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CLA Redux - The Donation of OpenOffice to the Apache Foundation |
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Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:30 AM EDT
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Just last week we were talking about the role of contributor licensing agreements (CLA's) and why some organizations/projects preferred to have the copyright in contributed code assigned rather than licensed, i.e., so the organization/project would be in a better position to enforce the copyright. A prime example of this centralized copyright ownership has been in a number of projects owned or managed by Sun Microsystems, includin OpenOffice. Of course, Sun is no longer Sun, and we have all been waiting to see what Oracle's intent would be with the various open source projects they acquired. Well, we are now getting our first insight with the proposed donation of OpenOffice to the Apache Foundation.
While the jury is still out on what exactly this assignment means for OpenOffice, I think it's safe to say that the Oracle announcement has elicited a range of reactions, a number of which have been less than enthusiastic. The biggest issue is the license change. The Apache Foundation requires all code donated to them
to be under the Apache License. Since OpenOffice.org was not under that license, it means that the project changes from a true copyleft license to a more permissive license that allows companies to take the code proprietary. What kind of reaction will this draw from those who have been contributing freely to OpenOffice. Are they as likely to continue to contribute? Will Oracle be willing to continue to fund developers on the project? Will Attachmate, the new owner of Novell, allow their developers to continue to contribute to LibreOffice, the fork from OpenOffice? What realistic expectations should the Apache Foundation have?
Let's try to parse out the main strands of the discussion so far so you will be able to reach your own conclusions based on the facts, and
then we'll look specifically at the legal issue.
For historians, here's
Oracle's Luke Kowalski on June 1 announcing to the Apache mailing list
that "The following project is being sent in as an incubator candidate".
The subject line is: "OpenOffice.org Apache Incubator Proposal" And
here's the PDF
attached. It couldn't be clearer what the purpose and goals are when
you read the proposal. An excerpt: Proposal
OpenOffice.org will be contributed to Apache Software Foundation by
Oracle Corporation in compliance with ASF licensing and governance.
This contribution will form the basis of the new OpenOffice project at
Apache.
Background
OpenOffice.org was launched as an open source project by Sun
Microsystems in June 2000. OpenOffice.org was originally developed by
Star Division which was acquired by Sun in 1999. OpenOffice.org is the
leading alternative to MS-Office available as an open source licensed
offering. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and
scriptable functionality. This source technology introduces the
next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite elements as separate
applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous
other features are also present including XML-based file formats based
on the vendor-neutral OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard from OASIS and
other resources.
Rationale
OpenOffice.org core development would continue at Apache following the
contribution by Oracle, in accordance with Apache bylaws and its usual
open development processes. Both Oracle and ASF agree that the
OpenOffice.org development community, previously fragmented, would
re-unite under ASF to ensure a stable and long term future for
OpenOffice.org. ASF would enable corporate, non-profit, and volunteer
stakeholders to contribute code in a collaborative fashion.
Supporting tooling projects will accompany the OpenOffice.org
contribution, providing APIs for extending and customizing
OpenOffice.org.
Both OpenOffice.org and the related tooling projects support the OASIS
Open Document Format, and will attract an ecosystem of developers, ISVs
and Systems Integrators. ODF ensures the users of OpenOffice.org and
related solutions will own their document data, and be free to choose
the application or solution that best meets their requirements.
The OpenOffice.org implementation will serve as a reference
implementation of the Open Document Format standard.
Current Status
This is a new project.
Meritocracy
The initial developers are very familiar with open source development,
both at Apache and elsewhere. Apache was chosen specifically because
Oracle as contributor, and IBM as Sponsor and the initial developers
want to encourage this style of development for the project. A diverse
developer community is regarded as necessary for a healthy, stable, long
term OpenOffice.org project.
Community
OpenOffice.org. seeks to further encourage developer and user
communities during incubation, beyond the existing developers currently
working on the project.
Core Developers
The initial set of committers include people from the community of
OpenOffice.org Technology projects. We have varying degrees of
experience with Apache-style open source development, ranging from none
to ASF Members.
Alignment
The developers of OpenOffice.org will want to work with the Apache
Software Foundation specifically because Apache has proven to provide a
strong foundation and set of practices for developing standards-based
infrastructure and related components. Additionally, the project may
evolve to support cloud and mobile platforms from its starting point of
desktop operating systems….
The initial group of developers will be employed by IBM, Linux
distribution companies, and likely public sector agencies.
Localization resources are expected to gravitate to the new project, as
well. Ensuring the long term stability of OpenOffice.org is a major
reason for establishing the project at Apache.
The document speaks for itself.
This obviously is not a community decision. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's automatically bad for the community in all respects. ODF is mentioned prominently. Wanting to protect ODF and make sure it survives is not anti-community. If you believe that Microsoft stranglehold on the desktop is not a good thing, you probably agree that competing effectively with Microsoft in the enterprise market matters. ODF matters. Some community members may decide to help out, on that basis alone.
Then there's the sale of Novell assets to Attachmate. Can anyone demonstrate that
Attachmate will assign the same level of employee support to LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org that Novell did? If not, then what happens?
Here's IBM's press release, laying its cards out on the table:
Continuing its long-standing commitment to open source, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it will take an active, supportive role in the new
OpenOffice.org code base submitted to The Apache Software Foundation Incubator. As part of today's news, IBM will contribute staff resources to collaborate with the Apache community during the project's incubation period to further the Open Document Format standard.
The move will help facilitate the long term viability and new innovation for OpenOffice.org development in collaboration with the Apache
community. IBM plans to commit new project members and individual contributors from its global development team to strengthen the project
and ensure its future success.
"Open source and standards are key to making our planet smarter and improving the way we live and work," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president, IBM Collaboration Solutions. "As IBM celebrates its
Centennial, we're actively investing in projects that will help our clients to collaborate in an open manner over the next 100 years."…
The Open Document Format is the standard for document interoperability across software from many vendors. Advances around ODF, combined with
alternative forms of communication (email, IM, tweets, blogs), cloud delivery models for business applications, growth in smart, mobile
devices, and economic pressures are all converging to apply pressure to the status quo of documents. As these industry factors converge, IBM is helping organizations move towards a model that offers low-cost acquisition of document tools, coupled with high value and high
collaboration solutions around a document. This news strengthens IBM's ability to continue to offer our own distributions based on the
OpenOffice code base and make our own contributions to reinforce the overall community.
IBM's contribution to the incubating OpenOffice.org code base at Apache will further advance the adoption of office productivity suite alternatives.
It is worth noting that IBM forked their own version of OpenOffice several years ago when they incorporated some of the OpenOffice codebase into the Lotus Symphony suite and provided their own enhancements. So it shouldn't be surprising that IBM would embrace this move.
But IBM's support is also something that the
community benefits from, from the standpoint of ODF. The community has its own goals and purposes, and sometimes they align with corporate
interests and sometimes they don't. But if you are a corporate entity, a public company, then you have to think about the next quarter and
shareholders and market share. The community for the most part could care less about all that, except to the extent that having large corporate interests involved in Open Source has provided community benefits or the individual developer's community participation is being directly underwritten by corporate support. If, for
example, Attachmate isn't particularly interested in developing code in competition to Microsoft, then how would the community feel if IBM kept
it going, so to speak, even if not under an ideal, from the community's standpoint, license?
Bob
Sutor, IBM sets forth his reasoning on why it matters to do it this way:
An Apache implementation of a standard means that software, be it open source or proprietary, can start using the standard quickly and reliably. An Apache implementation of a standard immediately increases the value of the standard.
OpenOffice happens to implement a standard called the Open Document Format (ODF), something I’ve written about several hundred times in the
last few years. While the incubator won’t be starting from scratch, ODF will continue to evolve and need updated implementations.
Over time, the code will be refactored and more uses will be found for it. Within a couple of years I think you’ll find greater use of ODF in
other desktop applications, mobile apps, and even in the cloud. This won’t all come from the existing code base but rather also from new
contributions from others working in the ASF.
ODF is not the only thing that OpenOffice supports: it’s got word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and other capabilities. Within
Apache I think you’ll see advances in the user interface, functionality, performance, and reliability.
This has to be done, in my opinion, in a way that makes subsets of the code easier to use in other software. That is, and again this is my
opinion, OpenOffice will get better by being more modular with well designed interfaces. I’m not dissing what is there, I’m describing how I
think it will get even better and enabled for much broader adoption of the code.
I hope that OpenOffice in Apache will be viewed as a way to bring together some of the threads that have separated from the main project
trunk over the last few years. Apache has a well deserved reputation for its process and high quality software. This is a place where people can
get together under one virtual roof and turn OpenOffice into what people always thought it could be.
With this move, we’ll get a chance to see what empowered individuals with the right technical chops can do in a community to innovate on the
current code base. I’m very excited to see what they come up with.
