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Sun Refuses LGPL for OpenOffice; Novell forks
TRS-80 writes "Kohei Yoshida wrote a long post on the history of Calc Solver, an optimization solver module for the Calc component of OpenOffice.org. After three years of jumping through Sun's hoops on his own time, Sun says it will duplicate the work because Kohei doesn't want to sign over ownership of the code. Adding insult to injury, Sun then invites him join this duplication. Because of Sun's refusal to accept LPGL extensions in the upstream code, Michael Meeks (who recently talked about Sun's OO.o community failings, and ODF and OOXML) has announced ooo-build (previously just for build fixes) is now a formal fork of OpenOffice to be located at http://go-oo.org/. "
There is just as much or more license squabbling in the OSS world as there is the other world.
It's kind of sad.
Blame the big corporations?
When will people learn that bickering like this is completely pointless and is in no one's best interests?
to Michael Jackson and Weird Al Yankovich:
They told him, we don't your code around here
Don't wanna see your source, make it disappear
The license they don't like, and they made that clear
So fork it, Just fork it.
You better take your code, better do what you can
Don't wanna see it die, 'cause Sun wanna be da man!
You wanna own your code, better do what you can
So fork it, but you don't wanna be mad
Just fork it, fork it, fork it, fork it
No wants this to get too heated
Show 'em the way to free code that's right
It doesn't matter how the code comes to light
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
They won't take your code, best to leave while you can
Don't wanna fight with Sun, you wanna be da man
You wau wanna keep the code alive, just do what you can
So fork it, Just fork it,
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This is not an official "fork" of OpenOffice.org. This is simply a way for Windows user's to get a nice "Development version" of the office suite similar to what is deployed on most GNU/Linux Distributions. Of course if you don't want to use a "Development Version" on your workstations, you can get a stable version of the OOO-Build service with Novell's version of OpenOffice.org for Windows (which is what I prefer).
So, I guess it's back to the Openoffice 1.x-days, when I routinely emerged ooo-ximian for my Gentoo workstations (better integration with KDE using native dialogs et al).
As long as they don't get "exclusive" features that are only in one version and not the other, this probably won't be a problem.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.
But who the hell does the Kohei guy think he is? "Hey guys, I just wrote this small addition to your software. Can you please relicense everything so I can commit it. Oh and by the way.... I won't be assigning copyrights on the submission to you." I can just imagine how well it would go over if I wrote a driver for some new piece of hardware and asked Linus to relicense the kernel under the BSD license so I could commit.
Nonsense; Sun can fix this trivially by simply accepting code under their own terms: the LGPL.
The OOo community, or, that is, both developers not working for Sun ;), have been talking about a fork for a while, well before the whole MS/Novell thing. Sun won't take any code from anyone not willing to assign the copyright to them, which pisses a lot of people off. They also won't take code that deviates from the strategic direction Sun wants to follow. Development proceeds at Sun's pace, which as some say -- giant land tortoises move faster. The OOo community needs to fork OOo for the good of the project.
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Why do Sun demand that ownership is signed over, can't they just accept dual licensing - that is you license it under the LGPL and license it specifically to Sun under other terms (eg BSD) so they can reuse it in staroffice.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I submitted a story about this a week or two ago. I think it's also worthy to note that IBM seems to have done the same thing.
What was the story I submitted tagged as? 'fudfudfud'
I wonder how many forks we'll see? I also wonder if anyone's going to actually make this real open source or if each company is going to fork their own copy and call all the shots on it? I hope someone learns that to be the OpenOffice you have to be open to community ideas, wants & needs as well as truly governed by the community.
My work here is dung.
Which is worse?
forking
or spooning with M$
Considering that IBM has just put > 30 programmers fulltime working on OO (Yes I understand under a new name), isnt all of this squabbling kind of pointless?? Also, with this amount of squabbling going on, I really do have that IBM just forks their changes and continues to maintain the codebase with a fulltime staff. Someone needs it...
So does this mean that someone will make a non-bloat version of OpenOffice? That would be a cool fork..
"A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
So Novell are the good guy now? Or they... wait... no they're with Microsoft. Sun is against Microsoft, but can't accept upstream changes under LGPL... so Novell is forking... and... and...
