Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

> On 03 Sep 15, at 09:54, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
>> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
>> .
>> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
>> 
>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>> 
>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
>> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
>> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
>> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led to
>> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
>> development and lay off 100 employees."
>> 
>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>> 
>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
> 
> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
> 
> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is 
> non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but just 
> calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on OpenOffice.

Write to the Guardian? I would do it, would love to do it, and clear up issues. 
But I’m one of the *last* people who could do it, as I was so involved in the 
project, from its inception to … now.

Besides, Mark S is not entirely bending history. There was a contingent, led by 
a very talented developer formerly employed by Novell and still associated with 
LibreOffice, who *did* make the lives of the Sun/Hamburg devs—or at least their 
boss, who was also mine—at times unpleasant. And one of the bones of contention 
was Sun’s widely criticised copyright assignment policy, which it did modify 
over the years. But that policy did have real consequences, despite Sun’s 
choosing to deprecate them. Whether the IP policy is the primary cause of the 
ultimate split—that would be a simplification and evaluating it would take more 
words than would stun an ox, if printed. But the policy did little to warm the 
hearts and soothe the nerves of those who felt that for all the license 
asserted, OOo tested the limits of what constituted open source development. 
(In contrast, AOO really is open source de jure and de facto.)

The history of the radical faction, btw is scripted online and accessible via 
the Internet Archives, if one wishes to look for Go-ooo and the blog entries of 
the primary developer working on Go-ooo.
> 
> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story, is a 
> good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less political, 
> more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), that would 
> actually help our cause. The person asking the original question doesn't care 
> about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical factions", I guarantee. They want 
> to know which product is better for them, now, and in the long term.

Your last point is the interesting one. These ancient corporate battles and 
community disputations have left a torn legacy that has done exactly what any 
competitor of OOo would want: Divide and Conquer. The user is left uncertain. 
If I were counselling any user, would I point to AOO for its… what? support of 
users? UI? Templates? updates? Please. We’ve sputtered on about an incremental 
release now for over a year and meanwhile, LO is at 5.0.1, which I just 
downloaded. Numbers are arbitrary tokens, they mean little, we all know. But 
they look great.

Louis

> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -- 
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> 
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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Rich Bowen]

On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:

"After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
.
It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."

That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder

"Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led to
the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
development and lay off 100 employees."

That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".

Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?


It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.

What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is 
non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but 
just calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on 
OpenOffice.


Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story, 
is a good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less 
political, more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), 
that would actually help our cause. The person asking the original 
question doesn't care about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical 
factions", I guarantee. They want to know which product is better for 
them, now, and in the long term.


Thanks.

--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

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RE: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

There are users who will find the political drama compelling.  There is nothing 
to be done about that.  It does not make the product better and it distracts 
those who want to find ways to serve the broad community no matter what code 
base is being worked on.

The asymmetrical situation around licenses is a factor, although what matters 
more to users is how that shows up in what they have in their hands to use.

I found the greatest value in the linked article to be about the fairly 
balanced view of the three productivity-suite options, assuming that the reader 
is on a platform where all are available.

It seems to me that the greatest concern to this community is the practical 
experience users are and will have and how this project can serve those 
concerns, especially with regard to assured usability of present documents and 
also the skills that have been developed in working with them.

 - Dennis

PS: On the interoperable-use challenge lurking in the article,

The historical business was too long and not so meaningful to user needs 
compared to the -- important for us -- slow but steady divergence of the two 
OpenOffice.org descendants not so much in features and release cadence but core 
functions around format conversion/interchange.  That divergence is eroding 
common support for the ODF format and OOXML interchange (i.e., functioning in a 
world where Microsoft Office documents cannot be ignored).  Incompatibilities 
at that level impede interoperable multi-product and cross-platform use where 
that is important. 

One of the greatest appeals of the OpenOffice.org family is the presence of 
consistent cross-platform support not available anywhere else (yet) in 
conjunction with the ODF format.  This appeals to civil authorities and 
institutions not just for economy under actual user conditions (which may or 
may not be achievable as promised in a particular situation).  

The free ODF/OOXML-supporting products matter for durable preservation and 
interchange of documents, especially those employed in public services, without 
*requiring* use of commercial software as institutions move to delivery of 
services and coordination with the public by digital means.  Substitutability 
has been promoted to those organizations as a safeguard for adoption of these 
products.  


-Original Message-
From: Rich Bowen [mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 06:54
To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
Subject: Re: AOO -> LO or MS O



On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
> .
> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
>
> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>
> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led to
> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
> development and lay off 100 employees."
>
> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>
> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?

It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.

What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is 
non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but 
just calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on 
OpenOffice.

Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story, 
is a good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less 
political, more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), 
that would actually help our cause. The person asking the original 
question doesn't care about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical 
factions", I guarantee. They want to know which product is better for 
them, now, and in the long term.

Thanks.

-- 
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Kay Schenk]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1



On 09/03/2015 04:11 AM, Tony Stevenson wrote:
> 
> This is an interesting read:
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2015/sep/03/switch-openoffice-libreoffice-or-microsoft-office?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Many thanks,
> 

Interesting yet not quite accurate.

- -- 
- 
MzK

“The journey of a thousand miles begins
 with a single step.”
  --Lao Tzu


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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

> On 03 Sep 15, at 12:33, Kay Schenk  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 09/03/2015 07:22 AM, Louis Suárez-Potts wrote:
>> 
>>> On 03 Sep 15, at 09:54, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
 "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of
 Oracle Open Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth
 the effort 
 .
 
 
> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
 Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source
 license."
 