Like the old joke about the Lone Ranger, though, the community may be asking, Who's we, Kimosabe?
Sutor, in a comment in response to criticism, added that he hopes over time the community will see it IBM's way:
Bob Sutor says: It is not my intention in any way to disparage LibreOffice or the Document Foundation. Oracle had an asset and it was completely up to Oracle to decide what to do with it. Historically, we have had great success working with Apache and it is a fine organization. I think that over the next weeks and months people in the existing LO community plus people in other communities will figure out how to make this work since, to be honest, it is a done deal. There are multiple communities of
people who are interested in this codebase, LO is not the only one. I think that once the excitement (for some) and shock (for others) wears
off, we’ll see a lot of creativity and collaboration on this. In the meanwhile, I’m going to remain positive and constructive, and I can only hope others try to do the same.
Apache President Jim Jagielski was interviewed by Joe Brockmeier for NetworkWorld, and he seems to think also that LibreOffice developers should now just come "home" to Apache and unite there, now that Oracle has done what they thought Oracle would never do, donate OpenOffice.org to a
foundation:
He says that makes Apache the perfect place to "help 'repair' the community" around OpenOffice.org. "I've already contacted the Document Foundation, which sponsors LibreOffice, with hopes that we can work together to benefit the existing community, as well as really grow the
community at large: both developers and users."
But here's the rub. Donating code to the Apache Foundation means changing the license on OpenOffice.org from copyleft to noncopyleft. If
OpenOffice.org had always been under the Apache license, there would be a simpler question facing developers. Then donating it to this
foundation wouldn't raise the same issue, which is that OpenOffice.org code they donate can be taken by IBM or any entity, even Microsoft, and
used in a proprietary application. Why would IBM and Oracle or Apache, for that matter, imagine that this would appeal to developers, that they should donate their free labor so companies can benefit with proprietary offerings while under no obligation to give any code back? It's asking a lot from the community, nothing less than to forget about its principles.
Some developers may decide it makes little difference. Others, perhaps many, will not. But what if there was no LibreOffice? Jagielski again:
Licensing also enters into it — Jagielski says that he thinks "having the OO.org codebase under the Apache License was also quite attractive."
At least to Oracle and IBM. The LibreOffice fork is licensed under the Lesser GNU General Public License version 3 (LGPLv3) and Mozilla Public
License (MPL), both of which are reciprocal — thus requiring distributors to provide the code for derivative versions. As Greg Stein
points out on the Apache list, this may not be something IBM was interested in doing with its Lotus Symphony suite. (Whether IBM is right for wanting to work on a non-copyleft project is left as an exercise to the reader.)
You might see why IBM would want to go this way, of course, but what about the community? Ed Brill, also of IBM:
This morning, Oracle announced that they are submitting the OpenOffice.org codebase to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator. At
IBM, we see this as a strong validation of open source, open document formats, and market choice and flexibility in the office productivity
arena. Since we launched Lotus Symphony in 2007, IBM has been an active participant in the OpenOffice.org community, and with the move to
Apache, we plan to increase our efforts through human and code contribution.
IBM is no stranger to work with Apache Foundation projects, or other open source initiatives such as Eclipse.org and, of course, Linux. The
new project at Apache strengthens IBM's ability to continue to offer our own distributions of productivity tools based on the OpenOffice code
base and make our own contributions to reinforce the overall community.
Of course, the natural response is what "overall community?" Much of that community is already over at LibreOffice working. And if Attachmate finds a way to scuttle support for LibreOffice and The Document Foundation can't keep going, the
community is still not faced with a single option. They might choose to just go forward without corporate backing at all, or with backing from those who truly grasp the value of a copyleft licensed project. Those options do exist even if they may be challenging. And thanks to the LGPLv3, the code can go on. What companies
need or want in the short term may be one thing, but the goal of a totally free desktop is a marathon, not a sprint. So there is no particular pressure on developers to compromise. Both projects (OpenOffice and LibreOffice) can go forward, particularly since a project under LGPLv3 can simply take Apache-licensed code and incorporate it. The problem for an Apache licensed OpenOffice is that the reverse is not true.
Let's take a look at some of the other reactions so far:
Stefano Maffulli:
Oracle has done what Sun should have done a long time ago: put OO.org code into the hand of an independent foundation. The good news is that
now a wider participation from corporations and individuals is possible. Hell, even Microsoft can now participate into OO.org development. I hope that soon the fork can be reconciled, too….
I personally welcome the change as I never believed that The Document Foundation had enough steam in its engine to radically improve the
product. But I believe it can still maintain and improve LibreOffice until Apache’s community will start rolling the next generation of desktop productivity tools.
That seems like an odd conclusion, in that LibreOffice has been steaming along with OpenOffice stagnated for months, since the fork. But what if Attachmate altered that progression? What if LibreOffice didn't have a way to keep going?
Corporate backing can indeed be helpful in terms of resources, so that may be the basis for his comments. But where is the community behind
OpenOffice? Are any of the listed core developers known for previous work on OpenOffice? One of the real issues that LibreOffice faced in the beginning was that the OpenOffice code is a mound of spaghetti, so complicated that anyone but a developer with experience working on the codebase would find daunting. When pretty much all the OpenOffice coders, except for IBM, joined LibreOffice, that was an immediate boost for LibreOffice, but the lack of individuals familiar with the OpenOffice codebase will also likely be a challenge in the Apache version unless the LibreOffice contributors were to agree to reunite under the Apache umbrella.
IBM's Rob Weir is a fan of the Apache Foundation, and he's also responsible for ODF, so he hopes those (LibreOffice) developers will help:
I’d point out in particular that the Apache 2.0 open source license was recently blessed by the Free Software Foundation:
The Apache License 2.0 is the best non-copyleft license that does what a copyright license can to mitigate threats from software patents. It’s a
well-established, mature license that users, developers, and distributors alike are all comfortable with. You can tell it’s important
by the way that other free software licenses work to cooperate with it: the drafting processes for GPLv3 and the Mozilla Public License 2.0
named compatibility with the Apache License 2.0 as a goal from day one. The Apache Software Foundation deserves a lot of credit for pushing to
do more to tackle software patents in a license, and implementing an effective strategy in the Apache License.
As you can tell, when it comes to Apache I’m a fan. I’ve experienced much of this first-hand. I was a committer in the Apache Xalan project
many years ago (1999-2000). It was a great experience then, and when the opportunity came to add my name to the OpenOffice incubation
proposal I did not hesitate. It was an honor. I look forward to coming back to Apache and participating in this continuation of
OpenOffice. I am planning on getting directly involved with the engineering effort of this project….
The Apache process is based on a strong meritocracy. Developers who regularly provide high quality patches get elected as “Committers” and they then help review submitted patches as well as write their own code. And those Committers who remain active and have earned the respect of their peers typically then get elected to the Project Management Committee (PMC) and steer the direction of the project. And those who
are most valued on the PMC may become the PMC Chair for their project, which also ranks them as an Apache Foundation Vice President. And some
then have the opportunity to serve on the Apache Board of Directors. With this cursus honorum, it is recommended that those with leadership
ambitions get involved early. When the Apache OpenOffice project begins, there will be project decisions to make and leadership roles to
fill, and this will happen fast once we get started. Obviously, you can’t advance in the meritocracy if you are absent. Although, you can
join anytime you want, there are clear advantages to “getting in on the ground floor”.
In particular, we need to attract a wide variety of project specialists. This includes C++ programmers (on Linux, Mac and Windows), QA (also on all platforms), help/documentation, UI/UCD, translation/globalization, accessibility, install, etc. Please keep your eyes open for an
announcement from Apache in the next week or two, saying that the OpenOffice incubator project has been set up and is ready to accept members.
A vigorous discussion ensued. From the comments
section, where he was criticized in the usual open-throated FOSS way:
The Contrarian June 1, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I notice that you and your friends at Oracle do not mention the existing community at all – instead you talk about outsiders of all shades who
have never been involved in OpenOffice.org forming a new activity with our source code. There are lots of people in the community and in its two projects – OpenOffice and LibreOffice – who don’t fit Apache at all, either because they are not involved in the “core code” or because they believe in copyleft and software freedom. Why have you and Oracle etc made no mention of them whatsoever? Is it your intention to isolate them and create division? Seems that way….
Rob June 1, 2011 at 1:30 pm
@Contrarian, Of course, anyone is welcome to join the project. Unlike LibreOffice, Apache does not have a membership committee to review and
approve or reject developers. Anyone is welcome to join. But you need to agree with the project license. This is true of any open source project.
If you (or anyone) has a concrete proposal on how LibreOffice can or should related to Apache, I’d love to hear it. I think the time is now
favorable for having that kind of discussion, more so now than it was when OpenOffice was run by Sun/Oracle with their CLA.