**head explodes**
For all of you who think releasing your proprietary software under open source means just free community work and good PR.
If you keep acting as if you never did it, you'll wake up one day with the entire project forked by a competing company.
Jumping from one company that's in bed with Microsoft to another company that's in bed with Microsoft?
OpenOffice wasn't under Sun's umbrella of lawsuit protection from Microsoft. It won't be under Novell's umbrella of lawsuit protection from Microsoft.
Why didn't they just put in on servers that aren't supported controlled by either company?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Discuss...
No, please don't. Please stop your trolling. Please refrain from dragging MS into each and every discussion. It only derails the discussion and lowers the overall quality of this site.
Nah, you did not understand. He is wanting to submit it under the same license the project is releasing, under LGPL. Sun is not accepting the contribution because he is not giving them the _copyright_. Nothing like GPL vs LGPL stuff. Kohei's solver is a free software released under the same license OpenOffice.org is.
There is not relicensing involved. You don't understand. OOo is licensed under LGPL. But Sun want to *own* the code (which basically allow them to not comply with LGPL, therefore sublicensing). Kohei is just a developer that does not want his code (he wrote on his free time) to become non-Free. By keeping the copyright he prevent this to happen.
Hub
Is this one of those GGG websites? I think Websense will probably start blocking this stuff.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I have issues with that domain name.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Easy to reply to:
OMGZ!! NOBELL IS THE DEBIL!!!!!
Or.....they are actually fighting for a less restrictive license, in the LGPL.......
Dude, if you have no idea about the MS/Novell agreement (and judging by your post, you do not) then please keep your "mouth" shut. Seriously, it just makes you look stupid and appeals only to the foaming "NOVELL SUCKS!" crowd.
You use so much Novell sponsored code if you use OO.o, KDE, Gnome, Linux Kernel, Tomboy, Beagle, and a ton of other things. Novell is in various F/OSS groups to HELP the F/OSS community, and have been there before the MS deal. They are using their patents to fight patent trolls, stood up to SCO to help Linux when SCO sued IBM, etc
What more do you need as proof? Do they have to use a pair of rusty pliers to put Miguel in his place when he mouths off about something inane (as per usual?)
bullshit.
Over the past few months, I've been looking for an XML based open source system to handle all documents for a Hospital Information System. Several ISVs have suggested to steer clear of ODF as well as OpenOffice.org. Some of the main objections:
1. SUN isn't very forthcoming when it comes to including changes submitted in the main code.
2. The problems of bloat, poor performance, memory utilisation etc. have been inherited from MS Office.
3. The ODF spec is overly long and needlessly complex, to be implemented faithfully.
Maybe the pressure built up has finally yielded, resulting in this fork. Good luck.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This is one of the reasons the 'fork' exists. It's not worth getting worked up over. Sun has a particular license and that's their decision. Fine. If the community at large wants something different, they'll do it differently and it will become the defacto standard. Done.
When you contribute open source code on your own time, it is an implicit admission that your code is worth little, and so don't be surprised to see someone else take the same view and duplicate it! The value is the fun in writing it, thus there will be some handful of people on the planet that share the same sense of fun, and will duplicate the work. I've seen lots of my stuff duplicated. And I've duplicated other projects. That is how people have fun and learn.
Imagine if you'd gotten money from Sun for your code. Would you care (as much) if they ignored the code? They'd have the right by having purchased it. But having spent money on it, they'd probably be less likely to discard it, and to start from scratch. Money makes a difference.
Jeez, this post is the typical complaint seen in charity work: "Oh, they didn't value my work, and I have no sense of self-worth, so now I'm all upset!" "The people running the charity are all in a clique and don't pay attention to the contributions of the other charity workers. They're destroying the spirit of the organization. Lets go create another organization that cares!" And then the cycle continues. The basic mistake is in thinking that other people have to value your work. They don't. Only you do.
Sad to read this. Seems Open Office have two huge barriers to contributing - messy, crufty, monolithic code, and a bureaucratic development process.
