Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Xen]

Hagar Delest schreef op 03-09-2016 19:04:

Le 03/09/2016 à 18:47, Xen a écrit :
OpenOffice is unusable on Linux, you can't easily install it and once 
installed you don't know how to fire it up; it is not in the path, it 
is not in the menus, and you have to provide this on your own, if it 
even works.

Not at all. I use xubuntu since several years and it's rather easy to
get rid of the remnants of LibO automatically installed and then
install from the deb packages.
The desktop integration works very fine.


Well having to remove LO is one issue to begin with.

That means they have you locked out to begin with (mostly because 
/usr/bin/soffice conflicts).


Desktop integration used to fail for me some time in the past (in KDE) 
now it works, sorry, did not know that. Previously (not long ago) I 
installed the desktop integration package and could not see it in the 
menu, even after having uninstalled LO.



Mark Shuttleworth once said on an interview how to his opinion the 
LibreOffice devs (that would then split off) made the Oracle 
employees' lives hell. Even though Ubuntu has taken on LibreOffice 
after a while, he was no fan at all of what happened.

I still don't unnderstand what happened there and why he did not
support AOO instead. I may have missed some political argument at the
time of the split.


Perhaps it was not his own call, I don't know. He may have done so for 
political reasons (if it was him doing so) that relate to LO having had 
already a bigger foothold and it was easier or more politically correct 
from a FOSS point of view to go with LO.


I doubt many technical issues were at the core of the choice (but I 
wasn't there either).


It seems it must have been pressure from the "FOSS" community in that 
sense. Ubuntu I believe regularly packages older versions of programs 
and then just supplies patches to them (with them) for its own distro. 
E.g. Grub2, the version Ubuntu uses is from januari of 2014 or a little 
earlier. A present day Ubuntu 16.04 version uses a grub version that old 
;-).


But I don't know, I just content myself with knowing that Ubuntu's 
choice does not bely Shuttleworth's opinions, but Shuttleworth's 
opinions may bely Canonical's choice.


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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Hagar Delest]

Le 03/09/2016 à 18:47, Xen a écrit :

OpenOffice is unusable on Linux, you can't easily install it and once installed 
you don't know how to fire it up; it is not in the path, it is not in the 
menus, and you have to provide this on your own, if it even works.

Not at all. I use xubuntu since several years and it's rather easy to get rid 
of the remnants of LibO automatically installed and then install from the deb 
packages.
The desktop integration works very fine.


Mark Shuttleworth once said on an interview how to his opinion the LibreOffice 
devs (that would then split off) made the Oracle employees' lives hell. Even 
though Ubuntu has taken on LibreOffice after a while, he was no fan at all of 
what happened.

I still don't unnderstand what happened there and why he did not support AOO 
instead. I may have missed some political argument at the time of the split.

Hagar

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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Xen]

Christoph Reg wrote:


Regardless of why or how,
when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won. Hands down.
LO gets more commits in one or two days than AOO had since the 
beginning of

the year.
Apparently, all devs have moved over and AOO development is dead.
Unless there is a lot of work happening not commited to the repo, which
would be weird.


From this language it appears as though you see this as a war which you 
have fought and apparently then won. The question then is: what have you 
achieved?


Apparently you want to be declared the victor and for the loser to hand 
over his/her assets.



OpenOffice still has a smoother name, as well as a good  
discoverability
with search engines, books and training materials, etc. Which is 
probably

why a lot of people still use and download it.


These are also words of one who has been fighting such a war. You name 
these things, albeit positive qualities, as detrimental aspects (to your 
cause, then)?.



What are your views on this?


Well my view is that LibreOffice is a group of people who have 
apparently stolen a code base and then refuse to give code back.


They apparently use restrictive licenses that act as a sink to which you 
can draw stuff but nothing ever comes out again.


Open source is often used in a way in which the software is free (by way 
of its license terms it cannot be made non-free) but the people and the 
projects themselves are not.


It's really the same with foreign trade. The trade is free (free trade) 
but the countries and the people are not.


In effect, it is just a different way of attaining ownership.

There are basically two "competing" business models:

1) You make the software very good and then you charge for the software
2) You make the software very poor and then you charge for support 
contracts.


When you do the former, you have no incentive to do so under (e.g.) GPL. 
Why? If you base your software on something else, that something else 
can take back your code (and development time) and integrate it into the 
project. Therefore you cannot monetize your development time (or 
software quality).


