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Sun Refuses LGPL for OpenOffice; Novell forks
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 03, 2007 07:40 AM
from the there-is-no-dept dept.
from the there-is-no-dept dept.
TRS-80 writes "Kohei Yoshida wrote a long post on the history of Calc Solver, an optimization solver module for the Calc component of OpenOffice.org. After three years of jumping through Sun's hoops on his own time, Sun says it will duplicate the work because Kohei doesn't want to sign over ownership of the code. Adding insult to injury, Sun then invites him join this duplication. Because of Sun's refusal to accept LPGL extensions in the upstream code, Michael Meeks (who recently talked about Sun's OO.o community failings, and ODF and OOXML) has announced ooo-build (previously just for build fixes) is now a formal fork of OpenOffice to be located at http://go-oo.org/. "
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[+]
Developers: The Uncertain Future of OpenOffice.org 259 comments
eldavojohn writes "What's the biggest threat to the success of OpenOffice.org? Is it Microsoft Office? Is it the simple fact that Dell doesn't offer it with computers? Not according to some participants in the 'open' source project itself, they say the biggest problem with OO.o is the fact that Sun codes, owns & makes all key decisions for the project when it should be more community oriented. A professor who participates in the project itself said 'enough developers are frustrated by both the technical and the organizational infrastructure at OpenOffice.org' and cites this as 'a real problem that is weighing on the project.' Other members of the community agree like Michael Meeks who asked 'At what fraction of the community will Sun reconsider its demand for ownership of the entirety of OpenOffice.org?' Hopefully with IBM's entrance into OO.o participation we will see the product become more community controlled & accessible. Has anyone else experienced this when developing for OO.o or another 'open' source project? Is it a good idea to criticize a company when they've put so much effort into a project that is technically open source and completely free? Is Sun trying to control OO.o like Java? Do they have good reasons or evil underlying intentions?"
[+]
Linux: Michael Meeks On ODF and OOXML 184 comments
biscuitfever11 writes "ZDNet has up a great interview with Michael Meeks, the distinguished Novell engineer, who's currently deeply involved in open document format and OpenOffice.org. In the interview, Meeks takes Microsoft to task on its alternative format OOXML and argues that Microsoft should adopt ODF — but says that realistically they never will. He also mentions his favorite example to explain the benefits of open source software to a nontechnical person: the flexibility of open source would have allowed us to free ourselves from Clippy, the world's most despised paperclip, by changing a single line of code."
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And we think EULA's are bad (Score:2, Insightful)
It's kind of sad.
Blame the big corporations?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And we think EULA's are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but in the OSS world we still have access to all the software that's in dispute...
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Re:And we think EULA's are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And we think EULA's are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus say your right. What's worse? Companies that are constantly trying to force you into licenses that are restrictive and downright abusive/harmful to you or your computer? Or individuals who are constantly fighting to ensure that you/society only benefit from the software license?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that the terms of ownership are pretty weak under GPLv2, so what precise good would it do Sun and IBM?
I just love these near-psychiatric paranoid delusions som
When will people learn? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:When will people learn? (Score:5, Interesting)
They really need a goal like this [launchpad.net].
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm it wasn't long ago I heard praises of OO since while Office 2007 changed its UI dramatically to deal with control bloat, OO kept the 2003-style interface. I mean you do realize: Open Office literally has the Office pre-2007 UI, in fact OO has less controls and toolbars than Office 2003 did.
I'm seeing more and more opinions in the other direction, which means the tide is turning.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I suspect he believes this goes both ways,
hawk
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Re:When will people learn? (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is a Legal dispute over the code, we would have to round up EVERYBODY that contributed to the codebase. They would ALL have to travel to Boise, IDAHO, or some place in Egypt, or Australia, or where ever the dispute is filed. Once their, they would EACH have to give a dissertation on what they contributed. If even one person doesn't show up, then you would lose, much like if a football team showed up with not enough players.
How many legal disputes would it take to make sure a person NEVER contributes again?
The GPL and LGPL are licenses, that allow a whole lot of different things to happen, but they are still LEGAL licenses that if you really want people to abide by them, you will have to be able to defend in court.
I am not a lawyer, but I have been the Documentation Lead on the OOo project for the past 6+ years.
