As a long time member of the OpenOffice.org community, I would like to offer my thoughts on the Oracle/IBM proposal.
For a long time, we had the situation where Sun released OpenOffice under the LGPL, but insisted that any contributions to the official OpenOffice distribution include a copyright assignment to Sun, so Sun could include those contributions in their proprietary StarOffice product. The copyright assignment also allowed Sun to license the code to third parties under any license they wanted, and they apparently did just that, licensing the code to IBM so they could also create their own proprietary derivative known as IBM Lotus Symphony. Fully understanding the situation with respect to the proprietary versions, many of us willing contributed code that was used in both OpenOffice and StarOffice and Symphony. The LGPL license did however allow anyone who wanted to take the code and create a derivative work that was also licensed under the LGPL, and that is exactly what happened with The Document Foundation created the fork that is now known as LibreOffice. Following the LibreOffice fork, Oracle decided to drop the product entirely, both its open source and its proprietary versions. IBM however desired to continue developing of both their proprietary version and the open source version, while switching the open source version from the previous copyright-assignment system to a more symmetrical Apache License. Oracle has apparently decided to accommodate IBM in this desire by releasing the code under the Apache License. AFAIKS, IBM's vision corresponds pretty closely to the Apache vision or philosophy. IBM envisions essentially that the Apache repository for OpenOffice would become the focal point for common or core development, while a number of companies would create their own derivative works with a variety of licenses, some open-source and some closed-source. I have no doubt that the latter part of that will happen--if OpenOffice is licensed under the Apache License, I expect to see a multitude of derivative works. One of those derivative works of course will be IBM's own closed-source Symphony. Another likely derivative will be The Document Foundation's open-source LibreOffice. Other likely areas for derivatives are: - Versions for specific locales, such as the current BrOffice in Brazil or the current RedOffice in China; - Versions for specific markets such as education or government; - Versions for specific applications, which might include integrating the code with other software such as an email client, a contact manager or a document management system; - Derivatives that rip out or adopt core selected code, such as document handling or conversion code, for their own purposes. - Ports to other platforms, such as Android, MacOS, tablet computers, embedded systems, kiosks, etc. I also expect to see many instances of people simply taking the code, changing the branding or making minor tweaks and then selling it on the internet. The code is useful and valuable, and I expect many derivatives. I believe users will be very creative in finding uses for it. Each of those derivatives may be open source or closed source, depending on the desires of the company or organization that creates it. The Apache License explicitly and deliberately permits this. The more open question is whether the repository at Apache will become the focal point of development, and if so, what form that will take. The Apache License permits developers to contribute back to the project, but it does not require this. If the developers do decide to contribute, the contributions can take many forms: they can contribute back bug report, bug fixes, new code and features, and/or documentation and other supporting material--any, all or none of the above. Given the wide variety of uses for the code, I expect the return contributions to similarly vary widely. I expect a number of users of the code to contribute nothing back, while some contribute a little back. It's possible some will contribute quite a lot back, but that is not guaranteed. I guess we will see. Despite the fact the IBM's vision for OpenOffice seems to correspond pretty closely to the Apache vision or philosophy, it should be noted that there are some apparent differences between OpenOffice, in its current or historical form, and other Apache projects. First, while I am most familiar with the Apache HTTP Server, I get the sense that most Apache projects are intended for system administrators or software developers, both of which are technical folk. OpenOffice does not currently fit that model. In its current form, OpenOffice is a desktop application, not a server or a software development toolkit. It is used by primarily non-technical end-users in an office or personal setting, not by technical people. Second, if Apache takes on OpenOffice, it will instantly become the Apache project with the largest number of end-users (if you include the number of users of both the Apache version and its derivatives). In fact, the number of users of OpenOffice may be larger than all other Apache projects combined. Third, OpenOffice historically had (I think) a much larger community around it than any current Apache project. This community has historically included people doing coding, localization, Q/A, documentation, marketing, distribution and end-user support. While other Apache projects may have had some or all of these activities, I think it may be correct to say that the size of the community around OpenOffice was historically larger than all Apache projects combined. Another difference I can see is that the OpenOffice codebase is huge, complex and "old". It has been under development since 1984, approximately 10 years longer than the Apache HTTP server. Its source tarball is approximately 250 MB. It has its own way of doing just about everything, from its underlying object model (called UNO) to its GUI framework. Very few developers understand the code. The code is also poorly documented, with much of the documentation disorganized, incomplete, unclear, out-of-date, and/or simply wrong. Making changes to the code is often a frustrating exercise in decoding several layers of unnecessary abstraction spread across multiple source files, and then digging in with multiple trial-and-error changes while generally breaking more than you fix. All that is to say, OpenOffice is a very big baby to adopt, and will have unique and significant needs. It may result in a huge influx of people looking for all sorts of different things. It is not clear the Apache's existing infrastructure is sufficient to handle a project or community of this size and complexity, and it may have to be upgrade with new tools. It would not surprise me if adopting OpenOffice did not result in eventual changes in the Apache's organization and direction, possibly in unpredictable ways--not that that is a bad thing, it's just something to think about. For some, the "elephant in the room" is The Document Foundation community. This community has committed itself to continuing development of a LGPL version under the LibreOffice name. Of course, that effort can continue in parallel. Like any other project, LibreOffice is free to continue developing its derivative version while integrating any and all contributions licensed under the Apache License, and contributing back as little or as much as it desires. I personally can see the pluses and minuses of both licenses, and what works for some, might not be the best for others. I'm not going to get into the question of which I prefer, because it seems moot at this point. IBM, with Oracle's agreement, is clearly going to go ahead with an Apache Licensed version of the code whether the rest of us like it or not. The question has been raised however whether it is possible to unite the two communities, the as-yet-not-existing-community-of-people-that-may-begin-working-on-an-Apache- Licensed-version, and the existing TDF community. In that regard, I think it might be helpful to identify who the major "players" are. On the one side, the Apache Licensed version is clearly being driven by IBM. On the other side, the creation of the LGPL licensed version was driven primarily by Novell, the distributor of SUSE, along with other Linux distributors such as Red Hat and Canonical, the distributor of Ubuntu. The community includes many others, but a project of that size requires paid developers, and it is those developers that form the core of the LibreOffice community. My question is simple: has IBM consulted with the companies that are currently paying developers to work on LibreOffice to determine what they want to do? Can these companies foresee paying developers to work on an Apache Licensed version, or to make contributions to an Apache Licensed version? If so, do they also foresee paying developers to continue to work in parallel on an LGPL version, and if so, how do they foresee these two projects being coordinated? Best Regards, Allen --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