However if you don't sell software but rather knowledge (on how to use 
it) then seeing your (poor) code making its way back to the (upstream, 
likely) project, there is no problem. You now belong to the group of 
people with knowledge on how to use the thing, and this is an asset you 
can sell or monetize.


So even if something is "open source" and "free" that really means jack 
shit if you don't have any knowledge and conveniently many open source 
projects (including the Linux kernel) are very poorly documented. Try to 
look for documentation in Grub2: it's not there.


While commercial vendors close their software and their documentation 
they do so for very well established reasons: to make money.


But in effect these open source developers do the same when they want to 
maintain ownership over their software (and everyone does) and they do 
it in a different way, but they do the same thing.


They lock down their software by not giving you any information on how 
to use it, or how to develop for it.


It's human nature to want to control the software you make, and you 
cannot take away from that by being an open source or free software 
adherent.


That's my view about it.

A restrictive license ensures that knowledge becomes a golden quality 
that only few possess.


Now you know why much open source software is rather poor and rather 
poorly documented. It's because if it was not, /you would no longer need 
the developers/. No one wants to make themselves redundant, and by 
creating poor software they ensure that attention gets directed their 
way, which is just another way of saying that they keep getting paid in 
whatever form.


In open source (or free software) knowledge is the only asset since 
everything else is free.


And although they share their source, they do not share their knowledge, 
because it is that thing they use to make money (in whatever form).


Also we see that they do not want their source code to be accepted under 
a more permissive license because it implies that the development model 
changes. As soon as it becomes more permissive, someone might develop a 
commercial product based on it and make money in that way *and not have 
to contribute that code back to the more restrictive code base*.


So it is a conflict of business models, that's all I can say.

I will also say that LibreOffice and other projects "charge" for 
customer support by requiring your allegiance, submission, politeness, 
or obedience.


They want to be treated as gods and you as lowly worms.

Many times you will hear exclamations of how great their community is 
and how great and awesome their developers are. They do self-praise all 
the time.


The website then sells the product as a perfect thing that has no flaws.

But the stark reality that things are often missing, is then not allowed 
to get 

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Donald Whytock]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 2:38 PM, toki  wrote:

> On 31/08/2016 16:26, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
>
> > The question I am left with is this: If a cousin development provides
> what you want, why are you not satisfied with that?
>
> There are functions and capabilities in AOo that are not in LibO or EO.
> There are functions and capabilities in EO that are not in LibO or AOo.
> There are functions and capabilities in LibO that are not in AOo or EO.
>
> As such, until one of those contains all of the functions and
> capabilities found in the other two, there will always be users whose
> use case will require at least two, if not all three be installed.
>

I can't speak for what power users there may be out there, but I suspect I
personally am much more likely to pick one and then defend my decision to
the death, even if it means adjusting my usage pattern to fit.  My criteria
may be financial, or functional, or even socio-political, but whichever it
is, it's enough of an effort to change my word processor AND my mind that
it's not likely to happen on a casual basis, much less a day-to-day one.

Don

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[toki]

On 31/08/2016 16:26, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:

> The question I am left with is this: If a cousin development provides what 
> you want, why are you not satisfied with that?

There are functions and capabilities in AOo that are not in LibO or EO.
There are functions and capabilities in EO that are not in LibO or AOo.
There are functions and capabilities in LibO that are not in AOo or EO.

As such, until one of those contains all of the functions and
capabilities found in the other two, there will always be users whose
use case will require at least two, if not all three be installed.

jonathon

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

RE: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

> -Original Message-
> From: Απόστολος Συρόπουλος [mailto:asyropoulos...@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, August 6, 2016 12:36
> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
> Subject: ΑΠ: Merge with LibreOffice?
> 
> 
> >> Greetings, dear AOO community.
> >>
> >> Please note first that this message is not supposed to be flaimbait
> or
> >> trolling of any kind.
> >
> >It is. Have a nice day.
> 
> Well it is not! I am Solaris user and sometime ago I tried to compile
> OpenOffice, when
> in fact it should compile on Solaris out-of-the-box... I asked the core
> developers
> to drop support for SunStudio since it assumes one compiles with a
> version that
> shipped with Solaris 9 (the current version of Solaris is 11 and Solaris
> 9 was eoled a
> few years ago...) and it does not compile even with recent versions of
> SunStudio.
> And when I managed to compile everything, I had noticed that OpenOffice
> could
> not open docx and othe zipped document formats. The people of
> LibreOffice
> asked me to incorporate my patches to their source tree (I had of course
> no
> objection). Now LibreOffice compiles just fine under Solaris and there
> are packages
> for all variants of Solaris including the Open version. In a nutshell,
> some people
> listen and care about any user while some others just don't give a
> dime...
> 
> Regards,
> A.S.
[orcmid] 

The Apache OpenOffice project does not have the capacity for what you are able 
to find elsewhere.

