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33 Developers Leave OpenOffice.org
dkd903 writes "We all knew it would come to this, and it has finally happened — 33 developers have left OpenOffice.org to join The Document Foundation, with more expected to leave in the next few days. After Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org fell into the hands of Oracle, as did a lot of other products. So, last month a few very prominent members of the OpenOffice.org community decided to form The Document Foundation and fork OpenOffice.org as LibreOffice, possibly fearing that it could go the OpenSolaris way."
I guess that means OO.org is pretty much dead. Haven't looked at LibreOffice yet. Anybody got any observations? Is it that different? Have they at least got rid of the incredibly annoying registration reminder?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Bravery in the face of a difficult choice. It's very telling when people who so clearly believe in the project and its open source roots defect in these numbers.
Oracle may yet be the end of Java too. Stay tuned.
His name is 4Q2. Yeah, 4Q2, buddy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I know of this dude named Steve Jobs...
So when whoever leads this group decides to sell out down the road (don't say it wont happen, it just did...) does that mean I'm going to be left high and dry, again ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
That's part of being "open," and many consider that diversity to be a huge advantage. Don't even get me started on: "I just want to use something that WORKs and that is NOT from MS."
so how long before they cut support for open office all together? i havent had microsoft office on my machines in a while.
does libreoffice offer windows binary
If they'd called it OfficeLibre, it would avoid that problem. It would also be more grammatical. You don't say Viva Libre cuba, do you?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
better icon.
I love Java and have programming in it since Applets were the hot deal. It is matched by none as a server side language. However, being honest and not a fan-boy it isn't that great for GUI apps. LibreOffice people, please remove Java from Open Office. If you do, it will jump in popularity. Right now users have the choice of Open Office either performing clunky because of the Java based wizards or turning the wizards off, which people actually do want to use sometimes.
Just curious.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't mean to be ignorant or trollish, but isn't this a good thing for Oracle?
Oracle wouldn't make any money out of Open Office and now ( or soon ) they will not have the burden of it.
You can blame your employer for this one. The open source community is just making sure an important project isn't shelved by Oracle.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Cheers for LibreOffice.
I'm starting to wonder how Oracle survives as a company. It seems like they promote themselves as "The company that kills off software".
... to X.org. Oh wait, that DIDN'T HAPPEN AT ALL.
When was the last time you installed XFree86? When was the last time you heard of any X aside from X.org?
Did you think it was just re-named? Heck no! Basically this exact same process occurred.
This happens in the OSS world all the time. The firm backing a popular open source project gets bought, does not support the open source project, the other developers behind the project all leave, the new project is adopted by every major distribution and has huge success, while the original project dies a slow long death.
Although that can be true for many OSS projects, I'd say this case in question is far from "someone not being too happy", we are talking about 22 developers right now going to the same project, along with the ones that already were there.
Up to now I see no hints at LibreOffice going the crazy branching path. I would not rule it out, but for now I'll be testing LibreOffice, if I find it's as useful as OpenOffice then I'll be removing OO from my computers.
After OpenSolaris met its demise, plus Oracle's reputation in general, I think many of us (including myself and some former Sun employees that are friends of mine) have added not from Oracle or MS to the list. KOffice and WordPerfect seem to work just fine for me.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Linux might have 300+ variations (probably more), but around 5 of them really matter. Heck when it really, really comes down to it, only 1 types matter for desktop usage: Debian-based or Redhat based. If you're not on one of those you're probably adept enough to make something besides your typical pre-packaged stuff work anyways.
The same is true for almost any app. You're trying to twist a strength into a weakness. Many GOOD applications and operating systems have died over the years because the people running them were too stupid and/or stubborn to adapt. Open source gives the USERS the ability to take things in the direction they want if they disagree with the current controlling body.
The fork from Xfree86 into xorg is the PERFECT example of a good fork. XFree86 wasn't doing much of anything, despite being one of, if not THE most important software product in the open source world. They split it, EVERYONE went to the fork, and life continued on quite happily.
Would you prefer that we still be screaming at the Xfree86 guys to do something, praying that don't silently ignore us? If not, why is OpenOffice any different?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Why is 300 variations a problem? If the free market provided 300 different options in a market, economists would be lauding said market for providing customers with so much choice. Would we complain that efforts were being split 300 ways? Would we ask why we need 299 inferior versions of said product? No, we would not. When open source provides consumers with choices, people complain, and they do not even think about the hypocrisy of that position, as they would never complain about choice in a free market.
Please explain how having 300+ variations of something impacts you personally in any negative way. And how in the world would you consider Linux or Open Office 'unfinished?'
This is not merely a matter of a few people being disgruntled and splitting a project for trivial reasons. This is a mater of a fundamental difference between the corporate culture of Oracle and the culture of open source. You can't just buy yourself a seat in the clubhouse, Ellison. You need to play by our rules if you want to play with our toys. Otherwise, we will take them and go home, leaving you the box they came in.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...in no time, with 300+ variations. This is what I hate about OSS. The moment someone isn`t too happy, they get the fork off and duplicate the work and dilute any chance of completing the damn thing, rather than working things out.
The moment someone isn't too happy? Read the history! Developers have been ranting about the closed shop that surrounded the copyright assignments required for contributing to the OO.o tree for years. The go-oo fork was set up as a rational way to keep track of contributions from people who weren't happy to give their copyrights over to Sun, and I think it's fair to say that most open-source contributors were more comfortable with Sun than Oracle. Forking a project this big is not something that developers take lightly and it takes extreme situations to make one happen.
