On 09/06/2010 04:18 AM, Ian wrote:
On Sun, 2010-09-05 at 18:15 -0300, Caio Tiago Oliveira wrote:
We don't need to fork that right now,
Agreed
+1
but we should invest more on
attracting investments. That will make it easy if we have to fork in the
future and will help the project, anyway.
That is what I have been saying for about 5 years. ...
Which brings it to the point of 'who' or 'what' would be holder of those
resources (funds being the difficult resource) - OpenOffice.org under
current configuration is not a legal entity and can not fill such a
role. There is the adjunct organization in the German community but, I
would propose, was not setup to act in this role.
Over the previous 5 years anytime the subject of a foundation came up in
conversation the quick reaction was - well can't happen because Sun (now
Oracle) just isn't going to go along with such an idea.
I would simply say here, that over this period the landscape has changed
substantially - which is to say, why does it require Oracle's explicit
involvement to begin.
Ian, the crew at brOffice and the setup of an NGO, the EducOOo project
and their NGO, the new Swiss OOo NGO, the Danish work, the NGO in
Bangladesh (I don't have much information here, and I think that
happened) these are all examples of efforts that started at the grass
roots, with either limited support from or in some cases, benign
neglect, from the corporate sponsor (owner).
Looking at the way the community offers direct support - The main web
site has supported the end user community with the mail lists and many
end users put these to good use. While on the web forum side the main
community was, slow to respond. What happened, grass roots community
kicked in again. First with oooForum, then two separate German language
forums, a French forum, Norwegian, a Polish portal, a Czech portal and more.
The success here, from a dispersed group of supporters, has simply
continued to grow. The Italian community now runs it's own web site, as
does brOffice, not simply web forums. The web forum activity lead to
even more growth - with Sun offering a group of users the simple,
unfettered use of a server - a second English forum came on line
followed by eight new languages and a new home for the French.
As to the actual code - the story is even more stunning.
5 Years ago it was unfortunate but probably un-avoidable that the Go-oo
shallow fork took place. But the Go-oo team said then it was not a full
fork and they have been honorable in that statement. It has been truly a
shallow fork, it is however growing deeper, with more differences
between the two packages. This is showing up in the QA processes actually.
The important point to the Go-oo formation I think is rather that it has
actually prospered - Alexandro mentioned how they have moved into the
FreeDesktop.org portal, but it's more then that even - the oooBuild
system is really a good piece of work and is now offering those in the
community a new tool - not just compiling the OO.o code but working on
the future creating software appliances that utilize the OO.o
code/tools/app as an integral part.
During this 5 year period, I have had the fun of installing the
RedOffice interpretation of OO.o - I've worked with the IBM Lotus
Symphony package, now available on Linux with support right through
Canonical.
The EducOOo team has delivered an 'education focused' version of OO.o -
OOo4Kids and is nearing the 1/2 million download mark. Followed just
recently with the oooLight implementation. Both packages fully FOOS
software.
ODF tools have arrived with growing frequency - odfDom, AODL, LpOd just
to name a few.
The opening of the architecture for extensions has lead to a change that
now has bloggers and tutorial writers showing how OO.o can form the
basis for an ePub production environment.
Today I setup Sirnota P2P collaboration on my Linux desktop. Which so
far is working wonderfully, and out of the box, with the Go-OO 3.2.1 RC
installed form the Ubuntu repository.
I've already installed and played with the Lotus collaborative extension.
Without a doubt I've not mentioned more then I have with regard to what
'the community' has been doing.
There are code solutions now for ODF usage, derived from OO.o that are
100% FOSS packages, right through to implementations with proprietary
pieces.
'The Community' here however does need, as Ian has alluded to, to be
looked at as being more then just OpenOffice.org, the web site.
Oracle, although not saying a lot, has been consistent in what it has
said. It is going to focus on building into the Enterprise market.
Oracle is the predominate supplier of Enterprise level Applications -
look at their sites for those applications and you will find a common
feature - interfaces to MS Office. Of course the new focus will be to a
large extent on porting those interfaces to OpenOffice.org.
But here is where there has not been enough, IMO, information from
Oracle - what will this mean to the code that is OpenOffice.org. How is
it going to make this transition eventually to CloudOffice? How will
FOSS principals be applied in the transition, is just one question
still to be answered.
I believe that some players will focus on online office suites and the
other won't help OOo if it's required to sign JCA/SCA.
Google, IBM, Novel both contribute to OOo, but each one could expend ten
times more, if that would benefite them.
So find ways the community can amplify the benefit and sell the idea to
them.
again all that needs saying is +1
I would close by saying again - Fork now? - I think not, but talking
between ourselves about how to keep expanding as a growing community of
like minded individuals and groups is always good. If that leads to some
type of OpenOffice or OpenDocument or ? association - well maybe that
would be a good thing.
For now - and looking at the announcements for the Oracle Office
presence at OpenWorld in 2 weeks - we need to listen for the details on
how this transition with the code form OpenOffice to CloudOffice is
actually going to proceed.
//Drew
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
