What's next for Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 8, 2016 21:55 UTC (Thu) by xtifr (guest, #143)
In reply to: What's next for Apache OpenOffice by jimjag
Parent article: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

But those other web servers aren't just forks of Apache. Why does the world need another *fork of Staroffice*? If I really want to help improve the diversity of FLOSS office suites, wouldn't I do better to go help Gnome Office or Calligra? Or start something new, to avoid the mistakes of the past? (Which is how most of those web server projects got off the ground.)

The only similar case I can think of to the AOO/LO one is the longstanding Emacs/XEmacs split. And frankly, that's not a situation any project should want to emulate. I suspect the project which benefited the most from *that* split was vim! ;)

So, my question, which started this subthread, remains: what reasons can AOO/ASF folks offer me to make me want to contribute to *their* project? I'm not a license fanatic (so "we're not share-alike" is not an incentive), and if I merely want to encourage diversity in the market, I have a variety of projects I can go help. What about AOO *specifically* would make me want to contribute to it instead LO *or a third option*?

If you can't answer that simple question, you may find it hard to keep onto any new developers you may happen to luck onto. Because there's a good question people will be asking them the same question.

What's next for Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 9, 2016 11:20 UTC (Fri) by jimjag (guest, #84477) [Link] (2 responses)

>But those other web servers aren't just forks of Apache.

nginx was a heavily modified fork of Apache 1.3

What's next for Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 9, 2016 12:12 UTC (Fri) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

Do you have any proof at all to back this claim?

Or do you mean "removed all Apache source and wrote new source" by "heavily modified fork"?

niginx' development history is available in full at http://hg.nginx.org/nginx

Version 0 available at http://hg.nginx.org/nginx/rev/0 has a staggering amount of 2241 lines of code according to cloc. This already includes sendfile support which did not appear until Apache 2.0.44 according to https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#enablesen...

What I cannot find is any reference at all to any of the central Apache http data structures or functions. None.

What's next for Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 9, 2016 19:58 UTC (Fri) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link]

Is it? I had no idea. But in any case, nginx had a specific goal: higher performance. In the case of AOO vs. LO, that's already one of the LO goals. They've spent a lot of time looking at performance and efficiency, and they'll probably spend more.

So what's AOO's selling point? If you want to be a successful fork, you need *some* sort of selling point. For developers or users. I asked this at the start of the thread, and you ignored it, I asked it in the post you *just responded to* and you blatantly ignored it. Nobody needs a fork that exists *just to be* a fork. And, as should now be clear, nobody needs a fork whose only benefit is "we don't use a share-alike license". So what's the pitch?

The AOO folks are out begging for help, but they don't seem to be offering *any reasons* why someone would want to help them. Do you actually have a reason why you think AOO deserves our support? I don't know how to ask any more plainly than that. Oh, wait. If you do have a reason, *what is it?*

I am *bending over backwards* to try to be fair to AOO and give them a chance to explain their position and elicit my sympathy. The fact that I'm being pointedly ignored does not speak well for the project.