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OpenOffice.org Declares Independence From Oracle, Becomes LibreOffice
Google85 writes "The OpenOffice.org Project has unveiled a major restructuring that separates itself from Oracle and that takes responsibility for OpenOffice away from a single company. From now on, OpenOffice's development and direction will be decided by a steering committee of developers and national language project managers. Driving home the changes, the OpenOffice.org project is now The Document Foundation, while the OpenOffice.org suite has been given the temporary name of LibreOffice."
What's the deal with the cursor here on Slashdot?!?! Edit ing i s becom ing a p a in i nthe ass!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
This is probably the best thing to happen to openoffice.org since the sale of Sun to Oracle. Almost all of Sun's open source projects have either been neglected (abandoned?) by Oracle or moved to a less-friendly license (OpenSolaris anyone?).
Now no one will take OpenOffice... err... I mean LibreOffice seriously and continue using Microsoft Office unabated.
Tensions between the open source community and Oracle, a big proprietary software company, can hardly be called infighting in the OSS community.
There is a good chance Oracle owns the OpenOffice.org name. If they break with Oracle (a good idea) they're going to have to leave it behind.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
You're kind of... wrong.
It's taking a vitally important piece of software out of the hands of a commercial company which has not shown a great deal of respect for the principles of free, libre, open source software.
If you RFTA, it states that they have asked Oracle to donate the OpenOffice.org name to the project. Oracle's response to this request will really define Oracle's relationship with the FLOSS community.
I think putting the (former) OpenOffice on independent footing away from a single corporation is a laudable goal and a good idea, but can it work this way?
As far as I remember, one of the problems OpenOffice always had was that most of the developers were paid developers inside Sun who worked on OpenOffice full-time. I thought the code was kind of a mess and hard to decipher for anyone outside, so the project always fought for more volunteers, but could not get many. Has this changed?
Because otherwise, OpenOffice development, while now technically being independent from Oracle, might still by all accounts be entirely dependent on Oracle goodwill if most of the meaningful development can still only be done by those full-time developers inside Oracle.
This might work however, if that new-founded Foundation can somehow acquire enough funding to ease away those internal developers as well and continue paying them to work on OpenOffice full-time. I am not sure if that is feasible, however.
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then. Well done OSS community. Shot itself in the foot with infighting again.
Sadly, I have to agree. Add to that the fact that it appears half the population doesn't know how to pronounce "libre" or even what it means and it's hard to see how this change can help rather than hurt.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
LibreOffice? Seriously? What a horrid name. We're not French and the percentage of the population that understands what Libre means is nil.
There's a reason we're all geeks and not in marketing. However, we all have friends who have a bit savviness when it comes to creativity. Quit being a geek and ask for help.
This is no different than the Diaspora project. Even if that project had the technical side working, it'd still fail because the name is so stupid. You can't compete against a product named "Facebook" when your name is "Diaspora".
----- obSig
I wonder how much name recognition Open Office really had, and how much of that was positive. As much as I like the idea of a free open-source alternative to MS Office, and as much as I relied on it for specific tasks, for at least 5 years I've wanted them to fix the bloated mess that it has become. They never have, and many people hate it for that.
If they can get some real movement under their wings now, and separate out the fat, a break with the OO name might just be the Mozilla / Firefoxification the suite needs.
The ______ Agenda
Lee Burr Office? Glad it's temporary. Sounds like something said drunkenly to a cop after getting pulled over.
Some of the supporters: FSF, Google, Novell, Red Hat, and Canonical.
When those guys are with you - it'll happen. My only question is if OpenOffice will become LibreOffice next month with the new releases of Ubuntu, OpenSUSE & Fedora or if it'll wait until spring?
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
So this is an improvement then, in a sense. The ".org" thing was idiotic.
Rather than idiotic, the name LibreOffice is simply dumb. I'm not even sure how to pronounce it. But I guess dumb is a step up from idiotic.
Q: Why are you building a new web infrastructure?
A: Since Oracle's takeover of Sun Microsystems, the Community has been under "notice to quit" from our previous Collabnet infrastructure. With today's announcement of a Foundation, we now have an entity which can own our emerging new infrastructure.