Luckily my own experiences with contributing to the OpenJDK have been much better. Hopefully the experiences Sun learned in open sourcing Java can be applied to improving the Open Office project.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
So - fork is rather a pejorative term; it has always been the case (for one reason and another), that there are lots of different versions and derivatives of OO.o out there. Most obviously Sun ships a version of OO.o under a proprietary license, and many other vendors and small companies likewise - with different internationalizations, and (most often) some proprietary value add. http://go-oo.org/ has existed for many years as has ooo-build, and has been used rather widely as a place to share improvements and fixes layered on top of OO.o. Also, fork sounds like some drastic severing of ties - it's clear that we will continue contributing tons of effort to up-stream OpenOffice.org, much as before. So, at some level this is business as normal: just a set of LGPL pieces (and existing patches/improvements), bundled up and made more widely available than before; the only slight difference is that go-oo is all free software. HTH.
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1: The "non-starter" speed. Even with the quickstarter, OpenOffice.org does not start that fast enough for me.
2: Absence of a full email client. I suggest they grab Mozilla's Thunderbird. I have no trouble with it at all.
3: Beauty. Heck, the [ugly and huge] icons on Linux can be made better looking.
4: Make its database offering comparable to Microsoft's Access. Right now, a lot of work has to be done.
Those are my US$0.02.
Did you know the the Canadian Dollar is now worth more than the US dollar? I just found out this morning!
Linux is obviously the benchmark for any project that wants to take on an entrenched proprietary market leader. While Sun insist on owning everything in OpenOffice/StarOffice my bet is that it will never be able to take on MS Office in the way the Linux takes on Windows.
Truly what Linus has been doing all these years is remarkable.
I agree, it would make sense to have GPL or LGPL OOO without this copyright assignment thing.
Note that this alternative OOO would be able to use any code from Sun and offer developers an added incentive: they don't have to assign ownership to Sun or anybody. And that can be a big incentive these days after a few projects having closed their source (remember sourceforge, that was not pretty... And more recently CUPS was bought by Apple. Which is not bad per se but I could understand that people who spent a few months of their own time working on it might be unhappy that they did not get a cut of the sale price...)
Of course Sun contributed the main code base and you could see the contributions as a reward to them. But it only works if the new contributions from others are small compared to Sun's. When they become big, you can understand that the contributors might want a more democratic way of handling things.
That's why the FSF says you should assign the copyright to them. But recently they showed that they could use that to make everything GPL3, which is hardly a consensual proposal.
So I guess that the Linux way is pretty good: get code from people who prove they own it and make it GPL. Distribute everything under GPL and count on the absence of a single copyright owner to make sure the initial contract (the GPL version X) will be maintained forever.
I have written code for PHP, and they require it be owned by the PHP group for inclusion. This is no different.
nt part of
There are some facts, Sun is a business and as such they have to make sure their business is viable. The solver is an important part, and since sun does use OpenOffice.org as the basis of StarOffice, they will want to make sure they are in proper legal standing to do so. If they make mods to the module, then all their mods must be published and there may be instances where this is not something they may legally be able to do.
I'm a free software developer who uses my code base for private consulting purposes, when people contribute patches, I require the copyright be assigned to me because I can't jeopardize my ability to use the code for a private contract. I fully understand Sun's position.
I think the solution is to pay a one time fee to the author(s) for a license fork with a guarantee that the code will remain "open." That will save Sun the trouble of re-doing the work. That will save face with the community i.e. all your work really does have value.
For core changes to the OpenOffice.org code base, Sun requires joint copyright assignment (JCA), whereby both the original author(s) and Sun jointly hold copyright. This allows Sun to relicense the OpenOffice.org code as needed (e.g., GPLv3).
IANAL, but with the JCA, nothing would prevent Kohei from making his code available under LGPL or any license he chooses outside of OpenOffice.org. However, by not signing the JCA, Kohei is preventing his code from being part of the core Oo.org code base. For whatever reason, the Oo.org team must want a solver that is part of the Oo.org code base, so if Kohei won't sign the JCA, there are few available options.
What would be interesting is if there were a way to basically split Kohei's solver component into three pieces. One is the GUI layer (there's menu choices, presumably leading to solver-specific dialog boxes), one is the bridge to communicate with the underlying spreadsheet data, and one implements the solver logic proper. Packaging that last piece as a LGPL third-party component, reusable among other projects (e.g., Gnumeric), might be acceptable to the Oo.org team, provided that the Oo.org-specific UI and data access bridges were part of the core project. I have no idea if this kind of code split makes any sense, since I've never written a solver, though Kohei references lp-solve, suggesting that part of his code might be able to be split into an nlp-solve...