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Re:When will people learn? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:When will people learn? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:When will people learn? (Score:4, Funny)
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With apologies (Score:5, Funny)
They told him, we don't your code around here
Don't wanna see your source, make it disappear
The license they don't like, and they made that clear
So fork it, Just fork it.
You better take your code, better do what you can
Don't wanna see it die, 'cause Sun wanna be da man!
You wanna own your code, better do what you can
So fork it, but you don't wanna be mad
Just fork it, fork it, fork it, fork it
No wants this to get too heated
Show 'em the way to free code that's right
It doesn't matter how the code comes to light
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
Just fork it, Fork it
They won't take your code, best to leave while you can
Don't wanna fight with Sun, you wanna be da man
You wau wanna keep the code alive, just do what you can
So fork it, Just fork it,
Not an official "Fork" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not an official "Fork" (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.tuxdeluxe.org/node/184 [tuxdeluxe.org]
Not 100% sure though (the easiest way to find out if you are using the ooo-build version or the "official" version is to see if the "greyed out" icons are just not displayed ("official version") or are actually "greyed out" (ooo-build version). Also the oo-build version does have a zoom drop-down on the task bar.
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Why demand signed-over ownership? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why demand signed-over ownership? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Whilst they can relicense, they cannot apply it retroactively.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Note that Sun requires joint copyright assignment (JCA), whereby both the original author(s) and Sun jointly hold copyright. This allows Sun to relicense the OpenOffice.org code as needed (e.g., GPLv3).
IBM Seems to Be Forking Too (Score:5, Informative)
What was the story I submitted tagged as? 'fudfudfud'
I wonder how many forks we'll see? I also wonder if anyone's going to actually make this real open source or if each company is going to fork their own copy and call all the shots on it? I hope someone learns that to be the OpenOffice you have to be open to community ideas, wants & needs as well as truly governed by the community.
Let that be a lesson (Score:4, Insightful)
If you keep acting as if you never did it, you'll wake up one day with the entire project forked by a competing company.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that the whole POINT of software is to specialize. I'd rather see many forks of smaller, specialized, GOOD apps than the "One App to Rule Them All" approach. So long as we keep
go-oo.org? (Score:3, Funny)
Why get upset? (Score:3, Insightful)
Coding is commodity (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine if you'd gotten money from Sun for your code. Would you care (as much) if they ignored the code? They'd have the right by having purchased it. But having spent money on it, they'd probably be less likely to discard it, and to start from scratch. Money makes a difference.
Jeez, this post is the typical complaint seen in charity work: "Oh, they didn't value my work, and I have no sense of self-worth, so now I'm all upset!" "The people running the charity are all in a clique and don't pay attention to the contributions of the other charity workers. They're destroying the spirit of the organization. Lets go create another organization that cares!" And then the cycle continues. The basic mistake is in thinking that other people have to value your work. They don't. Only you do.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very good analogy, actually.
No, nobody pays you to look after your own kids. OTOH, people do get paid all of the time doing the work (i.e. for looking out for someone else's kids.) Still others do it voluntarily, be it in an orphanage, family situation, or just friends.
They get paid by others for the work they do (i.e. producing c
What will the fork accomplish in real terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
1: The "non-starter" speed. Even with the quickstarter, OpenOffice.org does not start that fast enough for me.
2: Absence of a full email client. I suggest they grab Mozilla's Thunderbird. I have no trouble with it at all.
3: Beauty. Heck, the [ugly and huge] icons on Linux can be made better looking.
4: Make its database offering comparable to Microsoft's Access. Right now, a lot of work has to be done.
Those are my US$0.02.
Did you know the the Canadian Dollar is now worth more than the US dollar? I just found out this morning!
The power of Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
FSF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The FSF is a non-profit organization with a final motive of keeping software free.
That said, it has been argued that Sun are nice guys regarding open-source today, but you never know how they'll act tomorrow (if SCO taught us anything).
FSF assignment guarantees code remains libre (Score:3, Informative)
How is Sun's policy any different than the FSF's policy for GNU projects they manage?
I'm curious about this myself. When I assigned some of my copyrights to the FSF I got a contract that says amongst other things that even though the FSF holds the copyright, they won't use all of their rights to the code, by guaranteeing that they will only distribute it under the terms of free software licenses (this is defined in some way, I could look the specifics up if anybody is interested).