 That's one version of events. Another version of events is this. 
 http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
 
 "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the 
 OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun
 made a $100 million "gift" to the community when it opened up the
 OpenOffice code. But a "radical faction" made the lives of the
 OpenOffice developers "hell" by refusing to contribute code under
 the Sun agreement. That eventually led to the split, but
 furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice 
 development and lay off 100 employees."
 
 That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
 
 Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>>> 
>>> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>>> 
>>> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint,
>>> which is non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and
>>> non-reactionary, but just calmly presenting the reasons why someone
>>> might want to stay on OpenOffice.
>> 
>> Write to the Guardian? I would do it, would love to do it, and clear
>> up issues. But I’m one of the *last* people who could do it, as I was
>> so involved in the project, from its inception to … now.
> 
> I would think this would make you one of the best people to do it!
 :-)
But I like to believe I’m unbiased, and school myself in ways that hide from 
myself me. And I’ld like to think that letters to the editor, esp. to the 
Guardian, which I rather admire, ought to be impartial. (Note, impartial is not 
the same as unbiased.) I’m partial.

But I also have another problem. This one is a particularly deep one. It has to 
do with the value of AOO for *users* if not *developers*. 

Bluntly: What is the value of AOO to users? What claim do we have over LO to 
*users*? 

I’ve been trying out LO now for some time, comparing it to AOO, looking at its 
UI, seeing what templates, etc. they have that we don’t. Frankly, both our 
ecosystems are wanting. They once were better, they once certainly promised 
more, they now languish. 

But if I’m a naive user, or even a company wanting support, what options do we 
offer? And say that I, as a company, want some special features. What 
extensions outreach do we have? What are we doing to make the community 
interesting? 

My challenges are not coming from a bad mood. It really has to do with looking 
at it from a user’s perspective, from that of someone who just wants to write, 
say, or have a spreadsheet. Once, we had good answers, good promotions. I think 
we still could have these. But perhaps our efforts could be better spent 
devising ways to collaborate with LO and give users the best experience we can 
put together. 

As to the realities of collaboration, including personalities and license? Yes. 
I know. I was wounded by the TdF and felt betrayed; nor do I relish the 
continued journalistic bias against us, nor the etceteras that one could add. 
But I think this rather something to put aside. 

Or do others on this list have a compelling reason to favour AOO over LO *for 
the user*? 

If so, what is it?

Louis

PS BTW my own tartly bent version of the world is framed by the question, Who 
benefits from LO, esp. in Linux? A query which could also be sentenced as, 
Besides Ubuntu (Canonical) what other Linux desktop and now enterprise distros 
are there that have anything like the same popularity? RH? Implicitly then, 
collaborating with LO/TDF, putting aside animus, favours those entities. Is 
that a problem? 


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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Roberto Galoppini]

2015-09-03 17:48 GMT+02:00 Dennis E. Hamilton :

> There are users who will find the political drama compelling.  There is
> nothing to be done about that.  It does not make the product better and it
> distracts those who want to find ways to serve the broad community no
> matter what code base is being worked on.
>
> The asymmetrical situation around licenses is a factor, although what
> matters more to users is how that shows up in what they have in their hands
> to use.
>
> I found the greatest value in the linked article to be about the fairly
> balanced view of the three productivity-suite options, assuming that the
> reader is on a platform where all are available.
>
> It seems to me that the greatest concern to this community is the
> practical experience users are and will have and how this project can serve
> those concerns, especially with regard to assured usability of present
> documents and also the skills that have been developed in working with them.
>
>  - Dennis
>
> PS: On the interoperable-use challenge lurking in the article,
>
> The historical business was too long and not so meaningful to user needs
> compared to the -- important for us -- slow but steady divergence of the
> two OpenOffice.org descendants not so much in features and release cadence
> but core functions around format conversion/interchange.  That divergence
> is eroding common support for the ODF format and OOXML interchange (i.e.,
> functioning in a world where Microsoft Office documents cannot be
> ignored).  Incompatibilities at that level impede interoperable
> multi-product and cross-platform use where that is important.
>

I believe this is an issue that is underestimated at the moment. Few Public
Administrations - or more likely smart sales people pointing them in that
direction - are already taking advantage of that to justify their decisions
to go back to MSFT.

The whole OOo ecosystem is at risk because of the present situation, and I
believe we should make an effort to figure out if someone from our
community could join the upcoming ODF Plugfest and talk to the people. If
we can't fix the overall asymmetry of ODF-Support we are at big risk.

Roberto



>
> One of the greatest appeals of the OpenOffice.org family is the presence
> of consistent cross-platform support not available anywhere else (yet) in
> conjunction with the ODF format.  This appeals to civil authorities and
> institutions not just for economy under actual user conditions (which may
> or may not be achievable as promised in a particular situation).
>
> The free ODF/OOXML-supporting products matter for durable preservation and
> interchange of documents, especially those employed in public services,
> without *requiring* use of commercial software as institutions move to
> delivery of services and coordination with the public by digital means.
> Substitutability has been promoted to those organizations as a safeguard
> for adoption of these products.
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Rich Bowen [mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 06:54
> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
> Subject: Re: AOO -> LO or MS O
>
>
>
> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> > "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
> > Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
> > <
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/oracle-gives-up-on-ooo-after-community-forks-the-project/
> >.
> > It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the
> Apache
> > Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
> >
> > That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
> > http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
> >
> > "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
> > OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
> > million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code.
> But
> > a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
> > refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led
> to
> > the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop
> OpenOffice
> > development and lay off 100 employees."
> >
> > That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
> >
> > Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>
> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>
> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is
> non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but
> just calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on
> OpenOffice.
>
> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story,
> is a good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less
> political, more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on),
> that would actually help our cause. The person asking the original
> question doesn't care about 

Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

> On 03 Sep 15, at 15:05, Roberto Galoppini  wrote:
> 
> 2015-09-03 17:48 GMT+02:00 Dennis E. Hamilton :
> 
>> There are users who will find the political drama compelling.  There is
>> nothing to be done about that.  It does not make the product better and it
>> distracts those who want to find ways to serve the broad community no
>> matter what code base is being worked on.
>> 
>> The asymmetrical situation around licenses is a factor, although what
>> matters more to users is how that shows up in what they have in their hands
>> to use.
>> 
>> I found the greatest value in the linked article to be about the fairly
>> balanced view of the three productivity-suite options, assuming that the
>> reader is on a platform where all are available.
>> 
>> It seems to me that the greatest concern to this community is the
>> practical experience users are and will have and how this project can serve
>> those concerns, especially with regard to assured usability of present
>> documents and also the skills that have been developed in working with them.
>> 
>> - Dennis
>> 
>> PS: On the interoperable-use challenge lurking in the article,
>> 
>> The historical business was too long and not so meaningful to user needs
>> compared to the -- important for us -- slow but steady divergence of the
>> two OpenOffice.org descendants not so much in features and release cadence
>> but core functions around format conversion/interchange.  That divergence
>> is eroding common support for the ODF format and OOXML interchange (i.e.,
>> functioning in a world where Microsoft Office documents cannot be
>> ignored).  Incompatibilities at that level impede interoperable
>> multi-product and cross-platform use where that is important.
>> 
> 
> I believe this is an issue that is underestimated at the moment. Few Public
> Administrations - or more likely smart sales people pointing them in that
> direction - are already taking advantage of that to justify their decisions
> to go back to MSFT.
> 
> The whole OOo ecosystem is at risk because of the present situation, and I
> believe we should make an effort to figure out if someone from our
> community could join the upcoming ODF Plugfest and talk to the people. If
> we can't fix the overall asymmetry of ODF-Support we are at big risk.
> 

Roberto, I tend to agree with you, though I’m a little less concerned about the 
significance of ODF and more about the loss of a commitment to open formats 
capable of expressing current and future needs. 

But to the point Are you volunteering to attend? And when is the plugest?

> Roberto
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> One of the greatest appeals of the OpenOffice.org family is the presence
>> of consistent cross-platform support not available anywhere else (yet) in
>> conjunction with the ODF format.  This appeals to civil authorities and
>> institutions not just for economy under actual user conditions (which may
>> or may not be achievable as promised in a particular situation).
>> 
>> The free ODF/OOXML-supporting products matter for durable preservation and
>> interchange of documents, especially those employed in public services,
>> without *requiring* use of commercial software as institutions move to
>> delivery of services and coordination with the public by digital means.
>> Substitutability has been promoted to those organizations as a safeguard
>> for adoption of these products.
>> 
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Rich Bowen [mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 06:54
>> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
>> Subject: Re: AOO -> LO or MS O
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
>>> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
>>> <
>> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/oracle-gives-up-on-ooo-after-community-forks-the-project/
>>> .
>>> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the
>> Apache
>>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
>>> 
>>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
>>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>>> 
>>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
>>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
>>> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code.
>> But
>>> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
>>> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led
>> to
>>> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop
>> OpenOffice
>>> development and lay off 100 employees."
>>> 
>>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>>> 
>>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>> 
>> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>> 
>> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, 

Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Rob Weir]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>
>
> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>>
>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
>> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
>>
>> .
>> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
>>
>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>>
>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
>> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
>> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
>> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led
>> to
>> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
>> development and lay off 100 employees."
>>
>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>>
>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>
>
> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>
> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is
> non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but just
> calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on OpenOffice.
>

We did a survey on this question back in 2013.   The question was:
"You have a choice of several open source office suites. Why do you
use OpenOffice rather than alternatives like LibreOffice or KOffice?"

The results were:

Features (47%)
Quality (22%)
Compatibility/Interoperability (22%)
Reputation/Familiarity (9%)


Regards,

-Rob


> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story, is a
> good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less political,
> more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), that would
> actually help our cause. The person asking the original question doesn't
> care about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical factions", I guarantee.
> They want to know which product is better for them, now, and in the long
> term.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>
>
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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Tony Stevenson]

> Interesting yet not quite accurate.

I never made any claims to it's accuracy.  I was hoping someone would do
exactly what Rich suggested, but preferably without the prompting that
Rich afforded the group.

The reason for sending it to this list was to see the reaction it got,
and how that reaction was handled within the group.

I would still say that there needs to be a positive reply to this
article. Framed correctly and without any tension, animosity, or
negative connotations at all. To demonstrate how grown up we are.  Hell,
it could even acknowledge and accept that the project is struggling and
is trying a,b, and c to address those.  

Just a thought.

Many thanks,

--
Tony

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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Kay Schenk]

On 09/03/2015 07:22 AM, Louis Suárez-Potts wrote:
> 
>> On 03 Sep 15, at 09:54, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of
>>> Oracle Open Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth
>>> the effort 
>>> .
>>>
>>> 
It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
>>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source
>>> license."
>>> 
>>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this. 
>>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>>> 
>>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the 
>>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun
>>> made a $100 million "gift" to the community when it opened up the
>>> OpenOffice code. But a "radical faction" made the lives of the
>>> OpenOffice developers "hell" by refusing to contribute code under
>>> the Sun agreement. That eventually led to the split, but
>>> furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice 
>>> development and lay off 100 employees."
>>> 
>>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>>> 
>>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>> 
>> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>> 
>> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint,
>> which is non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and
>> non-reactionary, but just calmly presenting the reasons why someone
>> might want to stay on OpenOffice.
> 
> Write to the Guardian? I would do it, would love to do it, and clear
> up issues. But I’m one of the *last* people who could do it, as I was
> so involved in the project, from its inception to … now.