Basically Oracle told them their lease was up. Yea Oracle! I didn't already have enough reasons to loathe thee.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yes, OpenOffice trademark is owned by Oracle.
Oracle own the OpenOffice.org trademark (not OpenOffice), OpenOffice.org is OpenOffice,org because another group already owned the OpenOffice trademark.
http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html
Sure we do! It's that Zodiak symbol between Virgo and Scorpio, right?
That's exactly what TFA says they've done. Actually, they even invited Oracle to join the new community and donate the OpenOffice.org name.
My first reaction is: Thank God. I didn't have a very good feeling where things were going after the Oracle takeover and some of their later business decisions (OpenSolaris). Of course, it all depends on how the new foundation will steer things, and I don't know anyone who is part of this, so it's hard to make a judgment. So my hope is that they will at least not make things worse, and maybe this is a even chance to re-energize the project and take it to the next level.
Dear Document Foundation:
Please live up to it, and make OOo (or LO) kick some ass. We need you!
May the force be with them!
There is a good chance Oracle owns the OpenOffice.org name.
Good. They can have it. Who ever heard of a piece of software being named after its website?
You mean like how it [didn't] die when transitioning from "StarOffice" to "OpenOffice.org"?
It's temporary--this is pretty common. A new name will be created to clearly demarcate that a Change Has Happened, and then a real name is sorted out over time.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
They might be forced to change it. I think they were cleverly trying to avoid naming it FreeOffice. How about a slight change to 'FreedomOffice' ? 'Free' makes you think it's not worth much, i.e. a cheap watered down version of something better, but with 'Freedom' i get the connotation that i'm being freed from something... Just a thought.... Juuuuust a thought.
I'm known among friends and coworkers for constantly suggesting that people leave MSOffice and go to OOo.
You can be sure I won't be promoting going to the LOo nearly as aggressively.
I seem to recall that the reason they were called OpenOffice.org instead of just Open Office was because someone else owned the Open Office name. Does anyone know the status of that trademark?
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
More importantly, by choosing a name that lots of English speakers won't even know how to pronounce, they've isolated themselves even more. They'd have done better if they'd chosen an abstract name like "Firefox" or "Apache."
Lee Bray Office? Sounds like an evangelical preacher's fundraising department.
Make the mascot a Zebra, and the English speakers will suddenly pick up on it.
"I have to finish my book report by tomorrow, but I've only got the files, no Microsoft Word."
"Here, I know where to get a cracked copy."
"Stop right there, children!"
(together)"Wow! It's the Libre Zebra!"
"That's right, and I'm here to tell you about LibreOffice, a free office suite that promotes the gnu values of liberty, justice, and apple pie!"
(together)"Thanks, Libre Zebra!"
What's really sad is that if Oracle were to come back with "You can have the name for one million dollars" the LibreOffice people wouldn't be able to come up with the money. Chump change for Ellison, deal breaker for OSS.
I think the monatary amount would be beside the point. If Oracle said that they could have it for $1000 I would tell them to turn it sideways and shove it up their asses. Oracle has basically given the finger to FOSS so why deal with them at all unless they are truly willing to give up something of value?
Personally, I think LibreOffice should pick a new name, totally redo the icon set and then have the big three push it like crazy. I think the biggest problem with LibreOffice is that it's ugly. Sad, but true.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Yeah, really. It was either this, or see the project get scrapped and a new, proprietary "OracleOffice.org" get released a few weeks later. I'm glad to see open source resisting becoming assimilated and crushed because a major backer got acquired.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Oracle doesn't care about their "brand" any more. They only care about profits at any cost. The problem with this economically, is that eventually people see through the hype and start to find alternative products that fill the need. Take a look ...
Oracle buys Sun, and Solaris instantly becomes next to worthless, except for Oracle DBs and big Corporation purchases.
Sun gets Java and immediately starts rebranding it, breaking software. Nice testing there Oracle.
Sun gets OpenOffice and tell the team "go away"
Oracle is eating itself alive. And that makes the books look good for the short term. We IT guys are already looking for ways to get off your anti-customer products and services. It might take a while, but we're already starting the process
Hey Oracle ... Nice going.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Well it's not really that I like or use it (I'm a latex guy...), but I enjoyed being able to put "experience in Oracle's OpenOffice.org" on my resume. Helps get it past HR goons who only grep for a few words. ;)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
From the FAQ:
Q: What does this announcement mean to other derivatives of OpenOffice.org?