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Only in open sourced code could a fork like this be made. If it had been Excel he had written this code for he'd probably be getting sued for breeching some patents.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
How is Sun's policy any different than the FSF's policy for GNU projects they manage?
Nah, just give Miguel a dose of Mono (the disease, not the code), because it certainly makes my linux boxes sick until I disable it.
Imitate a Microsoft product? Talk about having low expectations!
One can probably describe mathematically the maximum size of a FOSSie project before it starts to splinter. A project can only have so many people working on it, and then, exactly like we see with Teh Lunix, it will start to splinter, and then the splinters will splinter, and so on.
This is another among millions of reasons OO.o will never be a competitor to MS Office, at least not a serious competitor (a market share below the statistical margin of error doesn't equal competition). As time goes on, OO.o will have less and less ability to keep it together, and will eventually devolve into a "core" OO.o group who works on the nuts and bolts at the root of the project, while everyone else does the UI and stuff.
That was Teh Lunis's solution, which is why all he cares about is the kernel- the distro hell is everyone else's creation, and now their problem. And as we've seen with all of Stallman's cultists, Teh Lunis doesn't supply enough anti-MS hate speech to keep teh Lunix-using masses satisfied. So as time goes by, even Teh Lunis becomes irrelevant, while Stallman just works on forcing the masses to use the software he approves for them.
It's all about freedom of choice... or rather, freedom FROM choice: use Stallman-approved software, or else they send the dogs after you. The BBC can let you know all about how that one works.
So here is how it's going to work, guys: Sun and IBM are going to own Teh Lunix, because the rabid MS-haters have already sold it to them in order to finance their war efforts, and Sun and IBM were more than happy to have something hurt their competitor. That's pretty much a done deal. Now we will just have to wait and see who gets to own OO.o.
Project forks are like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Everyone knows the potential is there, so therefore it hardly ever happens!
Still, no one likes a gratuitous fork. Such forks are likely to fail. When a project forks, the leaders of the new branch are usually extremely apologetic explaining why the fork was necessary.
What if you are not a developer and do not have the technical ability to fork? How are you protected?
You are protected by the free rider principal. If you are justly unhappy with the way a project is going, chances are some developer is also. You can take a "free ride" on some one else's fork!
The right to fork is the sole protection end users receive from free software licensing. The right to fork is the right to be free!
Your OpenOffice.org
As the homepage of the fork prominently states "Your OpenOffice.org" I have a few questions:
1) Is it ethical to use the name or domain name of the forked software? ("Your Mozilla.org" anyone?)
2) Is it not a trademark infringement? Note: even unregistered trademarks are protected to a certain extent (at least under US trademark law).
3) Is it not unfair business practices?
What people don't realize is that copyright licenses (e.g. GPL) cover only the softweare. Names and brands are not "copyrightable" so the GPL does not cover them (and gives no license to use them). Implicit and default trade name and trademark protection rights are granted by trademark law, business code, etc.
Why did Sun reject the license? Wikipedia says that OpenOffice is licensed under LGPL, so what's the problem?
No, you don't seem to understand.
Both he and Sun would have copyright to the code. He could do whatever he wants with it.... he just would have no say in what Sun does with his submission.... which is totally fair IMO.
As we can still get OpenOffice how does this matter? FUD?
Embrace, Extend ... Extinguish... which leads me to believe Novell is definitely a Microsoft crony.
This is what they do to you!
Copyright assignment to those in control of the project is a good thing. It consolidates interest, makes it possible to make licensing decisions and changes in the future, and allows the project to be defended legally.
It is also probably time for an OO fork. Forking is not evil or bad, forking is powerful and must be used with caution but it is the ultimate power the community has. I'm not especially surprised that Sun spent all that time previously talking about the evils of forks, it is only fitting since Sun intends to control anything they contribute with an iron fist. The project is stagnant, not because people don't contribute but because Sun doesn't accept changes or only wants certain features in StarOffice.
There should probably be a fork if we want to see something useful arise from OO but it shouldn't be run by Novell or Sun or IBM or any other corporation. A fork should be run by the community, for the community. A community run foundation or non-profit should be at its head with a no sale of the codebase clause in its charter. If Novell wants to donate the bandwidth then so be it.