If Sun doesn't have a clause like this, I don't see why anybody, especially any commercial entity would ever s
This is wrong but forking may not be... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also probably time for an OO fork. Forking is not evil or bad, forking is powerful and must be used with caution but it is the ultimate power the community has. I'm not especially surprised that Sun spent all that time previously talking about the evils of forks, it is only fitting since Sun intends to control anything they contribute with an iron fist. The project is stagnant, not because people don't contribute but because Sun doesn't accept changes or only wants certain features in StarOffice.
There should probably be a fork if we want to see something useful arise from OO but it shouldn't be run by Novell or Sun or IBM or any other corporation. A fork should be run by the community, for the community. A community run foundation or non-profit should be at its head with a no sale of the codebase clause in its charter. If Novell wants to donate the bandwidth then so be it.
The FSF reasons for signing over ownership (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It is (legally) easier defend the license if ownership is clearly defined (and before you comment: The law is rarely Boolean).
2) To make it possible to re-release under different licenses.
The GPL2 to GPL3 is a poor example of #2 as they usually add a "any later version" for their GPL'ed source. But ownership gives them the right to give permission for other free software projects to use FSF code in projects that use other licenses, they are quite pragmatic with regard to such licenses.
Both should paply to Sun as well, plus the added ability to make proprietary versions (like StarOffice) which may link to other peoples non-LGPL compatible code.
ooo-build has long been more than build fixes (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project.
ooo-build has long been much more than build fixes. For many years it has been the public face of the work Ximian and Novell have poured into the OpenOffice.org source base. It has a long history of features that Ximian/Novell have helped develop, including (but not limited to):
ooo-build is about functionality and features. Despite the name, it has never been about "build fixes" as indicated in the article. The additional functionality is so awesome that, at NeoOffice, we have been using ooo-build in NeoOffice [neooffice.org] since March and have been donating back bug fixes and Mac-specific support patches to the ooo-build project. Years ago the Ximian work on OOo 1.0.3 was so promising that I put together a Mac OS X port back in 2003 [neooffice.org] which folks used for a long time. OxygenOffice [sourceforge.net] also is based off of the ooo-build project (although I do not know if the OOOP team coordinates with ooo-build).
The ooo-build team has done amazing work. It is sad to see their work go unrecognized by so many and be outright rejected or stalled by Sun. NeoOffice users have loved having the functionality ooo-build brings currently and continues to bring in the future, and much of the work pioneered by ooo-build is critical to maintaining the Mac platform as a viable office solution (read VBA). Sun's lack of acknowledgement and incorporation of ooo-build features does nothing but hurt users. Having received a "you're welcome to join us" response similar to Kohei [kohei.us], I am glad I do not consider myself part of OOo any longer. The freedom of forking has allowed NeoOffice to incorporate all good code without all of these politics and marketing games. Forking has allowed NeoOffice to deliver to Mac users the features they wanted yesterday regardless of where those features came from. Sun has a history of a "not invented here" syndrome at times when it comes to code within their "open" source projects.
I'm glad to see that ooo-build is getting some recognition. I hope more users start seeing some of the great functionality they can get today on Windows and Linux, and once again I thank ooo-build, Ximian, and Novell for their continued dedication to improving OOo.
ed
take notice: Java (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the reasons dual-licensing is bad. Big projects with this problem are OpenOffice, Java, and Qt.
ooo-build (previously just for build fixes) is now a formal fork of OpenOffice [CC] to be located at http://go-oo.org/ [go-oo.org] [CC]
And this is the proper response: to fork the code and make an open-source only version, leaving the company and all its legal shenanigans in the dust.
Re:Conspiracy theory - MS behind all this? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Conspiracy theory - MS behind all this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that this alternative OOO would be able to use any code from Sun and offer developers an added incentive: they don't have to assign ownership to Sun or anybody. And that can be a big incentive these days after a few projects having closed their source (remember sourceforge, that was not pretty... And more recently CUPS was bought by Apple. Which is not bad per se but I could understand that people who spent a few months of their own time working on it might be unhappy that they did not get a cut of the sale price...)
Of course Sun contributed the main code base and you could see the contributions as a reward to them. But it only works if the new contributions from others are small compared to Sun's. When they become big, you can understand that the contributors might want a more democratic way of handling things.
That's why the FSF says you should assign the copyright to them. But recently they showed that they could use that to make everything GPL3, which is hardly a consensual proposal.
