[opensuse] Why don't Libre and Open Office Merge now OO is with Apache?
Guys, Why don't LibreOffice and OpenOffice merge now that Oracle has ceded the OO code to the Apache Foundation? Splitting developer talent between the two and introducing format incompatibilities between the two will kill one or the other over time. The document foundation is open to the idea, anybody got the scoop from the Apache side? I have had nothing but grief from the fork. Both LO and OO work fine, but when I can't edit an OO document in LO and have it open again in OO without a 'save as' to an older OO format in LO -- something is wrong. The community doesn't need this type of distraction if wider OS desktop acceptance is the goal. If anybody know any more on the apache side, I'd welcome the thoughts. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 8:03 PM, David C. Rankin
Guys,
Why don't LibreOffice and OpenOffice merge now that Oracle has ceded the OO code to the Apache Foundation? Splitting developer talent between the two and introducing format incompatibilities between the two will kill one or the other over time. The document foundation is open to the idea, anybody got the scoop from the Apache side?
The problem is license -- most of the LO code is licensed under LGPL, so backporting it to Apache licensed code will require acceptable of _all_ community members, _or_ rewriting sizable chunks of code. The question is: How active OO will be ? Read: How much developers working on it? My understanding is that Linux / OSS community developers left it, and according to rumors Oracle fired their OOo devs too. (true?) The only one interested in OOo is IBM - but how much resources (developers) they will actually put behind this interest ? Obviously I agree, that if compromise can be found, re-union could be a possibility. (Compiz and Beyil merged into Compiz-Fusion after all...)
I have had nothing but grief from the fork. Both LO and OO work fine, but when I can't edit an OO document in LO and have it open again in OO without a 'save as' to an older OO format in LO -- something is wrong. The community doesn't need this type of distraction if wider OS desktop acceptance is the goal. If anybody know any more on the apache side, I'd welcome the thoughts.
Did it ever happen ? I can read all my OO docs in LO. (if yes, start separate thread on this technical issues, and keep this thread for politics) -- -Alexey Eromenko "Technologov" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2011-06-09 19:18, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
Did it ever happen ? I can read all my OO docs in LO. (if yes, start separate thread on this technical issues, and keep this thread for politics)
He did, not long ago. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk3xCFIACgkQtTMYHG2NR9X45gCeOS+dfZm6lLKyAhkbpvvRlmMO 6cAAnjUuAVrMEJKUxZ1o5/TPPc4wncB5 =HrP6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 06/09/2011 12:18 PM, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
Did it ever happen ? I can read all my OO docs in LO. (if yes, start separate thread on this technical issues, and keep this thread for politics)
Yes, talking about the issue with the devs on libreoffice IRC, the new libre format introduced table incompatibilities with the normal OO format. To be able to open documents containing tables in OO that you saved in LO, you must do a "Save As" in LO and choose the older open document format. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 6/9/2011 10:18 AM, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
The problem is license -- most of the LO code is licensed under LGPL, so backporting it to Apache licensed code will require acceptable of _all_ community members, _or_ rewriting sizable chunks of code. The question is: How active OO will be ?
Wait, LO froked from OO like 3 minutes ago (in developer years), so it seems unlikely the did much of anything other than writing around proprietary code, and most of that work is duplication of what was in OO. So worst case, the scrap a bunch of code the wrote in the meantime, and pick up again with what they started with, and what most of them were working on before they forked. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Wait, LO froked from OO like 3 minutes ago (in developer years), so it seems unlikely the did much of anything other than writing around proprietary code, and most of that work is duplication of what was in OO.
So worst case, the scrap a bunch of code the wrote in the meantime, and pick up again with what they started with, and what most of them were working on before they forked.
The question is -- why ? Who is _really_ backing OOo ? Apache won't put it's Apache Server HTTPD developers on OOo. That's for sure. How much effort IBM will put ? If a little - then not worth the effort of merging, but if much developers, it may be worth merging back... -- -Alexey Eromenko "Technologov" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
John Andersen wrote:
Wait, LO froked from OO like 3 minutes ago (in developer years), so it seems unlikely the did much of anything other than writing around proprietary code, and most of that work is duplication of what was in OO.
No. Libre followed on from Go-OO, which had been going a lot longer than three minutes (late 2007, AFAIK) Personally, I think the LGPL is a much better fit than Apache in the circumstances so I rather hope the Apache-OO withers on the vine. There's more background, though not about Go-OO, at http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/06/01/open-office.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 09/06/11 18:03, David C. Rankin wrote:
Guys,
Why don't LibreOffice and OpenOffice merge now that Oracle has ceded the OO code to the Apache Foundation? Splitting developer talent between the two and introducing format incompatibilities between the two will kill one or the other over time. The document foundation is open to the idea, anybody got the scoop from the Apache side?
I have had nothing but grief from the fork. Both LO and OO work fine, but when I can't edit an OO document in LO and have it open again in OO without a 'save as' to an older OO format in LO -- something is wrong. The community doesn't need this type of distraction if wider OS desktop acceptance is the goal. If anybody know any more on the apache side, I'd welcome the thoughts.
Unfortunately this isn't up to the community - it's up to Oracle, and they're being exceeding difficult. The real reason Oracle has done this is for IBM. Oracle was trying to cut involvement in OpenOffice after LibreOffice ran away with pretty much the entire community. TDF (The Document Foundation, LibreOffice leaders, SUSE/RedHat/Canonical) had asked Oracle many times to be nice, and donate back the OpenOffice trademarks so the two brands can be remerged. Oracle, even though they wanted to cut the project, refused to so, pretty much out of spite. Meanwhile IBM still had Symphony(?) based on OO code and saw an opportunity to take charge. IBM likes the Apache license because it means they can develop proprietary closed-source features in secret, unlike with the LGPL'ed LibreOffice. So in order to make a show about this being "for the community", they have got the Apache Incubation project involved. Really it's not in the spirit of open source at all, its about Oracle sucking up to IBM and pissing off the community. Notice how IBM was the only one who welcomed the announcement. It remains to be seen whether OpenOffice will even have any useful development going on. IBM promised a couple of dozen or so full time developers, but they've promised developers for open-source projects in the past and never delivered. It doesn't have any open source community behind it, and IBM just wants to be able to sell the code in their proprietary packages. Hence, I would guess that all but the most trivial development will be happening behind closed doors. In any case LibreOffice can still take any code that appears in the public OpenOffice repositories (but the other way around won't work, Apache is less restrictive than LGPL). I think that it is technically possible that the Apache Incubation project can turn around and donate OpenOffice back to TDF, but they'd piss off both Oracle and IBM if they did so. So at this point hope for reunification is slim - it would have to be initiated by Oracle/IBM, and they aren't being friendly. Also there has been sufficient divergent development between LibreOffice (which when formed, immediately merged all the go-oo patches) and OpenOffice (which has been pretty much stationary) that a merge wouldn't be trivial. Regards, Tejas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (6)
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Alexey Eromenko -
Carlos E. R. -
Dave Howorth -
David C. Rankin -
John Andersen -
Tejas Guruswamy