Re: [libreoffice-users] Goodbye to Open Office (maybe?)

Hello!


On 03/09/2016 15:01, Xen wrote:
> CVAlkan schreef op 03-09-2016 13:50:
> > For those who haven't seen this:
> > http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/openoffice-after-years-of-neglect-could-shut-down/
> >
> > Is this a case of "Where there's smoke ..."
>
> The LibreOffice developers that split off refused to contribute code
> under the "Oracle" license and according to the words of Mark
> Shuttlworth "made their work hell". (Made the work hell of the
> remaining paid Oracle employees).
>
> Since also LibreOffice was allowed to take code from ApacheOffice but
> not in reverse (due to it restrictive license) (LibreOffice had a
> license that forbade it from being given back to Apache/Oracle
> OpenOffice) any updates only flowed in one way and provided the doom
> for OpenOffice.

The LibreOffice software is published under the Mozilla Public License
Version 2.0... Not a particularly restrictive license.
LO License : https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/licenses/
MPL 2.0 : https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/

In fact it's a great license to enable combining with other software.

Now, when Oracle (I used to work there) gave the OOo code to Apache,
they were really hoping to kill LO. But to their big surprise (and
contrary to all the bullshit I was given by the (at the time) head of
software strategy there), LO dit way better than OOo. OOo suffers from
many problems, from structural (Apache has taken an unreasonable amount
of time to clean up all the code - in particular licenses - but not the
actual algorithmics of the app) to project-wise (developers not adhering
to the idea, not committed to contributing enough, and as a result, new
versions comming out drop by drop, one  every year and a half - when LO
has new versions every few months or more often).

So the good guys here are LO. They're doing great work. They're keeping
alive software that Oracle did its best to "not kill" (it was a
commitment from Oracle to the European Commission when they acquired
Sun)... while still doing its best to make it disappear (they are really
upset that they never found a way to make money from it, and that they
never could control the community the way thew would have wanted to -
case in point, The Document Foundation is the exact opposite of what
Oracle wanted to achieve - including limiting sponsorship amounts so
that no single entity can claim to have overwhelming financial impact to
justify imposing directions to the project).

It would be a good thing FOR EVERYBODY if Apache decided to officially
call it quits on OOo, and put out one last version that had links for
next updates to the LibreOffice web site. Of course they have too much
pride to even accept the idea of doing this, so instead, they are
leaving their users with software that is terribly outdated (last build
4.1.2 is dated October 28th, 2015, and I'll let you imagine the number
of unpatched vulnerabilities inside)... They are pathetic. And
dangerous. And dying... Apache Foundation has many much more great
projects that they are working on, and doing a great job of keeping active!

Gilles

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