There are plenty of examples of successful forks out there. Because OO.o version 3.x is LGPL v3.0, and I assume that TDF will stay with the same license, TDF will be able to take whatever OO.o adds, at least while the forks stay close together. However, unless OO.o starts taking code without copyright assignments, the reverse is not true. It is entirely probable that LibreOffice will be become the preferred product, at which point Oracle is going to have to make a call on whether it wants to work with TDF properly, or watch OO.o wither.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I agree. My name is LEE-nus and I pronounce LibreOffice with great difficulty.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
> ...in no time, with 300+ variations. This is what I hate about OSS.
No. You hate OSS because it doesn't come from Microsoft (or perhaps Apple).
In truth, open standards should mean that it doesn't matter what "brand" I use.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Sure....Tell that to the Xfree86 guys. xorg took over and almost everybody went toward it.
As technically insignificant as it might be, I never really liked the '.org' in OpenOffice's name. Also, while we're at branding and such, I don't really like those triangles in the LibreOffice logos. Call me crazy, but I think those little details sometimes also matter. After all, people want to use aesthetically pleasing products.
Because choice is such a burden.
Better to let the corporations decide what you need. Besides, Oracle has done a fine job with open source so far.
I doubt ODF and OOo will have 300 variations. Likely 2, the outdated OOo variation that has Oracle's name on it which hasn't received an update since yesterday will fade into obscurity, and the ODF variation that enjoys a healthy development community.
"Lame" - Galaxar
AHEM...._ From the SUSE crowd. They are not red-hat based, FYI.
Plenty of brands with names that sound odd in numerous languages do fine internationally. Yes having dozens of languages is a bit complex for marketing. Haagen Dasz, Odebrecht, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi. Unfortunately I don't speak Japanese, Chinese, Arabic etc to know how things sound to those languages, but I can assure you people all over the world get used to brands in other languages. Americans included.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This seems like a good opportunity for Google to step in and sponsor some open source software. I was really surprised when I got to know that it wasn't even in the top 10 companies supporting Linux Kernel development (Oracle was at 7th), considering that it uses the Kernel extensively in their systems. It is about time the companies that use and make money out of OSS start supporting some projects as well.
KOffice and WordPerfect seem to work just fine for me
It would be really nice if WordPerfect could support unicode... Last time I checked it STILL didn't.
its not so bads - sure, things get forked all the time... but that's nearly always because of issues with the original organisation. Once forked, one thrives and the other withers away (usually the original, but then, you could say that was going to happen anyway - or the inpetus for the fork would never have ben there in the first place).
Sometimes, the fork occurs for more political reasons than anything, but the forkers fail. Often that's becuase they had grand ideas that the original knew better than to implement, those overblown ideas being the reason the fork fails.
So, really.. this is all a good thing,. The openness that allows forks simply offers a means for 'ownership' to continue with a group that will nurture the product.
I had this same thought. I maintain that this, more than any mis-attribution of credit, is the reason GNU/Linux never took off as a name.
Perhaps making it skinnable, with menus and buttons that can be rearranged to whaever order or similar to whatever program the user is most accustomed to would help a lot. Actually what I am most concerned with is the salaries of the programmers, I have no idea how are all these coders for such an important project paid.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
AHEM - IMHO, they fall into the "If you're not on one of those you're probably adept enough to make something besides your typical pre-packaged stuff work anyways" crowd.
From a standpoint of commercial vendor support, SUSE isn't big enough to support specifically. They can get a generic package meant for Linux in general and then work through any problems that crop up via forums and online help
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
This is 33 members of the OpenOffice project leaving.
They're not all developers. It sounds like about 2 developers and a whole bunch of tech support and documentation people.
They would most likely enjoy having their own Office alternative which millions of people run, with an entry-level min Oracle database built in, to compete with ms Access, plus clients for all their other products.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
just like 300 variants of GCC and X, right?
Other than their package management scheme based on RPM... once upon a time, that initialism translated as "Redhat Package Manager". Revisionists at the RPM project have changed the "R" into a recursive "RPM" (i.e., RPM Package Manager), but that's just marketing nonsense.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
On the contrary, that is one of the great strengths of Free Software; you can't just buy out the owner and kill the project. If you cut off the head, it'll grow a new one. It won't wither and die unless it no longer has a will or reason to live - and since there is, as you say, still significant demand for a free, open-source, stable, cross-platform office productivity suite, the project as a whole will live on.
Even prior to Oracle's recent acquisition of Sun, some were apprehensive about Oracle's reputation - whether deserved or otherwise - for destroying projects they buy out (MySQL is a rare exception, so far, but many are looking at PostgreSQL as a safety net just in case).
The effect of a bad master is far worse than the effect of dilution. In the open-source world, all compatible projects can help each other, learn from each other, and grow from each others' work. Forks and derivatives can even help drive things forward when the pool becomes stagnant - look what EGCS did for GCC, for example.
Given Oracle's recent vindication of its bad reputation by its switch to aggressively destructive tactics with OpenSolaris and Java, the community seems to feel unwilling to trust it any further with stewardship of an important project like OpenOffice.org.
In short, right now, people trust Oracle about as little as MS, I'm afraid.
Ubuntu, the failed fork of Debian...oh wait
Mint, the failed fork of Ubuntu....oh wait
FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, the failed forks of 4.3USC BSD....oh wait
egcs, the failed fork of gcc...oh wait, it became the official gcc
apache, Brian Behlendorf's failed NCSA httpd fork
forking is bad, everyone should run Oracle's closed source overpriced bloated crap that can't be forked, eh?
Yes, but there are lots of SUSE installs, both in North America and abroad. They use rpms and are usually a supported OS of choice when Debian actually may not be.
