Re: Merge with LibreOffice?
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?
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?
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 out
Re: Merge with LibreOffice?
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?
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?
> -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
Re: Merge with LibreOffice?
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?
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?
> -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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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