Forking
Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 9:23 pm
I know the go-oo community seems to have downplayed the term fork and their seperate repository, but between go-oo, OxygenOffice, Symphony, and NeoOffice, I'm curious how Sun and the OOo community is going to respond and move forward.
As I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the major issue with many of these projects is that Sun insists on owning the copyright for all code in OOo, which discourages many from submitting code upstream. This is useful to Sun no doubt in that it allows them to include that code in StarOffice, as well has relicense the code if need be. However, I was under the impression that they'd be able to include the code in StarOffice no matter what, as the code is GPLed. Is there any real reason why Sun must own the copyright on all contributions, and can a compromise be proposed that would address Sun's needs while also encouraging community contributions?
Symphony is largely a different beast, but I'd love to see go-oo, OxygenOffice and NeoOffice fold back into the primary OOo tree. NeoOffice's improvements for Mac OS X versions should no doubt be part of mainline OOo, and at the sametime NeoOffice users would benefit in many ways by folding back into trunk. 1 - They wouldn't wait for releases, as NeoOffice releases no doubt are predicated on waiting for OOo releases and then modifying them. 2 - They'd gain features from go-oo, OxygenOffice, etc. by everyone coming together. Converesly, go-oo would gain Mac OS X versions, etc.
IBM and Sun are two industry giants trying to capture market share from Microsoft. IBM is now a supporter of OpenOffice, even though they are releasing a competing, proprietary product. I'd contend that Lotus has a stronger brand identity than StarOffice, and in a perfect world, I'd love to see Symphony merge with StarOffice/OpenOffice. Many of the UI improvements could/should go into the OOo trunk for everyone to use. Symphony gains the other apps/modules of OpenOffice, as well as the latest 3.0 codebase, docx support, etc. The combined Symphony/StarOffice product becomes a commercial product that Sun and IBM could both sell, with full suppport for the proprietary Lotus formats.
Doesn't this just seem like a win-win? Doesn't this all make just a little too much sense not to happen? All these competing projects aren't just dividing developers, users, and causing feature fragmentation. They are also weaking the mindshare and brand indentity by confusing users. I firmly believe the best way to compete with the extremely dominant Microsoft products is to unite in brand identity and function.
This may not be the best forum to reach the appropriate parties, but I'd love to start a discussion on the issue, flesh out ideas, and then attempt to contact the appropriate parties with those ideas.
As I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the major issue with many of these projects is that Sun insists on owning the copyright for all code in OOo, which discourages many from submitting code upstream. This is useful to Sun no doubt in that it allows them to include that code in StarOffice, as well has relicense the code if need be. However, I was under the impression that they'd be able to include the code in StarOffice no matter what, as the code is GPLed. Is there any real reason why Sun must own the copyright on all contributions, and can a compromise be proposed that would address Sun's needs while also encouraging community contributions?
Symphony is largely a different beast, but I'd love to see go-oo, OxygenOffice and NeoOffice fold back into the primary OOo tree. NeoOffice's improvements for Mac OS X versions should no doubt be part of mainline OOo, and at the sametime NeoOffice users would benefit in many ways by folding back into trunk. 1 - They wouldn't wait for releases, as NeoOffice releases no doubt are predicated on waiting for OOo releases and then modifying them. 2 - They'd gain features from go-oo, OxygenOffice, etc. by everyone coming together. Converesly, go-oo would gain Mac OS X versions, etc.
IBM and Sun are two industry giants trying to capture market share from Microsoft. IBM is now a supporter of OpenOffice, even though they are releasing a competing, proprietary product. I'd contend that Lotus has a stronger brand identity than StarOffice, and in a perfect world, I'd love to see Symphony merge with StarOffice/OpenOffice. Many of the UI improvements could/should go into the OOo trunk for everyone to use. Symphony gains the other apps/modules of OpenOffice, as well as the latest 3.0 codebase, docx support, etc. The combined Symphony/StarOffice product becomes a commercial product that Sun and IBM could both sell, with full suppport for the proprietary Lotus formats.
Doesn't this just seem like a win-win? Doesn't this all make just a little too much sense not to happen? All these competing projects aren't just dividing developers, users, and causing feature fragmentation. They are also weaking the mindshare and brand indentity by confusing users. I firmly believe the best way to compete with the extremely dominant Microsoft products is to unite in brand identity and function.
This may not be the best forum to reach the appropriate parties, but I'd love to start a discussion on the issue, flesh out ideas, and then attempt to contact the appropriate parties with those ideas.