Gobe Productive To Be GPLed

ParisTG writes "The Gobe Productive office suite is to be re-licensed under the GPL, according to an interview by OSNews. "FreeRadical has purchased the gobeProductive source code and plans to continue to develop the product under a GPL license."" The people who wrote Gobe, are also the folks who wrote ClarisWorks ^? , if you remember back to that. I've used Gobe a few times before - great office suite.

Comments

GOBE is a StarOffice world

[Dr. Spork]

I should first issue a disclaimer that I haven't tried to hack around with the StarOffice code, nor have I looked at Gobe code. However, just from the mere size and responsiveness of Gobe, I have the impression that it must be a fairly clean bunch of code. It does a lot without being bloated, and it might not turn out to be terribly hard to get it to do more.

In a way, it's a little sad that open source fans can't all get behind one specific office suite. I mean, choice is good, but we also need to hammer in to the minds of office managers (via mantra) that StarOffice is "just as good as" and "a suitable replacement for" MS Office. There are many people doing just this, and there is finally a little bit of buzz in the non-techie world about StarOffice.

Gobe office will complicate this, because in many ways, it's as good as StarOffice (better at some things, worse at others). Techies who advocate a GPL office suite will no longer speak with a single voice, and managers who are contemplating a MS-software purge in their offices get scared because now they must undergo the agony of deciding which suite to train their staff on. This might make them more likely just to say "aw, forget it" and fork up the MS licensing fees. I mean, there will be flames all over the internet to the effect that "Now that GOBE is free, there is no point in maintaining OpenOffice anymore" and others that say "GOBE will die an ungraceful death because OpenOffice is just too far ahead." Managers will freak out and start worrying that the horse they pick will die mid-race, and then they'll have to retrain their staff again. Well, anyway, it's a thing to watch out for.

Having said that, I have a feeling I'll be a GOBE user real soon. I've played with it at a friend's house and I was pretty impressed by the performance.

Wasted effort potentially damaging to all

[jvmatthe]

One common complaint about free software development is the waste of effort reproducing functionality with different, distinct projects that rarely share code. Text editors, desktop environments, browsers, window managers....there are tons of each, ostensibly to fit individual's needs. Unfortunately, it seems to me that only a handful, probably two, actually end up with the majority of users in each category. Either vim or Emacs. GNOME or KDE. Konqueror or Mozilla. Windows managers...well there are more, but there are certainly a ton of window managers that got (half-)developed that hardly anyone uses. Why we didn't stop with twm, I'll never understand! ;^)

Now, we have OpenOffice, GNOME Office, KOffice, and eventually this project it seems. At least two of these, OpenOffice and the new Gobe guy, have some commercial push behind them. Not all of these can possibly pull in the full benefit that the GPL (or other free licenses...I seem to recall that OO might be a mixed license) would normally grant them as they try to draw from the community. That pool of potential eyeballs all checking source and potential fingers typing in patches and extra functionality...it's all going to be split up.

Heck, just look at the Mozilla project. It's been my impression that most code is getting done by the paid professionals and that Mozilla draws on the community primarily for bug testing and evangelism.

Anyway, this is all to say that two years ago I might have cheered a company with commercial backing buying up the source to a decent office suite and releasing it. (In fact, I was happy to have Sun take over StarOffice, and moreso when they freed the source.) But now this Free Radical could be just one more company that goes down the tubes basing their product on a GPLed source code. They can blame the community for not helping out and the cheap-ass users for not paying for the product that could be had for free. Other than that negative press, the net result will have been that resources (users, coding, testing, time) would have been diluted, being split up among this and the other projects, and those projects that did survive would be less well-developed as a result. Cooperation is needed to guarantee that GPL source that lives forever is actually useful source that lives forever. Modules that can be picked up and shared, like one that imports and exports MS DOC format files.

Not that it'll do any good for me to be a nattering naybob of negativity on this subject. Someone probably just filed a new window manager on freshmeat as I was typing this.