As you know, the Apache OpenOffice project has never provided a Solaris 
distribution, although there were folks who managed to build one themselves.

The same goes for OS/2, although OS/2 patches are contributed back upstream.

There are probably other efforts that we simply don't know about.

The question I am left with is this: If a cousin development provides what you 
want, why are you not satisfied with that?

 - Dennis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -
> 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

ΑΠ: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Απόστολος Συρόπουλος]

>> Greetings, dear AOO community.
>>
>> Please note first that this message is not supposed to be flaimbait or
>> trolling of any kind.
>
>It is. Have a nice day.

Well it is not! I am Solaris user and sometime ago I tried to compile 
OpenOffice, when
in fact it should compile on Solaris out-of-the-box... I asked the core 
developers
to drop support for SunStudio since it assumes one compiles with a version that
shipped with Solaris 9 (the current version of Solaris is 11 and Solaris 9 was 
eoled a
few years ago...) and it does not compile even with recent versions of 
SunStudio.
And when I managed to compile everything, I had noticed that OpenOffice could
not open docx and othe zipped document formats. The people of LibreOffice
asked me to incorporate my patches to their source tree (I had of course no
objection). Now LibreOffice compiles just fine under Solaris and there are 
packages
for all variants of Solaris including the Open version. In a nutshell, some 
people
listen and care about any user while some others just don't give a dime...

Regards,
A.S.

  


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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Fernando Cassia]

On 8/3/16, Christoph Reg  wrote:
> Greetings, dear AOO community.
>
> Please note first that this message is not supposed to be flaimbait or
> trolling of any kind.

It is. Have a nice day.

FC

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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[toki]

On 03/08/2016 19:22, Phillip Rhodes wrote:

> Personally I think it would be ideal if the two projects could/would freely
> share code, but due to the license conflict, AOO can't reuse code
> from LO unless the author(s) is/are willing to also license it 

At this stage, there are enough differences between the two, that code
submitted to one of the projects usually has to be rewritten for other
project, which is usually fairly trivial.

I have not yet done my August "examine new extensions". In July, there
were roughly half a dozen extensions for LibO that were not installable
in AOo, with another half a dozen or so that were not testable, because
they were Windows only.

As far as templates go, there are two or three for LibO, that won't
function with AOo. (Mainly Calc. Major issue is column constraints in
AOo.) I'm not aware of any AOo templates that won't function with LibO.

jonathon


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

RE: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

> -Original Message-
> From: Howard Morris (aka Col Boogie)
> [mailto:howard_cary_mor...@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 3, 2016 14:49
> To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Merge with LibreOffice?
> 
> Hi all,
> From what I can tell, the 2 groups can (and are?) borrowing from
> each other. I prefer its free and open concept. However, seeing some
> other recent emails and some concerns of my own, I think we can make it
> easier for new developers by doing the following:
[orcmid] 

I am not aware of much being borrowed from LibreOffice for Apache OpenOffice, 
but perhaps I am not paying attention.  I do know that the security teams 
cooperate because that is of mutual interest for the safety of all our users.  
A principle under which the Apache Software Foundation projects operate is that 
work from other projects must be willingly contributed by someone with the 
authority to do so.  It is not OK for AOO developers and other contributors to 
AOO to simply go out and harvest material from other projects, even were the 
other licenses compatible for use in an ASF Project.

>   1.. Copying all source code into a zip file, to get all the code just
> copy that one file.
[orcmid] 

The complete source code of any release is always available in a variety of 
archive formats.  To find source for Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2, go to
<https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html>
And click on the right sidebar link "Alternative download link (source)" under 
"Additional Resources".

>   2.. Make a zip file containing descriptions of all source code. It
> also needs overview modules how certain modules work together.
>   3.. Make a zip file containing instructions how to do complies, put
> everything together, check out modules, etc.
[orcmid] 

Currently, documentation is distributed across two wikis and a web site.  
Although there are ways to create zip files of web pages, the current efforts 
use tools, services, and organizations that are not easily captured in sets of 
static web pages.  However, there is a great opportunity for volunteers to work 
on slowly building-out and also finding ways to capture/export improved 
documentation at all levels.

