John Jason Jordan wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:57:12 -0600
Girard Aquino <[email protected]> dijo:

and would OOo development cease then?

I have never completely grasped the ownership of OOo. I know it was
originally developed by a German company, bought by Sun, and then
somehow it became a free download. And regular programmers who have
nothing to do with Sun contribute code. And support is also provided by
the community. Yet Sun sells a StarOffice package that is, if I
understand correctly, basically OOo with some proprietary enhancements
and corporate support.

So if IBM buys Sun, can it then declare that OOo will no longer be
free? I'm not saying they would, I'm just curious about who has the
rights to it.

Sun released the code under the GPL. That's irrevocable. The worst that could happen is that IBM/Sun might cease to contribute to and support the code.

See  http://www.openoffice.org/license.html

Last updated: 2008-03

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