Re:Wasted effort potentially damaging to all

[kubrick]

Wasted effort? You're very enthusiastic about determining what other people should be doing with their time -- how would you feel if someone told you what to do with yours, and you didn't have a choice?

This effort is not wasted if the people expending the effort don't feel that it is. 'Wasted' is a value judgement that you're making, not an objective statement of fact.

You're getting stuff for free, and you have the balls to say "Oh, no, I'd rather have more of this and less of that?" Write your own damn code, or pay for the software you want to be written, but stop trying to stop others doing what they enjoy.

Re:Gobe + Linux + High Cost of Office Addmission

[SecretMethod70]

You've got to remember - Opera is at v6 and Mozilla just hit v1 - give it some time.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:You can find trial ver on download.com

[Freedom Bug]

Another example where open source software has a missing feature it doesn't need simply because it's open.

At least for your example, you don't want an automation interface. OpenOffice has an open file format: just write out the files from scratch. It may be slightly more work up front, but you'll save tons in support costs, run way faster, and be generally way cleaner.

Bryan

Re:The number of free office suites is exploding

[unoengborg]

One that's actually have better usability would
probably be enough. Today we have Open/StarOffice
but unfortunately it doesn't contain all functionality
of the MS product. I'm not talking about minor stuff
like missing word count, that probably could be fixed
by a macro, but things like a missing Outlook
replacement.

If we run OpenOffice on som unixlike platform this
problem is minor as here there are lot of
Calendar/Mail available.

The real problem is that there is much fewer free
calendar/mail replacements on windows. And this
actually makes it harder for a company to switch
to free OS:es like Linux.

Why? In most cases you would like to have one
company wide standard for things like mail,
calendering, e-mail, and office programs like
spread sheets, word processors and presentation
programs. This means that if there is one desktop
in the company that needs to run a specialized
program that so far only is available on windows,
all the desktops will run windows, as that desktop
will use Outlook for mail and calendaring.

Yes, I know that Mozilla is developing a calendar
program. But it's still a long way before it have
the functionality of MS-Outlook.

The convertion to a free desktop will probably need
to start on windows. If we can break the MS-Office
lock in completely. The next step will be a free OS.

But naturally it doesn't hurt if there are many good
desktop alternatives. At least it may send the message
to the windows community that MS-Word isn't a standard
as most of them seam to think.

But they did sell it

[phr2]

According to the article, Free Radical paid for the code and then GPL'd it. It doesn't say how much they paid so I don't know whether it was a pittance. The GPL'ing does not appear to have been done as an act of charity. Rather, it looks like they want the Internet to be their unpaid porting, QA, and feature-addition department. The program will be dual licensed which means there will probably be proprietary versions, possibly including contributions from those same unpaid programmers. I'm not terribly thrilled with that kind of arrangement.

Mozilla is licensed sort of similarly (the MPL gives Netscape special rights to the code) and it's not attracting so many volunteers either. I'm not real surprised. While the letter of the GPL doesn't prevent dual licensing, it's not really in the GPL spirit, which is that the original author of a piece of code doesn't have special rights that others don't have.

If I add features to an FSF GPL'd program, I'm doing volunteer work for the free software community and it makes me happy. If I add features to a BSD-licensed program, I become an unpaid employee of anyone who feels like forking the code--I don't find that so attractive. If I add features to Gobe Office, I possibly become an unpaid employee of just one company, Free Radical. Once again, life's too short for that.

I'm not a total free software zealot and I am willing to work on proprietary code. But when I do that, I expect to get paid, just as the vendor expects to get paid. So I'm not terribly impressed by these commercial dual licensed semi-GPL projects.

(Man, topic drift inside a single post! Forgive me.)

Re:But they did sell it

[Hack Shoeboy]

Get ahold of yourself. modifications to dual-licensed software are still Free in all important senses of the word. Why should you care if someone forks it? Does that take anything away from the free branch?

it's not really in the GPL spirit, which is that the original author of a piece of code doesn't have special rights that others don't have.

