Stop

Posted Aug 19, 2015 14:31 UTC (Wed) by jb.1234abcd (guest, #95827)
In reply to: Stop by pizza
Parent article: Schaller: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache OpenOffice team

I stated clearly that having LibreOffice as only provider of OpenOffice-like suite is not desirable for the market and free and open source community. It means that Apache OpenOffice should stay as an alternative.
Any silly open letters to the contrary are counterproductive and pure nonsense.
Tell me again what are you missing ?

Stop

Posted Aug 19, 2015 14:53 UTC (Wed) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link] (2 responses)

> I stated clearly that having LibreOffice as only provider of OpenOffice-like suite is not desirable for the market and free and open source community. It means that Apache OpenOffice should stay as an alternative.

At this point, I feel the Calligra suite and the Abiword/Gnumeric combo are better alternatives to LibreOffice than AOO. So I'm not convinced it's imperative for FLOSS the latter sticks around.

Stop

Posted Aug 19, 2015 15:29 UTC (Wed) by jb.1234abcd (guest, #95827) [Link] (1 responses)

That we have them (Calligra, Abiword/Gnumeric) is certainly a blessing - we should not be afraid of them.

The presence of an alternative OpenOffice-like provider and license holder in this space is important strategically - consider it a state of
healthy checks and balances, in which a stray player can be replaced by a healthy one if warranted by cicumstances.
That's also why we have many Linux distros - I thought in the distant past that it was a distraction and waste of resources, until I realized that it is a safety check against degeneration.

Stop

Posted Aug 19, 2015 21:26 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

> consider it a state of healthy checks and balances, in which a stray player can be replaced by a healthy one if warranted by cicumstances

Being open source already gives us that. The moment LO goes off the rails, someone will fork it and onward we go. It's happened lots of times and usually works out great. There's simply no need to keep AOO on active standby, ready to take over if circumstances warrant. (also, can AOO be considered a healthy player...?)

The reason there are so may distros is because they are a constant source of innovation and experimentation. If that had been your argument, then I would agree. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.