I would think this would make you one of the best people to do it!

> 
> Besides, Mark S is not entirely bending history. There was a
> contingent, led by a very talented developer formerly employed by
> Novell and still associated with LibreOffice, who *did* make the
> lives of the Sun/Hamburg devs—or at least their boss, who was also
> mine—at times unpleasant. And one of the bones of contention was
> Sun’s widely criticised copyright assignment policy, which it did
> modify over the years. But that policy did have real consequences,
> despite Sun’s choosing to deprecate them. Whether the IP policy is
> the primary cause of the ultimate split—that would be a
> simplification and evaluating it would take more words than would
> stun an ox, if printed. But the policy did little to warm the hearts
> and soothe the nerves of those who felt that for all the license
> asserted, OOo tested the limits of what constituted open source
> development. (In contrast, AOO really is open source de jure and de
> facto.)
> 
> The history of the radical faction, btw is scripted online and
> accessible via the Internet Archives, if one wishes to look for
> Go-ooo and the blog entries of the primary developer working on
> Go-ooo.
>> 
>> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the
>> story, is a good start, but if you could turn it into an article
>> that's less political, more practical (features, community,
>> timelines, and so on), that would actually help our cause. The
>> person asking the original question doesn't care about politics,
>> hurt feelings, and "radical factions", I guarantee. They want to
>> know which product is better for them, now, and in the long term.
> 
> Your last point is the interesting one. These ancient corporate
> battles and community disputations have left a torn legacy that has
> done exactly what any competitor of OOo would want: Divide and
> Conquer. The user is left uncertain. If I were counselling any user,
> would I point to AOO for its… what? support of users? UI? Templates?
> updates? Please. We’ve sputtered on about an incremental release now
> for over a year and meanwhile, LO is at 5.0.1, which I just
> downloaded. Numbers are arbitrary tokens, they mean little, we all
> know. But they look great.
> 
> Louis
> 
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> -- Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/
>> - @apachecon
>> 
>> -
>>
>> 
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> 
> 
> -
>
> 
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-- 

MzK

“The journey of a thousand miles begins
 with a single step.”
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ODF Plugfest: participation and leaflets

[Andrea Pescetti]

As we discussed some weeks ago, the next ODF Plugfest will be held in 
The Hague, Netherlands, mid-September:

http://plugfest.opendocumentformat.org/2015-thehague/programme/

There are three issues that require attention in a very short time. 
Deadline is 8 September when not otherwise specified.


1) Is anyone going in the end? We discussed this at length. I've never 
considered going since it overlaps with another event I'm scheduled to 
attend. Dennis and Roberto were both mentioned (and Dennis later 
clarified he is busy in the US). Of course if someone goes we can still 
discuss to allocate a budget from our events fund.


2) I was contacted (for no special reason; I've never attended a 
Plugfest) by Basil Cousins of Openforum Europe, who gave me permission 
to forward his request here, about updating a leaflet for the next ODF 
Plugfest. The 2014 version is here:

http://openforumeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OFE-COIS-DFD-ODF-Open-Document-Principles-for-Government-Technology-March-2015.pdf
and there is also an infographic available at 
http://www.openforumeurope.org/library/odf-toolkit-2/
Can you please suggest content updates to this leaflet? Basil in is CC. 
We can discuss updates on this list and then one of us, ideally someone 
who attends the event, can send the final comments to Basil. The part 
needing more attention is the Applications Choices section on page 5.


3) For this leaflet they also ask for a contribution for printing. One 
can support printing the English version (addressed to UK government), 
the Dutch version (addressed to Dutch government) or both. The 
contribution is 100 GBP (so about 135 EUR or 150 USD) for each edition. 
If you feel it would be useful, I assume that the fund for events and 
merchandising could be used to support this. Please state if you propose 
that we allocate budget and, in case it's a yes, if you'd rather 
contribute to the English version or both versions.


Regards,
  Andrea.

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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

> On 03 Sep 15, at 15:13, Rob Weir  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>>> 
>>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
>>> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
>>> 
>>> .
>>> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
>>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
>>> 
>>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
>>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
>>> 
>>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
>>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
>>> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
>>> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
>>> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led
>>> to
>>> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
>>> development and lay off 100 employees."
>>> 
>>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
>>> 
>>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
>> 
>> 
>> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
>> 
>> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is
>> non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but just
>> calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on OpenOffice.
>> 
> 
> We did a survey on this question back in 2013.  

2013 was ages ago.


> The question was:
> "You have a choice of several open source office suites. Why do you
> use OpenOffice rather than alternatives like LibreOffice or Office?"

Does KOffice even exist? Is it not Calligra? These data points are also a 
little murky. Many do obtain AOO and LO by downloading it. Others, say those 
using Ubuntu or Red Hat installations, or from public sector installations are 
less able to choose as individuals. The relevant executive makes the decision. 
Do we know what they are looking for?