So the fact that the FSF isn't happy with you simply GPLing your software, but wants you assign them the copyright is for what reason exactly? The copyright holder, usually the original author, does have special rights.

Re:But they did sell it

[HiThere]

I believe that the claim is that because of the licensing, he didn't even consider working on the code.

I sort of agree with that, though more to the point, that's not the place that I want to put my energy ... I've got a different project in mind. When I do it, it will be GPL. And it may interface with, say, Apache, but it won't be a part of Apache... but then it wouldn't anyway.

A large part of what goes on is "What itch are you scratching?" Most people would be willing to put up with a license that they didn't totally agree with to work on the project that they wanted. There are limits, but I don't really feel that any of the open source projects go outside of them. BSD tends to be more for people who just want the code to get out there, and GPL more for people who don't want to be required to buy back the code that they wrote ...

Still, the "part commercial" licenses are special cases. They don't really seem unfair to me, at least not necessarily unfair. The Mozilla-Netscape connection seems to work out alright. Anyone can use it, but only Netscape is allowed to sell it (outside of GPL constraints .. anyone can sell it if they follow GPL rules).

The thing is, most software projects really are small teams. The folks in charge are the folks in charge, and you may be able to join with them, but it may be years before you become a core member. If then. But this is just human small group dynamics, so it shouldn't be surprising. Of course the Netscape in group remained the major coders on Mozilla. They worked together, they got to know each other. Of course it was hard for outside coders to get in. For one think, they worked on the project full time, and the outside coder who did that was quite rare, but for another, they knew each other. They were "us".

The Linux kernel group is more open, but that's partly because they are more dispersed. And that has negative as well as positive effects. Still, the core group of coders doesn't change rapidly. Anyone can earn a place, but the criteria aren't any hard and inflexible kind of thing. If the other members don't like you, they won't let you in. If they do, the entrance bar is lower. And this isn't a bad thing. Groups need social cohesion to work well. And this, be it remembered, is with a maximally "FSF approved" license.

If you wanted to nit pick, I suppose that you could claim that if you were working on the kernel you were laboring on behalf of Red Hat (though other commercial entities would also benefit). Nothing wrong with that. They pick up their fair share of the tab, no reason they shouldn't benefit.

Back to Netscape, and the work on Mozilla. Netscape picks up most of the tab, not reason they shouldn't benefit. This isn't like MS snaffeling the TCP stack from BSD. MS is just a sponger, but that doesn't describe Netscape. And I doubt that it will describe Free Radical. (If it does, then they've just wasted their money on a bad bet. They're going to need to put a lot more push behind it than just opening the code if they want to get decent development in any reasonable time frame, when KOffice and OpenOffice are looking so good.)

Re:GOBE is a StarOffice world

[foobar104]

I mean, choice is good, but we also need to hammer in to the minds of office managers (via mantra) that StarOffice is "just as good as" and "a suitable replacement for" MS Office.

The only problem with this idea is that StarOffice-- as anybody who has actually tried to use it in a business setting knows-- isn't "just as good as" or "a suitable replacement for" MS Office.

Evangelizing about StarOffice-- or any of the open source office software products-- right now would do serious damage to the reputation of open source software. When serious business users look at an open source office suite, they're not going to say, "This software, while unfinished, has a lot of potential. I'm excited and intrigued!" Instead, they're going to say, "Those open source nuts clearly don't get it. I've tried their software, and found it wanting. I will ignore them from now on and stick with what works: good old Office XP."

Evangelizing a new product or technology too early can result in its failure rather than its adoption.

Re:You can find trial ver on download.com

[foobar104]

No, he was right the first time. Spending a fortune rewriting components that are already available is an incredibly stupid idea. The only possible motivation for doing something like that would be the precise sort of FUD that you're slinging: "when Microsoft made it too legally difficult to extend their applications..." Please. You can't base a business plan on unfounded speculation about what Microsoft might do, despite their repeated statements that the won't do it, and the fact that there's no sound reason for them to do it.

