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Apache OpenOffice Releases Version 3.4
An anonymous reader sends word that Apache OpenOffice 3.4 has been released (download). This is the first release since OpenOffice became a project at the Apache Software Foundation. The release notes list all of the improvements, the highlights of which The H has summarized:
"According to its developers, Apache OpenOffice (AOO) 3.4.0, the first update since OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 from January 2011, now starts up faster than its predecessor and introduces a number of new features such as support for documents secured using AES256 encryption. The Linear Programming solver in the Calc spreadsheet program has been replaced with the CoinMP C-API library from the Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research (COIN-OR) project. As in LibreOffice 3.4.0, the DataPilot functionality has been renamed to Pivot Table, and now supports an unlimited number of fields. A new 'Quote all text cells' CSV (Comma Separated Values) export option has been also added to Calc. Other changes include improved ODF 1.2 encryption and Unix Printing support and various enhancements to the Impress presentation and Draw sketching programs."
Which office suite are we supposed to be cheerleading for here at slashdot? I though it was LibreOffice
No, it's Calligra. :P
This should really be from the I'm-not-dead-yet! department
Anybody want my mod points?
LibreOffice isn't GPL
It's GPL. There's a huge difference.
I suggest you read it.
--
BMO
How does the Apache license benefit you personally as opposed to the GPL?
The question on my mind as I read this, and I think many here would agree, is "so what makes this different from or better than Libre Office, now that Oracle has alienated a significant portion of OpenOffice's users and developers?"
Yeah, diversity is good, but I'd like to see this project tout its advantages if they think there be any.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Ah dammit, i meant to say LGPL
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/license/
--
BMO
Horribly out of date vs. LibreOffice - see the comparison - missing a ton of filters, barely interoperable with Microsoft Office, etc. etc.
There's a huge difference between the GPL and the...GPL? lolwut?
Not sure if troll, or actually insightful.
Both Apache and Berkeley licenses are quite business-friendly. OTOH, I get raised eyebrows when I want to add even a LGPL library.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
lol, I can just imagine everyone reading your first error post nodding at eachother in agreement, all pretending to see some sort of open source legal subtly between the two. There are too many licenses in any case, its ridiculous.
If it is a win not to have GPL included user don't care: they click through agreements instantly without reading anyways. Lots of companies helping LibreOffice too - RedHat, Intel, Ubuntu, Google and other. Why bother waste time with Apache deadproject place ?
And people say only GPL advocates are zealots.
How are they not business friendly?
There are very few businesses who will want to modify OO/LO and release derivative versions to third parties... Most companies simply want to use the software as-is, and a very small minority might want to modify it for internal use. For these uses, even the full blown GPL has no impact whatsoever.
Also the main competitors to OO/LO are licensed under considerably more restrictive terms than the GPL.. While the GPL may place restrictions on redistribution, the MS license prevents redistribution or modification at all under any terms.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Yes, there's a huge difference between the GPL and the GPL. Not to mention the much bigger difference to the GPL. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
it could be a v2 v3 thing or it could be a gpl but not run by gnu but it was a typo :-\
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
I've been using OpenOffice.org for years. I just want it to work. I don't care so much about the bickering about whose license is better. So it is good to see the code land at Apache, a foundation with a decade of experience running open source projects. I think the move to Apache shows a seriousness of purpose and a focus on producing a solid product and growing a open source community free from corporate domination.
And in the end, the question is not how this compares to LibreOffice. That is a non-question considering that their market share is a round-off error. The real question is how Apache OpenOffice compares to Microsoft Office, and what will they do to make it something that users will prefer. Free is nice, I don't question that. But debating who is free and who is libre and who is more free, etc., misses the point entirely. Users have work to do, and generally don't care about licenses. If they did then 90%+ would not be running MS Office.
So good news. I've upgraded. But the big question is, "What next?" And maybe, "How can we help?"
And they all aim to give more rights to users then traditional copyright does. This is not a bad thing in any way.
