Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice Goes LGPL
Motor writes "According to the OpenOffice.org site, Sun has decided to relicense OpenOffice under the LGPL alone and retire its Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). Sun supporters claim that it's part of Sun's move to reduce the number of open source licenses. Of course it could just be PR, since Sun stirred up a lot of bad publicity with the introduction of the CDDL for the release of Solaris. Either way, it's good news for OpenOffice."
and they're changing the name of OpenOffice to:
OOMLA!!!!!
Maybe it's just me, but from the looks of it, OOo is already LGPLed.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
OpenOffice.org is not "going" LGPL - it was already LGPL and SISSL.
It is now just LGPL. I don't see how this is "good news" for OO at all - maybe good news for OSI or others who would like to see less of a proliferation of Open Source licences.
My pics.
The difference between the GPL and the LGPL is that LGPL projects assume that others will create projects that interface with the original LGPL project, but that are not strictly part of the original project. Under the GPL, such items would need to be made available under the GPL themselves; under the LGPL, they can be licensed however the copyright holder sees fit.
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
Why is there so much damn whining about CDDL just because its not GPL? There are some very legitimate business and legal reasons that Sun could not use GPL which have been explained, ad nauseum, in other forums. It's not as if they just arbitrarily chose it to piss of the Stallman's diciples.
It's in the OOo FAQ.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
Why should Sun GPL their implementation. Seriously, why? The damand for Sun to do so seems to stem from slashdotters, and I havent yet seen a good reason *WHY* they should give away their Java implementation under the GPL. The specification I agree with - put it under the control of a independant standards body, but Sun should keep their implementation and everyone can still implement their own. Why is it that theres a rather vocal number of slashdotters who seem to demand that companies (not just Sun) give away their code? Write your goddamn own.
As much as I hate the auto* tools (e.g. automake, autoconf etc) or to be more precise the people that write the *.in files with tests that dont work, the build procedure for OO is so broken it isnt even funny, they use their own make, require a tcsh is installed, need ant, need python installed, its just broken and if they ever want a greater community to praticipate in its development this needs to get fixed fast.
If it were an open standard...
It is an open standard!
The simple reason that there are no comparable open source implementations is that no open source developers have invested as much time to write the standard libraries. Let's not kid ourselves.
However, GCJ/GIJ are great. That project has made huge advances on an open implementation.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Well whats good for Sun is not good for users and the future of the language.
Java is falling behind because it frankly has no way to update itself despite upgrades from Sun itself. Hell, even IBM is having trouble making their version of Java better. Mainly because its considering proprietary because its not from sun.
Java is designed to write portable apps to all platforms. You can not write your own java api and have that same app work on another system. So its a mute point.
C#.net is better as a language and we all have to wait for sun to stamp yet another revision to catch up. Microsoft has the resources to improve it when Sun does not.
In perl and other opensource languages you have developers improving the language itself. If Sun let the community upgrade it and develop more libraries it will improve and not die out.
http://saveie6.com/
As far as I have understood the Ximian version of Openoffice (http://go-oo.org/) was born out of the fact that some developers did not want to license their code under Sun's terms. Is there any comment on whether the Ximianized OO will be merging with the main one now?
I personally use XOO because it has far better KDE integration than the regular one.
It is more than a bit expensive to pass the certification however so the open source projects will probably never do so (though some company might push through one specific version at some point). It is not really an all that important point however, the technology and specification is all legal to implement.
Personally I get a bit worried when people talk about "falling behind" for a language (or major library for that matter). Java gets updated, in major ways, every few years. Since the language is the very basis for applications it cannot however run around and change all the time, it is supposed to be the vehicle of delivery for applications. If the language is so completely wrong that is needs to be changed in a major way one might as well instead create a new lanaguage.
The basic thing here is that while end-user applications should evolve as much as possible lower-level libraries and languages can not. There are probably billions of lines of Java out there, there are tools that parse Java code, there are languages targetting the JVM, there are libraries in turn relying on Sun's libraries. Changing the playing rules (even without breaking backwards compatibility) would invalidate a lot of work down the line.
I for one rather hope that Sun does not plan to add as major changes in 1.6 as they did in 1.5. This is not a hunt for some glorified ultimate language, there is real work being done that should not be constantly disturbed.
Some people might now just say "so stick to one version of Java and let the rest of us have new features". The problem is that doing so will fragment the language badly. People will have to not just learn one revision, they will have to learn a new one for each job they do, and then typically juggle the differences in their minds. Making the actual situation much more complex than the language appears to be when only considering each revision by itself.