So he got an earful. Jeremy Allison:
Jeremy Allison June 1, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Hi Rob,
This is indeed good news, but I think long term rather than trying to run the project at the Apache Software Foundation the code would be much
better merged into LibreOffice and let them take the lead on this.
Given that there is already an existing community around this code, merging with it rather than trying to create another from scratch makes
more sense IMHO.
Jeremy.
It's hard to argue with such a sensible and obvious solution. But the problem is, it's Oracle's code, not the community's. They handed over their copyrights. Rob's response:
@Jeremy, I’d be absolutely giddy with joy if LibreOffice developers would come over to Apache and run their project under the Apache 2.0
license under the Apache process. I’d even be open to calling it “LibreOffice”. But this is much more an issue of organizational
capabilities than it is the rather narrow gulf between the current OpenOffice and LibreOffice source codes. I want an organization that
will last, not something that will fall over in the next storm.
Jeremy responded:
Jeremy Allison June 1, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Rob wrote :
“@Jeremy, I’d be absolutely giddy with joy if LibreOffice developers would come over to Apache and run their project under the Apache 2.0
license under the Apache process”
That’s funny, I’d be giddy with joy if it happened the other way around :-). This is about copyleft vs. non-copyleft licensing IMHO. I
personally believe the the LGPLv3 copyleft license is a better choice for this codebase, rather than the Apache one. The reasons for this are too complex to go into in this short post, but based around my own experiences on Samba, where copyleft is one of the only ways to break
into a monopoly-dominated market.
The good news is that the Apache license is compatible with the LGPLv3 LibreOffice license, so they can take the OpenOffice code and merge any
useful changes into their codebase. I don’t think this can happen the other way around. The reason I would like Apache OO developers (including those from IBM) to throw in their lot with LibreOffice is that otherwise you end up re-running the same experiment of Linux vs.
FreeBSD. Unless you consider Apple a FreeBSD success (not sure I do, at least from the FreeBSD point of view :-) then that experiment didn’t go
well for FreeBSD. But maybe you want to be Apple, in which case good luck (but remember in the best tradition of ‘Highlander’ – “There can be
only one” :-).
Jeremy.
Rob commented on the license in a response to another critical comment:
@Alex, See above on the membership question. I think what I said was accurate.
To your second question, I agree that we need to figure out how OpenOffice and LibreOffice relate. But it is more than that. We also need to look at Symphony, RedOffice, BrOffice, EuroOffice, NeoOffice, etc., including other new customized distributions that will certainly now proliferate now that we are freed from the restrictions of the
copyleft license. This conversation is already underway at Apache. I invite interested parties to join and help define the answer to that.
"Freed" from the restrictions of the copyleft license? The only restriction, imposed on distribution, seeks to ensure that you pass along the same benefits you received, i.e., the freedom to adapt the work to your needs. Is that a bad thing? If you are a business, you may view it that way, because there's no lock-in
and no way to differentiate your offering without others being able to follow right along. And at least one open source company has demonstrated it can thrive without such lock-in. But if you are a community member, the obligation to keep the code open and available is the opposite
-- it's fair payment for the free code they happily contributed. But if there is no code *and no salary*, why are they supposed to donate? For the good of whom? Again, it depends on which side of the line you stand, what your goals are, and why you write FOSS code. It also may make a difference what you believe in terms of the current dominance of the desktop by a single company.
Rob mentioned FSF recently "blessing" the Apache license, which drew a response from Bradley M. Kuhn: Bradley M. Kuhn June 2,
2011 at 10:04 am
@Jeremy, very well said. Thank you for saying it. I do agree that this is fundamentally about a dispute of copyleft vs. non-copyleft, and we
shouldn’t permit it be couched in any other terms. I updated my my blog post on this subject with a link to your comment here.
And this PS from Kuhn:Bradley M. Kuhn June 2, 2011 at 10:59 am
There’s one additional point that I’d like to make, which @Alexandre hints at but doesn’t point out explicitly. Rob is quoting the FSF
completely out of context in the main post here. Specifically, he leaves out this part of FSF’s post on the Apache 2.0 license:
When you contribute to an existing project, you should usually release your modified versions under the same license as the original work. It’s
good to cooperate with the project’s maintainers, and using a different license for your modifications often makes that cooperation very
difficult. You should only do that when there is a strong reason to justify it.
The existing license of OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice is LGPLv3. Oracle, in coordination with IBM, unilaterally changed the license out
from under the community, rather than cooperating with the existing licensing. Oracle of course had the legal right to do so as copyright holder, but this was an act in conflict with the existing community in a moral sense, even if, again, it was a permissible act under the OO.o
“community” guidelines.
We'll take a look at Kuhn's analysis of the licensing issue in a moment. But here are some resources, from Shane, a member of ASF, in
an article titled
Apache
Office, anyone?, for those who wish to dig a bit deeper into what the process is like when code is donated to the Apache Foundation:
- Key reminder: Incubation is a process, with many checkpoints. Just because something is submitted to the Apache Incubator does not mean that the Incubator PMC will accept it as a podling. And once we do have a podling, the most important work comes, proving that there can be a healthy community around the project – all before it can even be considered to graduate to a Top Level Project at Apache.
- Newcomers to Apache may want to review the Apache Community Development project – think of it as an outreach group within the ASF, starting
work on explaining to newcomers what the Apache Way is about and where to find the right information on technology and community rules at Apache.
- Reading Planet Apache is a great way to see what many of the committers at the many
Apache projects are saying on their personal blogs.
- I almost forgot! The best way to learn about how Apache works is to read our mailing lists. You can follow along the Apache Incubator’s
discussion yourself, right on general@incubator.apache.org!
Personally, I think one of the most important differences between a potential “Apache Office” podling and the existing (and amazing)
LibreOffice product is the license. Obviously, both codebases are fairly similar, and aim to provide a fully open source office suite. It will be interesting to see, after the first wild set of commentary flies, which project – and which license – that various developers and corporations
alike choose to actively support with their contributions. I just hope that this license difference – and the way that the OO.o code came to Apache, which was not something we controlled – doesn’t cause any unnecessary friction between the two communities.
Some might view it as necessary friction. You might say it goes all the way back to the Open Source wing pulling away from Free Software's insistence on a free operating system. The Open Source wing believed, with some supporting evidence since, that business types couldn't handle the GPL, and that what mattered most was quick adoption. But then, look at Linux. When Google decided to put Android out under the Apache License but built on top of the GPL'd Linux kernel, it did lead to uptake, rapid adoption by many vendors. But Linux has been
shoved into a back room. You can now find ads for Android phones that don't even mention Linux. And some of the restrictions on phones and
tablets would be impossible if the GPL had been chosen instead. So it again comes down to the question: what is the goal? If it's rapid market
share, you think one way. But if it's a free operating system with all the trimmings, then you feel very differently. Oracle's donation is on
terms that it had to know would be objectionable to the community, so one can't help but wonder what the purpose is of choosing a license for a
project where to date all of the code has been contributed under a different license. Not everything that is legal is also ethical. This is what can happen where a single entity controls the codebase, particularly where that entity is a commercial entity.
On the other side of the coin, as Carlo Piana tweeted, it could have been much worse. Oracle could have retained everything and just let the project die. So it is certainly a good thing that it turned it over to a foundation.
Michael Meeks, of LibreOffice, wrote the following on his blog:
Interested to see that the widely trailed move of donating OO.o to the Apache Software
Foundation actually happened today. TDF have a simple, friendly response, and I have a number of thoughts:-
Engaging with community members (IBM), and having a
commitment to the developer and open-source communities (Oracle) are
laudable goals. I can only applaud the sentiment. Unfortunately, starting that process only after finalizing a license incompatible with
the communities existing work, and at a different home to the one the developers chose themselves seems an odd way to engage, and commit.
- Unfortunately, there is a problem with Free Software developers, firstly - they often don't wear suits, and (get this) some
have beards: which just shows you the kind of schmucks they are. But worse - they have odd, meritocratic, collaborative decision making
processes, that don't come up with suitably corporate answers. One example is jurisdiction: the community (after all is said and done)
wanted to found itself in Germany. Professional, serious, serial, corporate body founders prefer to go elsewhere (US, UK) - yet, is it
really that bad to compromise on the issue ? Community decision making - but only if you like the outcome is a tad unfortunate.
- Worse - Free Software hackers tend to be free-spirited, and they often believe in reciprocity: if I give you my work, surely you should give me yours ? ie. the spirit of the copy-left. Unfortunately, that is
not the Apache way, which has some merits no doubt, but is alien to the
existing developer community that commitment is made to.
OpenOffice has traditionally included plenty of copy-left code, some of
which I highlighted before. Coercing developers to do the bidding of big
companies is not something they react well to (usually).
