Sun's StarOffice Release: Not Open Source

Bruce Perens wrote in to send us a link to an article he has written about Sun's StarOffice Release: Is It Really What You Think? It discusses the implications for Linux, and the fact that it technically isn't going to be released under a true Open Source license. Worth a read.

Comments

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the article makes some very good points but there are a couple of things I wanted to comment on.

Firstly: the quote...
"Sun isn't going to make big revenues off of StarOffice while it's also giving it away for free from its own web site" fits the more traditional view of programming I think. Isn't the whole point of the free software push that you can have a very profitable (more so?) business based on "giving your product away". You can after all download RedHat and they seem to be making their money *shrug*

Secondly, while I am wary of the possible effects mentioned in the article wrt competition with the FS/OS products lets face it. The _biggest_ problem the office software market is facing is the stranglehold M$ has over it making it the defacto standard. As a result most people/businesses I know of don't even consider that there _are_ alternatives. More competition in this genre of products (even if among corporate products) is to the advantage of all surely? Maybe if there was a more diverse offering of office software available (especially corporate products for those businesses who still will not consider anything else) then the OS/FS products would be facing less of a mountain?

Lets encourage greater competition and welcome every step companies like Sun make in this direction. Maybe future steps will see them willing to consider that extra step - the OS/FS model is probably a pretty scarey choice for the corporates to go for ;)

Just a thought (or three) :)

Re:Free beer is good for all

[Daniel]

Do you care for Open Source / Free Software or Linux? I'll take Linux...

Loyalty is an interesting thing, and the cause of much flammage, but no-one really seems to understand it. Here are some general categories and my opinions expressed briefly...

• Brand/company loyalty. This I really don't get; being loyal to a company unless they're actually giving me money and a job is something that I just don't understand. Companies are out to make money, being loyal to a company or a brand is like a herd of sheep being loyal to a wolf. It doesn't work.
  
• Product loyalty. This has more merit, although it sometimes dovetails with loyalty to a brand or company. After all, a good program is..well..a good program. However, this has a tendency to lead people to unnecessary narrow-mindedness and hosility. (look at the flamewars against ABL (Anything But Linux) that pop up here) Ok but dangerous.
  
• Concept loyalty. That is, loyalty to a design idea or to a way of doing things. For example, someone who likes UNIX systems (raises hand) because of their particular design features, or someone who believes stridently in the GUI Jihad.
  
• Philosophical loyalty. Loyalty to an idea above and beyond a specific implementation or method, or to a goal which is believed to be likely to Make The World a Better Place.
  

My feeling is that in general:
-> Microsoft users are in the first category
-> 'Linux advocates' tend to be in the second category
-> 'Open-source' advocates tend to be in the third (I say this because despite the widespread use of the word 'philosophy', Open Source seems to really reject philosophical or ethical arguments in favor of strict utilitariansim, and even openly ridicules people who dare to contradict this approach.)
-> 'Free software' advocates tend to be spread between the third and fourth.

You may have guessed my general opinions on the subject, 1<2<3<4 (although there are people strongly commited to philosophies that are absolutely ridiculous but dangerous..)

Anyway, I'm not sure what my original point was going to be, except that being committed to a single program (Linux) seems to me to be a bit parochial and you should try to broaden your sights a little. I was probably going to say something like that :)

Daniel

Few idle wonderings

[Pascal Q. Porcupine]

First of all, whatever happened to the Sun/AOL thing? Did that go through, or what? Given the lukewarm response Mozilla has led to, I don't think AOL would really want to deal with having "their" source code in the public eye.

Secondly, I can understand where Sun's license is coming from, and really in practicality it's not really any different than most opensource projects, except for the notable difference that only Sun can distribute the source. I mean, most opensource projects just have a single code maintainer and a single codebase when it comes down to it (though most projects using CVS these days does kind of distribute that load). However, this is disregarding the fact that in most opensource projects, the person(s) running that project usually care enough to make sure that it keeps with the freedom that opensource brings, and for the ones which aren't, someone can always fork development and do their own thang, preferrably better.

My main concern with the Sun license is that they may just sit on their asses and never incorporate any changes. At least with the GPL, should Linus suddenly get the stupids, someone else could fork it and release their own source tree. Also, hasn't this technically already happened with the various embedded projects, etc.? Though StarOffice doesn't immediately seem to be the kind of thing that'd need specialization-based forking, it probably could be. StarOffice on a wearable computer, for example, would need to have a completely different interface, which means either hoping the Sun folks would want to maintain multiple source trees (unlikely) or forking the source (not possible right now).

Whatever the case, at least this gives people many more choices. If anything, at least people can feel free to use Linux on any architecture and compile it for it, rather than having to use a supported architecture. What good does StarOffice binary releases for IA32, PPC, RS6k, MIPS, and StrongARM do if you need to run it on a simulated Merced?
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

What concerns me (if you care)

[Booker]

I'm concerned by all the comments on this story saying "Well, it's free, and that's good enough for me. Who cares if it's open source."

On a case-by-case basis, this works just fine. Take yer free stuff and be happy. But when you look at the big picture, it falls apart. I don't think I need to go into specifics on this - just think about this scenario:

Torvalds Software, Ltd. releases the Linux Kernel (c)(tm)(r)($) for free, but with restrictions on it's commercial use and redistribution. Xfree86 Partners, Inc. releases their version of the X-Windows system, but you can't make any modifications to it. Gnu Gurus, LLC has a whole nifty suite of Unix-compatible tools, and their down-rev versions are always available in binary form, for free download. These three things together are a good foundation for a "free" Unix system.

But - given that foundation, do you think Linux would be anywhere near where it is today? Would anyone be developing any software for this thing, closely held by some companies, under licenses which may someday change radically?

To me, accepting "Free Beer" software is akin to saying "That's enough - we can stop moving forward now" because if enough of the "foundations" of Linux become less-than free, I really believe that the whole thing will slowly fall apart in the future. I think that "free beer" software, much more so than traditional commercial software, contributes to this complacency.

Sometimes, if there's no alternative and I have a task I must accomplish, I'll use non-free software, but I try to avoid it for the reasons above.

Nothing lost, something gained.

[adnan]

Considering what kind of freedom we had with the source code when StarDivision was in control... effectively Zero. Complaining about what we haven't gained seems a little imature & premature as this story is far from over (infact the license has not come into effect as yet) and other developments might heareld a more open view on StarOffice's availability.

Also the sheer impossible hope that Sun was going to pay a half a billion dollars for a company to effectively "open source" it would have been delusional. It just does not work that way with entities whose prime function is to make a profit period. In this age of wall street highs, exploding growth in technological industries and cannabalising mergers and takeovers, it hardly seems realistic to think that Sun would only rely on indirect methods of revenue from the product. I would not be amazed to hear after StartOffice has gained sufficent market share that Sun started charging a nominal fee for the currently free version.

Seriously, how much are they going to make from workstation and server sales because some individuals have StarOffice at home ? Though I do not want to give the false impretion that I feel negatively about this whole affair. It was a brave move on their part to invest in this product and realease the code, though under their restricted license. My dad always said don't look a gift horse in the mouth. While we haven't got the ideal situation in terms of source code. Showing Sun what the excellent Open Source communitu can do with their code might convince them to give us a chance.

Though the colour of money is green and everybody lacks some green in their lives.