A: We want The Document Foundation to be open to code contributions from as many people as possible. We are delighted to announce that the enhancements produced by the Go-OOo team will be merged into LibreOffice, effective immediately. We hope that others will follow suit.
Make the mascot a Zebra, and the English speakers will suddenly pick up on it.
Only the North American manglers of the English language will. (maybe)
I for one don't say Zeeeeeeebra.
I don't see confirmation of this on the OpenOffice.org website - how "official" is this? The register article and the project website seem to indicate support from a lot of companies, but this seems to be quite the "bolt from the blue", so to speak - have there been rumblings of this behind the scenes?
From my standpoint, the two projects I was most concerned about when the Sun/Oracle deal was announced were OpenOffice.org and VirtualBox. There was a lot of noise about MySQL, but PostgreSQL is already out there as a very very viable (some would say better) alternative with a functioning community and long history. OpenSolaris never really became a major force in open source operating systems, so it's not likely to leave a bit hole. However, OpenOffice.org and VirtualBox both occupy highly user-visible spots in the open source world. OpenOffice.org has been absolutely key in breaking the "Microsoft Office" lock-in.
If this is for real the importance of this new project dwarfs the fate of MySQL. I really, really hope that enough resources are put behind the project to keep it viable and match compatibility with Microsoft Office, because if Linux no longer has the ability to easily read most Microsoft documents it will be one of the biggest hits to desktop viability that Linux distros could suffer.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Shoulda kept it simple and just called themselves "MegaOpenOffice.org" or something.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
It's obligatory... an office suite that wears stretchy pants... for fun. :)
Like x.org?
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then
Sure, but what's the alternative?
Oracle actually is the malevolent cartoon devil that people here will make Microsoft/Apple/Google/whatever out to be depending on what day it is.
Klingon language support, and an Emacs look and feel.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
As far as I remember, one of the problems OpenOffice always had was that most of the developers were paid developers inside Sun who worked on OpenOffice full-time. I thought the code was kind of a mess and hard to decipher for anyone outside, so the project always fought for more volunteers, but could not get many. Has this changed?
It has been hard for anyone "outside" to contribute a long time, but for other reasons. Great patches have long been rejected upstream for no reason. If you look at http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq/ you see that "We want The Document Foundation to be open to code contributions from as many people as possible. We are delighted to announce that the enhancements produced by the Go-OOo team will be merged into LibreOffice, effective immediately. We hope that others will follow suit. ". This is a big and very important change of attitude. We can at minimum expect that all the currently available patches who are available but have been ignored by "OpenOffice.org" will be added to LibreOffice, and I hope and suspect more developers will contribute now that they can.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Summary also mentions it as being a transitional name. I really hope they come up with something better. Even something stupid like NotOffice or SlightlyShittyButFreeOffice would be preferable.
which is totally what she said
May I suggest: Liberty Office Suite as a new name.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Nothing is going to slow down adoption in the US than an unpronounceable Frenchy name.
Tensions between the open source community and Oracle, a big proprietary software company, can hardly be called infighting in the OSS community.
I disagree. Like it or not, Oracle is part of the OSS community. A huge portion of the development done on OSS is done by employees of big companies, most of which also write proprietary, closed source software. Apple, Google, IBM, Nokia, HP... well you get the point. Basically, Oracle dumps enough money and human resources into improving Linux and the userspace that they've earned the title of OSS community contributor.
That doesn't mean they and other companies don't do lots of things counter to the interests of the OSS community in general, when it helps their bottom line; or that this is anything new. It just means maybe you should revise your view of what the OSS community is to be a little more realistic and a little less black and white. Sure there are long haired, bearded hippies working for free in their spare time to make the world a better place. There are also a crapload of on the clock developers getting a paycheck to work on OSS projects used by their corporation to create salable products and services. They're all part of the community.
Yet it is not at all uncommon for even large and well known businesses to re-brand and change the name of either the business or the product. Norwich Union -> Aviva, Charmin -> Cushelle, to quote two relatively recent examples.