Good-bye
Are you planning to modify your office suite and distribute those modifications as closed source? If not, the differences between GPL and BSD are irrelevant to you. If so, why?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Picking Apache "because they know how to do this OpenSourc-ey thing" is like buying IBM because it never gets you fired - a pointy-haired boss decision of cluelessness. It meanwhile looks like the folks at LibreOffice know how to build nice communities just alright.
Nonsense. With an application that high up the software stack, deliberately cutting you off from using half of the free software ecosystem is just silly - or guess why Apache is shipping OpenOffice _binaries_ with weak copyleft code included ... ;)
LGPL is more friendly because you can link to code and apis without the license applying to their own code.
Many corporations have anti gnu policies for that reason. LGPl gets around that. I wish more code on sourceforge had it as many developers are not aware of that issue.
http://saveie6.com/
Ha! I suggest you read your own post before hitting submit.
Many large corps consider this a big deal and have strict policies.
http://saveie6.com/
Why? Are these large corps planning to modify the software and distribute those modifications as closed source?
Microsoft claimed 750 million users of Office back in 2010. LibreOffice claims 25 million. OpenOffice claims 100 million. Add in WordPerfect, Symphony, Google Docs, etc., and LibreOffice would struggle to make 1%.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/about-that-1-billion-microsoft-office-figure-/6555
It's not about Apache or Berkeley being business friendly. It's about how *un-friendly* they are for downstream users and other people wanting to maintain the code and also ensuring that the rights continue to be maintained.
Good luck with that happening with Apache or Berkeley licenses.
So, how long until Oracle sues them for using Java? :p
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Many large corps consider this a big deal and have strict policies for absolutely no good reason.
FTFY.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
LGPL is more friendly because you can link to code and apis without the license applying to their own code.
Many corporations have anti gnu policies for that reason. LGPl gets around that. I wish more code on sourceforge had it as many developers are not aware of that issue.
Strictly speaking, if you link GPL code with your own proprietary non-GPL code, the result is an infringement of the GPL license for which you could be sued. Your code does not become GPL, and the GPL code does not become proprietary. In the same way, if you were to infringe Microsoft's copyright you would not get copyright over their code and they wouldn't get copyright over yours - although they may claim damages from you.
LGPL is more friendly because you can link to code and apis without the license applying to their own code.
That must be an entirely insignificant proportion of the users of something like LO/OO.
Many corporations have anti gnu policies for that reason.
Silly corporations. If they want to have silly policies, that's their problem. Many many many many corporations have accepted Linux and/or gcc, which means accepting the GPL. Even Microsoft had to bow to the inevitible and make Linux work well under Hyper-V. If some corporations reckon they know better than Apple, Google, Intel, AMD, ARM, Samsung, HTC, NVidia, Nokia (well, who doesn't know better than them these days), Cray, SGI, Amazon, Facebook, huge numbers of banks, every smartphone manufacturer, every supercomputer vendor, every vendor which makes SoCs large enough to run a proper OS, and untold numbers of other companies, then I guess that's their choice.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If it was so simple, ZFS would already be in the Linux kernel.
OSS libraries are often incompatible with each other, and not everyone is willing to change theirs to accommodate mixes.
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It is exactly that simple. Including ZFS in the kernel is a modification. The kernel is distributed, so that's distributing a modification. The differences between BSD and GPL matter.
But that's off topic, we're talking about an office suite. Using an office suite is neither modification nor distribution, so BSD or GPL is entirely irrelevant to the end user.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What do all these companies have in common you ask? They all have a fuck-ton of resources and money, that's what. They can afford to give away both software and human productivity in an effort to draw users to their more lucrative products.
Yes, IBM for one which did so with their Lotus Symphony Suite.
You said it only mattered if the person is planning to "distribute those modifications as closed source", and that's not true; it matters if you're planning to distribute it at all, closed or open.
