OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/24808/Oracle_Calls_It_a_Day_Gives_OpenOffice_to_Apache_Foundation Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sat, 25 May 2013 23:18:43 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Eh http://www.osnews.com/thread?475489 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475489 Good ol' Larry thought that he can score some cash from OpenOffice like he tried with Solaris and Java. Now that he sees that money aren't coming, he's making a donation. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twitterfire) Comments Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475491 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475491 Now if they would just give Java to the Apache Foundation, life would be great. Of course, that will never happen. But at least they did the right thing with OpenOffice. Kind of saw this one coming. Oracle has no interest at all in an office suite. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pantheraleo) Comments RE: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475493 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475493
Oracle has no interest at all in an office suite.

No. Not if they aren't making money from it. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twitterfire) Comments RE[2]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475494 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475494
No. Not if they aren't making money from it.


Even if they could make money off of it, it wouldn't be enough for them to be interested in it. It just doesn't fit their overall business strategy. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pantheraleo) Comments RE[3]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475496 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475496 As much as I loathe Larry Ellison and Oracle, he's no fool when it comes to sound business choices. Pity it took this long for Sun's assets to end up in competent hands. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments RE: Eh http://www.osnews.com/thread?475498 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475498
he's making a donation.


In the business world, this move is called divesting. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments Oracle http://www.osnews.com/thread?475510 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475510
I think that says it all. The professional term is "mismanagement".

If only Oracle had someone who could foretell the future... Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments RE[4]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475512 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475512 It is true that it was hard to figure out exactly what Sun was up to in their later years. They went on a massive buying spree of buying up smaller companies, including ones that couldn't possibly benefit them financially, such as StarOffice. The bought up Cobalt Server appliances, tried to sell their server appliances for a little while, and then just discontinued them. They bought up Virtual Box, which was another one of those "why?" moments. Virtual Box is useful for desktop virtualization, but it's not exactly enterprise level server virtualization type stuff.

Sun ended up going massively into debt by going on this buying spree, and the companies it was buying simply didn't seem to provide a lot of benefit to Sun's overall business strategy. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pantheraleo) Comments RE: Oracle http://www.osnews.com/thread?475513 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475513 When you start pushing people, don't be surprised if they fall. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments Comment by TomF http://www.osnews.com/thread?475519 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475519 so Oracle screwed up AGAIN... no surprise.

I quit my old Sun job 2 months ago and I'm only looking forward. Lets just hope Java escapes the Oracle death-grip :/

Tom UK Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TomF) Comments RE: Eh http://www.osnews.com/thread?475520 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475520 We just have to be happy he didnt let it die. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments Comment by error32 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475522 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475522 I would be interested to read an article detailing what Oracle has actually gained when they bought Sun. Because it appears to me they've only bought it to kill off the products.

Anybody fancy writing an article about that? Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (error32) Comments RE: Comment by error32 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475523 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475523 Oh I can tell exactly what they gained.

First, they gained a permanent seat on the JCP (Java Community Process Board), which gives them more infuence over the future of Java. And Oracle's entire enterprise application stack is built on Java.

Second, they gained the Solaris operating system, which has long been the "gold standard" for running high transaction / high availability Oracle databases.

Third, they gained control of Sun's hardware business.

What they hope to do with all this is simple. They want to become a full solution provider for all your data needs. They will probably build "database appliances" with zero maintenance and such. Just shove your data into it, pull it back out, and you are good to go.Edited 2011-06-01 21:38 UTC Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pantheraleo) Comments RE[5]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475525 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475525 Their whole "open source" strategy was baffling from the beginning. It seems like they wanted the buzzword cred but had no clue how to make the process work. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments RE[2]: Comment by error32 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475527 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475527 Don't forget they also got MySQL, and probably more importantly the customer base from Sun as well. The patent portfolio is also nothing to be sneezed atEdited 2011-06-01 21:52 UTC Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments Really Oracle has a Interest. http://www.osnews.com/thread?475528 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475528
" Oracle has no interest at all in an office suite.

No. Not if they aren't making money from it. "

Libreoffice and Openoffice both can operate as services providing document conversion. This is a feature of value to Oracle. Now its not worth fighting with the community and ending up poorer quality document conversion in other products Oracle sells.