We all know you hate Microsoft. That doesn't mean this guy's business plan of using COM components to build their application is a bad idea.

Look at it this way: they're out there selling products, while the open source guys are still figuring out how to build the human interfaces for their various word processors. Which one of those approaches is more sound?

Re:GOBE is a StarOffice world

[Apostata]

A very salient point. I've been using OpenOffice on Windows and Linux since pre-1.0, and quite frankly it's not ready for primetime business use (tinkering, sure...where the hell do you think I'm writing this from?). There are some graphics bugs in their Excel-clone that, to me, would be show-stoppers if implemented in our busy office (column headers and recently-changed data simply disappear).
I think we should throw our support behind these open-source Office suites, but squarely behind the development. The deployment can wait, at least until I don't have to worry about getting fired for implementing software that hasn't been solidly debugged.

Re:The number of free office suites is exploding

[reallocate]

None, actually. Even a perfect Office clone would have marginal impact.

Yes, develop one if you're convinced that it's needed to establish credibility with the corporate crowd. But, remember, there's no compelling reason for anyone who's happy using Office to switch to a "wannabe" package, especially when it means switching to a new and strange OS, throwing away all those shrink-wrapped programs that someone has paid for, and throwing away the familiarity of Windows.

What's in it for them: Wipe my machine, throw everything away, and start a new and steep learning curve, just to use something that's "free"? No thanks, that costs too much.

Linux, et al, will continue to appeal primarily to (1) people who like Unix, and (2) people who are motivated by ideology, and (3) people who can't/won't buy commercial software, until someone develops and markets software that provides capabilities that are so unique and compelling that it merits absorbing the very real cost of moving from Windows.

Re:It wasn't discontinued, it was renamed AppleWor

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing to remember is that apple is still hurting from their lessons they learned in the 80s..

One of those lessons was that ALL the early macs, for YEARS, were bundled with MacWrite. They did this to be nice ("Hey! This is a machine for the masses! I'll be they'd like it if we gave them a free word processor!"), but a result of this was that for YEARS, except for MS, no one would release a word processor for the mac. Why not? Because everyone already had MacWrite, so why would they buy another word processor?!

I've had those who were there describe to me the point at which MacWrite was no longer bundled with all macs as a point at which the mac software market started opening up more.

Anyway, this is just apple's way of avoiding the situation; they market the iMac as "everything you'll ever need in one box", so of course they have to provide everything in one box including a web processor, but they can still encourage developers to make word processors for the pro models-- the ones you are more likely to see used in the business environment.

Of course, so far there aren't any word processors for Mac OS X i'm aware of except Appleworks and MSoffice, so it's a bit of an unsuccess there, but the OS is still young..

--super ugly ultraman

Re:You're still wrong! Mod down again!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't perhaps, but they can. AppleWorks 6.2 is available for Windows.

I'm sure if you wanted AppleWorks on Windows hard enough, you could get your hands on it...

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Built for Mac OS X
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An iMac, iBook, Power Mac G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube, PowerBook G3, or PowerBook G4
128MB of physical RAM with virtual memory set to at least 25MB
Mac OS X, v10.0 or later
A CD-ROM drive (for installation)
An Internet connection*
QuickTime 5 or higher (included on CD)

To use Mac OS X, you will need an computer with at least 128MB of physical RAM.

AppleWorks 6.2 for Mac OS 8/9

An Apple computer with a PowerPC processor
24MB of physical RAM with virtual memory set to at least 25MB
Mac OS 8.1 or later
A CD-ROM drive (for installation)
An Internet connection*
QuickTime 4 or higher (QuickTime 5 included on CD)

AppleWorks 6.2 for Windows

A PC with a Pentium processor
32MB of physical RAM
Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 and XP
A CD-ROM (for installation)
An Internet connection*
QuickTime 4 or higher (QuickTime 5 included on CD)
Internet Explorer 5 (included on CD)

* The AppleWorks CD-ROM includes 30 templates and 100 clip art images. More than 150 templates and 25,000 clip art images are available to customers with an Internet connection.