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Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

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Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#221

Post by yencabulator »

arp242 wrote: post #199
yrro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day there was real interest in "OpenOffice" among non-geeks. Governments were mandating that documents be published in OpenDocument format. Microsoft sought to muddy the waters by publishing the confusing "Office Open XML" format (which they then never implemented). And then OpenOffice the project just... stopped. No new features, and eventually no new releases. And by squatting on the brand, they prevent…

> which they then never implemented Isn't .docx, .xlsx, etc. all OOXML?

Try interpreting them based on just the published standards, see how far that gets you.

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#222

Post by yencabulator »

saurik wrote: post #34
dale_glass wrote: post #24

Okay, so we've known this is happening for a while. But why though? First, I don't understand what's the ASF's position here. Do they have some political reason to keep kicking this can down the road? Is there money on the line? Is it just somebody refusing to give up? And given the licensing allows, why don't they rebrand LibreOffice, rather than keeping a zombie of a project? Or why don't they just make some sort o…

I believe a key issue is that the license of LibreOffice is copyleft (I believe some mixture of LGPL and MPL) and so the Apache Foundation--which specifically focuses on code that is not copyleft (a focus I personally disagree with, but is at least consistent)--feels something is lost to the world if they truly give up on the one permissively-licensed open source office suite.

Then again, the Apache2-licensed OpenOffice is not lost to the world even if it sits in attic.apache.org. If and when someone wants to maintain it, it can be resurrected.

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#223

Post by [deleted] »

figmert wrote: post #189
ghusto wrote: post #144

Or the committer is making very small changes that are hard too see amongst the massive whitespace changes his auto-formatter makes every time she saves a Latest commit: https://github.com/apache/openoffice/commit/ce48dd1f26396c7a... Can you spot the change? Just because the software doesn't have massive changes (that nobody asked for anyway), doesn't mean it's unmaintained.

Here[0] is that same commit with whitespace changes ignored. I only see changes to comments. [0] https://github.com/apache/openoffice/commit/ce48dd1f26396c7a...

[deleted]

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#224

Post by ptx »

toyg wrote: post #193
ptx wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. The first three criteria of the Open Source Definition [0] are essentially freedoms 1–3 of the Free Software Definition [1] and freedom 0 more or less maps to criteria 5 and 6. The mainstream FOSS licenses (GPL, BSD, Apache2, etc.) are all included both in the official list of open source licenses [2] and the official list of free software licenses [3], so these licenses are both open source licenses…

You can't interpret things like these out of context. OSS as a term was created at a time when free software, as defined by GNU, was effectively becoming the de-facto standard for collaborative efforts on the internet. Yes, MIT and BSD were around (barely, in the BSD case), but the rising star was Linux and Linux (and the software built on it - GTK, gimp, etc) was GPL. The industry needed a way to get on the action w…

Out of context? I provided plenty of context if you care to follow the links I posted.

The distinction between copyleft and non-copyleft licenses, e.g. GPL and BSD, is different from the distinction between open source and free software, which is mainly ideological. The GPL is a copyleft license but also an open source license, as you can see on the OSI website.

For maximum context, here is a quote from the board meeting minutes [0] where the OSI approved the Free Software Foundation's copyleft GPL license as an open source license in accordance with the Open Source Definition: "The Open Source Initiative is pleased to announce that, based on broad review and acceptance by both the Board and the community, it has confirmed that GPLv3 and LGPLv3 both conform to the Open Source Definition."

[0] https://opensource.org/meeting-minutes/minutes20070905/

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#225

Post by arp242 »

tombert wrote: post #203
arp242 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is maintained? That it's not maintained in the way you or I might like isn't the same as "not maintained".

I'd argue that "adding spaces to the readme" is really stretching the definition of the word "maintained". If they're not fixing bugs (particularly security bugs), and if they're not adding new features, what exactly are they "maintaining"?

They claim they do fix security problems though.

And "doesn't really change much" is not a bad thing, it's an okay preference to have. I'd be perfectly happy using Opera 12 from 2012 – "warts and all" – with some minor changes (it actually runs fairly well today, with the major problem being lack of CSS variables, JS template strings, and a few other relatively minor additions).

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#226

Post by falalalala »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #114
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it another way: many startups today have adopted the "Open Core" business model, and it's really more about marketing than actual open-source. "Open Core" means they open-source the core of their product portfolio, core which some enterprising people may use to develop applications on, but for others will really need the buy into the rest of the portfolio to get the best use out of.

I can't really fault companies for using this model. Development is expensive, and business models around open-source are hard. I mean, just look at what Red Hat ends up doing to fend off copycats. Getting people to try your product and also rely on it is a tricky proposition.

What does Debian do?

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#227

Post by AceJohnny2 »

falalalala wrote: post #226
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really fault companies for using this model. Development is expensive, and business models around open-source are hard. I mean, just look at what Red Hat ends up doing to fend off copycats. Getting people to try your product and also rely on it is a tricky proposition.

What does Debian do?

Debian is not a commercial entity. It's a volunteer organization.

In fact there's been quite a bit of vitriol about Canonical (company behind Ubuntu) profiting (for what that's worth) from all the hard work from Debian volunteers and not sharing as much of that value back to Debian as was felt was deserved.

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#228

Post by Tommstein »

yrro wrote: post #69
lbhdc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it? I have used both libreoffice and openoffice, I had no idea openoffice was related to asf until I read your post. I have heard other talk about how people should use libreoffice, but it isn't apparent why.

Back in the day there was real interest in "OpenOffice" among non-geeks. Governments were mandating that documents be published in OpenDocument format. Microsoft sought to muddy the waters by publishing the confusing "Office Open XML" format (which they then never implemented). And then OpenOffice the project just... stopped. No new features, and eventually no new releases. And by squatting on the brand, they prevent…

> Governments were mandating that documents be published in OpenDocument format. Microsoft sought to muddy the waters by publishing the confusing "Office Open XML" format (which they then never implemented).

And don't forget, bought off standardization organizations around the world to have it declared a "standard." I wonder if LibreOffice should come out with a LibreDocument format to combat the confusion between ODF and OOXML and to further distance itself from OpenOffice (and as a middle finger to OpenOffice/Apache for squatting on the brand).

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#229

Post by Tommstein »

einstand wrote: post #217

ASF rules require a report from the PMC at every third month. There reports are written by the Project Membership Committee, and checked by the Board. (I know that they really read them). Board reports (including project reports) are open (with 1-2 month delay, they are published only after approval, at the next Board Meeting). You can find the report of OpenOffice project here: https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minute…

Only skimmed it, but that was some sad reading.

Re: Apache Open Office as an unmaintained project?

#230

Post by travisjungroth »

jointhehorse wrote: post #85
travisjungroth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is a place. Apple is a fruit. Apache is a people. Specifically, a people that had genocide committed against them. It’s at least a little worse.

Worse how? The ASF isn't murdering anyone or saying that mass killings from hundreds of years ago were a good thing. All they did was reuse a name. What's the problem?

I'll take it that you really want the answer to these questions. The Apache are a group of tribes in Southwest. The name comes from Spanish when the Conquistadors invaded. The tribes didn't have a strong group identity. This changed over the next few hundred years.

More than can fit in an HN comment, entire cultures were destroyed. This was through disease, war, imprisonment, and outright repression. "Apache" is an identity that some still hold on to after this genocide. And someone saw this history, thought what these people went through "romantically represented" his web server project, and took on the name.

If you don't see how this is any different from calling your company Apple so you show up ahead of Atari in the phone book, I don't know what to tell you.

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