Even if we do not know, or cannot guess, the journalists of the tech world seem 
united to love LO and do the nasty with AOO.

louis
> 
> The results were:
> 
> Features (47%)
> Quality (22%)
> Compatibility/Interoperability (22%)
> Reputation/Familiarity (9%)
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -Rob
> 
> 
>> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story, is a
>> good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less political,
>> more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), that would
>> actually help our cause. The person asking the original question doesn't
>> care about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical factions", I guarantee.
>> They want to know which product is better for them, now, and in the long
>> term.
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> --
>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
>> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>> 
>> 
>> -
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Wrongful information on the Wikipedia

[Max Merbald]

Hi there,

the Engish Wikipedia claims that AOO is dormant. I can't see where they 
have the information from. The sources they use don't say so. I think 
it's definitely bad for OpenOffice when people think no more is done 
about it. The problem is also that LibreOffice has just published its 
version 5.0 and is getting ahead of us.


Max


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Re: Wrongful information on the Wikipedia

[Phillip Rhodes]

I just looked at the Wikipedia page and don't see anything that's -
strictly speaking - incorrect, or lacking citations.  IOW, I don't see any
supportable rationale for removing anything that's there, although one
could question the motives of whoever made it a point to call out some
concerns about lack of activity in the first paragaph of the article.
Nonetheless, I think any attempt to modify that will face opposition.

In a related vein, The Guardian recently ran this article titled "Should I
Switch From Apache OpenOffice to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office".
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2015/sep/03/switch-openoffice-libreoffice-or-microsoft-office

I don't know if there's any easy way to counter this narrative that's
spreading through the press, about AOO being dead/dormant/whatever, or how
LO is clearly "the winner", but it's definitely unfortunate to see this
kind of stuff spread around so widely.  :-(


Phil


This message optimized for indexing by NSA PRISM

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts  wrote:

> Hi Max,
>
> > On 03 Sep 15, at 16:31, Max Merbald  wrote:
> >
> > Hi there,
> >
> > the Engish Wikipedia claims that AOO is dormant. I can't see where they
> have the information from. The sources they use don't say so. I think it's
> definitely bad for OpenOffice when people think no more is done about it.
> The problem is also that LibreOffice has just published its version 5.0 and
> is getting ahead of us.
>
> thanks for the alert.
>
> Wikipedia is composed by a crowd of editors, and you can change the entry
> to reflect the facts.
>
> So can anyone on this list. Becoming an editor at Wikipedia is not arduous.
>
> Louis
> >
> > Max
> >
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> >
>
>
> -
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>
>

Ian Lynch (ingotian) passed away

[Andrea Pescetti]

I was astonished to learn, a couple days ago, that Ian Lynch passed 
away. Many of you were probably closer to him and already got the news 
(Ian passed away three months ago) but I don't recall reading it on the 
OpenOffice lists.


I had never met Ian, but I knew him as a key contributor in the 
Education sector. He was also an OpenOffice committer and PMC Member; 
his Apache id was "ingotian".


I hope that someone who knew him better will volunteer and write a 
couple paragraphs for the OpenOffice blog in his memory.


See http://www.opensourceconsortium.org/ian-lynch/ for more details.

Regards,
  Andrea.

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Re: Wrongful information on the Wikipedia

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

Hi Max,

> On 03 Sep 15, at 16:31, Max Merbald  wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> the Engish Wikipedia claims that AOO is dormant. I can't see where they have 
> the information from. The sources they use don't say so. I think it's 
> definitely bad for OpenOffice when people think no more is done about it. The 
> problem is also that LibreOffice has just published its version 5.0 and is 
> getting ahead of us.

thanks for the alert.

Wikipedia is composed by a crowd of editors, and you can change the entry to 
reflect the facts.

So can anyone on this list. Becoming an editor at Wikipedia is not arduous.

Louis
> 
> Max
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> 


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glibc errors with buildbot build Linux-32

[Kay Schenk]

I couldn't verify the fix for
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=117989

with my own build--Macro button not expanding! :(

so I just downloaded and installed the latest Linux-32 rpm from our
buildbots. Normally I do a verbose option on rpm install but I didn't
this time. In any case, I am getting the following errors so this is a
no go for me from the buildbots.

  glib c errors ---
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/javaldx: /lib/libc.so.6: version
`GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/libuno_sal.so.3)
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/javaldx: /lib/libc.so.6: version
`GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/libxml2.so.2)
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/soffice.bin: /lib/libc.so.6:
version `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/libuno_sal.so.3)
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/soffice.bin: /lib/libc.so.6:
version `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by
/opt/openoffice42/openoffice4/program/libxml2.so.2)

-- end glibc errors 

I have glibc 2.12 installed. 4.1.1 is still fine as well as my own
build, at least on startup.

If requirements for testing the builbot versions have changed since
4.1.1., do we know what they are?


-- 

MzK

“The journey of a thousand miles begins
 with a single step.”
  --Lao Tzu



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AOO -> LO or MS O

[Tony Stevenson]

This is an interesting read:   

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2015/sep/03/switch-openoffice-libreoffice-or-microsoft-office?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech
 




Many thanks,

-- 
Tony


pgp9FGHFgNW9g.pgp
Description: PGP signature

openoffice.org website - please change my name

[David Sterr]

Hi,

I'm sorry I have to write a second time: Who is responsible for this 
https://www.openoffice.org/de/marketing/referenzkunden.html list?


I am at a new company and do not want that my name is listed with the 
old one - so can you please tell me how I can contact the webmaster of 
this subpage?