Now of course there is .NET, which is a fine platform as well. I don't see that much need to update Java any more in response to it however, 1.5 added the most important bits. Doing anything more major soon would just make the relationship between Java 1.4 and 1.6 meaningless, people could just as well switch to .NET as go to another completely different platform.
Disclaimer: I am a developer of the Mac OS X OpenOffice.org port as well as a founder of the NeoOffice project.
If anyone is affected by this, it will most drastically affect IBM. If you look at the original list of Sun Copyright Assignment signers, you'll notice that IBM is listed as one of the original signers. Curiously, this page is no longer accessible (the wayback machine lists it as blocked by robots.txt) and there are few IBM-OpenOffice.org references left. Has IBM made any source code contributions to the OpenOffice.org product? No. Why should they...
They develop IBM/Lotus Workplace. Workplace incorporates OpenOffice.org code directly and provides their Word/Excel style integration with the old Notes environment. Doubtless they have probably made enhancements to the code to support collaboration. Since SISSL allows for binary only distribution, however, IBM never had a need to join the OpenOffice.org project to develop Workplace. They could happily have their own team of engineers working on it and had no obligation to share that work with others under SISSL.
So is this a good thing? Who knows. IBM very well may just stick with the last version of source released under SISSL for Workplace. OOo 1.x/2.x is "good enough", so unless future LGPL only versions have some type of major advantage, there's no need for IBM to contribute back their Workplace enhancements.
This is really ironic, though, since LGPL was actually thrown into the original OOo license as an afterthought (I think by Joerg, but may be mistaken). The afterthought has won out!!
For me personally, this is a good thing since it legitimizes GPL-only forks like NeoOffice and hopefully can help them stop accusing us of stealing OpenOffice.org and engaging in illegal activities when all we do is exercise our rights under the LGPL license.
ed
True, but if you download OO2, you select language and operating system - for Linux, your choice is x86 or PPC. What it gives you is a bunch of RPM files. There is no option for .deb or just a good old tarball, they just assume that Linux=RPM (Redhat Package Manager) files. My first attempt to install was to install RPM and try to use that - didn't work because it insisted that none of the dependencies were installed. rpm2tgz worked fine though. I'm pretty sure that between the debian based distros, source based distros, and various other package formats that RPM distros likely make up far less than half of Linux users - not all Linux users as Sun seems to assume. A tar.gz would work for everyone.
Code is already shared where possible. Take for example the WordPerfect importer. It originally was AbiWord's importer. When it became better and better, we split it off into the libwpd library. These days libwpd is used by AbiWord (naturally), OpenOffice and even KOffice.
So, what is the legal status of such projects ? Can Sun shut them down ? I'm not asking if it is profitable for Sun to do this, I'm asking if it is possible for them to do this ?
It's legal. It's just that Sun has made a sophisticated product very carefully with very high quality standards, and it is difficult for open source developers to match that in a fully-compatible way.
In short, is it safe to begin new projects in Java, or should I look into Ruby or something ? Or should I just stick to C and forget all about this current fad of object-orientation ?-)
Sun will be there, and Java will be there. And if not, some open product will likely suit your needs (GIJ and GCJ are very good actually, they just haven't reimplmented the entire standard library). Or IBM. Remember, the standards are open.
Next, the language is different from the programming approach. Use object-oriented thinking when it makes the most sense. Use procedural or functional programming when those make more sense. And then just pick the language based on where you see the project going and what features of the language you think will help. A java program is not necessarily object-oriented, it just provides the tools in case you are thinking that way while programming.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
This has nothing to do with reducing license proliferation. It has everything to do with the continuing spat between IBM and Sun.
OO has always been available under both the LGPL and Sun's BSD-ish SISSL license. Much to Sun's annoyance (and the annoyance of some community members), IBM forked the 1.x code and used it as the basis of their document clients in the closed-source IBM Workplace product. IBM hasn't released one line of that code, much of which involves modularization and could've been of great value to the community. Thanks to the SISSL terms, they don't have to.
Is IBM doing wrong here? Well, they are 100% within their legal rights, even if it wasn't the most community-friendly move. Sun set the rules and IBM is following them. Sun has now decided to change the rules of the game so that IBM cannot do this again. They can continue with their forked 1.x codebase, but if they want to move up to the improved 2.x code they're going to have to play nice with the community under the terms of the LGPL - and release their code changes.
