Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 11:07 UTC (Thu) by mchehab (subscriber, #41156)
In reply to: Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation by DOT
Parent article: Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

> If LibreOffice closes up shop, and continue with ASF OOo, they would have to throw away the code that is LGPL-only, and set development back a few years.

What I see is the opposite happening: new code from Oracle/Apache/IBM/... will likely be licensed with ASF only, and such code can't be added into LibreOffice without re-licensing LibreOffice from LGPL into ASF, with may not happen. So, at the end of the day, each OO fork will follow its own way, without much code exchange between them.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 12:01 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

If IBM can reuse that code in its proprietary product, then so can LibreOffice. No legal issue.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 14:39 UTC (Thu) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (10 responses)

>new code from Oracle/Apache/IBM/... will likely be licensed with ASF only, and such code can't be added into LibreOffice without re-licensing LibreOffice from LGPL into ASF

The ASL is GPL-compatible, so code can be incorporated into OO without relicensing.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 17:01 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (8 responses)

He was right about no transfer, just wrong on the direction. LO will be able to use every bit of code submitted to OO.org but OO.org won't be able to use any of the LO code. So anyone collaborating with the OO.org project gets their improvements put into LO but the improvements in LO don't flow back. This means regardless of where anyone contributes, LO will have more features and more submissions providing the projects don't diverge.

I really don't understand why anyone wouldn't want the TDF to go back to OO.org, even if it is run by the ASF.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 17:11 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (2 responses)

Considering that LibreOffice already has a working infrastructure, community, a lot of new code, and as you said an advantage in licensing, why wouldn't the ASF simply go and join the TDF?

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 18:22 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

I wonder if they would (IMO the ASF would rather see an apache license rather than a GPL license), but that would be my preferred outcome for ASF to accept then hand the whole thing over to TDF. Do you think the ASF would be willing to donate an entire project to a group that will only GPL license?

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 3, 2011 0:29 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

The TDF/LO is *NOT* "only GPL licence".

The preferred licence is MPL which is, from my non-lawyer perspective, apparently a very weak copyleft licence.

The only reason LO is (at present) an LGPL3-only project, is because that is licence on the code they forked from Oracle. What effect any licence change from Oracle's LGPL3 to ASL will have, I don't know, but if ASL and MPL are compatible then there'll probably be a very rapid convergence - in both directions - between OO and LO.

Cheers,
Wol

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 2, 2011 18:26 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (4 responses)

Wouldn't should be Would. That entire sentence reads the opposite of what I intended. Ever since TDF was founded I've advocated for dumping permanently the OO.org name (even if TDF gets control of it). I like the LibreOffice name much better than OO.org.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 3, 2011 10:25 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link] (2 responses)

_I_ honestly really don't like the LibreOffice name (may be the influence of my native language) It sounds crappy and weird IMO. OpenOffice sounds nice, friendly and smooth and has a good melody. Libre Office just sounds hard, radical, revolutionary and fundamentalist (my first associations)
That is also probably what most businesses will think. Maybe not as bad as I do, but it will be the gerneral direction I guess. Most Corparate types hate GPL, FSF, Libre-something etc.

Millions of people already know and like OpenOffice, I see it on computers of very normal people (who have no interest in computing whatsoever) all the time.

LibreOffice may soon be really big in the Linux world, but in the real world people, magazine, etc will contiunue to use OpenOffice if they continue to provide good Windows binaries. To normal users the differences on Windows are so small that they will not change away from something they already know. They will not care PERIOD
Keeping the name and joying the two projects is the hands down the best solution. Everybody who works against that needs step aside and have a look at the bigger picture.(Maybe even get his head checked) The more I read about the DF and how opposed they are to help Apache the more I think that Marks words about the people who run the DF are probably more true than I at first thought.

Releasing OO.o under ASL is a really big gift to the community. I really fail to see all the evil people try to read into it.

It's funny

Posted Jun 5, 2011 10:35 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

LibreOffice may soon be really big in the Linux world, but in the real world people, magazine, etc will contiunue to use OpenOffice if they continue to provide good Windows binaries. To normal users the differences on Windows are so small that they will not change away from something they already know. They will not care PERIOD

It's funny how you define "real world" - like Linux is somehow unreal. As for users who "will not care PERIOD"... if don't see why we should care about these users. The final goal here is to move said users to Linux (well, *BSD will Ok too). If we can not even move them to different office suite because they can not learn the new name... then what's the point?

Everybody who works against that needs step aside and have a look at the bigger picture.

I'm sick and tired of looking on "bigger picture". It's not pretty: people (LibreOffice developers, Linux developers, etc) are spending a lot of time trying to help other people - but said other people "will not care PERIOD". IMNSHO it's well past time to stop looking on "bigger picture" and start fixing bugs which affect the life of the people who do care. Leave the people who don't care to IBM and Canonical.

Releasing OO.o under ASL is a really big gift to the community.

It's gift to the IBM. Which can not use latest version of OpenOffice.org codebase. Community can pick some pieces too, but there are absolutely no sense to do the IBM's work for free.

P.S. As for the name... who still remember (or care?) about Netscape or Mozilla? They were big names just a ten years ago. Today... Mozilla is the organization which produced Firefox - and that's it. If LibreOffice will indeed be more usable then OpenOffice.org then people will use it - fundamentalist name or not. If it'll be indistinguishable from OpenOffice.org... then will it really matter?

It's funny

Posted Jun 7, 2011 13:36 UTC (Tue) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

The intentions of the DF are different from your intentions then. They want it to be used by as many people as possible. Just like OpenOffice is now.
A sucky name is probably not helping.

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 3, 2011 18:32 UTC (Fri) by zeekec (subscriber, #2414) [Link]

My problem with the LibreOffice name is that it looks too much like a library (What is this reoffice library, and why is it taking an hour to compile (Gentoo)?!?).

Oracle proposes donating OpenOffice.org to Apache Software Foundation

Posted Jun 3, 2011 0:24 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Problem is, the preferred LO licence is MPL. So it's all very well saying "it's GPL-compatible", but (a) is it MPL compatible? And (b) is it *L*GPL3+ compatible, LO's secondary licence?

Cheers,
Wol