Best regards, Dave

Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Rob Weir]

On Thursday, September 3, 2015, Louis Suárez-Potts  wrote:

>
> > On 03 Sep 15, at 15:13, Rob Weir > wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Rich Bowen  > wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 09/03/2015 08:33 AM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> >>>
> >>> "After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
> >>> Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
> >>>
> >>> <
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/oracle-gives-up-on-ooo-after-community-forks-the-project/
> >.
> >>> It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the
> Apache
> >>> Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."
> >>>
> >>> That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
> >>> http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder
> >>>
> >>> "Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
> >>> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a
> $100
> >>> million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code.
> But
> >>> a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell"
> by
> >>> refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually
> led
> >>> to
> >>> the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop
> OpenOffice
> >>> development and lay off 100 employees."
> >>>
> >>> That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".
> >>>
> >>> Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?
> >>
> >>
> >> It's not FUD. It's a link to an article.
> >>
> >> What would be awesome is if someone would write a counterpoint, which is
> >> non-confrontational, non-rageful, non-hateful, and non-reactionary, but
> just
> >> calmly presenting the reasons why someone might want to stay on
> OpenOffice.
> >>
> >
> > We did a survey on this question back in 2013.
>
> 2013 was ages ago.
>
>
>
I'm happy to repeat the survey.



> > The question was:
> > "You have a choice of several open source office suites. Why do you
> > use OpenOffice rather than alternatives like LibreOffice or Office?"
>
> Does KOffice even exist? Is it not Calligra? These data points are also a
> little murky. Many do obtain AOO and LO by downloading it. Others, say
> those using Ubuntu or Red Hat installations, or from public sector
> installations are less able to choose as individuals. The relevant
> executive makes the decision. Do we know what they are looking for?
>
>
Could deal with that via wording, e.g., offer a choice of "someone else
chose for me".  The point is we do not need to speculate.  This is
knowable.  We just need to ask.

As for public sector, the trend appears to be that when they move to open
source office suites, the press touts their move to "LibreOffice".  But
when the exact same agency decides to migrate from open source back to MS
Office the press reports that they've abandoned "OpenOffice".   Obviously
the 11th Commandment with open source press is "Thou shalt not speek good
of Apache OpenOffice".

Regards,

Rob



> Even if we do not know, or cannot guess, the journalists of the tech world
> seem united to love LO and do the nasty with AOO.
>
> louis
> >
> > The results were:
> >
> > Features (47%)
> > Quality (22%)
> > Compatibility/Interoperability (22%)
> > Reputation/Familiarity (9%)
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > -Rob
> >
> >
> >> Refuting the article on this list, where we all already know the story,
> is a
> >> good start, but if you could turn it into an article that's less
> political,
> >> more practical (features, community, timelines, and so on), that would
> >> actually help our cause. The person asking the original question doesn't
> >> care about politics, hurt feelings, and "radical factions", I guarantee.
> >> They want to know which product is better for them, now, and in the long
> >> term.
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com  - @rbowen
> >> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> >>
> >>
> >> -
> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> 
> >> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> 
> >>
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> 
> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> 
>
>
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> 
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> 
>
>

Re: Ian Lynch (ingotian) passed away

[JZA]

Feel a bit bad since I knew about this news for the past few weeks. I didnt
want to be the one disclosing the news to the rest of the community since
other members also knew about this event and probably would be better
prepared to announce it. I remember working with Ian personally and
sometimes even phisically with the INGOT project, taking trips to south
america, and all across Europe. I pushed with him the vision of an
OpenOffice certification and others interesting projects.

Want to express on this list my sympaties for his family and coworkers on
the community.

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 5:01 PM, Andrea Pescetti  wrote:

> I was astonished to learn, a couple days ago, that Ian Lynch passed away.
> Many of you were probably closer to him and already got the news (Ian
> passed away three months ago) but I don't recall reading it on the
> OpenOffice lists.
>
> I had never met Ian, but I knew him as a key contributor in the Education
> sector. He was also an OpenOffice committer and PMC Member; his Apache id
> was "ingotian".
>
> I hope that someone who knew him better will volunteer and write a couple
> paragraphs for the OpenOffice blog in his memory.
>
> See http://www.opensourceconsortium.org/ian-lynch/ for more details.
>
> Regards,
>   Andrea.
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
>
>


-- 
Alexandro Colorado
Apache OpenOffice Contributor
882C 4389 3C27 E8DF 41B9  5C4C 1DB7 9D1C 7F4C 2614

FW: [DISCUSSION] ODF Plugfest, September 2015

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

More information about the Plugfest for some who might not have noticed earlier.

I have edited this lightly to reflect the current status in my case.

- Dennis

-Original Message-
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:orc...@apache.org] 
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2015 15:31
To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
Subject: [DISCUSSION] ODF Plugfest, September 2015 (was RE: [NOMINATION] Dennis 
Hamilton ... )

Roberto mentions the forthcoming ODF Plugfest to be held September 15-16 at the 
Hague. 

WHAT THE ODF PLUGFEST IS 

Information about the Plugfest is on this Wiki page: 
.

To see how these have operated, it is useful to look at the programs of prior 
plugfests starting with the two in 2009 (although some of the historical 
material seems to consist of placeholders). 

I have not been to any of these except vicariously as a member of the OASIS ODF 
Interoperability and Conformance (OIC) Technical Committee and as a participant 
in some of the planning.

I see three matters that are useful to be present for.  Anyone could attend to 
participate as a contributor to Apache OpenOffice in those events: 

 1. The presentations on ODF adoption and also on developments of the ODF 
specifications
 2. The subsequent presentations on implementation efforts, where 8 are listed 
so far, including Apache OpenOffice.
 3. The Interop testing that occupies the remainder of the first day and all of 
the second day.  For this, it is desirable to show up with demonstration and 
test documents to interchanges and then inspect implementations.  This activity 
tends to be conducted in confidence, regrettably.  There is a sample scenario 
template to use in presenting tests.