- This event highlights some of the great work that has been done
as part of the GPLv3 process, and also the MPLv2 work (done by my
friend: Luis Villa). These happy lawyers out there have laboured long
and hard to make their new licenses compatible with Apache 2.0 - such
that code under that license can be re-licensed under their terms. An
example of doing this is here. Without their labours, it would not be
possible to integrate the Oracle code, and the eight months of existing
work by the community into a single beautiful whole. Clearly there is no
rush to actually do that work, perhaps it can be done on schedule for
LibreOffice 3.5. By a happy coincidence, we have a slightly longer cycle
this time as we sync. up our six-monthly time-based release schedule
with that of Linux distributions and desktop.
- Apparently this is a somewhat divisive attempt by an exiting
Oracle, along with IBM to sideline the existing developer community,
their governance, their aspirations, membership, licensing choice
(explicitly adapted to meet IBM's needs incidentally), bylaws, and so
on. All of this despite a profound, frequently stated open-ness to
including new (particularly large) corporate contributors inside TDF,
and taking their advice seriously.
- Thankfully, license compatibility lets us turn this from a
closed, and finished chapter of long, sad story - into the beginning of
a happy one - where everyone, regardless of size and Dilbert-ness can
join together around TDF's code-base and contribute on their own merits.
So, next time you meet a Free Software lawyer, please - shake their hand.
- We also have Rob Weir enthusing about the joys of his preferred
outcome. It all sounds wonderful, but sadly is not what the substantial,
existing developer (and marketing, and QA and ...) community chose.
Luckily of course, it is not a final choice as/when the code is released
they are free to choose to join TDF and engage. Still, I look forward to
reading Rob's code - it'd be great to hack with him.
- Got around to reading Luke's mail and associated odf proposal
That document itself has some great quoteable material:
Both Oracle and ASF agree that the OpenOffice.org development community,
previously fragmented, would re-unite under ASF to ensure a stable and
long term future for OpenOffice.org.
or how about
The initial set of committers include people from the
community of OpenOffice.org Technology projects .... The initial group
of developers will be employed by IBM, Linux distribution companies, and
likely public sector agencies. Localization resources are expected to
gravitate to the new project, as well. Ensuring the long term stability
of OpenOffice.org is a major reason for establishing the project at
Apache.
Amazing to see Andrew Rist and Rob Weir as the
initial committers - I'm unaware that they have ever committed a
single line of code to the codebase before: but ... there is always a
first line; a whole new sense of initial committer perhaps. I was
encouraged to read somewhere that: "The first step along the road
leading to committership is to become a developer".
Does he sound bitter? Well, you can hardly blame him. Here's a
FAQ:
What's the Future of OpenOffice.org?
with some analysts interviewed by Chris Kanaracus, IDG News, for
PCWorld:
Q: Why did Oracle give OpenOffice.org to the Apache Foundation and not
some other group, such as the Document Foundation, the group that
oversees LibreOffice?
"Only Oracle can answer this, but it is clear from past history that
Oracle prefers to work with foundations that have both history and
long-term experience working with enterprises," O'Grady said.
He cited Oracle's recent decision to donate code for the Hudson
continuous integration system to the Eclipse Foundation. Similar to
OpenOffice.org, a group of Hudson developers split off from Oracle with
an offshoot or "fork" of the codebase called Jenkins.
"And just as in the case of Hudson, [Oracle] chose not to ultimately
donate the code to the group that forked it," O'Grady added. "As for why
Apache specifically, they have the requisite history of working with
vendors, and IBM for one certainly has a preference for their more
permissive licensing style."...
The ASF's licensing model may also "free up the potential for even more
[OpenOffice.org]-based offerings, particularly commercial and paid
offerings, so that may bring some interesting participants and/or
subcommunities to the table," 451 Group's Lyman said.
The Register adds
the news that the Document Foundation was considered:
The Document Foundation tells us that Oracle approached the group for
suggestions on OpenOffice, which it duly offered. Namely, the Foundation
said that Oracle should put OpenOffice code under a Mozilla Public
License/Lesser General Public License version 3 dual license and
transfer the OpenOffice domain and trademark to the Foundation….
Oracle owns the rights to about 6 million lines of code licensed under
the LGPL. Oracle has the right to move this code to Apache, but it
doesn't own the rights to the LibreOffice work, which is under LGPL and
MPL. The rights to this code are owned by the individuals working on
LibreOffice. What code are we talking precisely? The spell checker, all
crypto support, and many file filters, among other features.
Meanwhile, all those OpenOffice defectors who jumped to The Document
Foundation must now decide whether they can stomach working with a
license they philosophically disagree with.
So, now what?
Brian
Proffitt at ITWorld:
My second question doesn't have a definitive answer--yet.
But it needs to be answered.
It is simply this: how will OpenOffice.org remain relevant to end users?
We know IBM's Lotus Symphony and its users will benefit directly, but
beyond that, who beyond individual OpenOffice.org fans will be using the
suite? Red Hat, SUSE (née Novell), Google, and Canonical all tossed in
with LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. That doesn't preclude
OpenOffice.org from showing up in one of their repositories in the
future, of course, but it does put a damper on potential user numbers.
It's not just a question of where OpenOffice.org will be distributed,
but also how. Even IBM staffers are wondering how OpenOffice.org's
extensive marketing machine will work within an Apache framework.
"I know that OpenOffice.org prided itself on a strong marketing
committee as well," writes IBM ODF Architect Rob Weir, "I think this is
important, but it is not clear to me yet how that fits into an Apache
project. Certainly this aspect is more critical to an end-user facing
project like OpenOffice than it would be to a developer tool. Maybe
someone out there in Apache-land will be able to offer some suggestions
on how best to integrate this function into an Apache project?"
With IBM marketing Symphony, it's doubtful they will be putting much
marketing juice into the parent OpenOffice.org project. And don't look
at Oracle--they just got the project off their hands.
I think it is unlikely that this is correct, that Oracle
is just tossing it over the cliff and walking off. It could have just
kept it in the vault and killed it that way. Oracle took steps it was
not required to take to keep the project at least on life support,
allowing others to build on it. It's clear as well that IBM has a
sustained interest in ODF, and that would include marketing it.
But what about the licensing change? One participant said this is his
understanding:
Oracle is signing a SGA (Software Grant Agreement) giving the
OpenOffice.org
code to Apache Server Foundation (ASF) under the Apache 2.0 license. As you
know, Oracle (via Sun) had ownership of the code via the CLA that they
required from contributors. Oracle is also giving ASF the OpenOffice.org
trademark, the logo with the birds, and the openoffice.org domain name.
Some of this has happened already, some of it is in progress.
Oracle appears to be retaining the copyright, not assigning it to
Apache. The bottom line, then, if this is so, is that
Oracle owns the code it is donating, thanks to a contribution agreement
whereby contributors handed over copyright to Sun, now Oracle. And by
retaining the copyright, it continues to own the code. Let this be an
object lesson, that any time a project asks for all the copyrights, it
can do what it pleases with your contributions. If you don't care,
contribute as much as you wish. But do it knowing that it's like
putting your baby up for adoption. You are not the parent any more
afterward, so you don't get a say in anything. But here's the ironic
part. Larry Ellison is famous for saying that he loved FOSS, that when
a project gets big enough and mature enough, he can "just take it". But
here, it's the reverse. Because he chose to donate it to a foundation
that only accepts code under the Apache license, it's now the community
that can "just take it" from OpenOffice.org, not the proprietary bits,
of course, but that was always true. But whatever code is available
under the Apache License is free for the taking. On the other hand, the
reverse is not the case. Because Apache folks won't accept any code
under a license that is not its own, whatever work the LibreOffice
programmers come up with is not available to OpenOffice.org. There are
many unknowns about the future of both projects, but one thing is for
sure: the irony here is thick and heavy. On the other hand, Oracle and
IBM are both smart companies. If they are doing this, they surely knew
about the impact of the license change, and they went forward anyway.
Bradley M. Kuhn's explanation of the license issue is worth repeating,
and thanks to his use of a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License ,
we can republish it here, as part of this summary. You might want to
follow the discussion about this article on
identi.ca.
And the mailing list archives for Apache are here for June. Here's the
article in full:
**********************
Ditching
Copyleft to Compete with a Fork?
Wednesday 1 June 2011 by Bradley M. Kuhn
I was disturbed today to
read
that Oracle will seek to relicense all OpenOffice code under the Apache-2.0
license and move OpenOffice into the Apache Software Foundation.
I've written recently about how among
the permissive licenses, my favorite is clearly the Apache License 2.0.
However, I think that one should switch from a copyleft license to a
permissive one only in rare circumstances and with the greatest of care.