>   4.. For Open Office Site, add module that lets people check out/in
> modules and tell others what they are working on. Of course, there has
> to be a companion transactions that allows people to see what is going
> on. There also needs some kind of security to keep people from trashing
> the site.
[orcmid] 

This is related to how Apache OpenOffice contribution governance is handled.  
This is done by Subversion and it permits check-out at the levels you suggest.  
However, the means of contributing source code is in accordance with Apache 
Software Foundation requirements for operation of projects.  Project governance 
is covered in materials on the <http://apache.org> pages.  All operations 
against the code base are recoverable.

> If it were me, I’d break down the code into independent modules. For
> Writer, that may mean don’t load the math, table, picture (frame), etc.
> module until there is a need for it.
[orcmid] 

Dynamically-loaded shared libraries are used throughout OpenOffice, although 
there might be more that could be done architecturally.  That is something to 
look into but don't expect serious refactoring in any kind of short time span, 
if ever.

> 
> Howard


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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Chuck Davis]

Then there is the usability issue

LO have been attempting to copy MS Office and have succeeded to the point
that in many ways it is as annoying as MS Office.

AOO, on the other hand, have maintained usability features that, in my
opinion, simply make it a better user experience.

They may have more commits but those commits are, in many instances, taking
them in the wrong direction.

That's my $.02.

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Howard Morris (aka Col Boogie)]

Hi all,
From what I can tell, the 2 groups can (and are?) borrowing from each 
other. I prefer its free and open concept. However, seeing some other recent 
emails and some concerns of my own, I think we can make it easier for new 
developers by doing the following:
  1.. Copying all source code into a zip file, to get all the code just copy 
that one file. 
  2.. Make a zip file containing descriptions of all source code. It also needs 
overview modules how certain modules work together. 
  3.. Make a zip file containing instructions how to do complies, put 
everything together, check out modules, etc. 
  4.. For Open Office Site, add module that lets people check out/in modules 
and tell others what they are working on. Of course, there has to be a 
companion transactions that allows people to see what is going on. There also 
needs some kind of security to keep people from trashing the site.
If it were me, I’d break down the code into independent modules. For Writer, 
that may mean don’t load the math, table, picture (frame), etc. module until 
there is a need for it.

Howard

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Pedro Giffuni]

On Aug 3, 2016 10:00 AM, "Christoph Reg"  wrote:
> Regardless of why or how,
> when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won. Hands down.
> LO gets more commits in one or two days than AOO had since the
> beginning of the year.

The second part of the claim is probably true, but the first part of the 
claim is totally irrelevant, in the sense that this is not
really a competition. I don't think anyone of us here in AOO has any 
desire to "beat" another opensource project and at least I don't

really make money from OpenOffice.

> Are there any reasons why [merging AOO and LO] is not feasible?

That's something I have personally never considered. What would
"merging" mean? from the rest of the posting, I guess that would
mean closing the Apache project (we can't assign the name "Apache 
OpenOffice" to something we don't develop) and conceding the

good will to LibreOffice.

They are evidently still finding value from our patches ... in fact,
I have been spammed by member of the Document Foundation, which I
thought knew better, about my "contributions", so I guess stopping
my development would hurt them in some way.

I personally don't find their development methodology or their community 
attractive. I have never used LO, but if their project

has advanced so much, why would the need us to shut down?

Pedro.

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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Dr. Michael Stehmann]

I think your question is valid.

The situation of Free Officesuites is worrying; not only for Apache
OpenOffice, but also for LibreOffice.

Apache OpenOffice has crossed a deep valley, but it goes slowly upwards
now from a very low level.

I don't want to talk about the situation at LO, but my impression is,
that it looks better, than it really is.

So a good and fair collaboration between the two projects would be wise.

But it isn't possible, as long as one party claims, that the other party
has to declare to be dead.

A reunion of the two projects is also not possible yet.

One reason is the deep disappointment people feel.

But there are also some more objective reasons, for example different
release philosophies, different opinions about the transference of
rights to the entity of the project etc.

One more reason is, that some people are votaries of licences with
copyleft and others of licences without any copyleft.

So the question is valid, but the answer is: Not yet.