Have you considered just how many departments there are at Slashdot? I bet even Taco doesn't know the exact number.
The bureaucracy at slashdot makes the federal goverment look svelte by comparison. The overhead of all of those departments will bankrupt slashdot, for sure.
I am NOT a lawyer, but my father-in-law is! (hmmm, so what?) As some recent cases in Europe show, They may "steal" GPL code from many people, but if one copyright holder sues and wins, everyone wins! So the assignment clause, does not hold water on this ONE argument. It does server other purposes and is a valid requirement, but comes with a negative side too. I personally will not contribute to any project that has this requirement. My contributions, have stayed my own, under GPLv2.
That being said. I still think this fork is *long over due* and is required to "patch around damage". Sun has made too many mistakes and too many enemies.
The other example of a good fork, is Joomla!
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Ever since Sun shoved Java into OOo, didn't use SQLite for Base and continues to stick to that horrible interface, I have been hoping for a fork. So kudo's to the free software world for that.
But... it's Novell, people. Novell. Might as well be MS. When will we see a real community-run/owned fork?
I do understand their point about the JCA. Linux can probably never move to GPLv3 (or GPLv4) even if Linus wanted to because there are far too many people with a copyright interest in the code, some of whome will be deceased. The JCA allows SUN to do two things, act as owner of the full code (for license changes or other legal issues) and also release the code in StarOffice. The price of the first is the second. On balance I would not have a problem with the JCA. It does allow SUN some special rights, they also have some special responsibilities. In the distinctly possible scenario that Microsoft start to pick a legal fight with OpenOffice.org then we all get to sit back with popcorn and watch SUN (and probably IBM) slug it out. Linux does not have a corporate backer, which in itself is a pretty robust strategy for avoiding litigation. The JCA is an alternative strategy. Sun are gambling that the revenue they get from StarOffice will be greater than the probablity*cost of lawsuits. It does not look like there was much communication with Kohei about the issue, that is probably a shared problem (poor communications are almost always on both ends). I can understand SUN not wanting to make an exception to their strategy, but it does not look like they explained their point of view very well, and they don't seem to have explored all the options for structuring the code as a plugin (a plugin model for things like the solver could be quite interesting).
If Sun doesn't have a clause like this, I don't see why anybody, especially any commercial entity would ever sign away their copyrights to Sun. Otherwise Sun could e.g. sell parts of OO (say ODF support) to Microsoft, weakening any contributor's (and thus competitor's) position in the process.
When forking something that's trademarked, you could do what Longs and Walgreens do. Their copies of out-of-patent medications are labelled with "compare to the ingredients in <proprietary name>". So something like "BetterOffice - compare to the components in OpenOffice" would probably work.
The FSF requires assignment of ownership for "core" components such a GCC. There are two reasons for this:
1) It is (legally) easier defend the license if ownership is clearly defined (and before you comment: The law is rarely Boolean).
2) To make it possible to re-release under different licenses.
The GPL2 to GPL3 is a poor example of #2 as they usually add a "any later version" for their GPL'ed source. But ownership gives them the right to give permission for other free software projects to use FSF code in projects that use other licenses, they are quite pragmatic with regard to such licenses.
Both should paply to Sun as well, plus the added ability to make proprietary versions (like StarOffice) which may link to other peoples non-LGPL compatible code.
Disclaimer: I am a founder of the NeoOffice project.
ooo-build has long been much more than build fixes. For many years it has been the public face of the work Ximian and Novell have poured into the OpenOffice.org source base. It has a long history of features that Ximian/Novell have helped develop, including (but not limited to):
ooo-build is about functionality and features. Despite the name, it has never been about "build fixes" as indicated in the article. The additional functionality is so awesome that, at NeoOffice, we have been using ooo-build in NeoOffice since March and have been donating back bug fixes and Mac-specific support patches to the ooo-build project. Years ago the Ximian work on OOo 1.0.3 was so promising that I put together a Mac OS X port back in 2003 which folks used for a long time. OxygenOffice also is based off of the ooo-build project (although I do not know if the OOOP team coordinates with ooo-build).
