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OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challengesOpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challengesPosted Oct 16, 2008 7:05 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753)Parent article: OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges
Because of Novell's close association with Microsoft, people worry that Go-oo is an underhanded means for another kind of lock-in—this time to Novell. How could this happen as long as the code is under GPL? I don't know enough about the situation to take any sides, but it seems to me that stagnation is a much worse threat to an open source project than forking. As both forks implement ODF, the user gets to choose which fork to use depending on which works better at any given time. A bit of rivalry is a good motivator.
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OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 8:16 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]
Because MS and Novell are associated in promoting .Net under Linux, using slimey legal setups where the licensing may be free, but the patenting is not.
If Novell had the guts to pull all the controversial .Net stuff from go-oo it would certainly get more cross-distro support than it has. Right now it's not clear that go-oo is not a greater evil than sun-ooo (given the progress on the free java side which is not matched by progress on free .Net side).
If SUN is conflicted on control/promotion of OO.o, Novell is certainly conflicted in .Net promotion/go-oo promotion too
I believe this is one big reason Fedora and Red Hat derivatives have dropped go-oo and use sun-ooo nowadays.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 8:45 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (given the progress on the free java side which is not matched by progress on free .Net side).What do you mean by this? Is Mono any less free than free Java? Any software patents that affect one will almost certainly affect the other.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 9:30 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]
Sun has been pretty clear about its support for openjdk. MS has not on mono. And even if core mono was clean, the situation of common .Net libs and interfaces (equivalent to the java class libraries) is currently a legal minefield.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 9:45 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Hm, how's that? Are you alleging that the standard libraries shipped by Mono infringe on Microsoft's copyrights?
If it's patents you are worried about, then the equivalent functionality in Java also infringes. Along with Python, Perl, Ruby, C++, etc.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 10:59 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Sun has been pretty clear about its support for openjdk. MS has not on mono.But since when did it require a company to be 'clear' about its 'support' for any free software project? Did the Unix copyright holders express support for the GNU project? Indeed, even if some company that has a tangential relation to the code is actively hostile, we still confidently assert that independent implementations are free software and can be used and shared freely. Are the same people who fiercely defended Linux against Caldera-SCO FUD and vague 'intellectual property' accusations now actively making those same accusations against Mono, with about as much basis in fact? As I understand it, Microsoft has promised not to assert software patents against the core standardized part of .NET / Mono. (And they have a cross-licensing deal with Sun, just as with Novell, so Java is pretty safe too.) But really, if you are worried about patents, it's not so much Microsoft you should be afraid of as a random patent troll outfit that doesn't have ceasefire agreements in place and has nothing to lose. In general I don't like the idea of pre-emptively cringing in the face of some self-generated FUD. If anyone believes there is a legal minefield, let him come out and state concretely what the problem is, so it can be worked around. This is just the same as ignoring the 'two hundred patents' or whatever nonsense it was that the Linux kernel is supposed to implement.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 11:55 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]
>> Sun has been pretty clear about its support for openjdk. MS has not on mono.
> But since when did it require a company to be 'clear' about its 'support' for any free software project?
Since software patents arrived on the market
> Indeed, even if some company that has a tangential relation to the code is
That's not how patent law works
> As I understand it, Microsoft has promised not to assert software patents
You understand wrong. MS has made some vague statements that only convinced parters which already had a financial relationship with it, and anyway "core standardized part" is a trap when most .Net projects do not check if they're within the "core standardized part" perimeter.
> If anyone believes there is a legal minefield, let him come out and
The problems have been stated and Novell's solutions have not convinced (which is a fact anyone can check by looking at whi ships mono or go-oo, so don't bother arguing against it)
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 12:28 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
Fedora ships mono and they are normally pretty paranoid about any patent liability (witness strict exclusion of MP3 playing code).
However, if you do not trust Microsoft not to assert software patents against Mono, you should not use Java either, since many patents will surely cover both. Nor should you use Linux, which is known to implement hundreds of software patents held by Microsoft and others.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 13:32 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Nor should you use Linux, which is known to implement hundreds of software patents held by Microsoft and others. s/known/alleged by some/ It may well be the case that Linux (the kernel?) infringes one software patent or another. Given the number of crap software patents around, it may even be likely. But so far nobody has deigned to point out even one single specific software patent that Linux is infringing. Which does make one wonder whether this is not just empty sabre-rattling.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 14:52 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Indeed, any nobody has pointed out any single software patent which Mono is infringing. They should be treated the same. Miguel de Icaza gave his view on this issue:The position of the Mono project has always been that we believe .Net includes a lot of innovation along with a good mix of well-known technology. So, if people found a patent infringement, we would take it out. If there's prior art, though, the patent is invalid. This is the way it is done in the open source world. A good example is Freetype. They discovered that they could not use a byte code interpreter for fonts, so they invented a different approach.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 15:38 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] The big difference may be that while you can exist in perfect comfort on a Linux system without using Mono at all, you can't very well do that without the Linux kernel. While possible patent infringement in the Linux kernel is a necessary evil, using Mono just means avoidable exposure. When you are a developer it means basing your code on something that might possibly go away at any time, when perfectly workable alternatives exist that do not carry the same risk at all. Also, these days, attacking the Linux kernel over a software patent essentially means attacking IBM. The one thing you do not want to do in the software patents world is attack IBM, so Linux seems to be reasonably safe. In comparison, Novell is pretty much a non-entity. Personally I have decided that for me, Mono isn't worth the trouble. There is literally nothing written in Mono today that I think is worth having, and I do not find it compelling as a development environment compared to other free alternatives, so until that changes Mono stays off my machine. For the record, I also try to avoid Java stuff wherever I can.
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 22:36 UTC (Thu) by ceplm (guest, #41334) [Link]
Fedora yes, RHEL no. If there are any legal problems, Red Hat will yank Mono out of Fedora before you say "litigation".
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 8:52 UTC (Thu) by AlexHudson (subscriber, #41828) [Link]
> I believe this is one big reason Fedora and Red Hat derivatives have
> dropped go-oo and use sun-ooo nowadays.
I think the situation is that they use "sun-ooo", but cherry-pick patches from go-oo that they want to use. The only real difference is that ooo-build isn't used, but they still rely on & work with go-oo.
Patent Worries Posted Oct 16, 2008 14:16 UTC (Thu) by scripter (subscriber, #2654) [Link] I thought the reason RedHat started shipping mono is because of the open source patent pools that were set up and offered some sense of counter-protection -- see http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2005/12/patent_pools_offer_open_source.html. If that's true, why would go-oo be any different than mono?Maybe I'm completely wrong. If so, please correct me. In any case, it sounds like the threat of patent litigation is chilling participation in go-oo (and mono).
OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges Posted Oct 16, 2008 8:43 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
Because what is happening is that 'people worry'... and people being as they are, they are capable of worrying about almost anything. Particularly when there is some bedtime-story bogeyman lurking behind the scenes.
If you are worried about lock-in, just ask three questions. Do you have freedom to use the software? to change it? to share your changes with others? If so, you are not 'locked in' to Novell any more than to the FSF, Red Hat, Sun, the University of California or any other copyright holder.
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