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What's next for Apache OpenOffice

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Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#11

Post by mindcrime »

Grishnakh wrote: post #4
mindcrime wrote: post #3

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributor to AOO, albeit one who has not been as active as I should have been in the past. Which makes me part of the problem. But that aside... Rumors of the demise of AOO are very premature. Some internal speculation aside, there's no particular reason to think the project will be shut down. Yes, the ASF board wants to see certain things happen, but none of them are thin…

>We're starting a new, more focused recruiting effort to recruit developers to the cause. Perhaps you yourself have given some thought to working on an OSS office suite? Why would I want to waste my time working on a has-been office suite when I can work on the leading FOSS office suite, which is LibreOffice? Why would I want to commit my time to a project that seems to only seems to exist because of a licensing disp…

Ultimately, if you don't want to work on AOO, there's probably not much I can say to convince you. And that's fine. No hard feelings. So the rest of this really isn't even for you, it's for other people who are reading and who don't already have their minds made up:

Why would I want to waste my time working on a has-been office suite when I can work on the leading FOSS office suite, which is LibreOffice?

Because you like competition and you want to knock that "leading FOSS office suite" off its perch.

Why would I want to commit my time to a project that seems to only seems to exist because of a licensing dispute?

1. The license thing does matter, because it's easier for other projects to incorporate patches that are licensed under the ALv2. And even where that's not actually true, it is the perception. In either case, I'd posit that contributions to AOO stand to benefit everybody, whether they're using AOO, LO or something else.

2. The Apache Way. Some people will just find that they enjoy the style of collaboration that results from the way Apache projects operate. It won't be for everybody, and it's probably a minor point, but it matters to some people.

3. Everybody loves an underdog and here's your chance to be a hero. Contribute to other projects and you're "Just another person who contributed some patches". Help AOO (especially right now) and you get a chance to feel like you're really making a difference.

Why would I want to join a chronically understaffed project when I could instead join its competitor, which has far more development support?

You can probably have more impact working on AOO. There's more room to influence major technical decisions exactly because there aren't as many active developers. Want to radically re-invent how office suites work and create something truly novel? There's probably more opportunity to to that within the AOO project than others.

Why would I want to join a project which all major Linux distros have abandoned, when I could instead join its competitor, which all major Linux distros have switched to?

Meh... I don't see how that matters for anything. Why should someone else's decisions influence what you decide to work on?

I'm sorry, I haven't seen any good answers to these questions at all.

And truth be told, that's at least in part because we haven't spent a lot of time trying to come up with answers to them. We've been content to just accept that some people will want to work on AOO for their own reasons, and others will prefer to work on other projects for their reasons. We'll see if that changes in the future. I just started a thread on the AOO dev list trying to provoke some discussion around this very topic.

Working on a FOSS project that is popular and stands a chance of becoming even more popular among non-techies is laudable.

Yes, that's why we do it. :-)

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#12

Post by ZenoArrow »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I think the answer to the headline is "sadness." but the situation is important to understand on two levels, both from technical level and from a governance level. In my experience, understanding governance is not something that comes easily to engineers. This project however provides a textbook example of the forces involved. Governance, or the right to set direction, can be imposed if the governed are prevented fro…

> "There doesn't exist any sort of neutral arbitration board that would allow troublesome developers who were out of sync with the governed to be removed from the project."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the problems with OO.org started/accelerated when Oracle bought Sun. If that's the case, how are you meant to kick out the owners of the project? Forks are an effective defense mechanism against problems at the core of a project.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#13

Post by mindcrime »

geofft wrote: post #8
mindcrime wrote: post #3

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributor to AOO, albeit one who has not been as active as I should have been in the past. Which makes me part of the problem. But that aside... Rumors of the demise of AOO are very premature. Some internal speculation aside, there's no particular reason to think the project will be shut down. Yes, the ASF board wants to see certain things happen, but none of them are thin…

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other? (I'll admit I am not very likely to contribute to either, but if I do I'll probably contribute to what my Linux distro uses)

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other?

