Slashdot Mirror
Sun Offers To Relax OpenOffice.org License
An anonymous reader writes "This article at The Register says Sun has offered to relax licensing terms for contributers' code. "The moves should go some way towards muting criticism from the OpenOffice.org community that Sun was treating members as free labour and nothing else, and taking them at face value...""
I was reading a article on newsforge on how sun is currently using redhat for their "Sun Distro" they just rebranded it.. I wonder if Sun will be offering OpenOffice or StarOffice for their box set distro. only time will tell Lets just hope next time I compile openoffice 1.0.1 it wont take 5 hours and 4gb disk space.
keanmarine.com
And both (LaTeX and Emacs) have shown absolutely no interest in becoming mass-market cross-platform applications, unlike Open Office. Because of this people use MS Office, on the MS platform, support MS-only formats, and MS-only drivers, and surrounding 'limpet' software that only has to run on MS Windows. Even Linus agrees that most people don't care about the kernel, most people just use applications. What applications do most people need at the least? Email / Browser / Office. It has nothing to do with hate of microsoft, it has to do with cross-platform and an appreciation of not being locked in. Sun keeps screwing around with OpenOffice, they just can't seem to make their minds up.
ps. LaTeX doesn't have to be destroyed to be mass market. You could have a beautiful and usable interface like this, but every version I have seen of it I wouldn't doesn't have a good interface. The software is good, it's excellent, but no one will ever get to see it when it's cloaked behind something so unfriendly. A usable and pretty high-level XML word-processer is the killer app.
-- Not Bruce (sorry kids!)
I don't want to put words in Bruce's mouth, but I'm sure he was trying to say that the road to open source respectability lies through a quality suite of productivity applications. The business world runs on Microsoft Office-- for better or for worse-- and as long as no such software is available on other platforms, those platforms will be unable to penetrate into corporate IT. If the goal is to create a platform that is adopted by a significant fraction of the computer market, an office productivity suite is the only way to get there.
Of course, if I'm misinterpreting Bruce's comments, he'll be on here in about three seconds correcting me.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
A usable and pretty high-level XML word-processer is the killer app.
Lately one of my core responsibilities at my job has been taking documentation from another company, which came to us as part of an acquisition of one of the other company's business units, and revising and reformatting it for publication. To do this I have to do simple things, like replace certain trademarks with other trademarks, but also some complex things. For instance, the company that sold us the software and IP produced their documents on an odd-sized sheet of paper, about 10" square. Our corporate style calls for a different size page, along with different typesetting and layout and whatnot. Converting 2,000 pages of documentation this way is not a trivial task.
So I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about word processors, and page layout apps. The other company did everything with FrameMaker on UNIX. Since it's not 1991 any more, we do things with Adobe InCopy, for galley production, and InDesign, for pagination. Getting the documents from one format to another is a tedious process.
My boss's boss wanted to know why we didn't just do everything in MS Word, so documents could be emailed around the company using that "track changes" feature. We had to explain the difference between formatted documents, like what Word products, and structured documents, like you get out of FrameMaker or InCopy.
After that little run-in, I think an XML-based word processor would be a terrible idea. People who use word processors aren't looking to create structured documents. They just want to bang out a memo, or a fax cover sheet, or a letter to grandma. Forcing those users to work in a structured environment would be murder, and would result in a terrible user experience.
On the other hand, I think there's a place in certain environments-- like mine, for instance-- for a structured document processor. Such a program would have only the most basic formatting features, like the ability to italicize text. It would also be able to import style sheets and apply paragraph-level styles to parts of the document, structuring it implicitly. I've managed to turn Microsoft Word into that kind of tool by setting up my own document template and style sheet, so the suits at the C-level can create documents that we can bring into InDesign. But the best tool for this that I've found so far is really InCopy.
I know I'm rambling, but my point is simply to say that formatted documents and structured documents are very different things, and a tool for producing one doesn't automatically equate into a tool for producing the other. An XML word processor might end up being a very poor word processor indeed.
Does it smell? Can for example releasing the same Contribution under GPL be considered as Contributor's own purpose? I doubt it.
Really, I'm kind of a jerk that way. But seriously, I think there's another point here, which is that the reason why we want Open Source to gain respectability is to provide ourselves with popular support, and the protection it provides.
In the past there has been a lot of talk about "it doesn't matter what Microsoft does, and it doesn't matter if anyone ever adopts Linux, because Linux will never die. We'll just keep building it and using it, and I don't care if anyone else likes it, because I do."
That talk has been shown in recent years to be slightly--not totally--naive. There has been a very real legal movement in this country to squelch those things that make Open Source possible, to kill our right to use our own property--computers--and our own ideas, as we see fit. Everything from horrible management of patents to the Big Bad Acronyms (DRM, DMCA, and UCITA to name a few) are all having a negative impact on our coding freedom. And don't pretend it's just in this country. The US has the power to push its unfavorable laws onto other nations, and it has already started to do so. France and Australia in particular seem to be a in race with America to see who can squelch intellectual freedom faster.
The drive to Open everything is the force opposing that. OpenOffice is a flagship product of that force, our flapping banner (to mix a metaphor). So for one thing, how does it look that one of our banner products isn't truly free? Next, OO is an important tool for winning converts to our platform, and from there to our cause. If Sun doesn't give OO the freedom it needs to attract developers, it won't develop, and therefore its power to help our cause for freedom will be lost.
