On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:14 AM, Shane Curcuru <[email protected]> wrote: > And I'm on El Reg! > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/apache_openoffice_alive_well/ > > Hope I did OK in the interview. At least I got a good closing quote, even > if it was a little tweaked in the story.
Perhaps in "The ASF ... said that there was no need for additional donations" we should have been more compassionate. AIUI the business model used by TDF and TeamOOo requires donations. Statements like this damage our relationship with potential downstream consumers, and risk reducing ecological diversity. A key goal should be to encourage the development of a rich and deep office office ecosystem. I would feel much more comfortable adopting the position that "Apache does not need or use cash donations to fund development but encourages exciting and innovative downstream efforts of all kinds and understands that some not-for-profit players need donations right away to get keep hacking". But maybe some good could come out of this. Why not get together to release a statement clarifying who needs donations right now, why and what cool stuff they are going to fund with the cash? (Something positive with as many potential players as possible...) (Personally, I would love to see the FSF enter the ring with a downstream GPL GNUberOffice integrating emacs, R, GIMP etc) Robert