For me personally, it is a combination of preference for the Apache License, familiarity with the ASF (from being involved in other projects) and a general comfort level with how the ASF works. That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#14

Post by jimjag »

It is a shame that the article is behind a paywall; it sounds as if it is a very well balanced article.

There seems to have been many things that people forgot about when following the previous thread (https://lwn.net/Articles/699047/ and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411747), which I hope to relate here:

1. The whole issue was an open and honest DISCUSSION. Many people took this as an indication that AOO was dead. I fear that my own response to Dennis' post on-list went a bit too far in reinforcing that (mis)belief but the lack of (perceived) developer energy was the basis for the whole discussion. Dennis did not say "AOO is dead, what should we do" but rather that the AOO community should discuss, as a contingency plan what a retirement would look like.

I may plan or discuss my funeral (or final wishes), but that does not mean I am dead or dying. :-)

But think about this: what other project would be so open and candid? Such openness, and the true appreciation that discussion be done in public is a core part of the Apache Way. It's also a core part of what open source work.

2. Because of this "publicity", the AOO has been overwhelmed by lots and lots of offers of support, which have been graciously and thankfully accepted.

3. People have also forgotten that choices, even in FOSS, are a Good Thing. LibreOffice is very successful, and they should be congratulated for their success. But certainly there is room for other players in this game, and certainly room for one (or more) that are under a permissive license. The thing is is that they don't have to be clones; they can have different audiences, different "missions" so-to-speak.

4. It is sad when we in the FOSS community degrade ourselves to simple, base license-wars. There are good, solid reasons for permissive, weak copyleft and strong copyleft, and I've contributed to them all.

IMO, what's next for Apache OpenOffice is what the Apache OpenOffice community decides; it sounds as if this whole kerflunkle has served as a kick-in-the-arse to the AOO team: they see how important AOO still is to numerous people, and they have loads of new volunteers offering to help. A 4.1.3 release is forthcoming so that is good news and a step in the right direction.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#15

Post by ZenoArrow »

mindcrime wrote: post #13
geofft wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other? (I'll admit I am not very likely to contribute to either, but if I do I'll probably contribute to what my Linux distro uses)

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other? For me personally, it is a combination of preference for the Apache License, familiarity with the ASF (from being involved in other projects) and a general comfort level with how the ASF works. That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner.

> "That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner."

Dude, I get it, I really do, and if that's what you want to spend your free time on you should feel good about aiming to do the right thing.

However, I can't help but feel we're missing out the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the room.

If you want to compete with the perceived front runner, there's only one office suite that is fit to have that title, and it's name is not LibreOffice. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

The gap between the real front runner and the open source alternatives is pretty sizeable. If you're serious about wanting to compete with the perceived front runner, why not look at a AOO/LO merger? Are the project governance approaches really that different? Are the goals really that different? Why not accelerate the growth of open-source office suites rather than having two projects competing for developers? The OpenOffice name still has value, perhaps the ASF approach to project governance will be preferred too, why not bring everyone in under the same banner?

The whole situation reminds me of the Amiga vs Atari wars of the late 80s/early 90s, competing over the same home computing niche whilst the PC slowly ate their lunch. Please don't let history repeat itself. Look beyond the open source world, your main competitor does not live within it.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#16

Post by ploxiln »

mindcrime wrote: post #3

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributor to AOO, albeit one who has not been as active as I should have been in the past. Which makes me part of the problem. But that aside... Rumors of the demise of AOO are very premature. Some internal speculation aside, there's no particular reason to think the project will be shut down. Yes, the ASF board wants to see certain things happen, but none of them are thin…

AOO IS NOT MAINTAINED. It can't do builds, it can't make releases. It can't apply a security bug fix and build a release within 9 months. For an office suite, that's not OK.

LO is where all the active OpenOffice developers went to, LO is the continuation of OO.o.