I just want something that works, is NOT from MS, and is dirt cheap or FREE (even better!). When it comes to Word Processing and reading/editing .doc files which everyone still seems to use, I found OO to be cumbersome and not always 100% compatible with .doc/.docx files created in MS Word. I found Abiword and never looked back.
What?
Are you thinking of egcs? That fork was made somewhere around 2.7 and merged back in to gcc (or rather gcc was merged into it) at 2.95.
There hasn't been a fork since then.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
<pedantry>Actually, gcc 3 was forked into egcs, aka the Experimental/Enhanced GNU Compiler System.</pedantry>
That said, your point remains. :)
Yes, but their Slackware roots and against the grain ideology (to their credit and detriment) make them quite unlike Red Hat. Also, I think their support is better than Red Hat's support........because they actually......support you.
"merged back" being the key point. The term "fork" is a poor one, because it has the connotation of never merging/sharing patches.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Am I the only one with serious case of Oracle-vs-Free-Software drama fatigue? At a certain point I stopped caring about the projects and languages I used to think I cared about, and kinda wished that somebody would just give me an executive summary in a few months (eg "Java's dead, we're all back to using COBOL now"), so I can just get back to work.
Also, are full-blown office suites all that relevant anymore? Aren't the only places that still heavily rely on those the same ones that will never (ever) migrate away from MS Office 2000?
sic transit gloria mundi
I believe the opinion is perfects valid, expressed well, and there is no justification for being labeled trolling
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Ubuntu is a variant of Debian (which is why I mention it), and I see Ubuntu FAR more supported than SUSE.
Typically, what you often see when downloading commercial packages is:
Ubuntu (Debian) Version .tar.gz Make it work yourself Version (often source, sometimes a binary for closed source stuff)
Redhat/Fedora Version
I consider that a reasonable strategy. The vast majority of users fit into either that Ubuntu/Debian or Redhat/Fedora grouping, and the few that don't - well, you have to accept a bit of extra work to make things function on your distro. That's the price you pay for using something non-mainstream.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Just because there are 30 billion sound systems out there it doesn't mean you have to use them all (the ubuntu way), does it? I only use alsa and gstreamer here and I don't need anything else.
There are two issues with Oracle. One is that they did not issue a clear statement shortly after the merger about which products would be sustained and cut, and shelved things without giving prior notice or indication of alternative strategy (one example of this is OpenSolaris). The other is that Larry Ellison does not seem to know how to play along with FLOSS developers. In fact Oracle use actively hostile tactics of buying out the competition and shriveling the R&D on it until the product becomes unviable. You only need to remember what happened to MySQL not so long ago.
I have nothing against Oracle employees. I have known more than a few and some are even quite competent. But Larry is Larry.
For the record, it was actually called EGCS, and officially replaced the original GCC branch in 1999 with the GCC 2.95 release.
Thanks for the disclaimer. What you're missing is that these people also want to use something that works *forever* (eg. no matter what Oracle chooses to do their contributions cannot be taken from them).
With Oracle suing Google over 'Java' (actually Android, so Oracle don't have an open and shut case here) they are not really winnng the hearts and minds of the rest of the tech world.
Oracle is currently damaging its own reputation in the eyes of the tech community. These people have long memories - look at how long the flaming of Microsoft endures no matter how many things Microsoft does to repair the damage. I'm afraid no amount of future PR budget will make up for Oracle's current attitude to the OS and Java ecosystem. Given that I am very fond of the platform independence of Java this is a great shame. I hope Oracle wakes up before they really ruin things both for themselves and for all the Javaphiles out there.
XFree86 did not split due to functionality changes. The main reason was the license change.
The FAQ on LibreOffice actually states that their hope is for Oracle to donate the OpenOffice name back to them once the legal issues are resolved.
"...dilute any chance of completing the damn thing..."
FOSS is a journey, not a destination!
SUSE still use RPM. The RedHat Packaging Manager.
The really important thing here is not how many OO.o forks there are, it's that they all handle the same document formats properly. If that much is granted, then having many competing versions is a good thing. Not only will some of that competition result in improvements on all sides, but the variations will suit a larger set of users.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
This is not just what happens to open source software, forking happens to life the universe and everything. Life forks all the time, so why not obey entropy? The result is humans developing from pond-scum, instead of sickly inbred poodles from wolves.
The webpage explains that "The OpenOffice.org trademark is owned by Oracle Corporation. Our hope is that Oracle will donate this to the Foundation, along with the other assets it holds in trust for the Community, in due course, once legal etc issues are resolved. However, we need to continue work in the meantime - hence "LibreOffice" ("free office")."
Anecdotal vs actual SUPPORT. This is not "The package may exist and install" but an app that you can get somebody to fix.
I saw this coming as much as I knew the sun (no pun intended) would come up in the morning. Oracle is all about profit (as they well should be) but I am extremely disappointed they could not leave Sun's open source efforts alone. I have the same fear of inevitability regarding Cisco/Skype. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, right?
By that logic, then Red Hat is Yellow Dog, because they use YUM, and PCLinuxOS is Debian, even though they use .deb files on a Mandriva based OS.
Package management similarities are not what make the core of the OS.
...in no time, with 300+ variations. This is what I hate about OSS. The moment someone isn`t too happy, they get the fork off and duplicate the work and dilute any chance of completing the damn thing, rather than working things out.