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I've got a great reason that I'm downloading openoffice right now for. It's this issue. In a nutshell, many moons ago Excel changed their selection rules behavior for no explicable reason and every other spreadsheet on the planet has been copying their behavior. When you call the developers on this, like the guy who submitted this bug report, the developer response is "everyone else does it this way so I won't change it". If Libreoffice is going to strive to be the best clone of Excel that it can, why would I use it? Given the choice, I'll just use Excel. Maybe the Apache version of OO.org still has some distinct behavior instead of just being a clone of something else.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Don't switch the argument to match your preference. Many companies simply want to use the software as-is, but for companies that wish to modify it, maintain control of their own code AND distribute it, BSD fits their needs better.
The BSD license is very simple and short: it has few restrictions compared to LGPL, or even the default restrictions provided by copyright.
BTW the MS license was never part of this discussion. Diversion does not help, If your a GPL fanboi, fine, but most of the confusion between licenses come about because people insist on making their philosophy paramount instead of the need of the client.
Wow, one company. I guess they'll have to avoid anything under the GPL or BSD.
Oh, wait...
Does it have the one innovative feature that I need? No.
Then fuck them. Who cares? I guess I am lucky that I do not absolutely have to work for the few ridiculous large companies that you have in mind. I have worked for a number of large corps and some of them had very nuanced policies and individual review run through their legal department. For general users, it was totally cool to use GPL software. For developers the legal department had a canned statement, unless there was an exception, absolutely do not link the code into any internal products. Obviously departments with linux projects needed special attention... but they figured it out.. This was a Fortune 500.
Find a new employer that isn't so retarded or just deal with it.
Oh the reason is, perhaps not entirely good, but at least solid. Yes, a very solidly understood reason at that. One begins with an understanding that there are busybodies, a class of people whose superiors obviously had better things to do. Looking for work and not finding any, they had to come up with something to keep them occupied. For reasons lost in the mist of history, such occupation never involves things that are pleasant, like, say, reading a comic book, shooting one's sister with pebbles from a blowpipe, or even soaping up the bottom of the teacher's chair. No, definitely not. You see, a busybody's job must maintain tangential relevance and progressive outlook. That alone should sound serious enough, but in case it didn't, busybodies always work on honing their talents. A policy of tangential relevance as applied to writing strict policies of tangential relevance to corporate mission. You can't stray too far without pulling from a swarm of buzzwords, after all. A well appointed smoker is your friend in that task.
With apologies to Sir Pratchett.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I guess anyway.
To be honest, its hard to get excited when there are 2 competing groups using basically the same code-base, targeting the same audience... Seems like such a waste of talent.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I suggest you're correct!
--
BMO
Dead Man Walking.
Well then, the 10 people still using OpenOffice will be able to update... I mean, LibreOffice is faster and their template site works. Plus it does not have that Oracle logo...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
There are very few businesses who will want to modify OO/LO and release derivative versions to third parties... Most companies simply want to use the software as-is, and a very small minority might want to modify it for internal use. For these uses, even the full blown GPL has no impact whatsoever.
"Very few businesses" isn't a valid argument. The license is business friendly even if it only interests an audience of one.
And there are all kinds of situations where having a "business-friendly" open source license is desirable; you're just thinking of the wrong business cases. Sure, most end users of the suite aren't going to want to modify it. But one example of a derivative version of OpenOffice.org would be IBM Lotus Symphony (recently donated to the Apache Foundation). Might no one ever want to create such a product ever again? Or how about this: What if a company wanted to write an actually decent database manager that could compete with Access, keep it proprietary, but bundle the rest of LibreOffice with it so it could compete with Office as a suite? I bet they could find customers.
Breakfast served all day!
Good. We need a free software office suite untainted by the GPL.
Stupid troll. No we don't. What we do need is good healthy competition, with Apache Openoffice provides for Libreoffice. And we have a good healthy competition going between Apache permissive licensing and GPL copyleft licensing. Let the best suite win, and let the best development model win. Or just let them both just keep competing to the benefit of users and developers.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's only an infringement if you distribute the result. The GPL is a distribution license, not a use license. A company could link their proprietary code with GPL code and use it internally without any problems.