The ooo-build team has done amazing work. It is sad to see their work go unrecognized by so many and be outright rejected or stalled by Sun. NeoOffice users have loved having the functionality ooo-build brings currently and continues to bring in the future, and much of the work pioneered by ooo-build is critical to maintaining the Mac platform as a viable office solution (read VBA). Sun's lack of acknowledgement and incorporation of ooo-build features does nothing but hurt users. Having received a "you're welcome to join us" response similar to Kohei, I am glad I do not consider myself part of OOo any longer. The freedom of forking has allowed NeoOffice to incorporate all good code without all of these politics and marketing games. Forking has allowed NeoOffice to deliver to Mac users the features they wanted yesterday regardless of where those features came from. Sun has a history of a "not invented here" syndrome at times when it comes to code within their "open" source projects.
I'm glad to see that ooo-build is getting some recognition. I hope more users start seeing some of the great functionality they can get today on Windows and Linux, and once again I thank ooo-build, Ximian, and Novell for their continued dedication to improving OOo.
ed
Just because you don't think Novell is evil, doesn't mean they aren't.
Possibly, for unrelated reasons, I think Novell may have to also fork Samba. Novell may also have to fork other f/oss packages.
Novell wants proprietary, not commodity, products. Novell wants to jump on the f/oss thing, but Novell still wants the vendor-lock thing as well. Novell wants their f/oss offering to be different.
It seems to me that there are a few companies that want the community to develop the company's software product for free. Then they want to make some realitively minor changes, and own the community's work.
Is it just me is this really just pissing and moaning by a jilted developer? As I see it, the main problem he has is that Sun ignored his code and all his effort and then rubbed salt in the wound by announcing they were going to write a solver program themselves.
I know he put a lot of effort into it and he had but it wasn't working that great anyway. Was it even accurate? Not to disparage his competence but is he complaining about the LGPL license or being ignored?
which is, for him, the originator of the code, right. the GPL doesn't require that he assign coprights to anyone else. Sun require it for adding his code to their repository which again is their right, so he's creating his own repository and not requiring anyone to assign rights to anyone, just license the code under the GPL, which is his right too.
Maybe it's just me, but this seems like perfect timing, as KDE 4.0 and KOffice 2.0 are nearing completion - this means we'll soon see KOffice available for both Win32 platforms as well as Linux in the near future (an alpha of KWord 20 has already been successfully tested compiled in Windows). I personally find that KOffice (at least the 1.x series) is much nicer than OpenOffice, and as soon as it's available on multiple platforms, I'll probably jump ship to KOffice as my primary office system.
Surprise, surprise. Because Novell's leading this, PJ of Groklaw is now screaming that she was indeed right when she said many months ago that Novell was forking OOo. Regular readers will remember how she went off on one when Novell announced that it would be writing an OOXML plugin for OOo, Novell having SUN's backing for that. You'll also remember how she got flamed to a crisp by people pointing out that writing a plugin is NOT forking a project.
But, no, now that Novell is forking OOo because of SUN's attitude problem, she's now claiming she was right all along.
The joys of not understanding your subject.
The "or later" clause in most GPL/LGPL liscencing represents a deliberately undefined reference. For instance, who defines "or later", is it the issuer or the receiver of the software?
Additionally, it is putting the terms of your liscence under the control of someone else (the FSF) in case of an update. There is nothing to prevent LGPL v3 from having a patent clause which applies to not just the code in the libarary.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Sun's accumulated losses on StarDivision now stand somewhere around $170 million. You have to look beyond the viability of the business to explain its behavior.
There are plenty of projects like this -- a corporation owns all the copyrights, so they can dual-license under GPL and something else. Even projects like Gentoo do this with "foundations", not for a profit, but so they can switch licenses if they have to. This is generally considered preferable to leaving everything GPLv2 only (like Linux), making it impractical to switch to anything else, as you'd need consent from every contributor. It's also generally considered preferable to leaving it GPLv2 or later, which means the FSF can create a new license, and people can then relicense your code under the new license -- it basically means instead of the project controlling the license, the FSF does.
The problem is when you want to ensure that your own contribution will always be used exclusively for open stuff. So, some contributor insists on only GPL, which means there's going to have to be a fork. No way around it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How can it do anything not in the interestes of Free Software (by the definition of the Free Software Foundation)? They have a charter that explains the rationale and what they will (and must) do with respect to their mandate. Operating outside that mandate or changing it will break their charter and will mean they are no longer the FSF.