It is possible for those doing two or more forks to cooperate and share common code while having different goals. I am not sure if this would work or be a good thing for an office suite, though. As for GNU/Linux distributions: I prefer Gentoo on my desktop since it offers ebuilds for the latest packages and even ebuilds for git. I prefer CentOS on my servers (=RHEL) since that's rock solid stable and offers no suprises. I install Ubuntu on n00b peoples desktops since it requires basically no command line maintainance. I prefer Pendrivelinux on my usbstick. I really like that there are so many different distributions to choose from, some are great for this and some are great for that. I would hate to see all the different distributions "working things out" and leaving us with The/Linux and that's the only choice and if you don't like it then go fork yourself
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
I just want to use something that WORKs and that is NOT from MS.
And the rest of us would additionally prefer that it not be from Oracle. Speaking for the rest of us.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Ok, give me the hard numbers on installed-base or support availability of SUSE versus Redhat or Debian derivatives.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
FYI, Haagen Dasz is not from any language. Marketing types invented it. I suppose it sounds/looks like some Scandinavian language, but it's really just made up.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
...with 300+ variations.
That's a well-used line of FUD, but it really doesn't matter very much. Distributions differ in many respects - installation programs, package managers, whether they use Gnome or KDE - but they're all using the same Linux kernel and will all run the same software. E.g., you don't need to download different versions of Firefox depending on which distribution you run, unless you want to handle the installation through your particular package manager. I install a fair amount of software the old-fashioned way from tarballs, and I don't think I've ever seen a package that requires (or won't work with) a particular distribution.
Because it costs nothing to keep a Linux box up-to-the-minute, I'd even bet that the Linux ecosystem is much more uniform than the Windows universe, where many (most?) people are still running XP (or even earlier) due to the cost and difficulty of upgrading.
Like Chevrolet, Cadillac, Silverado, Escalade, Lariat, or a host of other American companies and brand names.
3 of the 4 Buick models are French words for example.
Its fun and easy to hit at the Americans for "only speaking English", but the United States has a ton of place and company names that aren't English or even European. At least 26 of the 50 states have American Indian/Alaska or Hawaiian native names.
LibreOffice just doesn't sound that good, they'd do well to brand it better if Oracle won't give up OpenOffice.
If anything that just makes it an even better example... it was deliberately made to sound foreign.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
There are two now. There will shortly only be one that matters though, and it won't be Oracle's.
I'm a heavy user of OSS, in particular OpenOffice and I would hate to see it become as meaningless as NeoOffice and other short-lived copies.
I live on GCC, gdb and other oos tools.
There may be hundreds of variations on GNU/Linux, but the kernel and the important core parts (like X) do have an official "upstream" development process, which most individual distributions derive from and contribute back to. Development of the important parts is not as diluted as it may look: While there are a lot of flavors, they are not worked on in isolation.
In some areas there are a few direct "competitors", like Gnome and KDE, but in these cases there are usually only 2-3 popular choices. That degree of fragmentation is average in the commercial world as well, and it's kind of beneficial to have a few alternatives to pick from.
they just fork to a different "Universe project".
Kind of a FUD response. The alternative of not being able to fork is that we would be at the mercy of whoever's software we're running. In this case Oracle, and for lack of an alternative office suite, Microsoft.
While it's an inconvenient reality that anyone can do whatever they want with a fork, cream does rise to the top. If you feel strongly about it, donate some money to the organization or your time.
Simply sitting on the sidelines complaining about what you'd do differently or better or really -- what you think everyone else does wrong.. Thats a luxury you have because of open source.
Without open source you'd simply be complaining about Microsoft not doing what you want.
I'm starting to use MariaDB for the same reason.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
The site is very friendly for people interested in assisting in developing LibreOffice. They even have a list of tasks that starting out contributors can do (such as remove useless comments or commented out code blocks.)
A lot of the listed hacks feel like they are trying to clean house so they can regain a good grasp on the project. Looks like LibreOffice is going to get some needed refactoring.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I agree to some degree but those 300+ distros, out of each one is probably one (or more) very good devs that would contribute much more if their efforts be concerted in one (or few) distros.
So, of these 22 devs that forked... How many will fork again in 4 months because they don't like this or that aspect of LibreOffice?
Next up in line:
MuchoLibre Office ...
MuchoLibre Office with cheese
RevolutioneOffice
RevolutioneOffice Viva (pro and light edition)
True that. I looked it up after I posted (oops) and saw I didn't get exactly right, but the gist was correct. It was one guy who came up with it, and he did it thinking that Americans associate Denmark with good stuff. He just kept making up nonsense that looked Danish to him until he got Häagen-Dazs. (we left off the nonsensical umlaut)
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
It makes sense when you remember to start counting from zero.
By that logic, then Red Hat is Yellow Dog, because they use YUM, and PCLinuxOS is Debian, even though they use .deb files on a Mandriva based OS.
Package management similarities are not what make the core of the OS.
No, the part that does THAT is found at 'kernel.org', and remains largely the same on all flavors of Linux. A 'distribution' is in no way, shape, or form, its own 'Operating System' any more than Alaska is its own nation.
LibreOffice is already taking the go-oo patches. And many people weren't even aware that go-oo has existed for years, and was already the preferred product. Many Linux distros ship go-oo and call it OpenOffice. End users don't even know the difference.
Isn't IBM a OpenOffice contributer? What would happen if IBM decided to back LibreOffice instead? Oracle would have paid the coin for Sun and OpenOffice, but IBM could largely direct and help control LibreOffice development without spending a dime to "own" it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Well since RPM is considered LSB standard for packaging does that mean all LSB member distributions are now Redhat based? 0.o
Which is why we already have kvm and virt-manager.
Hey! You forget about all of those crazy cats running Gentoo... and they mat... wait. Good point.
"To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
Well, more seriously, the problem with Linux is the lack of a stable API.