That said, my energy to support OpenOffice/OfficeLibre it is running out. What I'm seeing is that there is really very little financial support for it (as compared to MS Office, for example) and even less for marketing it. The result is that it does some things extremely well (ODF, importing) and others very badly (BASE). This is not because the people behind it do not care - much the opposite - I've submitted bugs and there have been very positive experiences. The bottom line is that there are just simply not enough brains working on the code because no one is paying them to do it.
If OfficeLibre is to succeed it needs the following:
a) A weathly foundation and/or solid source of revenue to keep it going
b) A professional marketing plan to make it the default choice in Western Schools where it can get mind-share. (Why are disadvantaged kids being taxed to use Microsoft?)
c) A results-driven steering committee so that goals and objectives are established and prioritized based on USER-driven wishes.
d) A program to get it rolled out on the Web too - LibreDocs??
e) Make working on it part of every computer science corriculum.
The landscape is changing so rapidly out there that, if this is not done soon, I don't see it surviving two years.
*** Don't be dull.***
It had to be done. Open Office (and MySQL) are too important to be entrusted to Larry Ellison. Already, a few parts of MySQL, such as the Windows GUI client, are no longer reliable.
("LibreOffice", as a name, though, has to go. The open source community sucks at naming.)
Bell Atlantic to Verizon to quote a more well known example.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I think it would be great if they altered the name to Liberache Office and *then* did a UI to match.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
OpenOffice.org is trademarked, which is now owned by Oracle. Making the name OpenOffice could easily be crushed by Oracle if they chose to. Giving it a new name, however, would make it a lot harder for Oracle to get in the way of this move.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Leebray Zeebray? I don't get it.
It works if you pronounce it French-style instead of Spanish-style. Lee-BRUH, not Lee-BRAY. (Do Zebras bray?)
-Gareth
Not Freedom Office please... you don't want people to think is made by the French or god forbid liberated from the French.
If this does result in a complete change in the way OpenOffice (or whatever it ends up being called) does project development, it's both scary and a big opportunity.
Risks:
1. Keeping up with document formats in Microsoft Office products is a difficult, time consuming process. Other open source office projects have never matched OpenOffice.org's support for MSOffice files, and arguably that strength alone is responsible for OpenOffice.org's success in the open source world. Implicit in that support is being feature-rich enough to be able to work with said documents, of course, which is also a lot of work. This kind of support, especially on something unsexy like office document formats, REALLY REALLY BENEFITS from paid people working on it. This is my single biggest concern going forward.
2. Code expertise. It has been years since I took a look a the OpenOffice code, but unless things have changed dramatically I have always heard that it was huge and required a LOT of time to become a productive contributor - definitely not organized into small, distinct parts. If the formerly paid developers can't devote their time to it as much/at all (which I wouldn't blame them for, we all need to eat) we could be looking at a substantial learning curve for the community.
Opportunities:
1. The relatively closed nature of the OpenOffice.org project seems, at least from my admittedly remote vantage point, to have resulted in a rather spectacular "not invented here" effect. OpenOffice has a great deal of functionality, but to the best of my knowledge there has never been any serious attempt to make independent libraries packaging that functionality for use in other applications - this is a shame. Perhaps even in principle you can't split office functionality up that way, but the KOffice team seems to have had some success doing so - perhaps this would be a good time to have an "XFree86->Xorg" style "break it into pieces" re-think of the OO.org architecture? Investigate whether and where it makes sense to break out OpenOffice functionality into libraries, contribute abilities to other projects' libraries and use those, or just flat out replace internal OO.org code with use of external libraries. Maybe OpenOffice really does need to be as huge as it is, but I'm rather suspicious of that.
2. REALLY hoping someone can make an OpenOffice fork/port/whatever that makes full use of the Qt toolkit. Instead of just getting the look of native widgets (which is what I understood efforts to date had been doing?) actually use the real Qt widgets and let the Qt toolkit handle that part of things. Probably requires major reworking of OpenOffice, but moments like this tend to be good times to take new directions like that. Let Qt do what it does so well and handle the cross-platform GUI widgets, and focus on the Office stuff.