AOO is an old and unmaintained snapshot of OpenOffice, with an apparently long-broken release build process.

I don't think there should be just one office suite, or even just one open source office suite, and I don't think everyone should just use the one with the most features. Not at all. But the AOO situation is just tricking people unfamiliar with it, to use the OO.o from 3 years ago instead of the OO.o with security and other fixes, and updates for compatibility with new operating systems (and new features which may or may not be desired).

If you hate LO developers or project, maybe you have some good reasons, and you should be able to work on a competitor based on whatever open-source code base you want. But the right thing to do at this point is abandon the "OpenOffice" name. Random people looking for "OpenOffice" need to be confronted with the fact that there are now two forks, LibreOffice and something else. And, at least for today, they should definitely choose LibreOffice.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#17

Post by polaic_lake »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #15
mindcrime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other? For me personally, it is a combination of preference for the Apache License, familiarity with the ASF (from being involved in other projects) and a general comfort level with how the ASF works. That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner.

> "That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner." Dude, I get it, I really do, and if that's what you want to spend your free time on you should feel good about aiming to do the right thing. However, I can't help but feel we're missing out the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the room. If you want to compete with the perceived front runner, there's only one o…

At least some on both sides of the LibreOffice/OpenOffice split hate each other with the heat of 10,000 suns. There will be no reconciliation.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#18

Post by mindcrime »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #15
mindcrime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you contribute to AOO and not LO? On what basis should one decide to contribute to one or the other? For me personally, it is a combination of preference for the Apache License, familiarity with the ASF (from being involved in other projects) and a general comfort level with how the ASF works. That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner.

> "That and a little bit of wanting to support the underdog, and compete with the perceived front-runner." Dude, I get it, I really do, and if that's what you want to spend your free time on you should feel good about aiming to do the right thing. However, I can't help but feel we're missing out the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the room. If you want to compete with the perceived front runner, there's only one o…

If there was a viable path forward to a (re)-merger of AOO and LO, I'd be totally fine with it. But I've heard enough rhetoric from both sides that I've essentially quit believing such a thing could ever happen. But hey, miracles do happen now and again.

In the mean-time, MS Office isn't even part of my consciousness. But I'm a pretty rabid FOSS ideologue who has used Linux and FOSS office suites as his primary desktop environment since about 2002. So I'm a little out of the mainstream, you could say...

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#19

Post by mindcrime »

ploxiln wrote: post #16
mindcrime wrote: post #3

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributor to AOO, albeit one who has not been as active as I should have been in the past. Which makes me part of the problem. But that aside... Rumors of the demise of AOO are very premature. Some internal speculation aside, there's no particular reason to think the project will be shut down. Yes, the ASF board wants to see certain things happen, but none of them are thin…

AOO IS NOT MAINTAINED. It can't do builds, it can't make releases. It can't apply a security bug fix and build a release within 9 months. For an office suite, that's not OK. LO is where all the active OpenOffice developers went to, LO is the continuation of OO.o. AOO is an old and unmaintained snapshot of OpenOffice, with an apparently long-broken release build process. I don't think there should be just one office s…

it can't make releases.

We're working on a 4.1.3 release right now.

Yes, the project has had its issues, yes there's been adversity. But we'll fight through it and come out better in the end.

Re: What's next for Apache OpenOffice

#20

Post by cesarb »

jimjag wrote: post #14

It is a shame that the article is behind a paywall; it sounds as if it is a very well balanced article. There seems to have been many things that people forgot about when following the previous thread ( https://lwn.net/Articles/699047/ and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411747 ), which I hope to relate here: 1. The whole issue was an open and honest DISCUSSION. Many people took this as an indication that AOO…

> It is a shame that the article is behind a paywall; it sounds as if it is a very well balanced article.

The link I posted is a "SubscriberLink", which bypasses the paywall; see https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks for details. Even without it, the article will be outside the paywall in a little more than one week.

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