So yes their is a reason for Oracle to remain interested. The OpenOffice program does allow Oracle to provide customers with better products. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (oiaohm) Comments RE[3]: Comment by error32 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475529 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475529 True. MySQL might be important to their small business strategy. Small business don't run Oracle after all. Too expensive, and also largely too complicated for their needs. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pantheraleo) Comments RE[6]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475530 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475530 at least they had one. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adurbe) Comments Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475532 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475532 It seems pretty cool that OpenOffice will now gain developers from Apache and from IBM.

Now ... if libreoffice really wants to merge the codebase, they could just relicense their stuff under a dual LGPL3 and/or Apache license, so the best of both projects can still be merged or at least so that both projects will remain compatible at a source level for a while.

After all, it was libreoffice who forked so it should be them who merge back. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pfgbsd) Comments RE: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475551 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475551
After all, it was libreoffice who forked so it should be them who merge back.


Why would they need to merge back?

There's nothing inherently wrong with a fork. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments RE[2]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475564 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475564 Two communities developing two almost exactly identical pieces of software instead of just one; makes both communities weaker and makes progress slower. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ebasconp) Comments RE[3]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475589 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475589
Two communities developing two almost exactly identical pieces of software instead of just one; makes both communities weaker and makes progress slower.


[Citation Needed]

But seriously.. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that's a notion that people come up with because it makes them angry that there are two "competing" projects.

With proper source control, sharing patches between the projects could be a no-brainer.

Time and again, it's been proven that competition is healthy.Edited 2011-06-02 04:15 UTC Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments RE: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475590 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475590
It seems pretty cool that OpenOffice will now gain developers from Apache and from IBM. Now ... if libreoffice really wants to merge the codebase, they could just relicense their stuff under a dual LGPL3 and/or Apache license, so the best of both projects can still be merged or at least so that both projects will remain compatible at a source level for a while. After all, it was libreoffice who forked so it should be them who merge back.


The Apache 2.0 license is a liberal non-copyleft license. AFAIK this means that both open source code and closed source code can be contributed to an Apache 2.0 license project.

LibreOffice is licensed under LGPL v3. This copyleft license means that no closed-source components can be accepted.

So from now, open source code contributed to ASF OpenOffice can be adopted (and re-licensed as LGPL v3) by LibreOffice, and LGPL v3 code contibuted to LibreOffice can be incorporated into ASF OpenOffice (but it must remain LGPL v3, and copyright attribution must remain with the original authors).

I don't think the corporates (Oracle and IBM) want the latter to occur. I think they want the ability to make all or prat of ASF OpenOffice closed source. I'm pretty sure they don't want any LGPL v3 copyleft code where the copyrights belong to individuals.

Therefore, IMO, no re-merge is likely to be accepted by the ASF OpenOffice crowd. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[2]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475596 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475596 ASF policy is not to incorporate LGPLv3 source as LGPLv3 isn't AL 2.0 compatible ( http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html ). The same holds for closed source code; it would need to be under a compatible (ie: liberal) license.

LibreOffice can incorporate AL 2.0 code. ASF OpenOffice can't incorporate LibreOffice LGPLv3 code.

Note that the copyrights belong to individuals on Apache projects too. Any issues for users (the 'corporates') are likely to be around the LGPLv3 licensing; both the copyleft issues and the patent terms. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flamefew) Comments RE[2]: Eh http://www.osnews.com/thread?475607 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475607 Well I'd say we should be happy there are enough developers who won't let it die. Larry couldn't have affected that, especially after the fork. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (shmerl) Comments RE[2]: Comment by error32 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475614 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475614 They gained also the right to sue Google for Dalvik that is similar to Java virtual machine for mobiles phones. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lego) Comments RE[3]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475624 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475624
Two communities developing two almost exactly identical pieces of software instead of just one; makes both communities weaker and makes progress slower.


That's usual in GNU/Linux/FOSS world.

How many widget toolkits are there? How many desktop environments? How many distros? How many pieces of software that do the same thing? People like for sure reinventing the wheel. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twitterfire) Comments RE[4]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475687 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475687 And how is it different from proprietary?