Obviously not expert opinions as far as the OO.org codebase is concerned, and there may be reasons some of these things are bad ideas or won't work, but with luck and effort perhaps we can see actual major improvements (the integration of the Go-OO work is certainly a great start!) and some good will come out of all of this.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
It has been steadily getting better since 2.4 and most importantly getting faster, not slower (as is the case with MS Office). I would not even try to run 2007 on a netbook while OO runs perfectly fine on anything down to around 400MHz.
The problem with it is that import/export filters still suck bricks through a straw sidewise.
If you want to keep your docs in its original format and produce PDFs and distribute finished docs as PDFs it has long been on par with MSFT office. If you are using low spec machines it has long exceeded it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The project and software are commonly known as OpenOffice, but this term is a trademark held by a company in the Netherlands co-founded by Wouter Hanegraaff and is also in use by Orange UK, requiring the project to adopt OpenOffice.org as its formal name.
From Groklaw:
"LibreOffice is being welcomed by Red Hat, Canonical, Google, and Novell, among others, and by both FSF and OSI."
They will not lack for resources with that backing.
Well it's not really that I like or use it (I'm a latex guy...), but I enjoyed being able to put "experience in Oracle's OpenOffice.org" on my resume. Helps get it past HR goons who only grep for a few words. ;)
Well you can still probably garner a lot of attention by just putting "I'm a latex guy" on your resume. :)
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
While this could spell death for OpenOffice, it could just as well be its revival. Since presumably the copyright assignment requirement and poor management by Sun will now be gone, features from go-oo can (and apparently, will) be merged into OO/LO, and potential developers will have a better incentive to contribute. The project might become truly free software, and get a real community. On the other hand, it seems from some of the posts at Planet go-oo, that not all go-oo developers are happy with the people behind this Document Foundation (I wish they'd picked a better name), for some reason. I will definitely keep an eye on this project.
I think they should go balls-out and call it Freedom Office, then go sell it to the USA government.
I want my Cowboyneal
You win the "Poor Analogy of the Day Award". Twice. (Do you even understand what's being discussed?)
YouTube is still called "YouTube"; there was no change of name that would suggest instability to a casual observer.
OpenOffice.org was not renamed when it was taken over by Oracle; it is (apparently) being renamed in an attempt to wrest it from Oracle, which is a sign of instablity.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Well... The only reason OpenOffice exists is because the company that Oracle purchased spent money to purchase StarDivision and its StarOffice, open sourced the source code, and form OpenOffice.org.
You act like FOSS did all the work and spent all the money.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
but if you read James Gosling's recent comments of how Oracle is run, then you'd have a good idea that it is unlikely to release OpenOffice.org. They are seriously focused on making profits and run by a pyramid shaped management hierarchy which is _very_ narrow at the top. I'm pretty sure Larry knows the value of the Star Office and OpenOffice. They have already changed the name of Star Office to Oracle Open Office so that should be another clue about how they value the Open Office brand.
LibreOffice is _not_ a name they should keep but it does have to both sound right and feel right. If anything, they should have started with Free Office and talked with the guy who parked the web site. It is a shame it's come to this and it will initially hurt the progress of the Open Office brand. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
And the reason it was named OpenOffice.org in the first place was because OpenOffice is/was already trademarked : http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/faq-other.html#7
- Peder
There are thieves in your area. Are they part of your community? Only in a very broad sense of community. Generally, community refers to a group of people with shared ideals, cooperating. Submitting patches to FOSS is one thing. Submitting patches to FOSS for the good of the community, without an ulterior motive, or at least with your vision of how it might be useful sharing a large subset with others, is another thing.
Not exactly grep, but Monica Goodling allegedly used this commend to screen resumes using Lexis/Nexis
[first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
Didn't they just buy a chip manufacturer? SPARC?
Actually, I was not suggesting joining the groups - I don't think that would work well at all and the smaller the groups the better they can service their area of expertise. What I'm suggesting is that Scribus & Inkscape's interfaces are very nice looking and if the Scribus & Inkscape camps can lend a hand in UI design and new logos then LibreOffice can lend their weight in the realms of advertisement and so on. The install base of LibreOffice is HUGE compared to Scribus & Inkscape - letting people know there is a FOSS solution (along with GIMP) to the Microsoft & Adobe Design suites could be huge. I know I'm looking at moving away from Publisher this winter to Scribus.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Some of us find Oracle being in the name to strip all credibility, much like Microsoft.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It's French for "Free Beer".