The problem with Windows is the stable API which they can't kill off because no-one would buy Windows if it didn't support proprietary binaries from 1990 that they still run. The benefit of Linux is that most software is open source, so the developers can throw away crappy old APIs whenever they become too cruddy to continue to support.
If you're writing an app that doesn't fit in the simple CRUD model best for webapps, and you want a large dev base plus a huge amount of pre-written cross-platform libraries, Java is probably your best bet.
http://netbeans.org/features/platform/showcase.html
Moneydance is a nice cross-platform Java app. Sun blew a huge opportunity to encourage more like that.
They now (after 2 decades) have a Java app store beta for download as opposed to 1) having a web-based app store as well, and 2) just including the app store program in Java Runtime Edition like Apple would have done.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Yes, thats what little kids do when they can't play together. They take their toys, go off on their own, and rename it.
It does happen all the time in the OSS world (and in movies and games as well), but lets just call it what it is, a renaming.
When its the same devs, the same base code, and a simple search and replace of a couple branding elements gets you the 'fork', then its a freaking rename that could very well go back to the original name depending on how Oracle acts, wouldn't be the first time thats happened either.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Now all we need is for someone to start a "Virtual Machine Foundation", and an "Operating System Foundation".
REMEMBER, choice ALL choice is WRONG. It confuses people. We all want things to be exactly the same so we can go from product to product and never ever encounter anything new, different or better suited to our personal tastes.
That is why Star Bucks only has ONE flavor of coffee and absolutely no tea. That is why there is ONE brand of chocolate, to serve everyones taste. One car, the volkswagen given by our one Fuhrer.
Oh wait... none of that is true and even production lines cater for individual tastes with dells coming in the color you want and McD happily removing the pickle from your hamburger.
But don't worry, when it comes to OS'es people will be very confused by any choice and be totally incapable of choosing between Ubuntu and Kubuntu. That is why 1 choice is all they should have:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
Oh and you can still install Vista and XP if you want sold to you by MS (oh okay, maybe they finally stopped selling XP) in all their own variants.
But above all, remember, Linux will fail because it offers its users a choice...
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Thats such bullshit. 'USERS' don't code. 'USERS' actually USE the software.
OSS gives DEVELOPERS a way to deal with this sort of problem, but it doesn't do jack shit for the user who doesn't have the knowledge, time, and most important, inclination to go fucking around with some massive OSS office suite.
This stupid OSS battle cry about 'empowering users' needs to die, no one with half a clue believes it, not the 'USERS', not the developers, just fanboys looking for some reason to somehow make their software better than someone elses software rather than letting the software stand on its own to show which one is better.
Again, lets make this clear, OSS doesn't mean a jack thing to users except generally 'Free' which is 'free' in the normal sense of the word meaning no cost, not the twisted OSS version that no normal person thinks of meaning 'freedom'.
Some devs may continue to make OO.org live on as LibreOffice, but it won't be the users, it will be the devs.
I suggest you, and most other OSS people, ESPECIALLY OSS DEVEVELOPERS get the fucking clue that USERS are NOT DEVS. OSS would do a fuckton better on a daily basis if that one damn thing got across.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
A distribution IS an operating system, more so than the kernel is. The kernel is the kernel. Wrap a kernel with a user space, libraries, etc and you have an OS.
This will show what happens when you attempt to herd open source. It is like cats ; if they like it, they come. if they dont, there is no way in hell you can make them do what you want.
Read radical news here
>>> I would be careful about requesting a name change. >>>
Sure, be careful. Which would include getting away from the current name abomination. Which is a warranty for failure despite the immense good will of the moment.
Haven't you ever heard of using your enemies strength against them? It's a key factor in many martial arts. A strength isn't always positive in every situation.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
The funny thing about the umlauts is that danish doesn't even have them. They use å, æ and ø, while we swedes however use å, ä and ö for (almost) the same sounds. Metal band names with umlauts, like motörhead and mötley crüe really messes with our heads, and it took me a good 15 years before I found out that I had been pronouncing them wrong all the time...
From the point of view of a commercial vendor there are only three: RHEL, SLES and (maybe) Ubuntu. Depending on the app some few may provide Fedora and Debian support, but after that it peters out pretty quick.
I want my Cowboyneal
So you're merely arguing over the definition of the word, specifically using your own, rather than accepting the common use of it?
That's fine, but you're kind of wasting time having not just said so in the very beginning.
Linux is linux, which is not Windows. You're effectively saying that Windows 7 offered by Compaq and Vista offered by Dell are different Operating Systems. Again that's fine, but I'm not aware of anyone else who uses the terms in this manner. To the rest of us, in a discussion about platforms and their variants, those are examples of the Windows operating system. Their exact version and which exact binaries they were bundled with are just details.
If I uninstall the Dell keybind utility for the f-keys, am I no longer using Windows 7? I simply don't use the term that way...
Christ, couldn't they think of something better than LibreOffice?
What about "OpenBook"? Or just plain "Libre"?
There are other languages in the world besides English, and the use of "libre" is far more accurate than Free or Open, because that's what it is, liberty. The world "libre" also reaches far more people because it has relations in all the rest of the Romance languages since they are all based upon the same rootstock of Latin. If you want to transliterate it to Liberty Office, then that's your business. But your comment reeks of bigotry and trolling, and well, just plain boorishness.
By your logic, all speakers of Romance languages are third world revolutionaries and hippie douchebags.
You are shallow and trolling and your ignorance shines through like the glisten on a fresh turd.
--
BMO
Well, that and the lack of functionality changes. XFree86 was having serious issues with stagnation.