Sun's situation with StarOffice is unchanged, because they remain the copyright holder of the mainline OO code (all contributors must sign a joint copyright agreement). They never needed SISSL in the first place. As owner of the code, Sun can still make proprietary changes to OO without releasing the source - they can do exactly what IBM is doing - but without SISSL, IBM cannot.
License proliferation is not and has never been a serious issue for Sun. It's complete hogwash and I'm surprised to see Slashdot seem to buy it hook line and sinker. Folks, this is the company that - just months ago - rather than suggest improvements to the MPL or adopt one of the dozens of other existing licenses that might be suitable, instead hand-crafted the new CDDL license for their own use. This is the company that just recently reshuffled all the semi-open and academic Java licenses once again. None of which is necessarily wrong or bad (CDDL, for example, is a perfectly fine open source and free software license - yet another one) - but all of which shows that this is a company that doesn't really care about the license proliferation problem. This move was targeted at hurting IBM and IBM alone. The license stuff is spin.
Will IBM rise to the challenge, adopt the 2.x codebase for future Workplace revisions, and help the community by releasing code? Or will they continue with their SISSL fork? We'll see.
Of course it could just be PR, since Sun stirred up a lot of bad publicity with the introduction of the CDDL for the release of Solaris.
You know, the groundless Sun-bashing on here is just absurd, and is really stupid.
Sun has done some awfuly nice things for the open-source world that probably wouldn't have happened any time soon without them. They're doing this *despite* the fact that their business is one of the *the most impacted* by the increasing use of open source.
Sun is out to make a buck. Yes, that's a good thing to keep in mind. They're like Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. However, they, like IBM, have chosen to generally work *with* the open source world, as opposed to attacking it, like Microsoft.
What I can't figure out is why whenever I see a story about Sun doing something to help open source, about eight-six-zillion people on here immediately start ragging on Sun. You don't like Solaris? Fine. I prefer Linux myself. You think Sun hardware is overpriced? Fine. I agree. But Sun doesn't bully their way into my life a la Microsoft and then spread shitty products all over. Seriously, it sounds like some of the people on here had their parents murdered by Sun or something. Give them a goddamn break already. If they do something like SCO did, then you can start up the hating. But I don't see any reason to Sun-bash when Sun isn't doing anything wrong.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Disclaimer: I am a Mac OS X OpenOffice.org developer and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
While licensing is part of the spats that have caused these forks in the past (note: RedHat has their own separate "fork"), it's not the only problem. It's the mentality of Sun (a.k.a "OpenOffice.org") developers as a whole. The patch submission process doesn't allow for innovation. Rather, it's a tedious sequence of submitting and resubmitting patches. In general, patches that add functionality for a single platform only are rejected...everything must target the lowest common denominator. Ximan's alpha patches weren't incorporated quickly enough to allow their icon set to work with 1.0.3, so they shipped using a different code line.
Simply changing licenses doesn't address the fact that if your code patches aren't what Sun wants, they just won't accept them. OOo development needs to move to a neutral body before real progress can happen.
It doesn't help that Sun, RedHat, and Novell have a secret development board that decides the development direction from OOo without any input from the community. (this is not random accusation...it was revealed to me by someone on the inside). Open source doesn't necessarily help the little guy.
ed
If you want an open-source Java compiler and an open-source Java virtual machine, there is nothing stopping you from writing one. The Java Language Specification is available for free from Sun's web site, and so is the Java Virtual Machine Specification. These should give you enough information to make a GPLed implementation if you wish to do so.
Sun's JVM and compiler are not the only implementations of Java out there. This is because Java is a standard. This gives you the ultimate freedom, because if you don't like the license of one of the implementations, you can in theory create your own implementation that has whatever license you like. I really don't get why people think Sun needs to open source their Java software. Nobody bitched and moaned when AT&T didn't provide a GPL C or C++ compiler implementation. Instead, people created their own implementation. You may have heard of it; it's called gcc. How is the Java situation any different at all?
It's Yet Another Copyleft GPL-incompatible License. As if we need more of those. Come on, if you're going copyleft, choose GPL. Or LGPL. Please.
It's not intrinsically free. I.E., individual applications of it may be, with a liberal interpretation, or may not be, with a lawyer one. Notably it's capable of failing Debian's Dissident test, and to boot it contains a choice-of-venue provision, which can be a HUGE burden on a licensee. It also has a number of weasel-worded lawyer clauses that could be used in nasty ways (especially around the patent section; probably this license is not adequete to avoid patent-controlled software).
One would have to analyse each license declaration that invokes this thing. Maybe somebody could formulate a sample declaration that always forms a free license, but otherwise...
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048