Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

[Posted November 27, 2013 by corbet]

Simon Phipps pointed to a paper by Jonas Gamalielsson and Bjorn Lundell on the evolution of the Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice development communities. "From our results, it remains to be seen to what extent the LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice projects may successfully evolve their projects and associated communities in a way that can be sustainable long-term. So far it seems that LibreOffice has been the more successful project in terms of growing associated communities. Our results suggest that the choice of Open Source license significantly impacts on conditions for attracting contributions to Open Source projects."

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 27, 2013 17:46 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (21 responses)

Phipps doesn't credit the license as much as Because it "is perceived by its community as supportive, diversified, and independent.". Regardless of license choice, it seemed that one group consisted of the majority of the developers, and the other group seemed to be the loyal soldiers following the corporate masters' wishes.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 27, 2013 17:57 UTC (Wed) by webmink (guest, #47180) [Link]

Note that I did not write or contribute to the paper...

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 27, 2013 21:12 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (19 responses)

And what exactly is the difference between the AOO and LO licences? Not that much!

The Apache licence (used by AOO) allows a company to take their copy of the source private and make changes they are under no obligation to contribute back.

The Mozilla licence (used by LO) allows a company to keep their copyrighted source private and make changes they are under no obligation to contribute back.

Where's the difference?

So as far as any company is concerned, that wants to use AOO or LO for proprietary purposes, AOO means they don't have to contribute back and so don't need any accounting for any changes they make. LO means they have to contribute bugfixes back, so they need to account for keeping their code separate from the base LO code. That *shouldn't* be a hardship, for any company that is bothered about keeping track of source and changes.

(I don't know if it's complete, but all LO (as in it was contributed to LO) code is MPL, and all the OOo code is being rebased against AOO so the entire codebase can be relicenced MPL.)

Cheers,
Wol

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 27, 2013 22:58 UTC (Wed) by jonnor (guest, #76768) [Link] (4 responses)

The license page on LO site says that it is LGPL licensed, and that new contributions are LGPL+MPL dual-licensed. So keeping changes proprietary would, in general, probably be problematic.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/license/

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 23:36 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Why?

Note that it's the *L*GPL, and note also that that will change.

If a company wants to keep changes proprietary, they have two choices. Either (a) keep their changes in a separate module, which probably isn't that difficult, or (b) contribute to LO in the rebasing work, so that LO can go fully MPL.

The reason LO isn't fully MPL is either (a) nobody's updated the licencing page or (b) (more likely) the rebasing work isn't seen as very important because nobody particularly wants/needs it at the moment.

Cheers,
Wol

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 0:16 UTC (Fri) by jonnor (guest, #76768) [Link] (2 responses)

In my understanding of LGPL, it is still important whether something is a derivative of something or not. Whether a module with propritary extensions would be a derivative would depend, and can only be answered by lawyers, but I don't think its a carte blanc.

Also, you must consider there may be people with copyright who have contributed under the LGPL (only), and that one cannot relicense it without their permission. Don't know to which extent this is the case for LO.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 0:23 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Code in a separate file would be derivative only if it contained code snipped from an LGPL file. Simply referencing a definition in a header is not a concern. There is ample case law on this issue, for example in Oracle v. Google.

Unless you are doing something really stupid, like copying from someone else, your code in a separate file that is linked to LGPL code is yours and can be under any license.

You must provide the capability for the GPL code to be repaired and relinked into the complete executable, but that's what we have DLLs for.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 12:50 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

With regard to your understanding of the LGPL, I think you're getting muddled with the GPL. As Bruce has said, you can mix proprietary and LGPL code no problem PROVIDED you are careful!

With regards to (L)GPL-only code, this is ALL (c) Oracle.

LO basically comes from two code-bases. There is the original, LGPL3, OOo codebase which is (c) Apache/Oracle. And there is the Go-OO codebase, which is MPL.