I'm with ya, Bruce.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
The problem with MS code base for Java as not that is was better or worse than Suns implementation but that it was tightly tied towards the MS platform so that it would not run on any other platform.
Sun never had any problems with IBM versions - even though some thought they were better than Suns - since IBM made sure it conformed to the Java specifications.
What Suns wants to prevent is that Micosoft takes OpenOffice change the document format to a propriatory one and sell it as MS Word 2005.
Just saying it like it are.
I have to agree with Bruce, OpenOffice is crucial to Open Source becoming widespread. I would place it along with the Linux kernel, Mozilla, Samba, and Apache. All of these have a vast number of supporters and end-users. They are the crown jewels of Open Source and get a good bit of ink from the media.
Tonight I did a re-install of a friend's PC that lost a hard drive. She got a new hard drive sent under warranty. It came with 7 CD's to re-install the system (WinXP). After 2 hours of feeding it CD's it finally came up. Microsoft Works and Quicken were installed, and some other crud programs. My friend asked if it had MS Office, we looked and no, no MS Office. My friend wanted to know if I could install Office as the Office CD was lost. (Ever heard that one?). I had to politly refuse, as that would be wrong.
The next thing I did was go to OpenOffice.org and D/L Open Office. 10 min later I am installing it, and explaning how this is Open Source, it is free of any EULA's or licencing restrictions, and will open (and save) Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. After going through a lot of EULA's in the course of installing WinXP, this was like a breath of fresh air!
So if you have a friend that asks to "borrow" your copy of Office, just say no. And point them to freedom that is OpenOffice.
Next time I am over there I am installing Mozilla as it is more secure than IE.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
I agree with your final conclusions (OOo should have a lot more developers, and Sun needs to do more work to become more open), but I also know that the situation is more nuanced. There are several barriers to starting development on the OOo codebase, some of which you recognise in your post.
First of all, there is the complexity of the code itself. OOo is written mainly in C++, using all kinds of goodies such as templates etc. With the vast majority of OpenSource developers disliking writing code in C++, this kind of narrows the field a bit. Also, sun has a pretty large team of developers writing OpenOffice.org code, and volunteer coders have to try and fit into a group of devs that all share the same two offices. Many decisions on many levels are made within these offices. This is not on purpose, to keep people out, but simply due to the fact that this type of decision taking is easier. However, to the credit of the devs, 99% of the stuff still passes on the mailing lists. But you are stuck on an issue, it is easier to take a stroll down the hallway to ask someone then it is to wait for a reply to a mail.
Even so, there are quite a few successfull volunteer devs, like Kevin B. Hendricks, who do a tremendous job despite the difficulties.
Then there were the legal issues. Before the current JCA, all your work belonged to Sun. Period. This raised the hackles of many, including myself - I am the "vocal critic" quoted in the article - and we have worked hard for a long time to get the current agreement on the table and approved. I really believe that this JCA is the best compromise possible given the circumstances. OpenOffice.org is LGPL, and the copyright of your stuff now remains yours. But you also give Sun the rights to your work, meaning that Sun has some assurance about the future availabillity of your work, if and when it gets included in their commercial product. Microsoft is not very likely to come after volunteers for infringing patents on the MSOffice file format, for example, but it can and will go after Sun for the same. Without copyright assignment, Sun cannot ever mount a legal defense to such a case. So in the end, the current deal is a compromise that should work for all.
The there are the Sun politics. As you have been with HP for some time, I guess you know how this works. Within Sun, there are those who think that OpenSource is cool, and those who think OpenSource sucks. Within Sun, OOo/SO is a large project, and people from both camps work on the project. Tony siress, and his ridiculous statements on the whole MacOS issue are a case in point.Note, however, that Tony publicly apologised about his statements, and Sun claims he spoke out-of-line i.e. the whole MacOS thing is not going to happen, if it ever was. So not all issues that need to be cleared by Sun go as fast. for example, this particular JCA/PDL deal has been on the table for quite some time (months). However, getting cleared by the lawyers and passing through the strata of anti-OpenSource elements inside Sun has really kept it back for much longer then needed.
The Foundation is another sore point inside the community. The whole issue of the foundation has been formally scrapped by Sun, to much discontent form the community. However, we *are* moving in the right direction. This deal is one step, and pretty soon some other developments will move, in terms of project governance. I am sure, that with the right amount of pressure, the Foundation will eventually be set up. The JCA is a critical piece in this issue, since developers can now, potentially, assign copyright to a future Foundation instead of to Sun. This means that Sun is no longer a required (although desired) party to a Foundation.
In the meantime, OOo/SO are MS Office killers, and takeup and interest are massive. This is a good thing. It needs to be better, though, and for that we need more programmers. Unfortunately, the OOo code is hard, and crufty. There are areas *nobody* dares to touch. So in many cases, the true hobbyist programmers back out due to complexity. KOffice were going to use our MSOffice filters. After going through the code, they kindly declined, and started looking at other solutions. On the positive side, we are talking with many groups, commercial as well as non-commercial, about building on the OOo XML file format. More suites using a standard file format is also a good thing. oeone are apperantly working with us on the groupware components - another step in the right direction.
Bruce, Sun has a long ways to go yet in the OpenOffice.org adventure, but I firmly believe that with the right kind of pressure, the right kind of volunteer mentality and the right kind of love, it will become a huge success - both for the OpenSource community as a whole, as well as for Sun. At the end of the day, the focus is on creating a win-win situation for all involved.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.