LWN: Comments on "Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem"

Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem

steffen780 — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:42:45 +0000

It's great that the ASF offers these things to projects that actually exist, but I don't see how forking a rather dated version of LO (it used to be called OOo back then) benefits anyone. Donate the trademark and domain to LO so Windows users can get the critical security fixes that AOO still hasn't released and be done with it.

If they feel there's a need for something beyond LO they should of course pursue this but I don't see how splintering the vital effort to develop "just" an end-user MS Office replacement benefits the ASF, the free software community, or any commercial enterprise (except Microsoft, ofc). And these other things don't need to be called OpenOffice.org, do they?

Naming Document Foundation/Format LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

mjw — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:48:13 +0000

And it seems I was wrong assuming this was a way for Apache to reach out to The Document Foundation to hand over the trademark. O well, it was a nice thought. Apparently this is because the Apache OpenOffice project already forked and there is disagreement about who is entitled to release new versions:

https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/246809/a_rivalry_emerges_as_apache_asserts_openoffice_plans.html

Making all this even more interesting--and, it must be said, confusing--is that Germany-based Team OpenOffice.org on Wednesday published a release candidate based on OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 that it has called White Label Office 3.3.1." Why the mysterious name? Because the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) holds the trademark rights of the brand 'OpenOffice.org', the German developers explained. Team OpenOffice.org and the ASF could not reach an agreement for a shared usage. By publishing White Label Office 3.3.1, Team OpenOffice.org is taking the first step towards a maintenance release for OpenOffice.org 3.3.0. Is that the smell of yet another fork in the works? Time will tell. In the meantime, I'm sticking with LibreOffice.

Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem

Wol — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:54:24 +0000

They might be able to use trademark legislation, in that "Open Office" is a de-facto trademark of theirs - ie it's "Open Office (R)" not "Open Office (TM)".

After all, the whole point of trademarks is to prevent "passing off", which this could well be a pretty blatant case thereof...

Cheers,
Wol

Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem

josh — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:51:01 +0000

They pointedly don't own the trademarks "OpenOffice' or "Open Office", hence the use of "OpenOffice.org" as the official name. That makes it unlikely that they can do much about unsavory use of the name "Open Office", leaving aside the usual reasons making it difficult to deal with spam.

Naming Document Foundation/Format LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

donbarry — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:06:41 +0000

Sometimes the donation of a large codebase becomes a bit of a white elephant, and the desire to become associated with the prestige associated with the code's history trumps common sense.

I see this happening with both Apache's (ill-advised in my book) willingness to launder OpenOffice -- and Eclipse's similar willingness to do the same with Hudson.

Both codebases have forked projects where the bulk of the community went. The actions of both Apache and Eclipse are thus anti-social in my book -- but explainable. One often wonders whether such troubled adoptions are accompanied by a certain amount of blood money which is not disclosed.

Naming Document Foundation/Format LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

rahulsundaram — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:00:38 +0000

Apache Foundation has been spewing out a lot of vague blog posts these days and sound very defensive on their communication regarding Openoffice.org. I really really doubt they would be willing to donate anything to Libreoffice assuming they even have the power to do so.

Naming Document Foundation/Format LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

mjw — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:58:22 +0000

I thought the idea was that The Document Foundation was more than just LibreOffice the product. So The Document Foundation is the community, and LibreOffice is the main product that community works on.

It seems that The Document Foundation is effectively responsible for the ODF reference office suite product now. Since Oracle/Apache haven't released anything in a year, while LibreOffice is being regularly updated with new features and uses ODF 1.2 extended as default format. So confusing Foundation and Format might not be such a strange thing :)

I might be misreading the press release, it is somewhat vaguely worded, but it seems Apache will not be using the name OpenOffice.org itself for any products they will create from the code base, opting for "Apache OpenOffice" instead, and they will not focus on an end user product. If so they might be planning to donate the old openoffice.org trademark to the document foundation so LibreOffice can (also) be marketed that way ending some confusion about which free end user office suite is the recommended successor to the defunct Sun/Oracle OpenOffice.org suite.

Commercial support ?

ingwa — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:24:00 +0000

I think you mean the Document Foundation, not the Open Document Foundation. The OpenDocument Foundation[1] was set up long ago by some people to advocate some perceived problems with the ODF standard if I remember correctly.

<personal:opinion>And this actually points to a problem with Document Foundation's name: It's too generic. It is bound to generate confusion like this. It should have been called the LibreOffice foundation instead.<personal:opinion>

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_Foundation

Commercial support ?

ploum — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:12:08 +0000

The Open Letter doesn't clarify anything. It's even worse. They don't address the communication with the Open Document Foundation, they don't try to open any opportunity of collaboration.

To me, OOo looks completely dead: barely installable under Linux (there are critical bugs in their installer), no commercial support available (working myself in a company offering commercial support for LibreOffice, I'm trying in vain to find some similar company but for OOo, it looks like Oracle doesn't care anymore).

History is full of examples: Sodipodi, XFree86, Mandrake. Except Sodipodi, they still exist but nobody use them. OpenOffice.org seems to follow a very similar path.

Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem

james — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:35:27 +0000

I don't know if this is relevant, but there have been waves of spam offering Open Office (sic), saying things like "We are pleased to announce the newest update to Office. Office is the leading productivity software in the world for a reason. We are used by millions around the world for our ease of use and reliability. Update your office now for important critical updates and new features," but mentioning "Open Office" (sic) in the subject.

Goodness knows what malware is in the downloads they're offering, nor how much they're charging.

So Apache might have decided they need to show they are exerting control over the OpenOffice.org trademark, so they at least have the option of a legal response.

James.