Kind regards
Michael




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Phillip Rhodes]

This isn't a competition to be "won" or "lost".  AOO and LO aren't really
competing.
AOO is for people who want an awesome office suite that's licensed under
a permissive license.  LO is for people who want the same under a copyleft
license.   Two different audiences, two different projects.

Personally I think it would be ideal if the two projects could/would freely
share code, but due to the license conflict, AOO can't reuse code
from LO unless the author(s) is/are willing to also license it under the
ALv2.  My understanding is that most LO contributors aren't willing to do
so.
OTOH, they can freely use contributions made to AOO, which is a slight
advantage to them.

All of that said, I wish people would just forget the bickering between the
two
projects, and try to find ways to work together cooperatively.  Personally
I don't give
 two shits about the history of LO/AOO, the fork, any controversy involving
Sun, Oracle, StarOffice, etc.  I just want awesome F/OSS software.  And
as far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.


Phil


This message optimized for indexing by NSA PRISM

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Wolf Halton  wrote:

> I think OpenOffice has the larger install base even if LO has much of the
> Linux desktop distro installs.
> AOO is still attracting developers and other project members.
> There may be a finite audience for office suites, but it is a very large
> audience.
>
> Wolf Halton
> Mobile/Text 678-687-6104
>
> --
> Sent from my iPhone. Creative word completion courtesy of Apple, Inc.
>
> > On Aug 3, 2016, at 14:02, Jörg Schmidt  wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> >> Regardless of why or how,
> >> when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won.
> >
> > LO is only a fork. OO is the original and will always be the original.
> That's the fact.
> >
> >> What are your views on this?
> >
> > LO is the fork, not OpenOffice.
> >
> > We should never forget how members of TDF have members of Apache
> OpenOffice attacked with words. We should never forget what lies were
> spread about OpenOffice so that LO is better off.
> >
> >
> >
> > Gretings.
> > Jörg
> >
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> >
>

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Wolf Halton]

I think OpenOffice has the larger install base even if LO has much of the Linux 
desktop distro installs. 
AOO is still attracting developers and other project members. 
There may be a finite audience for office suites, but it is a very large 
audience. 

Wolf Halton
Mobile/Text 678-687-6104

--
Sent from my iPhone. Creative word completion courtesy of Apple, Inc. 

> On Aug 3, 2016, at 14:02, Jörg Schmidt  wrote:
> 
> Hello, 
> 
>> Regardless of why or how,
>> when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won.
> 
> LO is only a fork. OO is the original and will always be the original. That's 
> the fact.
> 
>> What are your views on this?
> 
> LO is the fork, not OpenOffice.
> 
> We should never forget how members of TDF have members of Apache OpenOffice 
> attacked with words. We should never forget what lies were spread about 
> OpenOffice so that LO is better off.
> 
> 
> 
> Gretings.
> Jörg
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
> 

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Jörg Schmidt]

Hello, 

> Regardless of why or how,
> when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won. 

LO is only a fork. OO is the original and will always be the original. That's 
the fact.

> What are your views on this?

LO is the fork, not OpenOffice.

We should never forget how members of TDF have members of Apache OpenOffice 
attacked with words. We should never forget what lies were spread about 
OpenOffice so that LO is better off.



Gretings.
Jörg


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

Re: Merge with LibreOffice?

[Javen O'Neal]

On Aug 3, 2016 10:00 AM, "Christoph Reg"  wrote:
> Regardless of why or how,
> when it comes to development, it's clear that LO has won. Hands down.
> LO gets more commits in one or two days than AOO had since the beginning
of
> the year.

> Are there any reasons why [merging AOO and LO] is not feasible?

I'll take a guess here:
1) Prevalence. LibreOffice has been the default office productivity suite
in Ubuntu for a while. This has had some downstream effects [1] on
popularity.
2) Licensing. Apache OpenOffice is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
LibreOffice is licensed under Mozilla Public License 2.0, GNU LGPL v3+, and
is based on code from Apache Open Offfice (ASL 2.0-licensed). Since
contributions to LibreOffice are not compatible with the ASL 2.0 license,
they cannot be committed upstream to Apache OpenOffice. This is partially
responsible for the asymmetry in commits that you have observed.
Adding a license to either project or requiring contributions to be
licensed differently also poses problems, since this may affect upstream
and downstream projects, and prior contributions would need to be
relicensed (which may require obtaining approval from every past
contributor, many of whom are not reachable). The effort required to
resolve these legal challenges is massive, and I'd rather that effort be
spent on software improvement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#History