Gobe Productive GPL Release In Danger

Elliot writes "Gobe, developers of Gobe Productive, a fast and lightweight office suite initally developed for the BeOS and later ported to Windows and Linux (which never made it past beta stage), announced in August that they would be open sourcing Gobe Productive under the GPL. Unfortunately, it appears that financial issues might prevent this from happening. A shame to see yet another wonderful piece of software [possibly] fail."

Comments

Gobe is/was awesome

[kannibal_klown]

I bought a copy shortly after slashdot posted an article about it. It was a great software package. It was lite and quick, a hell of a lot quicker than OpenOffice and StarOffice, and the interface was just... clean.

My favorite part was the ability to export to PDF so easily.

My only complaint was the Spreadsheet program wasn't as robust as some of the other packages out there, but it still worked.

I hope everything works out for them. Personally, I think this was one of the best office packages around.

Re:Gobe is/was awesome

[Big Mark]

It was designed for the BeOS, which was itself fast, lightweight and clean, so what did you expect?

OK, neither were fully-featured but they did everything 75% of people would ever need.

-Mark

Re:Gobe is/was awesome

[moeman]

I just went to K->Office->wordprocessors->KWord and started Kword. (Thats where my default install of mandrake put it) I then typed sum stuff, went to print and selected "Print to file (PDF/Acrobat)." Can't get much easier than that I would think.

Anyhow, KOffice is an office suit I would like to see get more attention, as it can be so easily integrated into other KDE applications. Unfortunately my last experiances with it (one release previous to the current release) left me a bit miffed, as it didn't actually PRINT the way it was formated on screen.

flawed logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Blockquoth the page:

Our Take 2 This could be a great opportunity for the 3 major Linux distros, or any other OS maker, to differentiate itself from the competition by stepping up and helping out with the buyout of this software (even if it means no open sourcing). Surely, we do have OpenOffice and KOffice, but then again, the Linux distro next door has it too. Hey Linux executives that I know you are reading OSNews, think about it. Differentiate yourself from the competition, give an edge on why should I try your distro and not your competitor's. ;-)

But if they GPL it, their competitors get to have it too. And they'd need to GPL it to not be hypocrites and to make this worthwhile.

Let's face it. Open source is nice, but its economics are not as profitable as those of closed source software. That makes things tough.

This reminds me of the collective action problem. Open source software is a public good like the environment or national defense, since it is jointly supplied and cannot be denied to any single person. If it is supplied to one person, it is supplied to everyone. But since people are selfish, they often won't want to contribute to it.

So what can we do? I say we should fix copyright law so that it only works for seven years. After those seven years we can use the source code of the program.

Re:flawed logic

[Digitalia]

since you believe that you know how to fix the copyright system, I'll ask you a few questions. first, why only seven years? When someone produces a new product and puts in on the market, they should be able to enjoy copyright protection for a period of time long enough to be reasonably profitable, but not for so long that innovation is stagnated. Though seven years is short enough to prevent the latter, it is also so short as to be prohibitive to profit. Second, from what date do you intend to start counting these seven years? If I decided to reuse libraries from a product I wrote back in 1995, would the date be extended? If not, then what motivation would I have to produce a lasting product? A man needs to eat, and good will makes a poor bread. Though I support the rights of the individual, I also respect the rights of businessmen. I feel that corporations enjoy too many rights without the corresponding responsibilities, but I don't believe that the answer is to strip businesses of the right to profit from their innovation.

Re:flawed logic

[Cokelee]

Simply put: If a Linux Distro Co [LDC] takes the code and GPLs it, every LDC is NOT going to start using it!

The LDC may modify the code all it wants and create an excellent product that worked well in THEIR distro. People would choose that distro because of the default capability of the product.

Redhat defaults OpenOffice.org in their distro-- nontechnical magazines (the kind businessmen read, like Journal of Accountancy) LOVE THIS!

Buying the source and GPLing it could very well be profitable for this reason.
You just have to realize that some of your target audience wants one solution from one partner.

Re:flawed logic

[GigsVT]

However if this is a publicly traded company then they owe it to there investors to keep there IP offlimits. They can be sued bigtime if they did this.

What the hell are you talking about? Red Hat GPLs nearly everything they write, and no one has ever even thought about suing them for it.

Start a fund?

[chunkwhite86]

Perhaps they should start a fund, similar to what Blender did?

When Blender when under, they started a fund to which anyone could contribute (and I did.) Now their 3D modeling product is open source.

I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks to open the source.

Re:Start a fund?

[BurritoWarrior]

I have alternative suggestion.

Read the artcile.