Obviously, in this case, I oppose Oracle's relicense of OpenOffice.org
under Apache-License-2.0. It is probably obvious why I feel that way,
but I shall explain nonetheless, just in case. I'm going to mostly
ignore the motives for doing so, which I think are obvious: Oracle (and
IBM, who are quoted in support of this move) for their own reasons don't
like The Document Foundation fork
(LibreOffice) of OpenOffice.org. This is a last-ditch effort by IBM and
Oracle to thwart the progress of that fork, which has been reported as
quite successful and many distributions have begun
to adopt LibreOffice. (Even non-software sites sites like Metafilter
have users
discussing changing to LibreOffice .)
Anyway, as you might suspect, I'm generally against the idea of
relicensing from a copyleft to a
non-copyleft license in most situations. In fact, I generally take the
stance that you should go with the strictest copyleft possible unless
there's a strong reason not to. This is well-argued in RMS' essay on the LGPL itself, and I
won't repeat those arguments here. Frankly, if I were picking a license
for OpenOffice.org and/or LibreOffice from start, I'd pick
AGPLv3-or-later, because of the concern that it
could be turned into a Google Docs-like web service. But, what I'd do is
obviously irrelevant.
OpenOffice.org was put out under LGPLv3, and that was its license for some time.
LGPL was presumably chosen to allow proprietary plugins to
OpenOffice.org. That might be useful and perhaps a reasonable trade-off
decision, since one of the goals of the project is to woo users away
from Microsoft's tools which presumably permit proprietary plugins too.
Thus, an argument can be made that the situation is vaguely analogous to
the C Library situation that inspired LGPL's creation.
But, what does a change from a weak copyleft like LGPLv3 to a fully
permissive license do? Specifically, it allows not only proprietary
plugins using the OpenOffice.org's defined plugin interfaces, but also
for any sort of plugin that reaches into OpenOffice.org code in
any way. Even worse, a permissive license allows for direct integration
of OpenOffice.org into larger proprietary systems that might offer other
desktop suite applications hitherto unimplemented in Free Software.
It's my belief that this license change, if successful in its goals, may
help foster a bit of a tragedy of the commons for the core codebase. The
codebase is already well known for being somewhat unwieldy and
time-consuming to learn. Those who take the time to learn it, but who
aren't Free Software enthusiasts, may quickly decide that it's better
for them to use that rare knowledge to proprietarize the codebase rather
than contribute to the public Free Software versions. The LGPLv3
currently keeps such developers “honest”; the Apache-License-2.0 will
not.
Perhaps most importantly, the major consequence to consider is the the
ultimate impact on the LibreOffice fork. To consider that impact, we
have to look at the instigators of the relicense. IBM and Oracle both
now will have a vested interest in maintaining a “barely adequate”
public Apache-2.0-licensed codebase while keeping the best stuff in
their proprietary versions. OpenOffice.org has actually always suffered
from this very tragedy, but historically the regime was held up by
mandatory copyright assignment to Oracle (and a semi-exclusive
proprietary license from Oracle to IBM) rather than a permissive
license. On the surface, then, this seems subtly like the kind of
improvement I've
written about before
— namely — at least a public permissive license puts everyone on equal
footing, whereas copyleft with a single for-profit proprietary
relicensor gives special powers to the for-profit.
And, frankly, but for the existence of LibreOffice, I think I
probably would have concluded that an Apache-2.0 relicense of
OpenOffice.org was the lesser of two evils. However, LibreOffice's very
existence and momentum turns those two evils into a false dichotomy.
Specifically, there's now a third alternative: LibreOffice is a vibrant,
open, easy-to-contribute-to, non-copyright-assigned LGPLv3'd codebase
now. In that community, the LGPLv3 is the shared and equal agreement; no
one has special rights to the code outside of LibreOffice's license.
Free Software communities, in fact, always rely on an equitable shared
agreement to assure good governance and project health.
Actually, relicensing part of the codebase out from under LibreOffice
may actually be the most insidious attack Oracle and IBM could make on
the project. Unilateral relicense is the single most destabilizing
action you can take against a Free Software community, particularly if
the relicense comes from wholly outside the community. Indeed, in my
time at various copyright-holding Free Software organizations, I've seen
situations where I was helping support a relicensing effort by the
copyright holder. In every case, I've seen leaders who could have
done a unilateral relicense chose to first consult the community before
taking the action to ensure that there weren't any key community members
who dissented. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't
mean it's the correct action to take, and Free Software leaders know
this well; that's why they very rarely act unilaterally on anything.
Meanwhile, in this situation today, we have a copyright holder (Oracle)
whose primary goal in relicensing is, in fact, to cause the outcome that
Free Software leaders seek to avoid; Oracle is relicensing to undermine
a successful Free Software project that relies on its copyrighted code.
Nevertheless, I'm not too worried. I believe the LibreOffice community
is strong and grows stronger every day. Since their license is LGPLv3,
and they continue to add new code, the fact that most of the underlying
code is suddenly available under Apache-2.0 license may matter a lot
today, but it will matter less and less with each passing day of new
commits under LGPLv3. In fact, I hope the LibreOffice folks will use
this relicense to their advantage. Specifically, I suggest they take an
Apache-2.0 license of Oracle's code, which is an LGPLv3-compatible
license, and relicense the whole project to LGPLv3-or-later, so
they have an easy way (years from now) to switch to LGPLv4, GPLv3, or
AGPLv4 if they want to. (BTW, they already have an easy way to switch to
GPLv3, since LGPLv3 permits this, and even to AGPLv3 thereafter
(via GPLv3§13).)
Note finally that there is one other benefit of this action:
according to TDF,
some OpenOffice.org code that had previously been proprietary is coming
with the Apache-2.0-licensed code dump. This alone may make it all
worthwhile, and given the points I make above, I think the ultimate
outcome, long term, will be all positive for the LGPL'd LibreOffice
codebase.
(I'd like note finally that I'm not the only one to point out that
Oracle's action would be different if LibreOffice didn't exist. Sean
Michael Kerner said
something similar.)
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Authored by: entre on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:38 AM EDT |
If needed. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- "a marathon, not a spring" spring->sprint N/T - Authored by: bugstomper on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:42 AM EDT
- sometimes they align with corporate interests --> community interests - Authored by: hardmath on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:47 AM EDT
- Corrections here - Authored by: feldegast on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:56 AM EDT
- Corrections here - Authored by: feldegast on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 09:05 AM EDT
- includin -- including - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 09:43 AM EDT
- Bradley M. Kuhn's article should be in a blockquote. - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 09:59 AM EDT
- skuttle -> scuttle (N/T) - Authored by: Tkilgore on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 01:00 PM EDT
- "What kind of reaction..." should end with question mark instead of period. - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 02:48 PM EDT
- Community's level of caring - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 04:45 PM EDT
- Jeremey -> Jeremy - Authored by: AntiFUD on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 05:24 PM EDT
- includin OpenOffice -> including OpenOffice - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 08:32 PM EDT
- why your write -> why you write - Authored by: DaveJakeman on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 11:03 AM EDT
- could care less -> couldn't care less - Authored by: rocky on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 12:24 PM EDT
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Authored by: NigelWhitley on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:44 AM EDT |
Please use this thread for comments not related to this article.
------------------
Nigel Whitley[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: NigelWhitley on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:46 AM EDT |
Please make comments on and suggestions for the Newspicks section here. Kindly
include a clickable like to the relevant article so it can still be referenced
when it has scrolled out of Newspicks.
--------------------
Nigel Whitley[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: NigelWhitley on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 08:48 AM EDT |
Please use this thread to record work on the documents in MS v Comes.
--------------
Nigel Whitley[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: bugstomper on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 09:59 AM EDT |
I have a great time contributing to one of the successful Apache Software
Foundation projects as a committer. The project does great things for the world,
the community is strong, I feel like I am doing something worthwhile.
I also put in quite a bit of time during the first few weeks after the
announcement of the Libre Office fork building the code over and over again on
the platforms that I use and submitting patches for the rough spots that I
found. I'm not in a position right now to delve into the complexities of the
office suite, but I was very happy to be a small part of the initial rush of
momentum that got the Libre Office project off the ground and immediately
differentiated it from the years of stagnation of OpenOffice.org.
With all my support for my Apache project and the success it has achieved
because of the Apache Way, I would still never choose to contribute code to the
Apache OpenOffice when I could instead contribute it under LGPL to Libre Office.
Why would anyone contribute code to the Apache version unless they are employed
by Oracle or IBM and paid to work on Apache OpenOffice? If Libre Office as a
project completely failed, it would be a different situation. As it stands now
as an individual developer I would want my code to be part of the existing
project with a vibrant community. I have no interest in helping Oracle and IBM
subvert the free version of the project for their own commercial purposes, even
if it is by making use of the Apache Software Foundation and the Apache Way
which I respect so much. Actually, especially when Oracle and IBM are making use
of something I respect so much to attempt to subvert a vibrant Free software
project.