And yet he's right...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Reductio ad absurdum. Linux is the kernel. You can have a Linux OS, that is, an OS based upon the Linux kernel. This is not MY definition, but a common one. Your lack of awareness or understanding of it is no more my concern than whether or not you understand weather patterns or think that dancing will bring rain. Windows 7 offered by Compaq (An HP Company) IS a different OS from Windows Vista offered by Compaq OR Dell. They do not use the same Kernel. This is the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 update 7 is a different OS than Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 update 2 x64. They may be based upon the same general fabric, but they are not "The Same OS." If you do not believe me, try installing files that were specific to that OS and see how well that goes. While you are at it, download a Windows 3.11 for Workgroups program and see how well it works on Windows Server 2008. As for the Dell Keybind utility; If you cannot discern the difference between a program and a user space, that is the fault of your educators and not mine.
Bullshit. Every developer out there is also a user. I'm a programmer/developer by trade, and I also use software - a lot of it - on a daily basis. Some of that is stuff I wrote myself. Much of it is not. The point is that there is tons of overlap between users and developers, and even moreso in the open source world. To try and separate them into separate entities just shows your cluelessness.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
LibreOffice is already taking the go-oo patches.
LibreOffice is just a rebranding of go-ooo
Java itself will be soon abandoned as a platform and a product f interest to the broader development community. They still have the chance to do the right thing, but for the life of me, with all the talk of their "astute business sense", its hard to imagine anyone handling this transition more badly.
The 'everybody' you speak of is not the same 'everybody' that is the big market for OpenOffice.
I did know this :). I mentioned it earlier before I was caught without my fire proof undies.
You ARE joking, right? Let's see...Oracle Database, SAP, Novell IDM Solutions, etc etc are supported on ........SUSE........however, not Debian.
>>Open source gives the USERS the ability to take things in the direction they want if they disagree with the current controlling body.
>Thats such bullshit. 'USERS' don't code. 'USERS' actually USE the software.
And by USING the software fork of their CHOICE, USERS CHOOSE the direction of DEVELOPMENT.
(why are we capitalizing random words anyway?)
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
That used to be true, but these days I see more Suse packages than RedHat ones. Both use the RPM format, and in rare cases the same package can be used on either platform, but even accounting for that I see plenty of Suse packages. Novell is certainly still big enough to attract third-party support.
Of course, I'm not using Linux commercially, just as a home user. RedHat seems to be slowly losing the home user market (to the extent it ever had one). Some enthusiasts are still running Fedora, but I see a lot more openSuse than Fedora these days. Therefore, when I look for packages (either software or drivers) I'm looking for consumer-type programs on consumer-type hardware (HP consumer-line laptop). Maybe there are more RedHat packages in other areas, but in that space Suse is really second only to Ubuntu (in my experience).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
This pretty much secures Microsoft Office as the dominant suite for another 10 years. Even if a fork doesn't create fragmentation of compatibility, the brand recognition and acceptance that has been developed over the years for OO is destroyed by creating a new fork. Essentially it's starting over. I knew that Sun getting bought would be a nail in the coffin for OO, but I didn't think the developers would be the ones swinging the hammer. The entirety of OSS office branding (which i think OO championed), is in a landslide right now. These events will be the focus point of why proprietary software is better.
How dare you call out the forking failures? Fork You!
Visualize Whirled Peas
Well if you are going to get into semantics, technically none of that stuff is part of the "OS". The OS is just the linux kernel itself, just the part that handles I/O, the filesystem (disk access), memory access, and process scheduling. What you are talking about are software distributions, that in this case happen to be built and packaged with a linux kernel.
Visualize Whirled Peas
Well, Sun purchased StarOffice because:
"The number one reason why Sun bought StarDivision in 1999 was because, at the time, Sun had something approaching forty-two thousand employees. Pretty much every one of them had to have both a Unix workstation and a Windows laptop. And it was cheaper to go buy a company that could make a Solaris and Linux desktop productivity suite than it was to buy forty-two thousand licenses from Microsoft. (Simon Phipps, Sun, LUGradio podcast.)"
And they wanted Solaris to be a more complete product as well. They chose the open-source license for OpenOffice because it best served their purposes. Buying something and open-sourcing it should be considered just as legitimate an "open-source root" as building it from scratch.
Too many people forget that Sun bought it for the reason you stated and open sourced it. They did not have too!
A very, very huge plus for all of us. As today, and in all honesty, for the last three years we have not needed Microsoft Office, primarily because of OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice. For the last six years we have not needed Windows at all, though admittedly Linux has been even better since 2006. (Today there are open source alternatives/options to anything in the MS tool/app chain)
Other posters have stated that with Linux we do not need .NET or Active Directory, two projects commonly mentioned in posts related to these topics, this is very true. And do not forget about other Embrace projects like Wine, Mono, etc...do not benefit a non-gamer Linux user at all either.
While I still use Windows at SOME client job sites, basically when they insist, I do not need it, primarily thanks to OpenOffice.org, now LibreOffice. Windows 7 is better than Vista (though not XP), but there is absolutely nothing there that I can not do equally or better with not just one, but multiple distros of Linux. At Microsoft focused job sites I have had more than one person tell me that they are sick of the Windows BS, data format changes, and so much more and would love to switch away forever. (seems similar to the way many of us feel about cable Internet access, doesn't it) Some would go with Linux, some with Apple, they just want away from Microsoft, if not for some poor miss-guided person in the IT food/decision chain... Thankfully this has been changing for well over a year now. Some of us have even been at job sites, where someone had a Linux desktop using OpenOffice.org Writer instead of Microsoft Word and no one was the wiser. Funny that many still spread FUD to the contrary.
One bit of FUD is that you do NOT have a choice....WRONG. Some of us have long memories as well!