Not enough money to be free...

[dagg]

It seems strange that there not be enough money to release something for free. Sometimes I get the impression that companies would normally release their product for free, but instead they see how much money they can weasel from the open source community. But on second thought, I'm sure that's not what usually happens. What usually happens (or what used to happen), is that companies will just bury their software forever. They hold out hope that their software will make them a buck in the future (somehow).

At least there is nowadays an alternative to burying the software forever.

--YerSex

It's not going to fail...

[JessLeah]

...because it is under, or not under, any specific license (even our beloved GPL). It's going to fail because Microsoft's "mindshare" is so phenomenal that it would take nothing short of a miracle for ANYONE to impact its 95+% of the Word Processor market.

I don't like that reality either. But, at the moment, it's true. That's why we need to keep pushing the existing suits remaining against MS. Because they DO have a huge monopoly, because they DID get it through illicit means, and because it IS making it virtually impossible for competitors (like the Gobe Productive people) to break into any of the many fields MS dominates.

Re:It's not going to fail...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Woah, woah. Office is the most popular productivity product because it's good. Complain all you like about Microsoft; they've produced an exceptional set of products in Office. It doesn't have anything to do with mindshare or monopoly power.

Consider the Mac. There are basically two office products for the Mac: Office and AppleWorks. Although some people use AppleWorks, Office owns the Mac productivity market. Why? Because Office for Mac is a good-- not perfect, but good-- product.

The answer to the market dominance of Office isn't to prosecute Microsoft for playing unfairly. The answer is to create an office product that's better than Microsoft Office. It shouldn't be too hard; everybody around here always complains about how Microsoft sucks, and how Office sucks, right? So coming up with something better ought to be child's play. ;-)

Re:It's not going to fail...

[the_rev_matt]

>The answer to the market dominance of Office isn't to prosecute Microsoft for playing unfairly.

Actually, it is. When a monopoly abuses their power , the solution is to prosecute. That's what happened. Microsoft was found guilty of abusing monopoly power. The fact that the justice department decided to not even slap MSFT on the wrist is seperate issue.

Re:It's not going to fail...

[spitzak]

If that was true then why is the #1 question asked about any new piece of word processing software is not "is it as good or better than MicroSoft word?" but is instead "how well can it import/export MicroSoft Office?".

Nobody can complete is because the ability to compete requires the ability to read and write a file format that they keep secret. That is monopoly behavior. If Word was so good they should be able to compete just fine reading and writing an open file format.

Reverse engineering this horrendous format requires so much effort that little time is left for making the rest of the program. Also the insistance that the program import and export the format without making too many changes severly limits the ability of the program to treat the text any differently than MicroSoft Word does, thus making "innovation" almost impossible.

Re:It's not going to fail...

[inode_buddha]

I'm going to call you on your comment about mindshare and monopoly power.

A recent conversation with my production supervisor strongly reveals the power of mindshare through market dominance:

(me) "Hey, could you recommend some tips to learn about databases in general?"

(him) "You mean Access?"

(me) "Nah, just general database concepts"

(him) "Access is easy"

*rest of conversation snipped because it makes my brain hurt*

Now, why do you think Office owns the Mac productivity market? Think again.

BTW, I use OpenOffice on Linux (personal preference). In most work environments this probably isn't going to fly, simply because anything that is not 100% MS is "nonstandard"
and therefore risky (aka not desirable).

On a slightly related note, it's interesting how many companies seem to want all the guarantees without having to offer any ("I hereby disclaim thee, O liability!") and of course, if you actually read and understand ie, EULA's you'll notice how they disclaim as much as possible.

All of which makes me wonder why the fsck am I paying them?

Just speaking from personal experience.

Re:It's not going to fail...

[mattdm]

Woah, woah. Office is the most popular productivity product because it's good. Complain all you like about Microsoft; they've produced an exceptional set of products in Office. It doesn't have anything to do with mindshare or monopoly power.

It might be good now, but at the time that there was competition, it was definitely inferior to offerings from other companies. Now, Lotus and All-the-various-owners-of-Wordperfect did some pretty stupid things, so it's not all Microsoft's fault, but I don't believe for a minute that MS Office won out on *merit*. They won through bundling, and they won through marketing.

do we really need it?

[g4dget]

It seems to me that OpenOffice fills the software category of "Microsoft Office clone" expertly. It is very full featured, XML-based, and is actively being developed by many people. Sure, it's a bit big and sluggish, but that should only make MS Office users feel more at home, and there is no guarantee that Gobe won't be as big and sluggish once it has been made cross-platform and equivalent functionality has been added.

