Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems [LWN.net]

OpenOffice.org has announced a switch to GStreamer for multimedia support. "From a technical point of view, the new GStreamer backend will be enabled by default on Unix systems, but can be disabled via configure with the --disable-gstreamer switch. In this case or in cases where no appropriate library can be found during runtime, a fallback to the old JMF implementation will happen."

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Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 2, 2010 22:17 UTC (Fri) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link] (8 responses)

Oh sweet! Now the upstream OpenOffice.org will be where the Go-oo (go-oo.org) friendly fork has been for some time. Nothing to see here other than Sun^WOracle re-inventing the wheel.

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 3, 2010 5:51 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (7 responses)

Sun has always demanded copyright control over the free software projects it sponsors. This includes OpenJDK, MySQL and Openoffice.org. Since the fork does not assign copyright, Oracle is going to rewrite the parts necessary to retain the centralized control it has. Oracle could drop the demand for control in exchange for a broader community but they don't seem interested in that.

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 9:48 UTC (Mon) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (5 responses)

...or, go-oo could drop their refusal to assign copyright in exchange for a broader community but they don't seem interested in that.

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 10:58 UTC (Mon) by union (guest, #36393) [Link] (4 responses)

I might assign copyright to FSF, but I am not going to do that to any commercial corporation.

I can only speak for myself, but I believe that I am not alone in thinking like that.

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 13:47 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Why not?

Just include, as part of the assignment, the requirement that any version including your source must be available under the GPL.

In other words, the company is free to sell closed-source versions, binary licences etc etc, but in order to do so, they must also publish the source under the GPL. I think the FSF actually do make that commitment, and I don't see why companies shouldn't, either.

Cheers,
Wol

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 15:16 UTC (Mon) by ummmwhat2 (guest, #57575) [Link]

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/ mentions GStreamer is released under the LGPL

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 16:06 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

> Just include, as part of the assignment, the requirement that any version including your source must be available under the GPL.

And, would Oracle accept this?

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 6, 2010 12:21 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Dunno. But if you're giving them something, surely they should expect to have to give back?

Cheers,
Wol

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 6, 2010 15:53 UTC (Tue) by mmeeks (subscriber, #56090) [Link]

Ah - but you forget: we are willing to assign copyright -but- we want those pieces that are majority not written by StarDivision to be available to all under liberal terms. That would leave them owning the core of the code, but not the pieces contributed by others. So - in effect, they would own the copyright, but it would be slightly harder to use the pieces they did not write in a malign way, cf. http://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2010-06-21.html

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 5, 2010 14:10 UTC (Mon) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (2 responses)

Perhaps I just don't use OOo assiduously enough...

but what does a WP/SS program need with a multimedia framework?

Even Presenter is stretching it a bit, no?

Am I going to include a video clip in my resume? Has printer technology advanced a lot, and I missed it? ;-)

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 6, 2010 9:02 UTC (Tue) by modernjazz (guest, #4185) [Link] (1 responses)

If you happen to be a scientist who does 3D simulation, robotics, "artificial intelligence" or "data mining" analysis on video, time-lapse imaging, animal behavior, etc: presentation software that doesn't play movies is largely useless. Yes, I know you can switch to an external player. Try it sometime in front of a large audience, when you are conveying a complex story on tight time limits, for a presentation that has 15 movies. Then tell me whether you've just had one more experience that contributes to your pleasure as a Linux user.

So yes, multimedia support in OOo is quite important, for some people. If not for you, well, lucky you!

Better multimedia support for OpenOffice.org on Unix systems

Posted Jul 8, 2010 19:06 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]

Seconded. Plus there are some things where even just audio is important (e.g. plasma physics colloquium with the whistlers and things). For every abuse case, there's also a use case.

StarDivision pointlessly re-write things to avoid the LGPLv3 ...

Posted Jul 6, 2010 15:31 UTC (Tue) by mmeeks (subscriber, #56090) [Link]

Well, as above really - I've written up my response here. They are behaving in a really silly way, and the net result is likely to be the destruction of their community.