FSF, OpenOffice.org Team Reach Agreement on Java

Bruce Byfield points out his NewsForge (part of OSTG) article about something good coming out of the conflict over Java in OpenOffice.org. It begins "A dispute between the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and OpenOffice.org (OOo) over the increased use of Java in the upcoming version 2.0 release of OOo is over -- at least for now. The two groups have found a short-term solution, and are working together on ways to keep the dispute from happening again." The story provides a decent background on why it matters, and shows a surprisingly conciliatory attitude on both sides.

Comments

Re:Will this always happen.

[ZephyrXero]

This stuff happens because you shouldn't build open/free software off proprietary software. If you want to use open software as a foundation or library for your proprietary software, that's fine...but you don't develop open source code with a closed source language. It defeats the purpose of it being open. Linus found out the hardway and I'm glad that Open Office will hopefully be having an easier time...

Zealotry as a force for good

[jmmcd]

The interesting thing here is that Richard Stallman's zealotry/passion (delete as appropriate) had the effect of improving something: "Stallman has learned that efforts to compile OpenOffice.org using the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ) were close to success, and has amended the call to a request for help in continuing this work."

As opposed to the type of zealotry which some people say is killing Debian.

It's not over until there's an open distro

[Animats]

This controversy won't be over until there's an OpenOffice distribution avaialble that requires no proprietary code whatsoever.

The reason this is so important is that if all the source is openly available, nobody can make it go away. It's essential to avoid "drug dealer marketing" - the first one is free, but then it's going to cost you. There have been too many products that started out "open", and then started to cost money once they had users locked in.

The typical progression for psuedo-free software is

• The product is free for download. A user community emerges.
• A new version comes out, with modest restrictions and price, and the free version is deprecated.
• The free version disappears.
• The price goes up, and copy protection is added.
• Market share declines.

Examples are Intellicad, Sendmail, and QNX

Portable OpenOffice and Java

[CritterNYC]

Personally, I was more than a bit disheartened when I first found out about how much of OOo 2.0 required Java. While Portable OpenOffice 1.1.4 worked quite well on machines without Sun's JRE installed, I was rather worried how Portable OpenOffice 2.0 would fare (just compiled a test alpha using the latest UPX beta, etc). If they split out a version that didn't require Java installed, I'd probably base Portable OpenOffice on that instead.

The FSF and Stallman is correct

[codepunk]

Lets just put a stop to the java zeolots right here and now...

If you cannot package and distribute the application
"with the JVM" it is not and never will be free.

I happen to like java, but I sure would never use it in something I was gonna distribute.

open source CPUs

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

When are open-sourced based CPUs going to be available? Does anyone know of any available? I don't *feel* free with the current processor offerings available.

Here you go. Check out the OpenRISC 1000 - I am guessing that it will be particularly interesting for you since the 1200 version has been used to demonstrate Linux. Of course the MIPS and Sparc clones can do so as well.

Transmeta was the closest, since Linus worked for them way back when.

Given that the native instruction set was top secret, I would say it was the least open source processor of all.

Hmm... still don't get it.

[pavera]

I use the open office beta every day.
I don't have java installed.

All of the functionality that worked in 1.0+ works better in 2.0, and I don't use any of the additional features. Obviously, some people will want to use those features, but wow, aren't we always the ones yelling at MS for their stupid "wizards" and now we're mad cause we can't use the OOo ones? And isn't MS Access the bane of all db developers everywhere? And now we're upset cause we can't use our own half assed, not nearly as nice version of Access?

Seriously people I don't understand. OOo 2.0 is not "crippled" without java, it works just fine for 100% of the existing (ie 1.0) functionality, and all you're missing is some gay wizards, and a half baked db frontend that crashes all the time. I installed java for about 10 minutes to check out the java features, and then uninstalled it, cause well they sucked. I know this is only a beta release and I'm sure 2.0 will be better.. but it won't be anywhere close to usable, not for anything remotely real.