It seems to me that, going beyond OpenOffice, the notion of an "integrated office suite" itself is broken. Gobe may be a little better than OpenOffice in design (I doubt it's as functional), but somehow that strikes me as just a meaner sabre tooth tiger--a better implementation of an evolutionary dead end. Even Microsoft has seen the light and claims that they will be trying to redefine what an office suite is in the future.

Unless there is some groundbreaking new functionality in Gobe that just can't be added to OpenOffice, the efforts that would go into porting Gobe to Linux and enhancing it would seem to be better spent on tuning, modularizing, and enhancing OpenOffice.

If the company falls under...

[nlinecomputers]

..what is stopping them from releasing the code as GPL anyway? Is the code tied up as an asset that might be seized by a bank?

Re:If the company falls under...

[Traicovn]

I think you may have misread the article. Actually, that's not how it works. See, FreeRadical has to purchase the rights to the code in order to open-sorce it. FreeRadical Software and Gobe are two seperate entities. FreeRadical wants to be the new owner of the Gobe product Gobe Productive (and they are the ones who want to open-source it) They do not currently have rights to the program/code needed to release the sourcecode under GPL/Open Source. Now yes, one would wonder why Gobe won't simply open-source the code (with the exception of the fact that perhaps they see the possibility of further revenue, like selling it to someone, perhaps someone who wants to open-source it like Free Radical Software) Now yes, if Gobe goes bankrupt or completely belly-up, or they decided to just completely abandon the project and thought that nobody would be interested, then yes, they might as well open-source the code if it became abandonware, In my opinion, that's probably what software companies should do. However, as long as they see some sort of viable market for the software, then they will not open-source it.
Or perhaps I misread it?

Thank goodness.

[Erpo]

I realize most people probably won't agree, but I'm incredibly thankful this thing didn't make it past the beta stage for linux and windows and might not be released under the gpl. I guess that might be considered a loss, as I'm sure it contains some great code that other OSS developers could use or draw from, but it will prevent anyone from finishing the port. In a software category like this (one that's so critical to broadened acceptance of linux on the desktop) I'm a firm believer that competition between products is actually a bad thing.

When all of the competitors in a market are OSS*, more product choice does not equal more freedom. That's kinda what the GPL is all about -- one person (or company) can't run off with the source and deprive the OSS community of the best piece of ______ software it ever had. On the contrary -- with the need normally satisfied by inter-product competition is taken resolved in another way, more product choice equals more confusion. Users like to get comfortable with a method for accomplishing a task and stick to it. "How do I create a new spreadsheet, again?" is not a question users want to have to ask more than once every five years; if they're forced to, they'll go back to what they were already comfortable with.

*The market I'm talking about is inclusion in linux distros. I'm well aware that MS Office is not OSS. ;)

Re:Thank goodness.

[Telex4]

I'd agree with your point that a lot of very different office products might cause confusion, but I don't think it's necessarily the only result of having many choices.

For one thing, I think a lot of the confusion is caused by the fact that lots of the packages try to do the same thing, and try to follow the (good) market leader, MS Office, and so confuse people who expect them to behave in the way that MS Office does. If packages could just focus on what makes them distinctive, on their way of doing things, then initially the choices might be confusing, but given the chance the average consumer will settle down with the choice that best fits them.

I also think that different file formats contribute to a lot of frustration and confusion. Were Gobe and OpenOffice and StarOffice and KOffice and AbiWord and all of the Free Software (or potential FS) suites to create a standard, open format and then use it as their default format, they'd be a lot less confusing, and one could switch between them more easily (as I clumsily do at the moment with OO and KO by exporting as (yuck) MS Word documents).

What Gobe could contribute is a nice, clean office suite that focuses on its own design choices. That could be a really good thing, and could force OO and SO to start looking at how dreadfully slow their interfaces are.

Re:Thank goodness.

[istartedi]

more product choice equals more confusion

This is one of the major fallacies of Free Software/Open Source advocacy. Whenever presented with the argument that the GPL might tend to discourage entry and result in a public monopoly, the advocates always counter that "the user has the source so they can customize it".

Now, ask yourself how many times you've heard somebody say "I don't like the way this program does ______" and you could counter with "have you tried brand X? It does _____ differently".

Now, if there is no brand X, or if the only way to obtain brand X is to have it custom built to your specifications, how many SOHO users are going to learn C or hire a consultant to give their office suite a "different feel"? Slightly less than 1% of half of none of them. They will all be trapped because, while there will be some variations, fundamentally all suites will be the same.

What kind of freedom and choice is that?