So I guess that the Linux way is pretty good: get code from people who prove they own it and make it GPL. Distribute everything under GPL and count on the absence of a single copyright owner to make sure the initial contract (the GPL version X) will be maintained forever.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Discuss...
No, please don't. Please stop your trolling. Please refrain from dragging MS into each and every discussion. It only derails the discussion and lowers the overall quality of this site.
Re:Conspiracy theory - MS behind all this? (Score:4, Informative)
OMGZ!! NOBELL IS THE DEBIL!!!!!
Or.....they are actually fighting for a less restrictive license, in the LGPL.......
Dude, if you have no idea about the MS/Novell agreement (and judging by your post, you do not) then please keep your "mouth" shut. Seriously, it just makes you look stupid and appeals only to the foaming "NOVELL SUCKS!" crowd.
You use so much Novell sponsored code if you use OO.o, KDE, Gnome, Linux Kernel, Tomboy, Beagle, and a ton of other things. Novell is in various F/OSS groups to HELP the F/OSS community, and have been there before the MS deal. They are using their patents to fight patent trolls, stood up to SCO to help Linux when SCO sued IBM, etc
What more do you need as proof? Do they have to use a pair of rusty pliers to put Miguel in his place when he mouths off about something inane (as per usual?)
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Re:Conspiracy theory - MS behind all this? (Score:5, Informative)
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JCA (Score:4, Interesting)
For core changes to the OpenOffice.org code base, Sun requires joint copyright assignment (JCA), whereby both the original author(s) and Sun jointly hold copyright. This allows Sun to relicense the OpenOffice.org code as needed (e.g., GPLv3).
IANAL, but with the JCA, nothing would prevent Kohei from making his code available under LGPL or any license he chooses outside of OpenOffice.org. However, by not signing the JCA, Kohei is preventing his code from being part of the core Oo.org code base. For whatever reason, the Oo.org team must want a solver that is part of the Oo.org code base, so if Kohei won't sign the JCA, there are few available options.
What would be interesting is if there were a way to basically split Kohei's solver component into three pieces. One is the GUI layer (there's menu choices, presumably leading to solver-specific dialog boxes), one is the bridge to communicate with the underlying spreadsheet data, and one implements the solver logic proper. Packaging that last piece as a LGPL third-party component, reusable among other projects (e.g., Gnumeric), might be acceptable to the Oo.org team, provided that the Oo.org-specific UI and data access bridges were part of the core project. I have no idea if this kind of code split makes any sense, since I've never written a solver, though Kohei references lp-solve, suggesting that part of his code might be able to be split into an nlp-solve...
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SUN need to get some communication skills (Score:3, Informative)
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I was with you up until this point. People who think this spec is long don't realize just how complex this stuff is. If you want interoperability to actual work, the spec needs to be much more comprehensive than the ODF spec actually is.
.ods spec doesn't even provide a comprehensive list of supported functions?
Have you noticed that the
It's not needlessly long, its too short.
Re:I'm getting this feedback often... (Score:4, Informative)
2. The problems of bloat, poor performance, memory utilisation etc. have been inherited from MS Office.
3. The ODF spec is overly long and needlessly complex, to be implemented faithfully.
1. They have a setup pretty similar to the Free Software Foundatation (FSF). This is setup so if there is a legal dispute, Sun can send in their lawyers, and they don't have to round up EVERYBODY to come to court.
Would you spend $3000+ on a plane ticket to travel to Idaho for a Copyright challenge? If there is a legal dispute, that is what would have to happen, or we would lose by default, much like a Football team not showing up with the full team.
2. OOo did NOT inherit its bloat from MS Office. Part of it comes from the many tools used to make sure the software was Cross Platform. MS Office has a lot of bloat with NO Cross Platform features. What is their excuse?
3. ODF is 600 pages. That details the tags needed for EVERY single document type (Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress, and Database) that OOo supports. The spec reuses HTML, MathML, and other pre-existing w3c standards, so implementation is pretty similar to already established standards.
Microsofts OOXML spec is 6000+ pages, and that details their Word, Excel, and Powerpoint specs. MS Access is not included. This document creates new "Standards" for pretty much everything.
Now for the disclaimer. My name is Scott Carr. I am an OOo volunteer. I have worked as the Documentation Lead for almost 7 years now.
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