Of course, they won't operate on that part of the Open Source Movement that doesn't believe in the Free Software Movement (such as, for example, OpenBSD). But then again, why do you want them to? They are operating as they state for the reasons the state and if you do not believe in that mandate, you don't HAVE to give them the copyrigts. If you do, you know why and what for.
So please let us know, how the FSF can operate against the Free Software Mandate?
If sibling posts have convinced you that ODF isn't a bad thing, maybe you could take a look at some of the other implementations.
There's the KDE Office, which is not bloated at all.
AbiWord, Gnumeric, etc make up a nebulous concept called the "GNOME Office".
I'm sure there are dozens of others -- you could always just go to Google Docs, for instance. But that should be enough to get you started.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Instead of forking OOO, why not just switch your development efforts to KOffice? When KOffice does everything OOO does and then some, but faster, Sun will either be forced to respond, or loose most of its developers. That's the advantage of Free as in Free and open source.
Did anyone else notice that "The people behind go-oo.org" are DEVOID of chicks?
http://go-oo.org/about/
Now would be a terrible time to stop developing parallel languages, because the problem is just now coming to the forefront with the limits of single-core performance pushing back and multi-cores taking over.
This is one of the reasons dual-licensing is bad. Big projects with this problem are OpenOffice, Java, and Qt.
ooo-build (previously just for build fixes) is now a formal fork of OpenOffice [CC] to be located at http://go-oo.org/ [CC]
And this is the proper response: to fork the code and make an open-source only version, leaving the company and all its legal shenanigans in the dust.
> This idea that the FSF does things in the best interests of the whole free software community isn't correct unless one defines the FSF as the entire free software community.
And that definition would be correct, because they defined the term "free software" (in the sense of libre) after all.
If you want to quibble about "free" also meaning "free as in free beer" then fine, one would have to accept that FSF have done a tiny word-grab rather like MS did with "Windows" (but without the nasty trademarking). But otherwise, you're simply wrong.
The rest of the FOSS world inhabits the (equally useful, but different) world of "open source", and they have their own defining body in the OSI. Meanwhile, "free software" has its own definitions set by the FSF. Each body does things in the best interests of its own segment of FOSS. It's exactly equivalent on both sides.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930
Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of office suites. Open Office was the office suite to use - it had two 'O's. Then the other guys came out this damn ooo build. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with the official OpenOffice.org build. That's three 'O's. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards forked it and went to four 'O's. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three 'O's. Suddenly, we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five 'O's.
-V-
Who can decide a priori? Nobody.
-Sartre
Talking about conspiracy theories: Does anyone know why OpenOffice.org gets promoted through the Java update? As bug fix for Java SE 1.6u3.
100% pure frickin' flamebait. Please mod accordingly.
I liked the quote
'And yes, I am a practising lawyer, and specialize in the field of intellectual property.'
So, is IP lawyering above or below ambulance chasing on the Lionel Hutz scale?
A good choice of organization to do a fork right now would in fact be the FSF. Actually, I really wish they would. They could name it the "Gnu Open Office Distribution (GOOD)" People are keeping a cautious eye on Novell right now, so I don't see how they would really believe in getting community support necessary to succeed in forking. I don't envision IBM or Google throwing strong support their way right now either. On the other hand they don't appear to be really trying to fork at this time (although maybe they are testing the waters).
Uh, call me dense, but if this is a "formal" fork, what is an informal fork? ~~~~
Any contribution of code to GNU projects needs to be oversigned to the FSF, not just be placed under a GPL variant. Same here, except that this time it's Sun is asking for the FSFs only-half-way-GPL-coverage permission. What could be bad with that?
morgan_greywolf wrote:They also won't take code that deviates from the strategic direction Sun wants to follow.
Gee, I run both OO and Star Office 8, and OO is
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
This isn't about "pointless bickering", it's about a real issue: Sun wants people to contribute to their commercial offerings without compensating them; that is just not acceptable to many people. And it's important to do something about that because if "open source business models" like Sun's succeed, we can kiss open source goodbye.