If too many other potential developers feel the same as I do, Apache OpenOffice
will never make it out of incubator status. The Project is the community of
volunteer contributors and will not exist if they don't show up.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: old joe on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 10:25 AM EDT |
So (as I understand it) the relationship between LibreOffice and Open Office
will be the same as that between Lotus Symphony and OpenOffice. The Apache
licensed OpenOffice code will be the foundation for IBM's Lotus Symphony,
Oracle's Star Office and TDF's Libre Office.
Each will have an incentive to contribute code to OpenOffice which helps
interoperability between programs. Each will have an incentive to keep UI and
editting functions out of the OOo code.
Marketing OpenOffice won't be a problem - no one will be using it in it's raw
state but everyone will be using (and marketing) tools based on it. Some of
these tools may even be produced by The Apache Foundation but I'm guessing those
tools won't be Office productivity suites.
The question for IBM is: how much Lotus Symphony code will IBM be contributing
to Open Office?[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Wol on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 10:46 AM EDT |
Given that the project licence for LibreOffice is LGPL3+/GPL3+/MPL (and it'll be
MPL2 if it isn't already).
I've never really delved into MPL - I've read it and forgotten it ...
How strongly copyleft is it? Is it a "freedom for the code" licence or
a "freedom for the developer" licence?
How close is it to the Apache licence?
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 11:37 AM EDT |
Apache Foundation should just sign onto the LibreOffice direction (and agree
that LGPL3 is best)- and fully support it.
That would make a lot more sense.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Ian Al on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 12:37 PM EDT |
Rob Weir,But it is more than that. We also need to look at Symphony,
RedOffice, BrOffice, EuroOffice, NeoOffice, etc., including other new customized
distributions that will certainly now proliferate now that we are freed from the
restrictions of the copyleft license.
Mark points out that the
existing code base is of the spaghetti structure. For Rob's customized versions
that are going to keep their customized goodness proprietary to use the Ooo
codebase. the community coders in LO that comprehend the spaghetti will have to
desert and give away their work to Ooo so that these companies can get it for
nothing and give back nothing in return.
The Ooo codebase will change
into a modular pick and mix that can be raided by any company that chooses to do
so.
My guess is that modular despaghettification will seem like a real
challenge, but worth doing as long as the results can continue to be available
to the copy-left community and that they will stay with LO even if they are
prepared to do that work so that others in LO can benefit from all the
enhancements and not lose vital parts to the proprietary world.
I see
the Ooo project failing because of lack of committed programming support. The
supporting companies will not want to invest in the project becasue they won't
be able to keep enough of it to themselves to justify the investment. The LO
programmers with the skills and passion will stay with copy-left to make sure
the whole codebase remains free and open.
If I am wrong about the Ooo
project, then the two will diverge rapidly even if they both become modular
because the different groups will have different modularisation policies and
directions. They have radically different reasons for modularity.
I
think that Oracle have come to the conclusion that the walled garden community
they attempted to set up for Ooo has failed. They wanted to continued to direct
the project and acquire the copyrights in order to raid the code for Star
Office.
I wonder what their motives might be. Any or all of the
following might be possible,
Dispense with the management cost of
the project
Split the community to divide and conquer
Please important
partners in their core business like IBM
Weaken the LO
project
I suspect that their real motive is to further their much
larger goal of breaking the copy-left model. I see the theft and subversion of
the Redhat distribution to have been the first major salvo in this
battle.
I am not concerned. I think they place too much faith in the
support they will get from proprietary companies. In the end, those very same
companies that support their aims will stab them in the heart when it suits
them.--- Regards
Ian Al
OK, Just one more article and then I'll seek help. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Whatever next? - Authored by: pem on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 01:17 PM EDT
- Whatever next? - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 01:49 PM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 01:29 PM EDT |
>Will Attachmate, the new owner of Novell, allow their developers to
continue to contribute to LibreOffice, the fork from
OpenOffice?
Apparently, yes, they are pretty firm on that:
http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=38
12
SUSE is continuing to invest in LibreOffice and The Document
Foundation. We have migrated our existing customers to LibreOffice, and continue
to add new subscription customers for LibreOffice on both Linux and Windows.
Alongside the community and many other Linux vendors, we will further enhance
LibreOffice with a continued focus on customer needs such as
interoperability.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 04:09 PM EDT |
It might be even more strange, but ...
IBM is on Oracles side with Java. Killing apache and googles efforts in a free
and open source software. They swear commitment to support an open version of
java. But I don't trust them. From my point of view it is obvious that both have
to have control over java. Which is big money in big business.
In this light, the OOo gift to apache is very different. And IBMs support
offensive really made it. Are they trying do take control over apache via OOo?
It isn't only OOo and tomcat and Watson. apache is a cornerstone in FOSS. Having
control over apache means, controlling a part of FOSS.
Looks like this gift has some poison in it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: pem on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 05:54 PM EDT |
Some of the actions that Canonical takes, e.g. with its own CLA and with
closed-source drivers, indicate that it is perhaps not as ideologically pure as
some other linux distributions.
So, when Ubuntu starts to
consider dropping LibreOffice from the default CD, the more
conspiracy-minded of us have to ask: is it really because of space
issues, or is it an attempt to keep from playing favorites, or even to deprecate
LibreOffice, without incurring the wrath of the GPL faithful? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bystander on Saturday, June 04 2011 @ 09:11 PM EDT |
From the perspective of freedom, both in document standards and in
office
suite software, the developments of the past year may have been
beneficial
despite the continuing drama. While there are arguments about the
right way to
move forward from here, it's worth taking a look back at where
things were a
short time ago. The existing OpenOffice.org project was
arguably languishing,
with little enthusiasm from outside developers, only a
few dozens of mostly
corporate sponsored active contributors, few signs of
producing compelling
improvements to the existing product, and a
management structure that seemed to
favor apathy more than anything else.
It would be hard to argue that a major
change wasn't in order.
Well, change has come. It's been a bit
disruptive, and sometimes
contentious.
But that's sometimes necessary for a
movement to break free of old
constraints and move on to something better. What
we have now are
two organizations starting from nearly the same point, sharing
a snapshot in
time of the codebase for OOo, but differing in some important
ways on
fundamental issues such as the ultimate goals for each project. The
LibreOffice project seems rededicated to trying to produce the best free office
productivity suite they can, a goal that didn't seem to be as widely embraced
under the previous management. The OpenOffice project being created under
the
Apache flag seems more dedicated to promoting the standardization and
widespread adoption of ODF as a document standard. The split that has
occurred
may be a good thing for both objectives, as the separate
organizations are
quite possibly better positioned to achieve their respective
goals than if they
were forced together under a single management
structure.
To me,
promoting the ability of people to freely exchange documents
and to choose from
a variety of applications for document creation, viewing,
collaboration,
archiving, and dissemination is just as important, or more so,
than fretting
over details of how people can freely use the source code of a
single
application. If Microsoft's stranglehold on office productivity software is
to
be broken, it's built-in advantage of vendor lock-in because of Office-
specific
formats has to be negated. That will only happen if ODF gains wider
use and
acceptance. The best way to achieve that goal is for there to be a
number of
viable competing products that utilize the ODF standard and
provide some
provable advantage to Microsoft's offerings under a variety of
business models.
LibreOffice can be a very successful project, it can be a very
important part
of the solution, but by itself most likely wouldn't be able to
accomplish all
the broader goals.
The OpenOffice announcements seem to emphasize that
Apache efforts
will focus on producing a reference implementation of the ODF
standard. That
makes a lot of sense. Apache has shown historically that it
excels at
producing tools that allow others to develop standards-based
applications
and services. The Apache model seems to be a good fit for
promoting ODF as
a widely used standard, and may be the perfect opportunity to
produce a
useful set of ODF-enabled software components that can be
incorporated in a
wide variety of application environments, including SaaS
(Software-as-a-
Service) and mobile computing arenas. For people who buy into
the Apache
model, there is no problem with others "taking" code to use in
whatever
context they choose, because the code is being freely offered.
Likewise, there
is no real issue about an Apache project "taking" code from
other projects,
because they only accept contributions that are likewise freely
offered. The
Apache model often works with efforts based on open standards
because
even
though members are not compelled to contribute back improvements
they
make to the project, they often do because it benefits everyone if
compliance
with standards is made as painless and universal as possible. The
LibreOffice
project may benefit from Apache ODF efforts just like everyone
else.
One of the biggest criticisms of Microsoft's effort to
standardize OOXML
as a document standard was that there was really only one
viable
implementation (and no fully
compliant examples) of that alleged
standard. ODF should
show by example that it doesn't suffer from the same kind
of problems. Work
on the ODF standard should not be tied to a version of code
that implements
that standard. Having LibreOffice go off on its own to
implement the best
possible free desktop office suite based on that standard
can help
demonstrate
the overall strength and integrity of ODF. The two
projects might still find a
way to bridge their differences and join back
together some time in the
future, either sooner or later. Even if they don't, I
don't see it as necessarily a
bad thing for freedom, in any
sense.
