Some developers prefer copyleft licenses (like GPL, LGPL, MPL) over more permissive licenses (like Apache, BSD or MIT).Mr.Dandy wrote:+1RusselB wrote:Getting back to the original topic
LibreOffice can get OpenOffice code because Apache license is permissive. But the reverse is not possible with copyleft.
Why all developers don't published under AL?
Some developers prefer TDF over the Apache Foundation.
Some developers don't really care about license, but don't want to help a fork (often seen as hostile).
Apache Foundation got the brand of OpenOffice nine months after the LibreOffice fork. Why would people at TDF, who had decided to fly by their own means, would join another foundation who had no relation with them before?
And by the way, LibreOffice is a free software. The Apache Foundation can take the code of LibreOffice, fork it and improve it if they want to. They can. Everyone can. And everyone can mix the LibreOffice code with some other code under Apache license. But the Apache Foundation don't want to, for their goal is to publish software under Apache license only. That's a respectable choice, but that's their choice to forbid themselves to use copyleft code.
At the moment, the AOO devs are driven by what...? will of revenge? bitterness? pride?... Who knows? And it's a great success. The damage to the free office ecosystem is huge. LibreOffice is striving to be known. When they are known, users don't really understand why there are two similar but slightly different free office suites and a gap between communities. They don't understand why there are some incompatibilities between the both. It seems amateurish and they don't know what office suite to trust the most.
This situation may go on for a long time. The only thing that AOO devs need to do is to keep publishing sometimes a small update of AOO.
There has already been calls to end this situation, but AOO devs have no interest to do so. Only the Apache leaders, who hold the OpenOffice brand, can. Are they aware of the situation? Do they care? Do they approve AOO devs goals? I'd like to know.