OpenOffice, now LibreOffice is one more critical app that promises us freedom...
The point is to have options (preferably three or more options: Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, FreeBSD...so many more. Pick a Linux distro here or from the Top Ten Major Distro list.) and not get trapped in a place that will only cost you time and money. We use to have OpenOffice.org, now we have LibreOffice, admittedly I need to look for two other Linux friendly Office type packages and have them in my quiver, just in case. I can think of one more off the top of my head. At least I know that LibreOffice guarantees me one option and yes I recently downloaded the source just to be safe. Granted I have not built it in each of the distros I mentioned above yet, though that is on
Ok, give me the hard numbers on
Stop. Remember you're having a conversation, not a rigorous debate.
OK, continue.
I think the last time I heard of XFree86 was in another similar discussion about forks (probably about the OO/LO fork). Then I went to the Xfree86 website, and they claim to be the "premier open source X11-based desktop infrastructure", even though no distro I know of uses them any more. I'm not sure what they're smoking, but it must be pretty good. Their forum hasn't even had any activity in over a year.
Given that I am very fond of the platform independence of Java this is a great shame. I hope Oracle wakes up before they really ruin things both for themselves and for all the Javaphiles out there.
They probably know how many of those Javaphiles hate Microsoft and will put up with anything.
No, it wasn't. That was the straw that broke the Camel's back. XFree86 had a lot of issues before that point; it was seriously stagnant, and the people in control weren't allowing stronger developers like Keith Packard to make any progress.
We need more examples of large corps eating a something and other forking it into truly FLOSS.
This is a good time to support the project. They accept donations in time and money. This is a link to the contributions page: http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/
The problem with Windows is the stable API which they can't kill off because no-one would buy Windows if it didn't support proprietary binaries from 1990 that they still run.
Actually, the 64-bit version of Windows wouldn't run binaries from 1990 since it doesn't include the WOW subsystem for 16-bit code. The inability to run Window 3.1 software doesn't seem to have affected the adoption of the 64-bit version of Windows 7.
And since the old code was handled by a separate subsystem (eg. GDI system is in gdi.exe for 16-bit and gdi32.dll for 32-bit), it didn't stop Micrsoft from making changes to the API when the moved to 32-bit (and later 64-bit).
It's called fragmentation, and it isn't.
You're effectively saying that Windows 7 offered by Compaq and Vista offered by Dell are different Operating Systems.
And that would be correct...? Aside from having snap-to-edge, 7 has a redesigned "Action Center", less-steep hardware requirements (significantly smaller installed footprint), modified UAC, overhauled Paint and taskbar, etc. Granted, they are very similar, but still.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Oracle would have paid the coin for Sun and OpenOffice, but IBM could largely direct and help control LibreOffice development without spending a dime to "own" it.
Yes, and this shows just how stupid a company like Oracle can be. They got OpenOffice as part of the Sun acquisition (I think it's safe to assume that it wasn't their primary motivation for buying Sun), but while they could have kept it and managed it well, working with the community, and used it to compete against MS (who I hear Ellison doesn't like very much), instead they mismanage it and everyone quits, and forks the project, leaving their expensive acquisition to wither.
That's funny, sound works just fine on Ubuntu for me too.
And yes, Linux does have a stable API, and has had one for ages. The kernel calls and the libc library haven't changed in ages. On top of that, the Gnome and KDE libraries have their own APIs, which are quite stable (it's trivial to run on older versions too). I don't know what you're talking about with a "stable API", that's never been a problem with Linux.
In fairness to accuracy there was actually a serious problem regarding xfree86 that forced the fork. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFree86 , third paragraph.
We all knew that, but it's got nothing to do with the fact that the alternative name they did choose is a load of crap.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? In Latinate languages the adjective normally goes after the noun, like the famous slogan I quoted.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What do you mean, Xfree86 is totally still relevant!
The common definition is that what Linux users call a "distribution" is an operating system. The kernel is but a small part of an operating system, and you can swap that (as long as you keep the same syscall interface or similar) and still consider it the same operating system.
The FreeBSD userland with a Linux kernel would feel like FreeBSD, not like a GNU/Linux system.
Debian running with a FreeBSD kernel is still Debian, not FreeBSD.
Overall, the Linux ecosystem is fairly muddled WRT these definitions, though, because that family of operating systems are so similar and the core parts of them (gnu coreutils, libc, etc) are maintained separately from the distributions.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
That is ridiculously stupid of you to say. The package format is not the indicator of origin or basis.
I've already mentioned that package format does not equal basis. The icing on the cake is your inability to spell lose. Go away now.
The common definition is that what Linux users call a "distribution" is an operating system.
It may be a common definition, but that doesn't make it a correct one.
The FreeBSD userland with a Linux kernel would feel like FreeBSD, not like a GNU/Linux system.
What has feel to do with it? You are describing the user interface.
Overall, the Linux ecosystem is fairly muddled WRT these definitions
It may or may not be, but I think if you step outside the small world of personal computers and into the wider world that computer science covers you will discover its a very clearly and exactly defined concept.
Even better, Oracle paid big to buy Sun primarily to compete with IBM, and their mishandling of OpenOffice might just benefit IBM.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And if you step outside the small world that is comp.sci, and into the wider world that is actual use of computers, you'll find that it's not as clear in practice as in theory. If you step into linguistics, you'll find that "correct" is whatever will result in better communication.
Or if you step into the full world of comp sci instead of a corner of it, you'll find that even there it isn't quite clear.
"Operating system" is the full stack of stuff that's commonly between programs and the hardware. This includes the libraries and other executables used as APIs. This is not clearly defined, as what is an API is not clearly defined (especially not when dealing with Unix systems.)