So your point is that GPL is business unfriendly, as long as you define business in a way that excludes those companies?
I read the license in the GNU website. I understand some of the differences b/w GPL2 and GPL3: can anyone explain what changes from LGPL2 to LGPL3?
There are a few reasons that corporations have anti GPL policies. One is that when the license is put in front of their legal departments, many of them, from a reading of the license, and also from the well known fact that so many others have read it that way, conclude that if a GPL software is combined w/ software under any other license, the combination becomes GPL. People may argue that point here, but the fact remains that there isn't a consensus that when combined, the license of one doesn't affect that of the other.
There is another thing @ play here - the FSF. Organizations like the OSI are interested in promoting the philosophy of open sourced software, and they do so working w/ software companies and factoring in their interests as well. As a result, more companies are only too happy to work w/ them. With the FSF, otoh, there is this obsession w/ 'software freedom', and nothing illustrates this better than a look @ what's changed when going from GPL2 to GPL3. While GPL3 is compatible w/ more licenses than GPL2 was, certain aspects, such as termination clauses and expanded scopes of what's covered. For instance, in AGPL2, all that was there was that users of a web application would be able to receive its source: in AGPL3, coverage is expanded to all network-interactive software, so it will 'also work well' for programs like game servers i.e. force them to distribute their source code as well.
But one of the biggest problems w/ the FSF is the perception that it's business hostile - one that's richly borne out by its treatment of TiVo, in a way that it's actually used that company's name as a slur on one of the policies it deems unacceptable. Under GPL2, while it was necessary for a provider to provide the source code, it was not necessary that the provider should provide an unlocked box so that the user can modify the code and run it himself. In TiVo, which uses Linux to run the various STB functions, it makes sense that the company not allow its customers to alter the contents of the firmware, and thereby potentially damage the box and making it unusable for themselves or anyone else. So Tivo supplied the box w/ the OS locked - maybe put into an OTP or some such mechanism. GPL2 didn't consider this problem, which is why TiVo is GPL2 compliant, but GPL3 does. GPL3 forces a company that locks down its GPL3 software i.e. provides the source code, but provides the product on something that can't be altered, to to provide the recipient with whatever information or data is necessary to install modified software on the device. And it uses the word 'TiVoization' to describe this 'problem', as though the company was guilty of heresy in the religion of St IGNUtius.
This is why no company whose executives have a brain will touch the GPL, particularly GPL3. Let's say a company - a competitor to TiVo - were to come up w/ a similar box. They too would need to lock down their firmware, so that customers can't accidentally render the box unusable. But if they are forced to provide some customers w/ ways to unlock the box so that they can install their own firmware then, who takes care of the liabilities? As it is, it's a freeloader society where people who do such things are more likely than not to go back crying to the manufacturer when the altered thing doesn't work and they want to restore the last known good configuration, and while the EULA may have freed the vendor of any liability, fact remains that to avoid any negative publicity, most companies actually would do what they can to fix it. Given that reality, it makes sense for such companies to prevent customers from tinkering w/ their set top boxes. The reasons could be not just the above, but maybe the service provider doesn't want the customer to unlock the STB and set it up so that it can start receiving free (as in gratis) channels from Australia, Russia, South Africa and Mexico, or domestic unsubscribed channels not in the paid plan. It would not be difficult to convince the OSI that an STP is different from a
Strictly speaking, if you link GPL code with your own proprietary non-GPL code and distribute it, the result is an infringement of the GPL license for which you could be sued.
I've added a clarification there, because GGPs point rests on it: the license doesn't matter if you're only planning to use it internally. For those who want to distribute, your correction of the GP stands.
I can't say which I find less encouraging and less trust-inspiring, the fact that the support for writing StarOffice 5 binary formats (sdw, sdc, sda, etc.) has been dropped per se, or the circumstance that such a significant change has been introduced quietly and without even being mentioned in the release notes.