Re:do we really need it? Yes

[bstadil]

Yes, for one the OpenBeOS folks would most likely love to have it. It was the defacto (if there ever was such a thing) Office Suite standard on BeOS.

linux beta still available!

[Anonymous Coward]

just google it...
gobe productive 3.0 for linux is right here: http://www.gobe.com/downloads/gobe_linux_x86_insta ll.tgz

This will be a real shame

[X-Nc]

I bought and used gobeProductive on BeOS and also got the WinXX version. I was egerly waiting for the Linux port. Many have already asked the question "Why another Office Suite?". Well, as good as the existing open and commercial office products are they still aren't as smooth and easy as gobeProductive. It doesn't do everything MS Office does but (and follow me on this) it does 100% of the 80% od Office that 95% of the people actually use. And it does that piece better than MS Office and even OpenOffice.

Right now I have on my Linux laptop; Applix Anywhere 2.2, HancomOffice 2, SOT Office (OpenOffice repackeged by SOT), Koffice, and what I call a "best of breed" combination suite of Gnumeric/Scribus DTB/AbiWord/HTMLDOC/Ted. Of these, Applix was the best. Unfortunatly the company has killed it. HancomOffice looks like it might have potential but it's not yet there. OO, and it's like, is very good and makes a great MS Office clone. Unfortunatly it brings with it all the baggage that that intails. gobeProductive was a hope of mine. Sadly, it seems that once again, superior technology loses out.

Never past beta

[quantaman]

and later ported to Windows and Linux (which never made it past beta stage)

Sure it's not always the most user friendly and has a lot of development ongoing but I think we can still consider Linux to be past Beta!

It is a pitty

[herveb]

Gobe Productive is a very elegant and potent product. And the Gobe team seemed to be a very nice group of people (I exchanged emails with some of them). I used Productive on both BeOS and MS-Windows and it is a great job while being fast and very compact. The next version could have added functionalities like support for XML file format that could have really brought it the point that it meets the needs of 80% of the users. It is unfortunate that this product is going to disappear. Well, it shows once again that the impact of Microsoft behavior does not lead to more innovation (like Productive) and more choices for the consumers but to their alienation (and I am not arguing about MS-Office value but who really needs all its functionalities?).

Re:There's a reason

[dvdeug]

And they're not suffering along with Office because there are no alternatives. People buy and use [Microsoft] Office because they choose to.

The single complaint I've heard the most about OpenOffice and friends? That it doesn't support Microsoft Office file formats well enough. The fact is, I have a half-dozen programs on my computer to read Microsoft Word (I don't care to install OpenOffice, as I don't need it); furthermore, I end up unable to read a number of files on the web and occasionally sent to me because they're in PowerPoint.

Is Microsoft Office a good program? Yes. But for a lot of people, the reason they don't use simpler, cheaper, more portable alternatives is because of Office's proprietary file-formats, not because Office is better for them.

Re:There's a reason

[Tim C]

If you want Office, you have to buy a copy.

That's true enough, but you'll often find Microsoft Works bundled with new PCs (e.g. the one I bought a couple of weeks ago), and that comes with Word. To a lot of people, Word *is* Office, as they almost never use Powerpoint or Excel, don't think of Outlook as part of Office, and wouldn't even know what Access is.

Also, if you look around enough, you will find Office bundled with new PCs. They'll be the sort that cost a fortune, and come with a printer, scanner, etc, but you can find them.

Re:There's a reason

[Twirlip of the Mists]

OK, so you're a chef, and your knowledge is limited to personal desktop computing. That's your context, correct?

Not precisely. Before the bubble burst, I spent about 15 years in the computer industry. I was a field engineer, an operator, a system admin, a consultant, an engineer, a manager, and finally an executive. But the last business venture burned me out so hard I decided to just take a pass on the whole thing and open a restaurant. That was earlier this year.

Reading back through your posts is sickening.

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

My wife wrote her dissertation in Word because I couldn't simplify SGML enough

My girlfriend wrote hers, in molecular genetics, in Word too, but not for the same reason. She did it because she liked Word just fine. I don't remember how many pages hers was-- something in the 300 range, like yours-- but she didn't have anything like the problems you described. Citations, tables of contents and figures, pagination; all worked perfectly.

Perhaps you guys were doing something wrong?

ask yourself how many people really want to get their computer advice from a chef?

I don't recall offering any advice. Just opinion. And my opinion is that Office would never have become the dominant product in its market if it were as bad as you say it is. The conclusion, therefore, is that it's nowhere near as bad as you say it is. The only outstanding question, then, is why you think so poorly of it.