On 2nd September 2005 Sun announced the retirement of the Sun Industry Standard Source License. As a consequence, no future Sun open-source project will use the SISSL. Projects currently using the SISSL under a dual-license scheme, such as OpenOffice.org, are dropping the SISSL and thus simplifying their license scheme as soon as the development cycle allows. Effectie with the announcement that Sun is retiring the SISSL, OpenOffice.org will in the future only be licensed under the LGPL (.pdf). A FAQ is also available.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-06-29
Personally I would love to see that since all the school computers use MS Office and I preffer to use OpenOffice.org at home. Although, it would be better if MS just borrowed the code out of OO.o without unecessary modification in that case to avoid "inconsistencies". I can just imagine all the broken OpenDocument files that'll be flying around out there if MS tries it's embrace, extend, and extinguish tactic on OO.o.
If MS office could save to, and open OpenDocument files just as well as OpenOffice.org then I would be less apprehensive about using the software. I don't care so much if the software I use isn't "open", but I want my documents which I save with it to be in a format I can open, edit, and save later on without any restrictions or software lock-in.
Member since:2005-07-06
The only way for Office to support the standard would be for the largest customers to come out and demand it; if the US government said, "we're not going to upgrade to your next version of Office unless you provide 100% backing to OpenDocument" - as soon as customers start doing that, Microsoft will quickly reverse their arrogant attitude.
As much as Microsoft loves to bullshit about their so-called 'leadership' in the IT world, they're as much to the demands and expectations of their customers, like any other company - if they don't deliver what customers want, don't expect people to upgrade - Windows Vista is going to be the same situation; Windows XP is now pretty stable and secure, coupled that with the push for better security, service pack 3 will most likely bundle alot of visible functionality, like IE7 and anti-spyware/malware; but in the end, when consumers compare, will they switch.
As for OpenOffice.org, I think the greater issue, for adoption by end users, isn't so much functionality but this perception that if they're not running Microsoft Office, they're running something second rate; when in reality, if ever end user was pragmatic about what they used their computer for, and instead used the package that did everything they wanted without being an overkill, you'd find that OpenOffice.org would win hands down everytime.
Member since:
2005-07-06
This also allows anyone to make OpenOffice file format part of their projects/products
Perhaps this is an attempt at encouraging the likes of Microsoft to incorporate their file format in Office 12?