4 ms·

Conspicuously not mentioned: OpenOffice.

by davidgerard 10y ago

dublinben 10y ago
Or Apache Wave.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  The important point for a report on 2015 is that OpenOffice's six-month security hole was a huge embarrassment, and it had been deliberately kept out of project reports to the board. Jim Jagielski, who was interviewed for this article, was one of the people pushing super-hard for Apache to take OpenOffice in 2011, insisting Apache could maintain a desktop application, then having nothing to say when they utterly failed to. And Matt Asay knows all this! And that's why its absence in a report on Apache in 2015 is conspicuous.
  - jimjag 10y ago
    The success, or failure, of OpenOffice itself says little-to-nothing about the success of the ASF itself. Why OpenOffice was not as successful as hoped is a long and drawn out story, and Apache suffered from the ill-will that the OpenOffice community accumulated over the years, due to mismanagement by Oracle. By the time it was donated to the ASF, maybe it was unwise to think that those dynamics could be changed, but it was worth it to try. Even so, the donation of OpenOffice to Apache, and the subsequent relicensing of that codebase to ALv2 was a MAJOR benefit for the entire OpenOffice eco-system, especially LibreOffice which, as soon as the ASF did the relicensing, consumed those changes to their benefit. Which is one benefit of permissive licenses in general. I would encourage people to look at the (open and public) discussions when the incubation of OpenOffice was debated; I would also encourage people to read the tons of other communications about it as it progressed. Instead of having "nothing to say", as this clueless poster suggests, there is/was a LOT to say, which WAS said, and done so in an open, public, and transparent fashion. Maybe all that is uncomfortable for people to admit, since it goes against their misleading and incorrect narrative to paint the ASF and OpenOffice so negatively, and for this reason it is good when real journalists keep the facts straight.
    - davidgerard 10y ago
      During the discussion of the security hole last year, you conspicuously had plenty of time to comment at length on how unfair it was for people to note Apache's utter inability to maintain a secure desktop application, as did several of Apache OpenOffice's alleged developers. However, neither you nor they apparently had any time to fix the security hole. The fix being, literally: remove one file from the download. Well done.
      - jimjag 10y ago
        The below link as well as the (public) dev@ list clearly show you to be mistaken: https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/OpenOffice.html https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/OpenOffice.html
        davidgerard 10y ago
        That's a mention from October 2015 and April 2016. The absence from board reports was brought to public attention in July 2015, and the October 2015 mention you cite is a direct response to that: https://lwn.net/Articles/650411/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650411/
        jimjag 10y ago
        Please read the thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.apache.openoffice.devel/23907 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.apache.openoffice.devel/2...
        davidgerard 10y ago
        That supplies the background to the LWN piece, and doesn't in any way contradict its assertions that this was a serious problem that should not have been suppressed. That public attention is why it was mentioned at all in the October report.
        10y ago
- davidw 10y ago
  If you don't have a few failures from time to time, you're not trying hard enough. Forget who said that.
  - danellis 10y ago
    A failure, probably.
    - rectang 10y ago
      "If everything you try works, then you are not trying hard enough." Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Huh, i didn't even know that existed.
noir_lord 10y ago
Given the way that LibreOffice has given them an epic beating are you surprised?
- benbristow 10y ago
  Wasn't really their fault. The project was abandoned way before and they just got dumped with it.
  - bronson 10y ago
    Sure it was. If the Apache foundation didn't want the responsibility then they should have said "no."
    - jimjag 10y ago
      Their were real solid reasons behind accepting the donation... even though most did not pan out, just the relicensing ALONE was a major Good Thing for the OpenOffice ecosystem. This allowed for key and provable IP provenance, something that was lacking in LibreOffice, and known/trackable licensing. Even so, bemoaning the ASF for even trying seems very disingenuous and somewhat ignorant of the facts.
    - mindcrime 10y ago
      The ASF doesn't take "responsibility" for projects in that sense. The individual communities do. The ASF exists mainly to provide legal/infrastructure support and to promote a certain approach - "The Apache Way". For the ASF to accept OpenOffice as a project was absolutely The Right Thing to do, and the world is a better place for it, even if LibreOffice is more popular right now.

