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The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org
The Apache Software Foundation has felt the need to put out a
lengthy statement on the status of OpenOffice.org as an Apache project.
"As with many highly-visible products, there has been speculation and
conjecture about the future of OpenOffice.org at Apache. More recently,
destructive statements have been published by both members of the greater
FOSS community and former contributors to the original OpenOffice.org
product, suggesting that the project has failed during the 18 weeks since
its acceptance into the Apache Incubator. Whilst the ASF operates in the
open - our code and project mailing lists are publicly accessible - ASF
governance permits for projects to make information and code freely
available when the project deems them ready to be released. Apache
OpenOffice.org is not at risk."
(Log in to post comments)
As an outside observer... Posted Oct 14, 2011 14:47 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
As someone looking from the outside, it seems Apache OpenOffice.org has not started yet.
From what I have seen, they are still preparing the code and the infrastructure. They seem to be busy removing code with other licenses (and finding replacements), merging branches of code which were to be merged for the next release, and preparing the non-code infrastructure. Until they get the whole code in a buildable state (they seem to have managed that already), and purge the code of all the pieces with licenses they do not like (they seem to be still stuck at this, but making progress), they cannot actually start working.
Only after they really get started can we see if they will succeed or not. Judging their future success by the current apparent lack of progress is a mistake.
It does not seem to me that Apache OpenOffice.org is at risk. LibreOffice has an one year and growing head start, but the mere existence of a high-quality LibreOffice is not enough to make Apache OpenOffice.org die.
But how long can they wait? Posted Oct 14, 2011 19:13 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] There are several security holes they haven't fixed, so anyone who wants to open random Microsoft Office files from the net without paying for Microsoft Office had better be using LibreOffice and not OpenOffice.org. If they can't at least get security patches out soon, it would be reckless in the extreme for people not to switch to LibreOffice. Once most of the user base does that, who is going to go back to the people who are a year behind?
But how long can they wait? Posted Oct 15, 2011 16:22 UTC (Sat) by kragilkragil2 (guest, #76172) [Link]
I could be wrong, but OO does not run MSOffice malware. It is not that compatible.
But how long can they wait? Posted Oct 15, 2011 16:54 UTC (Sat) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
JoeBuck was probably mentioning LibreOffice's recent announcement of fixed vulnerabilities, which IIRC were in the code which reads old Microsoft Office documents.
The issue is not exploit documents targeting MS Office and opened by AOOo; the issue is exploit documents targeting the .doc format reader on OOo and opened by either LO or AOOo.
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 14, 2011 21:29 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]
Thinking nobody would move from OpenOffice to LibreOffice is like thinking nobody would move from Mozilla to FireFox (or from there to Chrome). Resting on one's laurels is not a recipe for success, and a year is forever on the internet...
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 14, 2011 22:28 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
I have to ask...is there an "elevator pitch" for Apache OOo that explains why a user would want to install it instead of LibreOffice or some other office suite?
So far the main differences they're talking about are the license and the revision control system, which are certainly subjects that have burned out a lot of carpal tunnels on LWN, but they're pretty snooze-tastic for most office suite users.
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 15, 2011 19:49 UTC (Sat) by AlexHudson (subscriber, #41828) [Link]
The main sell appeared to be the announcements from IBM that they would be donating significant engineering and code contributions, including the Symphony Suite UI (which perhaps does not match Office, but is generally accepted to be a reasonable step ahead of OpenOffice(-based suite)'s current UI.
Whether or not this is going to work is another question. TDF have spent a lot of time ripping stuff out of LibreOffice; taking stuff like the Symphony UI (which is supposedly heavily Eclipse-based) would be adding a large amount to the code base.
LO has been slowly stripping out bits of Java and that kind of thing; IBM's approach with AOOo would almost certainly be in the opposite direction. I think the two products will become very different.
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 18, 2011 9:19 UTC (Tue) by makomk (guest, #51493) [Link]
The license changes are probably a downside for end-users; they're ripping out stuff like the spellchecker because it relies on LGPL libraries. (Also bits of Calc for the same reason, if I recall correctly.)
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 20, 2011 14:40 UTC (Thu) by michaelkjohnson (subscriber, #41438) [Link]
Judging by the contents of most word processor documents I see, people don't actually use spell-check functionality very much, so perhaps losing spell checking capability won't be seen as a great loss?
;-)
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 15, 2011 4:03 UTC (Sat) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]
Increasingly we seem to see large corporations who have alienated a community then try to get public relations points by "donating" code which they don't really "own" to one of the large aggregating projects who are sufficiently greedy and unwise to accept it (presumably with some on-the-side donations). Really, Apache -- you could have exercised better judgment. And Eclipse -- shame on you for helping Oracle's apologetics on their stolen Hudson project.
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 15, 2011 11:21 UTC (Sat) by aristedes (guest, #35729) [Link]
On what basis do you believe that Oracle didn't own these two projects? Sun paid big money for the source code to OpenOffice and contributed wages and resources toward the Hudson project.
Sure, Oracle made serious mistakes in handling these and most of their other community projects (as well as pretty much all of java.net). But that doesn't suddenly vaporise the previous contributions of the people (Sun and Oracle employees) who made it all possible. We should be thankful that they did actually release these two bits of source into the community, along with the patent grants and trademarks. Certainly they did it too late and without much grace, but they did do it.
In the case of OpenOffice, let's just wait and see what happens. There is a large team of enthusiastic developers, a bit of corporate backing (IBM would like to see OO succeed, at the very least) and some good work will hopefully be done. At the very least the Apache donation has put a liberal license on the code, released the trademark from Oracle and contributed a patent grant which benefits the LibreOffice project indirectly.
As for Apache, the judgement of the organisation was purely based on the maximum benefit to the projects, the community and the advancement of open source. You believe that Apache has some duty to punish Oracle, for not giving away their copyright as quickly as armchair critics like you wanted. I can tell you that such politics plays no part in Apache's decisions to support projects into the Incubator.
The Apache Software Foundation statement on Apache OpenOffice.org Posted Oct 15, 2011 12:40 UTC (Sat) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Well, you could take the angle that apache is reducing the chance of either fork by throwing their weight behind one.
I guess you could even take the view that non-copyleft is less free, but.. that's pushing it quite a bit beyond the local context.
I don't really fully subscribe to either, but it does seem like a completely unnecessary project to me. It's not like we have another office suite -- we have essentially the same office suite without the project existing.
These sorts of splits can make sense and work out when there's a core set of goals that two groups want to pursue which are significantly different, but I don't really see that here.
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