Sigh. Zealots will always believe, and journalists will often write
sensationalist teasers to drive traffic.
On 2012-05-29 9:08 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
After "Can Apache OpenOffice still compete with LibreOffice?"
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=0049362B-A9A4-500D-DDCDBD374AC219B5
comes another gem:
Is Apache OpenOffice losing the race?
http://www.computerworld.in/news/apache-openoffice-losing-race-5742012
These claims (both are the same article, mostly) seem awfully thin when
you see the 2 million+ downloads of AOO (which do not include
auto-updates, by the way; only actual visitors to the mirrors
downloading an installer)
http://markmail.org/message/ni2cbwnpyoadljtv
but wait, there's more:
OpenOffice: a house of sand
http://www.unixmen.com/openoffice-a-house-of-sand/
Irrelevant comparisons and a glaring factual misstatement that I find
hard to believe made it past editing start this article off:
"...Apache OpenOffice team inside Oracle was disbanded..."
that phrase makes no sense. Oracle had a project called OpenOffice.org.
They choose to stop funding development themselves, and instead
granted the ASF a license to the (bulk of) the source code, and granted
the ASF the trademarks. In no way, shape, or form has an "Apache ...
team" ever been part of Oracle. Similarly, there are fundamental issues
of governance between the ASF (and it's AOO project) and the TDF and LO
which are glossed over.
The real issue is ideology. I find the recent thread on legal-discuss@
striking:
http://legal-discuss.markmail.org/thread/2tfy7cpawdvfbb66
Where Michael Meeks says explicitly:
"...The intention is to ensure that the modified files are made
available not under the terms of the AL2, but under the terms of the
MPLv2..."
Essentially, that's stating that LO explicitly wants to take *away* some
of the freedoms that the AL grants to it's users - in particular, the
freedom of users of AL software to keep their changes private. I find
this doubly striking given some of the painful rhetoric that LO
supporters have leveled at Apache folk over the issue of relicensing.
Personally, I'm motivated to build software that allows the actual
humans who want to use it the maximum freedoms, even if they want to use
it privately (or commercially, even). But that's just me. Well, me,
and a whole lot of Apache committers... and a whole lot of other
companies, and individuals, and students, and researchers, and... 8-)
I suggest the next sensationalist headline: "OpenOffice, that piece of ****
nobody should use"
;-)
FC
I suggest we focus on building great software - and here, answering user
questions. But smilies are good too.
- Shane
P.S. Apropos of nothing, a big thank you to the folks behind MarkMail,
who offer some pretty nifty mail archive search features. Yes, they use
Apache code under the covers - and yes, they're happy to sell you their
proprietary stuff too.
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