In other words, all the code that was contributed to Go-OO/LO is MPL, and the rest of the code was contributed by Oracle most of which has been re-licenced to Apache. The ONLY code that will be problematic is stuff that Apache has no use for and has not bothered to audit/re-relicence. Which hopefully LO has no use for either.

Cheers,
Wol

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 4:25 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] (5 responses)

The difference is that LO can take AOO code, but not the other way around. I don't think it's a big deal compared to other factors (project leadership, goals and vision). However, it might play some role. Developers sympathetic to LO have an option to contribute to LO only. AOO developers don't have such option (except for the code that irrelevant to LO). That makes AOO developers angry and frustrated, at least some of them ;)

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 4:55 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

Then AOO should adopt the GPL. Let's have a race to the top for once.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 6:11 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

Let's be realistic. AOO stands for Apache OpenOffice. They are not going to switch to GPL. Not with IBM at the helm

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 12:18 UTC (Thu) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]

I read coriordan's comment as a bit sarcastic. I must admit it made me chuckle :-)

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 8:13 UTC (Thu) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link] (1 responses)

That makes AOO developers angry and frustrated, at least some of them ;)

And that's why such a study is mostly useless: the actual community-forming very much depends on single persons and developments more than licenses. It's like trying to analyze the current situation in the Near East by doing a comparatistic study on Quran and Torah.

Yes, there may be some correlation between contents and behaviors, but that's more cultural than inherent and loaded with a lot of observer's bias because naturally one is drawn to look at the things actually cited (because they match the current agenda) more thoroughly.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 11:45 UTC (Thu) by thumperward (guest, #34368) [Link]

If you'd RTFA, as opposed to just the blurb on LWN, before commenting on it as "mostly useless", you'd see that the licence is only briefly touched on. The paper is precisely the sort of analysis of the community that you're asking for.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 28, 2013 19:03 UTC (Thu) by dag- (guest, #30207) [Link] (7 responses)

Well, when LibreOffice forked from OpenOffice (which was owned by Oracle at the time) the license of OpenOffice was not the Apache license. In fact it took more than a year IIRC for Oracle to announce the donation of their code to the Apache project. And it took another year for it to be "accepted".

Maybe it would have worked out differently if Sun would have done this years before, rather than Oracle years after... Oracle simply lost the mindshare back then and there.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 0:30 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (6 responses)

Well, Apache has lost mind-share too. They spent so much of their energy on rabid opposition of the GPL that it became all they stood for. As if they tried to out-BSD a BSD distribution. They then made themselves the willing proxies for companies that clearly didn't have the community's best interest in mind. So, who would want to be part of that?

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 9:18 UTC (Fri) by aristedes (guest, #35729) [Link] (5 responses)

I think that's completely unfair. The Apache Foundation has come to embody some brilliant projects and some which have fallen by the wayside. The license is part of the foundation, but is not a driving force around everyday discussions either for developers or for members.

Some projects have strong communities and some don't. But Apache is not one community... it is lots of projects with their own good and bad. We share common resources and common goals around the importance of open source. And yes, the foundation is very company-friendly because of its license and because of it very strong focus on checking that the licensing is consistent and can be trusted.

All this "willing proxy" nonsense is just silly. The fact that Open Office was released to Apache by Oracle (eventually) under a liberal license is of huge benefit to everyone. To companies wanting to commercialise it. To individuals wanting to pull changes from IBM into LO. No one loses. Yes, it would be lovely if Oracle had gotten their act together two years earlier. But so what are we going to all do about that now? In the end we have a grant from Oracle under a liberal license along with certain patent assurances as well. Nice.

Now we have two projects. Maybe one will die. Maybe both will survive and innovate in different directions.

But Apache has no rabid opposition to GPL any more than the FSF has a rabid opposition to BSD or Apache licenses. We are all working toward a common goal.