--bystander1313 [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 01:22 AM EDT |
Going from a GPL license (actually LGPL) to an Apache license is a step
backwards for OpenOffice. The Apache license may make sense for some of the
Apache Foundation's projects, but it certainly is inferior to GPL licenses for
most Free Software projects, and I don't why the Apache Foundation has to be so
dogmatic about the licensing it "accepts".
I'd switch to LibreOffice,
except that project (like so many Free Software projects - Gimp springs to mind)
has shot itself in the foot, and ensured it will never have a mass following, by
choosing a poor name. People who pick names for Free Software projects really
need to get an education on marketing, and on how perception influences
acceptance. The name of a project actually matters for acceptance by the
masses, folks. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bystander on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 03:33 AM EDT |
Mark's article was very informative. Some extra details it might be worth
mentioning are the actual terms of CLAs and software licenses for the
respective projects. This post simply puts specific information in one location
for easy reference.
Sun/Oracle OpenOffice:
The project
required contributors to sign a Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Contributor Agreement or identical Oracle Contributor Agreement. This
requirement is explained on the OpenOffice
Licensing FAQ:
- Why does Oracle require
copyright assignment for OpenOffice.org?
Many open source projects
require a copyright assignment so that the code
base can be legally protected
as a whole by one entity without having to worry
about the copyrights for
different pieces. Other prominent examples of
projects requiring copyright
assignment are the Mono project and the
Evolution project, which both require
assigning the copyright to Novell. The
Red Hat Directory Server project
requires assigning the copyright to Red Hat.
The Oracle Contributor Agreement
is very liberal, as it requires sharing the
copyright instead of fully
transferring it and also guarantees that published
contributions will remain
under an open source license forever.
- How does the Oracle
Contributor Agreement differ from prior ones?
The Oracle
Contributor Agreement is identical to the Sun Contributor
agreement. The Sun
Microsystems Inc. Contributor Agreement for
OpenOffice.org introduced an
addendum that excludes non-core
contributions, like extensions and
documentation, from the joint copyright
assignment, provided that these
components are not intended to be included
in the OpenOffice.org product that
can be downloaded from OpenOffice.org.
The new agreement also protects against
patent misuse and abuse and thus
works with the LGPL v3 to ensure a more stable
open source community.
The OCA/SCA further provides for stronger patent
protection and includes an
exception for extensions and documentation not
present in prior
agreements.
So the Sun/Oracle CLA
asks for co-ownership rights to contributions,
rather than a direct assignment
of copyright rights. Both Sun/Oracle and the
contributing party retain all
rights to do with the contributed code as they
wish, which includes changing
licensing terms. That means that some critics
of Oracle's plan to transfer
OpenOffice to an Apache project appear to be
wrong when they claim Apache will
have to rewrite massive amounts of
OpenOffice code that is not licensed under
an Apache license. As a legal co-
owner, Oracle is free to relicense all
contributions to OpenOffice under the
signed CLAs.
Recent versions of
OpenOffice are licensed under the LGPLv3 license, while
older
versions of the code may be available under LGPLv2 or even the Sun
Industry
Standard Source License (SISSL) license for versions before
OpenOffice version
2.x.
LibreOffice:
The LibreOffice project does not
require a signed CLA from contributors.
The preferred software license for new
work contributed to LibreOffice is a
dual license between LGPLv3 and MPL, according to
the Document
Foundation Get
Involved Developing LibreOffice page.
LibreOffice is Free
Software - which gives you key liberties, and
responsibilities. LibreOffice
(unless indicated otherwise for any particular file),
is licensed under the
LGPLv3. We intend to make new code modules available
under a dual LGPLv3(or
later) / MPL license to allow the license to be
upgraded - there is no
requirement to assign your copyright to anyone in
order to get your code
contributed - all contributions are
welcome.
Like the original
OpenOffice project, the preferred licensing for
contributions to LibreOffice
are weak copyleft. They are intended to keep
contributed software code free,
but allow for proprietary binary applications
to be created without the
proprietary parts being required to reveal their
source code.
Apache
(OpenOffice?)
Right now everyone is seems to be presuming that the
OpenOffice
project on Apache will follow normal Apache protocols. If that is
true, then
the standard Apache approach is to have every contributor submit an
Individual Contributor
License Agreement. This CLA does not ask for the contributor to sign
over
ownership or co-ownership of copyrights in contributions. It does ask
for both
a copyright and patent license grant from each contributor.
2.
Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
this
Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
recipients of software
distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive,
no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
copyright license to reproduce, prepare
derivative works of,
publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and
distribute Your
Contributions and such derivative works.
3. Grant of
Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
this Agreement, You
hereby grant to the Foundation and to
recipients of software distributed by
the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge,
royalty-free, irrevocable
(except as stated in this section) patent license
to make, have
made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer
the
Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims
licensable by You that are necessarily infringed by Your
Contribution(s)
alone or by combination of Your Contribution(s)
with the Work to which such
Contribution(s) was submitted. If any
entity institutes patent litigation
against You or any other entity
(including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a
lawsuit) alleging
that your Contribution, or the Work to which you have
contributed,
constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then
any
patent licenses granted to that entity under this Agreement for
that
Contribution or Work shall terminate as of the date such
litigation is
filed.
In addition, corporate contributors are asked to sign
an additional Corporate
CLA,
obligating each corporate contributor to provide the same
copyright and patent
grants for any such rights they may hold in contributed
work.
The
standard license for Apache projects is, not surprisingly, the Apache 2.0
license.
This is a free software license, not copyleft, that includes
explicit patent
license grants.
--bystander1313 [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: TiddlyPom on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 06:18 AM EDT |
Like most things that Oracle do - this was carefully calculated and there was no
'community minded' thought in it. I did think initially that it was a fit of
pique but realize know that this is more of Oracle's long term plan of
effectively controlli
ng the Open Source Community.
FT [Financial Times]: Is
open source going to be disruptive to Oracle?
LE [Larry
Ellison]: No. If an open source product gets good enough, we’ll simply
take it. Take [the web server software] Apache: once Apache got better than
our own web server, we threw it away and took Apache. So the great thing about
open source is nobody owns it – a company like Oracle is free to take it for
nothing, include it in our products and charge for support, and that’s what
we’ll do. So it is not disruptive at all – you have to find places to add value.
Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. Keep in
mind it’s not that good in most places yet. We’re a big supporter of Linux
[TiddlyPom - yeah right of course you are!] . At some point we may embed
Linux in all of our products and provide support.
<opinion>
In many ways, Oracle are WORSE enemies
of the open source community than Microsoft as at least Microsoft want to
propose ALTERNATIVES to Open Source Software. Oracle want Open Source under
their control!
</opinion>
If Oracle have not donated
the copyrights to OpenOffice then they have not really donated the
software - have they! They want to retain some control over the projects (I have
a mental image of Oracle with a remote control in their hands - controlling
their "pet projects"). By doing this they have hurt the rival LibreOffice
project - intentionally.
My gut feel is that the Apache Foundation
should hang on to OpenOffice but co-ordinate closely with the Document
Foundation and let LibreOffice flourish. OpenOffice would be OK for commercial
based products (like Lotus Suite) but at a huge cost of losing the protection of
the GPL.
Larry Ellison must be laughing behind his hand - he is finally
achieving his aims of reducing the threat of Open Source software by attacking
from within. I can only that we are all strong enough to resist this insidious
attack on our community.
--- Microsoft Software is expensive,
bloated, bug-ridden and unnecessary.
Use Open Source Software instead. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 09:25 AM EDT |
Given the successful fork into LibreOffice, what I don't
understand at all, and no one seems to be asking, is why
would the Apache Foundation accept OpenOffice?
1. It just divides and disrupts the community
2. It places Apache in the middle Oracles Open Source land
grab
Why are the Apache Foundation involved, how come they didn't
tell Oracle, "Nothing to see here, move along now."?[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: athelas on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 09:39 AM EDT |
I really don't have anything useful to add to the discussion, since I frankly
had only a vague understanding of the debate before this article. So I just
wanted to say thanks for such a comprehensive writeup, it was quite in helping
grasp where we stand.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 10:14 AM EDT |
Way back in the days when Oracle was fighting to get the deal approved, I
thought part of the reason was Oracle dis-liked Microsoft, and wanted to do
something with Open Office to really put the 9000 pound gorilla in it's place.
I was obviously wrong. Instead, Oracle has decided Open Office is just
something to get out of it's hair.
So Sad.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 10:38 AM EDT |
How can anyone in the FOSS community have any belief that Oracle could ever be
trusted in any shape or form?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 02:58 PM EDT |
Here's a brain dump from an Anon:
OpenOffice.org has been many
different things to many different people.
