use the number from our registered users (about 6.85M) or hits to the primary download page (35.3M) and Gartner and IDC estimate the number in the double digits of all office suite users. Figure it's somewhere north of 10M and south of 50M, for every Linux user gets OOo free and not all register who do. It gets more fun. One disc is enough for a company--for thousands--and do they register? Nope.

What else? Well, the other expectations have more to do with politics--another blog. I would see a coincidence, though. A lot of governments have expressed interest in ODF/OOo, in part for political reasons: OOo/ODF is cheap(er) or free, and is an antidote to monopoly; it offers a local not quasi-colonialist solution and roadmap to future development. That is, a country using FOSS/OOo/ODF is not selling its future out. It is rather ensuring it will own it. This is a political statement, as much an economic and technical one. And I tend to believe that the politics of the discussion will get even clearer, as the money involved, the issues at stake, are made manifest.