Personally, I actually don't think the license matters that much. Companies contribute back to Apache and BSD licensed projects not because they are forced to, but because to do otherwise would be stupid unless they have a vast team of developers able to maintain a fork.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 9:40 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (1 responses)

The fact that Open Office was released to Apache by Oracle (eventually) under a liberal license is of huge benefit to everyone. To companies wanting to commercialise it. To individuals wanting to pull changes from IBM into LO. No one loses.

I don't agree. Helping out something which has the same conditions for everyone is fine. But AOO is setup just to help companies. I don't see this "huge benefit". What you also leave out is that it took a great deal of time before everything was under a different license. So the benefits are there, but 1+ year after the fact.

Loses? Maybe not, but benefit would be joining LO IMO.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 29, 2013 20:29 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

There's also the fact that AOO messaging has been extremely hostile to LibreOffice. But "everyone benefits" from that, right?

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Dec 2, 2013 21:54 UTC (Mon) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link]

I suspect Bruce was referring to the Apache OO project, not the Apache Foundation. Of course, that may be a little unfair as well--as far as I can tell, it was mainly one very public representative of AOO who went out to gather as much ill-will as he could. Other members of AOO may be much more reasonable. But the fact remains that they kept that person as spokesmodel even after it was clear that he was rubbing people the wrong way.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Dec 4, 2013 5:08 UTC (Wed) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (1 responses)

Apache Foundation has done a lot good and I dont think anyone meant to impute the entire organization.

But since you bring it up I do think I see some sort of emotional anti-GPL element that animates some people in their choice of Apache license, which is pretty closely associated with the Foundation and it's projects. A lot of people DO care about which license to use one way or the other and competent volunteer work in particular tends to be a bit picky about such things. Certain people really do hate the GPL and love the BSD/MIT/Apache licenses, which is their right. And the Apache license isnt a bad license, it's pretty much best of breed for that family. Which I dont hate at all. Odd thought, hating a license.

But when you refer to it as 'business friendly' implying that GNU is not... well at very best that a GROSS oversimplification, and I would argue it's worse than that, it's close to a perfect inversion of the case. Using GPL and LGPL together you can make an environment where businesses have some assurance that their contributions wont be taken to a dark fork and then used against them. The whole point of the BSD type licenses seems to be to allow such things. I guess in a way a business might want it either way so either way could be called 'business friendly' but it seems like the first interpretation might be more friendly to getting businesses to actually contribute back.

But that's a very old argument and IIRC I classified it as an undead horse a little over a decade ago, so I will just thank you for your work and shut up now.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Dec 4, 2013 10:53 UTC (Wed) by bobdog1 (guest, #92071) [Link]

If it is the license then LO with the LGPL is provably more business friendly than AOO's AL2. LO has a wide variety of paid developers and several corporate sponsors. AOO has only IBM.

Next time someone says you need BSD/Apache to be "business friendly", ask where are all the other corporate sponsors on AOO.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 30, 2013 14:53 UTC (Sat) by simosx (guest, #24338) [Link] (2 responses)

I think that the involvement of Rob Weir to Apache OpenOffice has been toxic to the project.

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Nov 30, 2013 22:04 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

Bear in mind LO does nothing to DIScourage contributors from adding the Apache licence to their contribution (it does nothing to encourage it, either :-)

I think Rob has probably discouraged a lot of people from that ...

Cheers,
Wol

Paper: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Posted Dec 1, 2013 9:26 UTC (Sun) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]

Well, someone actually has to do the work. And if we are talking about basically volunteer work, it's hardly surprising that there is correlation between highly opinionated and highly invested.

Try finding volunteers for substantial amounts of work in a "meh, don't care" crowd.

It's not just Free Software that is affected: basically any volunteer effort has a tendency to draw people who load themselves with both extraordinary amounts of work and vocalizing against people making other choices.

Religious communities often have similar tendencies as well. You feel like having to invest all that time, and you need a rationalization for justifying that investment to yourself.