In an interview with derStandard.at, Novell developer Michael Meeks talks mostly about Sun's lack of openness in regards to OpenOffice.org. He goes as far as stating that if Sun dropped out of OOo-development this "wouldn't be an entirely negative thing". He also goes on to talk about promoting Go-oo instead, and emphasizes the importance of breaking down the barriers between GNOME and KDE.
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Member since:2008-05-27
Do not forget that the Free Software Foundation also requires copyright assignment. In my humble opinion, the problem is not as much with licensing or copyright assignment, as it is with project management and control. Think about GCC and EGCS. FSF has a pretty centralized development methodology, which at some point can suffocate a project's development. Ironically, FSF is more cathedral than bazaar.
From what I hear/read, Sun is pretty similar, they tend to have a pretty tight grip on their OSS projects (see Java for example).
Classical "let's wait and see" material.
Member since:2005-07-08
Do not forget that the Free Software Foundation also requires copyright assignment.
I didn't not forget it.
Or compare it with the FSF: they also require copyright assignment in the GNU projects, but it's a foundation not a company that aims to money, and they don't use the copryright assignment to make propietary versions out of it (IOW: people knows they can trust the FSF)
Member since:2005-07-15
It's not really ironically. The goal of the FSF and the GNU project was always software freedom. This has nothing to do with a special development model. Open Source advocates often want to focus on an development model (community prjects) but the Free Software movement doesn't really care how you develop the software as long as the users of the software have freedom.
Edited 2008-07-29 15:23 UTC
Member since:2005-11-10
I take you don't know how the linux development works...
A lot of people seem to equate free software with lack of ownership (physical or intellectual), which is not even remotely the case.
If novell feels so strongly about OO they are welcome to start and open their own office suite.
The level of entitlement in certain circles is astounding.
Member since:2005-07-08
A lot of people seem to equate free software with lack of ownership (physical or intellectual), which is not even remotely the case.
And I've never said the contrary, so I just don't get your point. In fact, I couldn't have written my previous comment if I didn't know that. Care to explain yourself?
Edited 2008-07-28 19:01 UTC
Member since:2008-05-27
Member since:2005-12-05
[...]
Openoffice, opensolaris and java will improve so much the day sun kills the copyright asssignment, or the day other contributors join to completely fork the code and try to make sun-controled projects irrelevant.
Well, what do you know... Novell also requires copyright assignment if you want your patch accepted into Evolution or Mono:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/patch.shtml
http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing#Why_does_Novell_require_...
Member since:2007-02-11
Well, yes, but apparenly, they do it for Everyone's Good while Sun is just ripping people off.
I call bullshiFt on this, really. I'm sure that if a Sun developer had been interviewed about Go-OO, he'd have said the same thing, only reversed (Novell is not open enough with Go=OO, bring us all your codez).
Business is still business, even if you're selling open-source work, and this is the best proof.
Edit: I can already see Balmer's argument. Why switch to open office, when these guys can't even decide which one is really open, and take their time to fight each other instead of actually writing some code? Frankly, I'd really buythat argument.
Edited 2008-07-28 19:55 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/patch.shtml
http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing#Why_does_Novell_require_...
Actually Evolution no longer has this requirement. It's a recent announcement, the website has yet to be updated.
Member since:2005-07-27
Member since:2006-01-25
Member since:2005-07-06
http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/patch.shtml
http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing#Why_does_Novell_require_...
Wow it was hard to find that out, huh? What with him covering that in detail in the article...
Member since:2005-11-18
Oh, please. First there are complaints that their software is not FLOSS software, which may have been a valid criticism in some cases (e.g. Java as a development platform). In the meanwhile, they have open sourced projects that are worth millions if not billions of dollars, and now people tell them they are not FLOSS enough due to the way that they run their projects (or their use of the CDDL license).
These are their projects, so they choose how to run it. And if they want to use copyright assignment, I can fully understand, they have invested a lot in these code bases, so they want to be the owner. Does it slow down development? Maybe, but that's their choice.
Can we please stop talking about these issues as if it is morally wrong to choose different licenses, require copyright assignment, or whatever?
Member since:2005-07-18
Member since:2006-01-06
Can we please stop talking about these issues as if it is morally wrong to choose different licenses, require copyright assignment, or whatever?
Ultimately, "open source" boils down to whether the source code is available. That's the heart of the issue, and pretending that the license is the litmus test for "open" is a load of crap. Just show me the source code, and then get the f out of the way, people.
Member since:2006-09-30
In SCA (Sun Contributor Agreement, required for contributing to OpenJDK and OpenSolaris) there's no "copyright assignment". There's copyright sharing, which is done by many other open source projects. You still retain your rights, but you share them with Sun.
Also, people who worked on free Java implementations don't seem to have any problems with signing the SCA to work on Openjdk.
Dmitri
Member since:2008-02-26
But it still means the code is GPL for everyone but Sun who can still release closed source versions without contributing the killer features back. If they used the BSD license everyone would have the same rights. In this case Sun has more rights than the other authors and users. I think it is clear they are abusing the community. Also, an OpenOffice branch that didn't have to be constantly pimping Java would probably be superior.
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Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
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"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2005-07-08
Sun requires contributors to transfer their copyright to them if you want to get your code merged in the official openoffice.org project (just like in opensolaris and java, BTW). And then, because they have copyright rights, they're allowed to add closed-source "addons" and sell it in a propietary way. Which is exactly what Sun does.
Yes, Sun opensourced OO.org, and opensolaris and java, but their projects do not exactly encourage opensource development in the same way other FOSS projects do. It feels kinda weird to contribute to a "open source project" and then see how the company that setup the project uses that to force a requeriment of "copyright assignment" if you want to get your code merged in the official repositories. And then see how they use that to release propietary versions of the code you contributed. Yes, you can fork the code. But a single person is not going to succeed, because the "official" version has more developers and your fork will quickly become obsolete.
Its not nice. And it has effectively harmed those projects. IBM put a lot of efforts (mainly performance and accesibility) in openoffice, but did not contribute it back to openoffice.org. Because of the copyright assignment (only recently they agreed to start working in OO.org - which means several years wasted and lots of improvements that are not useful because the divergences in the code). And other companies who contribute to OO.org, like Novell or redhat, they sign the assignment, but they clearly don't like it (that's why go-oo.org exists: they clearly want to encourage sun to drop the copyright assignment, or transfer the openoffice project to a FSF-like foundation), because it's unfair to them. It also doesn't encourages other companies to contribute.
Compare however with, say, the linux kernel: There's no copyright assignment, so nobody can make propietary versions. It's fair to everyone who contributes so everyone tries to contribute, while in opensolaris everything is too focused in what Sun research teams do or stop doing. Or compare it with the FSF: they also require copyright assignment in the GNU projects, but it's a foundation not a company that aims to money, and they don't use the copryright assignment to make propietary versions out of it (IOW: people knows they can trust the FSF)
Openoffice, opensolaris and java will improve so much the day sun kills the copyright asssignment, or the day other contributors join to completely fork the code and try to make sun-controled projects irrelevant.
Edited 2008-07-28 18:48 UTC