Free Martian Whores!
My thought was Liberty Office. I'm not a linguist, but I believe it shares a root with Libre.
AT&T Wireless -> Cingular -> AT&T Wireless
We use Solaris for its ZFS, as no one else has continuous integrity checking in a production-grade filesystem; for hundreds of terabytes, we don't feel comfortable with any other filesystem. FreeBSD is coming close, but ACL support is still very lacking.
You should at least attribute that quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
How about "Sexy Office"? It's very French and has a nice mass appeal to it.
You are right, I had every intention of doing so and got in a hurry. I'll go stand in the corner if the internet with a pointy hat on.
I tend to think you haven't followed much of the whole story of Open Source software or it's timeline.
Then you'd be wrong. I've professionally developed open source software for a decade or more.
Oracle has never been much of an advocate of Open Source and the recent buyout of Sun has not been a good thing for Open Source advocates.
You don't have to be vocal to be part of a community. Oracle is a huge user of Linux and for many years they've had full time, paid employees coding on Linux where they found it lacking for their needs. That right there makes them part of the OSS community, as in they are both users and developers of OSS software. As for Oracle buying out Sun being a good thing for the community, when did I say it was? I think it has been almost entirely negative, but then I think a lot of members of the OSS community do more harm than good. Some would argue that about Stallman. That doesn't mean they aren't part of the community.
I'd almost have to say you're just trolling...
Why would I care if an AC claims I'm trolling? It doesn't make it true and you don't really support that opinion with anything useful.
...statements referring to 'revising' our views is totally irrelevant in this particular matter.
When people claim users and developers aren't part of the OSS community, I find that very relevant. It's trying to cherry pick based upon purely subjective criteria.
Yes companies, big and small, contribute a lot to the Open Source community. Oracle's history is steeped in corporate IT and very little of it was focused towards Open Source.
Their contribution to the Linux kernel alone are significant, more than you've done I'd wager. Yast, IPv6 support for NFS, etc. But hey don't take my word for it:
"Oracle's development work for the Linux kernel represents vital contributions to the open source community, which benefit anyone using Linux." – Andrew Morton, Linux Kernel Maintainer, Google
If Oracle is not a a member of the OSS community by virtue of all the OSS code they write and use, then you have rendered the term meaningless.
You are right, I had every intention of doing so and got in a hurry. I'll go stand in the corner if the internet with a pointy hat on.
Oh, god, not the robe and wizard cap again. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They have been invited to join the efforts as an equal contributor. Hopefully they will. They just aren't going to be permitted to actually run the project. Yes, many large companies have contributed to Free software while also producing commercial software, and that's fine. That's not the same as actually RUNNING the project effectively. That requires a particular management culture that Oracle just doesn't seem to have.
I stopped using OOo. It's slow, I constantly encounter compatiblity issues with simple documents moving back to Office and so on. I used to mention OpenOffice to people and they'd say wow, free Office? Now I mention OpenOffice to people and they say yeah, my dad uses it and I'd rather have MSOffice. Even the OpenOffice website is very unappealing. If you click "I want to learn more", your only options for user types are Business and Government and so on. What about "90% of our userbase that just wants a word processor that doesn't cost $100"? And the whole page is BOLDED walls OF TEXT. That's REALLY pretty horrible DESIGN. Ugh. Get it together, people.
i wasnt trolling, that rumor showed up on some tech-news sites, just traced it back to bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-23/oracle-plans-to-buy-chip-companies-industry-specific-software.html
at this point AMD is just fingered as a target by a third party analyst, but it was enough to sink in deeply with me, since AMD is my prefered chip maker (and they provide much-needed competition to intel), so this would be horror for me too
If that were to happen, oracle will have taken over my two most favorite tech companies, and probably gut out the good parts and leave the burning carcas to rot... (or whatever, shitty metaphor, i know, it's late)
People, what a bunch of bastards
Submitting patches to FOSS for the good of the community, without an ulterior motive, or at least with your vision of how it might be useful sharing a large subset with others, is another thing.
corporations who submit patches purely in their own interest are just as valuable to the OSS community as contributors who do it altruistically. look at the amount of contributions from corporations - to say linux - who do it purely because they need the improvements.