- some see it as an Microsoft
Office application replacement
- some see it as the application that will
allow them to use ODF
- some see it as a brand they can use to promote
ODF
- some see it as code that can help use to add ODF support in their
own applications
- some see it as a base to build their own Microsoft
Office like application
For IBM it is primarily 4. For most of the
public it is 1. For many ODF proponents/users it is 2 and 3. For the many
OpenOffice.org derivatives it is 5.
So far, on the Apache incubator
mailing lists, I'm seeing people who are getting involved are either 4 or 5.
There is some chatter about 3, though I do not see enough interest in that
aspect to do much beyond protecting the OpenOffice.org trademark. As for 1 and
2, I believe there will be significant issues due to two
factors:
- OpenOffice.org non-Oracle owned dependencies with license
incompatibilities will need to be replaced or removed
- Rebuilding the
OpenOffice.org support system Oracle had basically tear down when they abandoned
OpenOffice.org will take a lot of time and resources
In the short
term at least, I see 1 and 2 as not getting anything useful in the new
OpenOffice.org, the only viable alternative right now is LibreOffice. For 3,
they probably find the OpenOffice.org brand not that useful without 1 and 2,
LibreOffice can be a replacement, except a significant number of people might
not like the name and transitioning to a different brand is not easy. Since IBM
is encouraging this Apache effort, one can expect 4 to do pretty well, as they
not only use it in Lotus Symphony but also some other products to provide ODF
support. They seem to be trying to use 5 to get more supporters/contributors, so
I assume there should be significant effort towards achieving
that.
When the Document Foundation released LibreOffice, significant
number of people who see 1 and 2 have switched over to LibreOffice (this is
especially true for people using Linux based systems). The consequence of the
creation of the Document Foundation for 3 seems unclear. For 4 and 5, if the
Apache OpenOffice.org project works out, LibreOffice will be less
attractive.
While 4 and 5 are nice to have, IMHO what the Document
Foundation should probably be more worried about support (from both users and
developers alike) for LibreOffice as a cross platform application for the
purpose of 1, 2 and maybe 3. LibreOffice seem to get lots of support on Linux
X11 desktop, but less (or sometimes, none) on some other platforms.
For
ODF supporters, Apache OpenOffice.org is important for the purpose of 4. It
might take a while, but this could allow ODF to really be much better supported
in all kinds of software and systems.
BTW, can someone come up with a
better name for the Document Foundation? It is a mouthful. (DoFo?? DocFo??
DocFou??)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 04:23 PM EDT |
I've not heard anyone comment on the potential for existing successful Apache
projects to include OO.o features in the future. Are any existing projects going
to get a boost from the code dump? Okay, I can't think of any obvious synergies,
but maybe someone else out there can.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: steelpillow on Sunday, June 05 2011 @ 05:41 PM EDT |
"The initial group of developers will be employed by IBM, Linux
distribution companies, and likely public sector agencies" - now, that
"likely public sector agencies" intrigues me.
Such agencies in different countries might have different IT agendas. Do we know
in which countries these likely public sector agencies may be found?
---
Cheers,[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bystander on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 04:06 AM EDT |
For anyone wanting to keep up with current developments in the process
to
get OpenOffice accepted as an incubator project at Apache, here are a
couple of
places you can bookmark.
OpenOfficePro
posal
on the Apache Incubator Wiki
Wiki page set up to provide a current
status view of the proposal to the
Apache Software Foundation to start an
OpenOffice incubator project.
general.incuba
tor.apache.org mailing list archive
Contains the latest discussion
among Apache members and interested third
parties on how Apache should move
forward with the proposal.
--bystander1313
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: TemporalBeing on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 01:09 PM EDT |
Well, let's see. The primary argument for CLAs is that the project can
update/change licenses when it pleases, especially in circumstances where a
contributor has died and the estate doesn't understand what the project is
asking. (From what I've read per the GPLv3 discussion, Linux has that problem
making it a lot harder to change the license. Not impossible, just a lot
harder.) So why is it now a surprise that Oracle is changing from a dual license
(LGPL+a proprietary license) to a single license (Apache License).
What's interesting about this license change is that it ultimately makes no
difference. In both cases companies could get a license (from Sun/Oracle) to
make their modifications to OOo and release binary only versions using the
official OOo code-base and adding their own modifications. The difference is
that no one needs to get a specific license from a specific entity to do so - so
no secret meetings or secret contracts to do just that.
Hmm...what's the complaint again?
And, btw, FSF does CLAs too, primarily to keep the license up-to-date with the
latest LGPL/GPL version.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: red floyd on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 03:35 PM EDT |
Keep reading this as "CIA Redux"??? --- I am not merely a
"consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a *CITIZEN* of the United States of
America.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bystander on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 04:46 PM EDT |
OK, I've already said a lot on this topic, but there's one more thing to
consider. A number of comments have centered on guessing the motivations
of
others such as Oracle, IBM, The Document Foundation, etc. in this matter.
The
truth is that everyone has ulterior motives for what they do, and it has to
be
expected that everyone acts largely in their own self interests. This
shouldn't be surprising. The key to success is often finding enough common
ground so that even people working selfishly can work together to do some
good.
I bring this up because I ran across a post by Sam Ruby, the
Apache
member who has taken up the role of being the designated champion for
the
Apache OpenOffice proposal. In
that post, he talks about his vision for some of the value that an
Apache
OpenOffice project brings. It's worth a read, IMO.
It is not
clear to me what you are seeking from Oracle.
While it is true that the
ASF will only release the code that was
granted to us under the Apache License,
Version 2.0, and furthermore
that we will only accept changes to this code base
under terms that
allows us to release those changes under the same license;
absolutely
none of this prevents you from taking this code and:
1)
integrating your own changes, and releasing the result under AGPLv3.
2)
integrating your own changes, and releasing the result under MPL2.
3) doing
the above with numerous other licenses and furthermore either
dual licensing or
even tri-licensing the code
4) integrating your own changes and releasing
the result under a
non-open source license (as long as you comply with the
generous terms
of the Apache License)
What perhaps is more important
than what you can do with this code is
the fact that you do not need to ask
anybody's permission to do so.
You don't need to ask the ASF's permission. You
do not need to ask
Oracle's position. The Apache License, Version 2.0 gives you
the
expressed permission to do any or all of the above.
Furthermore,
there is no time limit. And this not only applies to the
initial donation, but
also to any and all enhancement made to this
base under the auspices of the
ASF.
From my perspective, everything is totally symmetric. I am equally
OK
with somebody saying "I realize that the original code was made by
a
for-profit corporation, but I won't release my changes under terms
that allow
it to be reintegrated into a proprietary product" as I am
with a statement that
"I realize that the code is open source, but I
won't release my changes under
open source terms".
I will be totally transparent as to what my
preference however is. It
is my fond hope that all of the participants will
identify subsections
of the code that they are willing to share the burden of
maintenance
with the larger community. Direct participation in the development
of
that pool ensures that you can harvest that code back quickly and
easily as
there is no need to merge it with other changes that you
held back. Furthermore
the extension points you need for your value
add will be in the
base.
Part of this vision is also that participants don't block one
another.
If IBM, for example, has a proprietary value add they should not
be
able to block somebody else from contributing substantially
similar
functionality to the ASF under a more liberal license. Similarly, if
LO
has some CopyLeft value add, they should not be able to block
others from
contributing substantially similar functionality to the
ASF under a more liberal
license.
Again, fully symmetrical.
It is also not clear to me
what you mean by "part of the ASF".
In order to contribute small
patches, you simply need to mail them to
the mailing list or enter them in the
bug tracker for the project. In
order to submit larger changes, an ICLA and
possibly a CCLA is
required. To submit a pre-existing and released component to
the ASF,
you fill out a Grant.
That's the extent of your involvement.
Do this enough times and we
may vote you in as a committer in order to lighten
up our load in
integrating your patches, and this will give you more of a direct
say
in the future direction of the product; and show an interest in the
overall
health of the product and we may even pull you into the
Project Management
Committee; but none of this is required in order
to
participate.
Furthermore, submitting a patch of any size does not
obligate you
further. You don't need to maintain it. You aren't required
to
contribute anything further, related or unrelated to this original
patch.
Ever.
It may be fun to speculate on the motivations of others,
but that
shouldn't obscure taking a hard look at the actual pros and cons of
the
proposed project. Seeing an Apache perspective on this issue is a step in
that
direction.
--bystander1313 [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: enigma_foundry on Monday, June 06 2011 @ 10:16 PM EDT |
The advantages of the GPL to me are obvious; I want the code base for
LibreOffice to be GPL, and if others want it another way, fine, but I will vote
with pocketbook, and I will support the Document Foundation, and I hope you
will, too.
---
enigma_foundry
Ask the right questions
[ Reply to This | # ]
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