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Sun wants people to pay for StarOfficeSun wants people to pay for StarOfficePosted Sep 21, 2004 17:09 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: OpenOffice: A legal Trojan horse--but for whom? (ZDNet) ... but they also want the rest of the world's help for OpenOffice. So they'll imply, but not state clearly, that they have negotiated legal protection for StarOffice but not for OpenOffice. I'm not particularly worried about any potential patent issue related to file formats, by the way. The day Microsoft threatens a patent action based on one of its file formats is the day that every well-managed company comes up with a plan to move its valuable IP out of that file format.
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Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 21, 2004 18:23 UTC (Tue) by lolando (subscriber, #7139) [Link] > The day Microsoft threatens a patent action based on one of its file> formats is the day that every well-managed company comes up with a plan to > move its valuable IP out of that file format.
I think the problem is right there: "well-managed". If companies were "well-managed", they'd have switched years ago. People have been warning against proprietary data formats for years, they've been warning against proprietary (hence non-provably) (in)secure software, they've been warning against vendor lock-in and monopolistic abuse.
Either most companies aren't "well-managed", which I could agree with given the sample of one that is the entirety of my personal experience, or "well-managedness" has no influence (or bad influence) on decisions like these, which is what management tries to convince you of (by repeatedly avoiding the subject).
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 21, 2004 22:29 UTC (Tue) by pjhacnau (subscriber, #4223) [Link] But there's a big difference between "potential" risks and being sued. Look how fast Ernie Ball was able get all MS software out of the company after the BSA picked on them.
Yes they're a relatively small company but I think the example can translate to other companies.
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 22, 2004 11:42 UTC (Wed) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link] I believe that, in most companies (especially the larger ones), "well-managed" is defined as "whatever makes the sales force happiest." ANYTHING proposed by the IT staff which gives them cause to complain is usually frowned upon by the top-level management (many of whom probably came from sales to start with). MS software is entrenched at such companies because a) it's compatible with what their clients are using (again, MS software) and b) the sales force already understands it. Give the sales force a choice between making IT fight the occasional virus fire, and losing the fancy bells-and-whistles provided by the Outlook / Exchange combo, they'll happily accept the viruses.
Remember too, that for publicly-held companies, "well-managed" is also defined as (in preference to the above) "has a rising stock price." Wall Street isn't going to punish companies for outbreaks of MS-related viruses, because the analysts and large purchasers have already accepted them as part of the accepted standard (i.e., "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft") for doing business.
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 21, 2004 18:43 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] Given the amount of Outlook-specific viruses out there in corporate networks, I'd think there aren't too many "well managed" companies...
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 21, 2004 19:42 UTC (Tue) by dmaxwell (guest, #14010) [Link] Perhaps it is time for a fork. Hosted by OSDL perhaps. You have to assign copyrights to have contributions accepted into Openoffice which Sun can then use in Staroffice if they so desire. Since Sun is selling Openoffice down the river to MS, I don't think they need community copyright assignments anymore.
Incidentally since it is Sun that released under the GPL, it is Sun that has asserted they had the legal right to release everything in it. I don't think their little agreement with MS is going to save them if a defendant ever decides Sun could use some of the fun too.
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 21, 2004 22:46 UTC (Tue) by lakeland (subscriber, #1157) [Link] I don't think a fork is such a smart idea. For a start there are very few developers outside sun working on OO.o, so I would expect any such fork to struggle. However, I seem to recall reading (here?) about a project to convert OO to a more standard build system in the hopes of attacting external developers.
Personally I think OO.o is an ugly piece of software and best got rid of, but until KOffice is ready to take the stress it is extremely useful to have around. So my personal preference would be for it to struggle along for a couple more years before dying. However, I think that I'm in the minority on this view :-)
Sun wants people to pay for StarOffice Posted Sep 22, 2004 0:12 UTC (Wed) by eyal (subscriber, #949) [Link] And what makes you think that KOffice will be exempt from M$ patent lawyers?
M$ has been filing thousands of patents on just about everything. Most of them are probably invalid, but neither OpenOffice.org nor the KDE project have the money to prove it in a court.
Eyal.
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