"Kernel" is the part of the operating system that talks directly to the hardware. This is fairly clearly defined.
A bunch of people want to make "operating system" and "kernel" be the same thing. However, both in comp.sci and in practical use they're not the same.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
I wouldn't have written developers here as most of them are contributing anything but code (QA, documentation, marketing...) There is no way to know how many developers left OOo, but we know how many joined LibreOffice... See the stats here: http://cedric.bosdonnat.free.fr/wordpress/?p=734
One exception to this is Emacs, where lucid emacs forked and then became XEmacs, but the original GNU Emacs continues to prosper.
Is there a Spock quotation ready to happen ? ??
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
So you don't like to have choices? It's an honest question! If you get distro. the basically choose things for you... The difference is that is you don't like a given choice, you have options... I really can't see how bad this can be for the end user. Just pick a distro and go on. If something bothers your, THEN you look for those 299+ variations and pick one
-- dnl
Thats such bullshit. 'USERS' don't code. 'USERS' actually USE the software.
Ram: Do you believe in the Users?
Crom: Sure I do! If I didn't have a User, than who wrote me?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Java and .NET are as fast as C++
It bugs me when people can't keep cultural factors separate from technical factors.
It's a lot like the case study in burgernomics I read long ago. Burger chain has juicy burger, but wants to increase profits by decreasing cost of ingredients/preparation. Taste of cheap burger against original burger shows no significant difference. Recipe changed. Iterate, testing cheap cheap burger against cheap burger. No significant difference, recipe changed. Continue replacing cheap^N with cheap^(N+1). Sales decline. Customers complain, "your burger tastes like shit!" Hire consultant. Compare cheap^(N+1) burger against original burger. Significant difference blows the lid off the charts.
In performance terms, C++ is the original burger (cardiac Whopper edition), if you're prepared to pay the price. Yeah, sometimes you kinda can't tell the difference, but be wary how far you stray down that path.
Java occupies a valid niche for consistent fast food, but it really screwed itself over with its PR conceit. We all know the story:
Java, first edition, portability guidelines: Write once, run anywhere!
Java, n'th edition, portability guidelines: Write once, debug everywhere!
A little more engagement with reality and less propaganda would have been welcome at the outset. If you're expecting your language to return consistent results for A = B+C+D for a floating point data type in all program contexts for all environments and architectures, you're either smoking a crack pipe or hamstringing your optimizer.
Actually, I said that C++ was the original juicy burger, but I lied. It was FORTRAN, which gives the compiler even more scope for unsafe optimization, semantics be damned. FORTRAN predates Pasteur and refrigeration, so we can ignore this for most purposes. It is true, though, that some programmers swear by the joy of unpasteurized milk and fermentation by-products.
Now that Oracle controls Java, the question is whether Java can survive severed from the apron strings of its market conceit. Stroustrup constantly points out that C++ never had a PR department. Java did. C++ never got pushed out of the nest. Java might.
I can't be bothered to count exactly, but on a quick skim-count, I think you generated about 130 replies. Bravo man, well played. I haven't seen anybody so successfully goad the open source crew into such a storm of indignation with so few words in quite a few years. I was beginning to think the art was dead here on slashdot, most efforts are way too heavy-handed are largely ignored, but yours really hit the spot.
Slotted spoon? ;-)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
I've been using SUSE Linux as my primary OS/distro for nearly 6 years, and not once during that time have I ever installed Mono. Seems to work quite well even so.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Dear AC,
Please STFU and quit embarrassing yourself.
Love,
One of many SUSE users who have no problems installing apps from .debs if they really feel like it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I love OpenOffice but the reality is that loading the complete "framework" takes a lot of resources time.
It would be good if they separated each component (Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress) into a self-contained app.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
+1
Man, I wish KOffice worked "just fine" for me. I really like it, I like what they're doing with the UI, it's a generally much nicer experience than OOo (especially on KDE). But the 2.x line is still erratically buggy, fairly crashy, and has major problems translating OOo's files (especially OOo Draw files). I'm also dimly aware of dissatisfaction with it's handling of MS Office files, but I don't really care about that.
Again, I do like KOffice, and I've got high hopes for future versions. I'm running a 2.3 development version right now, because it's a lot more stable than the "stable" 2.2. But that's a good sign, as far as I'm concerned. I hope the trend continues.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
http://go-oo.org/ I think that this is the best fork
You completely missed what he said.
It won't see much adoption by offices in the U.S
It's a valid assessment/opinion even if you don't agree with the interpretation of the term 'Libre'.
You may not find yourself at ease with the idea that the term might be unappealing to some any the US, just as some of those blowhards might find the term unappealing because of perceived associations.
But that doesn't make his statement any less relevant, and doesn't make it a troll.
This is true. American corporations can be ridiculously fickle.
Knew someone who worked at a large PTO firm who tried to introduce Gimp as a free software option for doing quick cleanup work of trademark specimens. At the time (not sure if they still do) the GIMP website had a big writeup about the state of (copyright? trademark? patent? I forget) law hosted somewhere on site and listed from the front page.
That's all it was. A writeup. Perhaps slightly strongly-stated, but nothing absurd. It had nothing to do with GIMP.
Regardless, the PTO firm decided it would be too much of a risk to allow the use of GIMP in their office, given their business/clientele.
Had you read the previous posts by myself and others that mentioned this already, you'd have saved the time of commenting. A packaging system does not an OS make. SUSE is based on Slackware. PClinuxOS uses .deb files, but is based on Mandriva. Red Hat uses YUM but is not YellowDog...