1. They have a setup pretty similar to the Free Software Foundatation (FSF). This is setup so if there is a legal dispute, Sun can send in their lawyers, and they don't have to round up EVERYBODY to come to court.
Sun doesn't have to "round up everybody" to go to court; if someone violates the OOo licenses, any copyright holder can sue. If you give your copyright to Sun, you basically give up your right to sue. Sun has this setup so that they can incorporate the code into proprietary versions of their software and that they get to control who to sue.
The situation with the FSF is completely different: the FSF is a not-for-profit and they don't do dual licensing. Sun is not the FSF, Sun is a for-profit company making proprietary products.
The acquisition of Star Division had two purposes,
1) Sun's vision of the future is smart terminals connected to servers (which, naturally, Sun will sell). To displace/dent windows, this needs something compatible with MS office files to run on the server. StarOffice/Openoffice/forks meets this just fine. Furthermore, the total revenue to Sun is the same whether they sell everyone StarOffice or everyone installs open source (but not with a mix).
2) McNeally and Gates loath one another, and distributing a free office suite was a great dagger . . .
hawk
How could they fork Open Office? It's not as if it was released under a BSD licence or anything.
Like those in http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070930081040440:
Especially the last one is relevant here
Pamela Jones, while being bright, is not very up to date with actual F/OSS policy. If you want good info on lawsuites in progress, she may be your gal. However she does not know about licenses in open source. You can use open source software to make money. You can make money from patents. However, they are not mutually exclusive.
There's more license squabbling in the OSS world, because in the closed source world the EULA is "accept it and be boned or decline it and be boned."
I'll take license squabbling over that any day.
FSF doesn't require copyright be handed over. Claiming that they do doesn't quite meet my definition of `insightful'.
FSF merely suggests that people who don't want to be bothered defending the GPL on their own code consider assigning copyright to them so that they can do it. There is absolutely no obligation to do this. If you don't want to hand over copyright to them, that is fine, but then of course defending the terms of the GPL on that code is your responsibility as copyright owner.
What Sun is doing is different.
Maybe this whole forking process is a BIG plan to get a "Microsoft" Open Office. The PuppetMaster pulls the strings and boy oh boy, does Novell JUMP! Novell , without a doubt, are trying to create a "Microsoft / Windows" friendly version, and let me guess, next the preferred document format will be OOXML and NOT ODF!!! NOVELL == MICROSFT == OOXML != ODF ... so screw NOVELL they are using Open Source for their own benefit not the Open Source Community!!!!
I agree with you, except for Free Software (as defined by FSF). (L)GPL clearly states you cannot make money from patents.
But you still failed to answer a single question, especially the one I had: Is Novell trying to kill OOo?
you should urgently seek medical help :-)
didn't realize they were not rhetorical. I don't think Novell is trying to kill OO.o. They have been trying to make it more interoperable for a long time. This will HELP adoption of it, because in this current world, if you cannot read/write/use MS formats, you don't exist. That will change as more people adopt alternatives.
I don't know... look at the features that go-oo already has compared to oo. It's been driving me nuts that I can't get animation to work in OO (linux). It's a joke. Sun doesn't seem to be doing anything about it and go-oo already has it working. If SUN were serious about making their Java implementation work then it'd be working by now - at least adopt the gstreamer version for now until you get java working properly; give us SOMETHING.
I'm pretty tired of the snail-pace development of OO and their working on low-impact items. Go-oo have very tangible features that should be incorporated... as of yesterday.
I don't know what SUN is doing but they are quickly spending their goodwill currency.
Are the really allowed to continue calling this fork OpenOffice.org? All over their website they refer to it as OpenOffice.org. How will I know that I'm actually getting their fork and not the real OpenOffice.org? Shouldn't the real OpenOffice.org be suing them or something?
Not sure that would solve anything, but has it been considered?
How do they do that and keep it GPL?
Or, rather, if you don't want to assign the copyright (a completely reasonable desire), why not fork?
or something.
Personally, I'd rather not have MSWindows and I'd rather not have MSOffice. ClarisWorks on a really old Mac runs great. (I mean _really_ old -- 68K.)
Near as I can tell, the industry is just going around in circles, lot's of people looking to get a monopoly on the next big thing.
RMS is right about some things.