AOO PARTICIPATION

For AOO, it would be good to have some simple presentation of status for (2) 
and to have some contributions (3) of tests or exemplary documents for which 
interoperability is a concern.

Roberto has been on the calls for organization of the Plugtest and it is 
valuable that he is doing so.  His keeping us apprised of what AOO might do to 
contribute and to participate will be very helpful.

I think if we create a portfolio of tests and a few slides on the status of AOO 
by mid-September, anyone could be present as an AOO participant.

The Plugfests are obviously more amenable to participation by ODF experts and 
implementers that are based in Europe and we have able members of the AOO 
community there.

MY PERSONAL PARTICIPATION

I have always wanted to go to a Plugfest and never managed to arrange it.  I 
think we have many able spokespersons.  

I do not have the means to travel to The Netherlands for this event.  I am 
willing to go, although it would be valuable to at least have someone more 
technically involved around interoperability testing.  I don't think it is 
necessary to have someone be an official of some form, whether PMC member or a 
Chair

[Note: I learned that, in addition to not having the means, I have a conflict. ]


Here at dev@ we can work up a status report that anyone could deliver and also 
development of any contributions to the interoperability testing that would be 
useful for cross-implementation demonstration/confirmation in those sessions.

I am happy to cooperate in any way I can in the development of such materials.  
I trust Roberto will continue to participate on the calls (since they tend to 
be at 6am in my local time).

[Note: That was in July.  This is September already and my ability to assist 
here is severely limited, although I will do what I can.]

 - Dennis

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Re: Ian Lynch (ingotian) passed away

[Tony Stevenson]

On Thu, 3 Sep 2015, at 11:01 PM, Andrea Pescetti wrote:


> I hope that someone who knew him better will volunteer and write a 
> couple paragraphs for the OpenOffice blog in his memory.
> 

The ASF also has it's own memorials page -
http://www.apache.org/memorials/


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Re: Ian Lynch (ingotian) passed away

[Tony Stevenson]

On a formal note the PMC chair ought to probably notify root@ and
secretary@ of this. 

-- 
Many thanks,

--
Tony

On Thu, 3 Sep 2015, at 11:01 PM, Andrea Pescetti wrote:
> I was astonished to learn, a couple days ago, that Ian Lynch passed 
> away. Many of you were probably closer to him and already got the news 
> (Ian passed away three months ago) but I don't recall reading it on the 
> OpenOffice lists.
> 
> I had never met Ian, but I knew him as a key contributor in the 
> Education sector. He was also an OpenOffice committer and PMC Member; 
> his Apache id was "ingotian".
> 
> I hope that someone who knew him better will volunteer and write a 
> couple paragraphs for the OpenOffice blog in his memory.
> 
> See http://www.opensourceconsortium.org/ian-lynch/ for more details.
> 
> Regards,
>Andrea.
> 
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Re: Ian Lynch (ingotian) passed away

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

Andrea, et al.,

> On 03 Sep 15, at 18:01, Andrea Pescetti  wrote:
> 
> I was astonished to learn, a couple days ago, that Ian Lynch passed away. 
> Many of you were probably closer to him and already got the news (Ian passed 
> away three months ago) but I don't recall reading it on the OpenOffice lists.

I was a friend of Ian’s but not closer; this comes as a brutal shock. Still, I 
thank you for informing us. Truly, I am stunned and upset.

> 
> I had never met Ian, but I knew him as a key contributor in the Education 
> sector. He was also an OpenOffice committer and PMC Member; his Apache id was 
> "ingotian".

Ian and I had our differences but those were of long ago. More recently, I 
wanted rather a lot to work with him and possibly vice versa. Circumstances put 
that off—

Ian was also formerly a competitive weight lifter and had about him a boundless 
and infectious energy. All the more to find this news so very shocking.
> 
> I hope that someone who knew him better will volunteer and write a couple 
> paragraphs for the OpenOffice blog in his memory.

I would love to. I suspect, though, that JZA might have volunteer? He worked 
with Ian, I believe. 


> 
> See http://www.opensourceconsortium.org/ian-lynch/ for more details.

Thanks, Andrea.

Louis
> 
> Regards,
>  Andrea.
> 
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Re: ODF Plugfest: participation and leaflets

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

Hi all,
Comments inline. 


> On 03 Sep 15, at 16:24, Andrea Pescetti  wrote:
> 
> As we discussed some weeks ago, the next ODF Plugfest will be held in The 
> Hague, Netherlands, mid-September:
> http://plugfest.opendocumentformat.org/2015-thehague/programme/
> 
> There are three issues that require attention in a very short time. Deadline 
> is 8 September when not otherwise specified.
> 
> 1) Is anyone going in the end? We discussed this at length. I've never 
> considered going since it overlaps with another event I'm scheduled to 
> attend. Dennis and Roberto were both mentioned (and Dennis later clarified he 
> is busy in the US). Of course if someone goes we can still discuss to 
> allocate a budget from our events fund.

The event somewhat overlaps with a personal engagement but that may be 
negotiable. It depends on how much subsidy we have to support this very late 
trip—of mine, I mean. I’d be coming from Toronto, Canada. A quick price check 
via Orbitz reveals that for a flight via the dodgy Air Transat the cost (R/T) 
would be about 740 USD. Include an Airbnb room—don’t know how much that would 
be but probably not that much, though still, for three days, at leasts 150 USD, 
and probably more. (I’m guessing the Hague is costly.) Besides Air Transat, the 
average price for airfare to AMS is about 1300 USD; to the Hague (Rotterdam) 
500 USD more or so. I’m guessing a train trip from AMS is cheaper.