Did they hope nobody would notice, perhaps assuming that users of StarOffice binary file formats would have all died of old age by now?
Not all have, though, and some do even remember that StarOffice 5.2 used to have a feature set which OpenOffice and LibreOffice, more than ten years later, still do not completely replace, which is why some still keep their StarOffice 5.2 setup (working perfectly well on Windows 7 x64) alive, some alongside whatever else they may be using these days, some (like myself) even as their primary office application suite.
Why? Are these large corps planning to modify the software and distribute those modifications as closed source?
As a developer at a large corp, I do find it frustrating when I'm working on an app; find that someone has already implemented a particular routine/method/whatever that I'd like to use, but has made it GPL. It'll form less than 2% of my app, but could save me 5 to 10% of the coding time if it's a particularly thorny problem.
When the licence is LGPL or similar, I use the code in a self contained library, heap praise upon the developer(s), make sure the source is available as it should be, and release the rest of my app closed source as is required by my employer. When it's GPL however, I don't touch it at all because doing so will make us in violation of the licence when we release the app closed source (and there's no way my employer will release the whole app under the GPL).
Many people don't seem to consider this case - they think only in terms of making modifications to existing complete software packages (and in this case, I would be strongly against someone wanting to close source an already open product). The far more common scenario as far as I can tell is my own, where all I want is a tiny bit of code to make my life easier (and will happily comply with the licensing on that bit of code and ONLY that bit of code) without it forcing my hand for the rest of my code.
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Many many many many corporations have accepted Linux and/or gcc, which means accepting the GPL.
Not quite. You can freely use GPL'ed software without accepting the GPL. You only need to accept the GPL if you modify and redistribute.
I just never thought about it THAT way! You are so right!
My car isn't a car, it's a TDUPR (transportation device using public roads). Lock it Down! No modifications!
My house isn't a house, it's a PDIN (person domicile in neighbourhood). Lock it Down! No modifications!
My job isn't a job, it a GEAS (gainful employment aiding society). Lock it Down! No changes!
Can't be rendering anything unusable; the companies have said so.
Wait a minute -- you nearly had me. We have a word to describe this. Facism. No, wait, its TIVOIZATION!
Can be efficient, though.
If the point of tivoizing was to prevent negative publicity -- didn't work that well, did it?
Tivoization! Everyone knows what it is, and WHO invented it. (well, maybe they didn't, but I'll give them the credit)!
Take THAT publicity.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Your company (which includes you) won't touch GPL. The tradeoff is, as you mentioned, a much increased development effort.
Not the fault of the GPL -- that is simply a license specifying tit for tat (in a nutshell).
And it's RIGHT -- I see many interesting parts in closed source programs, and I can't leverage them, or touch them. Completely out of reach. So, you can't take GPL baubles.
Tit for tat. It WORKS, bitches!
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
This is the whole point of the GPL, so you don't take someone else's work, derive something off it, then distribute the derived product in a less free way. Your payment as such for using GPL software is that if you distribute something based on it (however small) you pay the community back by distributing your source.
If you don't want to do that, consider contacting the original author and working out a proprietary license deal, so the original author gets something (such as money) in lieu of the source code to something that extends his library. This is the GPL working as intended.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
WhOracle is probably understands that they screwed up, now. I wonder if they got money for trying to divide the community?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I suppose the next thing will be LGBTPL - don't want to leave out the bi's and trannies
This is the GPL working as intended.
Yes, it is... and I'm not complaining, just pointing out that it's frustrating.
I don't say for a second that it's a failing of the GPL - it is indeed working as intended - I just don't particularly agree with the intention.
This is the whole point of the GPL, so you don't take someone else's work, derive something off it, then distribute the derived product in a less free way. Your payment as such for using GPL software is that if you distribute something based on it (however small) you pay the community back by distributing your source.