There's more than one proprietary DB implementation, in games more than one FPS, MMORPG, many raster graphics programs, C++ compilers, operating systems, Media players, etc. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mksoft) Comments Trying to clarify a few things... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475709 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475709 They could have given OOo to LibreOffice instead of Apache; we think they did this just to be mean to the LibreOffice group.

We still have no response as to what is going to happen to the OOo developers. IBM has announced that they will provide developers for the Apache migration. We think IBM is most likely stepping in to further the Symphony project (currently it's based on the OOo 1.x code base).

It is already becoming too hard to move patches between the OOo code base and the LibO code base; they are becoming too far apart (last week's merge of the two code bases broke LibO master and it's just now getting somewhat stable). The current plan seams to be to monitor the OOo project and only cherry-pick items of interest.

So far none of the LibreOffice developers has expressed any interest in joining the Apache team.

The above is mostly my impressions of the current state and I don't speak for the LibreOffice community.Edited 2011-06-02 16:00 UTC Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JPowers27) Comments RE[5]: Now if they would just give Java.... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475787 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475787 Virtualbox would have been an interesting buy if Sun had continued the bare metal project Innotek had going and expanded it.

Everything Sun did could have been interesting if they had any vision about where to go with it. Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Flatland_Spider) Comments Meanwhile ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475908 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475908 LibreOffice 3.4 has been released.

http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/06/03/the-document-foundati...

Features and screenshots:
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/06/03/the-document-foundati...

Download from:
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/06/03/the-document-foundati...

Enjoy. Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[4]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475914 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475914 Add to that there is a lot of dead wood lying around everywhere. the code in OpenOffice will be picked upon for LibreOffice. LibreOffice will be the fork of choice until some other fork comes along and Libre becomes dead wood. Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (libray) Comments RE[4]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?475928 http://www.osnews.com/thread?475928
"Two communities developing two almost exactly identical pieces of software instead of just one; makes both communities weaker and makes progress slower.


That's usual in GNU/Linux/FOSS world.

How many widget toolkits are there? How many desktop environments? How many distros? How many pieces of software that do the same thing? People like for sure reinventing the wheel. "

That's not a valid comparison: there is only toolkit with the Qt API and toolkit with the GTK+ API. There's OpenMotif and there is/was lesstif but that was not a fork.

There some different office packages already but, while there are some specific variants of OpenOffice, the only real fork is Libreoffice. This will cause a lot of repeated efforts until the projects diverge (which is admittedly not that bad). The *real* downside, of course, is that 100 people were laid off by Oracle after libreoffice forked.

The license may become an interesting difference though. I would see why IBM is more interested in keeping the code under a non-copyleft license, and others may follow.

All in all, I like the forking idea: there was no advantage in giving the code to libreoffice since they already have it with the license they want and they are not asking for code attribution so there was nothing to gain by giving the code to libreoffice. Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pfgbsd) Comments RE[4]: Isn't libreoffice being somewhat silly here ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?476002 http://www.osnews.com/thread?476002
"Two communities developing two almost exactly identical pieces of software instead of just one; makes both communities weaker and makes progress slower.


That's usual in GNU/Linux/FOSS world.

How many widget toolkits are there? How many desktop environments? How many distros? How many pieces of software that do the same thing? People like for sure reinventing the wheel. "

That's oversimplifying. Forks happen for a reason or they die. If that reason is gone then a fork is pointless. This is different from competing projects that do not share a direct lineage to each other. Often those projects have different goals in the first place, although they generally overlap in some places. Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abraxas) Comments RE[2]: Eh http://www.osnews.com/thread?476207 http://www.osnews.com/thread?476207
We just have to be happy he didnt let it die.


Actually, I am a little annoyed that they did not.

LibreOffice has really taken off. The weaker OpenOffice.org is the better. Now LibreOffice is hampered by the OpenOffice.org anchor around it's neck.

I think this "donation" was done out of spite on Oracle's part and to advantage IBM (who use OO.org as the basis for Symphony). It has nothing to do with the community or the users.

IMHO.Edited 2011-06-06 14:46 UTC Mon, 06 Jun 2011 14:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tanishaj) Comments