Today Team OpenOffice released a "White Label Office" based off the 3.3 code. The press release is rather clumsily worded and their website is still not in compliance with our trademark policy. However, I do recognise that TeamOO appear to be seeking to address our concerns.
Götz Wohlberg said on this list [1] " We [TEAM OO]] want to be a committer to the Apache OpenOffice podling and we basically share the same goals." Similar sentiments appear on their FAQ "Joined forces would be the best for everybody involved and the entire user base" [2] This seems like a strange statment since at least two members of the TeamOO organisation are committers and PPMC members on this project, at out invitation. However, we have yet to see any contribution to AOO. It seems that work has been progressing on what is to all intents and purposes a fork. This is damaging to the AOO project. It might not be clear why this move is confusing and damaging. To illustrate the situation we should consider articles written by journalists who have not reached out to Apache for an explanation. They are writing things like "Making all this even more interesting--and, it must be said, confusing--is that Germany-based Team OpenOffice.org on Wednesday published a release candidate based on OpenOffice.org ... Is that the smell of yet another fork in the works?" So, how do we remove this confusion and move forwards? I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I'm willing to accept that this is all the result of really poor marketing (TeamOO are excellent engineers, we can't expect them to also be excellent marketeers). Assuming that my generous nature is not going to make a fool of me, TeamOO must participate in this community as equals. We welcome TeamOO as equals. This means no special privileges over anyone else in relation to trademarks or code. This means no more unnecessary finger pointing in press releases, or questionable statements on the TeamOO website. This means working with our community, using the infrastructure and facilities provided by the foundation. I suggest that if TeamOO will take a moment to understand how AOO is different from the benevolent dictatorship that existed in OpenOffice.org they will find that their dream of building a profitable and professional company around the code that is so important to them will come true. Look around the Apache ecosystem, there are thousands of such companies in our various projects. There are no shortage of models to follow here. Finally, a word on trademarks and development processes here at the ASF. The Apache Software Foundation has been developing Open Source Software for longer than OpenOffice.org has existed. We have over 100 top level projects and 50 incubating projects. The majority of these projects are a fundamental part of a great many companies business models. Our policies and processes have been defined to make it easy for third parties to collaborate regardless of their business models. It is unfortunate that Team OO found it necessary to include statements such as "Team OpenOffice.org and the ASF could not reach an agreement for a shared usage" of the OpenOffice.org name n their press releases and FAQs. It was explained to Team OO, as far bask as September, that their release could be "White Label Office powered by Apache OpenOffice" or "Team OO powered by Apache OpenOffice" or pretty much anything along those lines. These are the same rules that all downstream releases must comply with. It was also explained that Team OO is welcome to release the code as "White Label Office" and give no credit to Apache other than that required by the license (which requires no attribution to Apache, at least in marketing materials). These are the options open to TeamOO and everyone else who wishes to use our code. This is not a negotiable point. Ross [1] http://markmail.org/message/ygtfcphurfbh5jul [2] http://teamopenoffice.org/en/faq-en.html -- Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Programme Leader (Open Development) OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