That's what I really don't like... the "however small" part. I write code both professionally and privately. If I choose to release something under an open licence, I avoid the GPL precisely because I know how much it's going to frustrate others in similar situations to myself. I'd far rather release my code under the LGPL, thereby ensuring the freedom of that bit of code and keeping the possibilities open for enhancements from the community but not forcing other people to open code that isn't in the slightest bit related.
If you don't want to do that, consider contacting the original author and working out a proprietary license deal, so the original author gets something (such as money) in lieu of the source code to something that extends his library.
Honestly, it's usually more work to do all that than to simply do that bit of code my own way or find another bit under a more permissive licence. I'd really LIKE to have the chance to do something like that but it's impractical under most cases. Remember that I'm talking "small bits of code" and not large complex projects. Something that I can write myself in two days isn't worth the hassle of working out licensing deals... but conversely, being able to use it straight off the bat saves me two days (do that 10 times and I've knocked a month off my project).
To give a real world example, in some of my Windows .NET projects, I make use of this IP Address control which is under the MIT Licence. I could have written it myself in a matter of a few days (with debugging/error-checking), but it saved me those few days work to use the existing code.
It would clearly be nonsensical to licence my entire Windows app under the GPL just because I wanted to use that control (which would be the only legal option if it were GPL licensed). And for that control, if it were GPL licenced, I wouldn't take the time to organise a licensing deal with the developer, because the effort of doing so would far outweigh simply writing an identical control myself.
Now, you might (quite rightly) answer that most people who release such small things don't do so under the GPL for precisely this reason. These sorts of things are almost always BSD/MIT/LGPL and so on. However, what if this was a part of a bigger project and didn't exist anywhere else. I notice in a big GPL project that they're doing one little thing that I'd like to copy from them. My app has nothing in common with the big GPL project other than this one little thing (like an IP address control for example). I can't use it. I have to re-write it myself. And that is what is frustrating.
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Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
And there's the philosophical difference betwixt the camps. GPL supporters believe code must be free, and that the hard work of their developers must never be subverted. Apache supporters believe that users should be free to use it for whatever they want.
Freedom for developers helps, what, a few million people on the planet? Freedom for users helps... anyone with a computer.
If I open source something, I want people to use it. If I want to protect something, then, heck, I'll just keep it proprietary.
THe difference between LGPL and GPL is only one thing. . . dynamic linking. The thing is, it's still an open legal question as to whether the prohibition on linking is legally enforceable. If it's not, then GPL and LGPL are the same.
The question arises because it's not legally clear that dynamic linking creates a derivative work subject to the terms of the GPL. I might, or it might not, who knows?
...isn't it? Since that function has never worked (in OpenOffice or LibreOffice).
Perhaps the Apache Software Foundation will start to prioritise some of the things mainstream users want/need rather than focussing on fancy features whilst leaving the boring functional stuff to rot.
But this is not security through obscurity. It's security through non-alterability. Essentially, the company puts its code - GPL or not - on a read-only device, such as a mask ROM/OTP (which is often another cost reduction measure - when the code has been demonstrated to be ironclad, and doesn't need any changes for that model, then instead of putting it on flash memory, a vendor has a mask made and puts it on ROM, and this result is cheaper than using flash. Equivalent of this is a company doing a hardware design on FPGA and going into production w/ that, and when its volumes hit a critical mass, it makes an ASIC out of it and thereby lowers its cost of production.) So should GPL be modified to state that read-only devices cannot be used to host GPLed code?
Your other point about the disclaimer is valid, but in reality, it has never stopped people from asking for support anyway, and the company involved providing it in order to avoid any negetive publicity.
Freedom for developers helps, what, everyone who can, does or might use the app. It's a very explicit long term focus. Freedom for users helps...nobody if they can't get the app to work the way they want.
Maybe I'm out of touch, but can someone please tell me what "LO/OO" is? Thanks!
LibreOffice and/or OpenOffice. You're welcome.
Every end has half a stick.