Behind the KOffice split [LWN.net]

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 8:18 UTC (Wed) by ingwa (subscriber, #71149)
In reply to: Behind the KOffice split by mrshiny
Parent article: Behind the KOffice split

I think most people are missing the point here. For KHTML, the code was copied from the KDE repository by Apple and then developed away from the community for a long time until it was released as a big code dump with so many changes that it was basically impossible to merge back into the main branch.

In the case with KOffice / Calligra and Nokia, the code is developed inside the main repository and committed one bugfix or feature at a time. For new features and complex bugfixes there is a review process using the KDE review board.

The situations have almost nothing in common.

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Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 14:18 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> The situations have almost nothing in common.

For now?

Since you seem to know the situation well, could you please remind us what are the respective licences of all these?

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 14:50 UTC (Wed) by ingwa (subscriber, #71149) [Link]

Well, it's difficult to tell the future, but I have seen no signs of any change in the approach.

Regarding licenses, the majority of Calligra is under LGPL with some small parts under GPL. All code contributions so far have been under LGPL.

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 17:07 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (subscriber, #64513) [Link]

I think most people are missing the point here. For KHTML, the code was copied from the KDE repository by Apple and then developed away from the community for a long time until it was released as a big code dump with so many changes that it was basically impossible to merge back into the main branch.

Indeed. After the community complained, however, Apple opened their repositories, and eventually produced the open-source WebKit engine -- a project which Apple still sponsors (and employs the lead developer(s)) to this day.