I’ve been to several of these events, including, I think, the initiating one. I 
know ODF fairly well, was on the Oasis TCs, etc. (I quit them a couple of years 
ago.) The drawback for me going is I’m not developing ODF or for ODF and though 
I can certainly represent AOO’s continued interest in furthering usage of ODF, 
not to mention other Apache projects’ ODF work, to some extent I’ll be mostly 
competent at relaying speech. 


> 
> 2) I was contacted (for no special reason; I've never attended a Plugfest) by 
> Basil Cousins of Openforum Europe, who gave me permission to forward his 
> request here, about updating a leaflet for the next ODF Plugfest. The 2014 
> version is here:
> http://openforumeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OFE-COIS-DFD-ODF-Open-Document-Principles-for-Government-Technology-March-2015.pdf
> and there is also an infographic available at 
> http://www.openforumeurope.org/library/odf-toolkit-2/
> Can you please suggest content updates to this leaflet? Basil in is CC. We 
> can discuss updates on this list and then one of us, ideally someone who 
> attends the event, can send the final comments to Basil. The part needing 
> more attention is the Applications Choices section on page 5.

I can look at it, too. But others, here, can surely weigh in. I think we have 
talent to enhance this, no?

> 
> 3) For this leaflet they also ask for a contribution for printing. One can 
> support printing the English version (addressed to UK government), the Dutch 
> version (addressed to Dutch government) or both. The contribution is 100 GBP 
> (so about 135 EUR or 150 USD) for each edition. If you feel it would be 
> useful, I assume that the fund for events and merchandising could be used to 
> support this. Please state if you propose that we allocate budget and, in 
> case it's a yes, if you'd rather contribute to the English version or both 
> versions.

I think it would be money well spent. 

Note. This ODF Plugfest brings together some rather important players form the 
UK, which is supposedly tending toward it. Independent of any particular 
implementation’s concerns or desires, it is, as Roberto G. pointed out, 
important that there be *real* solid interest in working with the government to 
satisfy their mandate. 


> 
> Regards,
>  Andrea.
> 
-best
louis

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Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Fernando Cassia]

"After LibreOffice came out, Oracle released one version of Oracle Open
Office before deciding that the project wasn’t worth the effort
.
It laid off the programmers and gave the code and trademarks to the Apache
Software Foundation, under Apache’s liberal open source license."

That's one version of events. Another version of events is this.
http://pages.citebite.com/e7v0f3m9sder

"Shuttleworth has a fairly serious disagreement with how the
OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice split came about. He said that Sun made a $100
million "gift" to the community when it opened up the OpenOffice code. But
a "radical faction" made the lives of the OpenOffice developers "hell" by
refusing to contribute code under the Sun agreement. That eventually led to
the split, but furthermore led Oracle to finally decide to stop OpenOffice
development and lay off 100 employees."

That's different from "deciding it was not worth the effort".

Why the FUD on a dev list, anyway?

FC

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 8:11 AM, Tony Stevenson  wrote:

>
> This is an interesting read:
>
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2015/sep/03/switch-openoffice-libreoffice-or-microsoft-office?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech
>
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
> --
> Tony
>



-- 
During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary
act
Durante épocas de Engaño Universal, decir la verdad se convierte en un Acto
Revolucionario
- George Orwell

RE: AOO -> LO or MS O

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

A little more on the importance of OpenOffice in the context of use in civil 
administration.

An example of advocacy-organization promotion of ODF-based documents and the 
primary implementations are presented can be found in the report linked at 
.

Download the PDF by using the link "Download the Open Document Format 
principles for Government Technology".

The more interesting material is on the 4th page of the document (3rd 
double-page of the PDF) under "Application choices" and then "Variations 
between applications."  Note the positioning and importance of Apache 
OpenOffice in that presentation as one of the three "full" ODF 1.2 
implementations.

Note the inclusion of Apache OpenOffice among the supporters on the last page.

I am not going to remark on the technical exaggerations an deficiencies in this 
piece.  The point is how Apache OpenOffice is positioned with other software 
and that this is a promotion of governmental use of software supporting ODF 1.2.

 - Dennis



-Original Message-
From: Roberto Galoppini [mailto:roberto.galopp...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 12:06
To: dev ; Dennis Hamilton 
Subject: Re: AOO -> LO or MS O

2015-09-03 17:48 GMT+02:00 Dennis E. Hamilton :
> PS: On the interoperable-use challenge lurking in the article,
>
> The historical business was too long and not so meaningful to user needs
> compared to the -- important for us -- slow but steady divergence of the
> two OpenOffice.org descendants not so much in features and release cadence
> but core functions around format conversion/interchange.  That divergence
> is eroding common support for the ODF format and OOXML interchange (i.e.,
> functioning in a world where Microsoft Office documents cannot be
> ignored).  Incompatibilities at that level impede interoperable
> multi-product and cross-platform use where that is important.
>

I believe this is an issue that is underestimated at the moment. Few Public
Administrations - or more likely smart sales people pointing them in that
direction - are already taking advantage of that to justify their decisions
to go back to MSFT.

The whole OOo ecosystem is at risk because of the present situation, and I
believe we should make an effort to figure out if someone from our
community could join the upcoming ODF Plugfest and talk to the people. If
we can't fix the overall asymmetry of ODF-Support we are at big risk.

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