Conspicuously not mentioned: OpenOffice.

dublinben 10y ago

Or Apache Wave.

davidgerard 10y ago
The important point for a report on 2015 is that OpenOffice's six-month security hole was a huge embarrassment, and it had been deliberately kept out of project reports to the board. Jim Jagielski, who was interviewed for this article, was one of the people pushing super-hard for Apache to take OpenOffice in 2011, insisting Apache could maintain a desktop application, then having nothing to say when they utterly failed to. And Matt Asay knows all this! And that's why its absence in a report on Apache in 2015 is conspicuous.
- jimjag 10y ago
  The success, or failure, of OpenOffice itself says little-to-nothing about the success of the ASF itself. Why OpenOffice was not as successful as hoped is a long and drawn out story, and Apache suffered from the ill-will that the OpenOffice community accumulated over the years, due to mismanagement by Oracle. By the time it was donated to the ASF, maybe it was unwise to think that those dynamics could be changed, but it was worth it to try. Even so, the donation of OpenOffice to Apache, and the subsequent relicensing of that codebase to ALv2 was a MAJOR benefit for the entire OpenOffice eco-system, especially LibreOffice which, as soon as the ASF did the relicensing, consumed those changes to their benefit. Which is one benefit of permissive licenses in general. I would encourage people to look at the (open and public) discussions when the incubation of OpenOffice was debated; I would also encourage people to read the tons of other communications about it as it progressed. Instead of having "nothing to say", as this clueless poster suggests, there is/was a LOT to say, which WAS said, and done so in an open, public, and transparent fashion. Maybe all that is uncomfortable for people to admit, since it goes against their misleading and incorrect narrative to paint the ASF and OpenOffice so negatively, and for this reason it is good when real journalists keep the facts straight.
  - davidgerard 10y ago
    During the discussion of the security hole last year, you conspicuously had plenty of time to comment at length on how unfair it was for people to note Apache's utter inability to maintain a secure desktop application, as did several of Apache OpenOffice's alleged developers. However, neither you nor they apparently had any time to fix the security hole. The fix being, literally: remove one file from the download. Well done.
    - jimjag 10y ago
      The below link as well as the (public) dev@ list clearly show you to be mistaken: https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/OpenOffice.html https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/OpenOffice.html
      - davidgerard 10y ago
        That's a mention from October 2015 and April 2016. The absence from board reports was brought to public attention in July 2015, and the October 2015 mention you cite is a direct response to that: https://lwn.net/Articles/650411/ https://lwn.net/Articles/650411/
        jimjag 10y ago
        Please read the thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.apache.openoffice.devel/23907 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.apache.openoffice.devel/2...
        davidgerard 10y ago
        That supplies the background to the LWN piece, and doesn't in any way contradict its assertions that this was a serious problem that should not have been suppressed. That public attention is why it was mentioned at all in the October report.
        10y ago
davidw 10y ago
If you don't have a few failures from time to time, you're not trying hard enough. Forget who said that.
- danellis 10y ago
  A failure, probably.
  - rectang 10y ago
    "If everything you try works, then you are not trying hard enough." Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
digi_owl 10y ago
Huh, i didn't even know that existed.

noir_lord 10y ago

Given the way that LibreOffice has given them an epic beating are you surprised?

benbristow 10y ago
Wasn't really their fault. The project was abandoned way before and they just got dumped with it.
- bronson 10y ago
  Sure it was. If the Apache foundation didn't want the responsibility then they should have said "no."
  - jimjag 10y ago
    Their were real solid reasons behind accepting the donation... even though most did not pan out, just the relicensing ALONE was a major Good Thing for the OpenOffice ecosystem. This allowed for key and provable IP provenance, something that was lacking in LibreOffice, and known/trackable licensing. Even so, bemoaning the ASF for even trying seems very disingenuous and somewhat ignorant of the facts.
  - mindcrime 10y ago
    The ASF doesn't take "responsibility" for projects in that sense. The individual communities do. The ASF exists mainly to provide legal/infrastructure support and to promote a certain approach - "The Apache Way". For the ASF to accept OpenOffice as a project was absolutely The Right Thing to do, and the world is a better place for it, even if LibreOffice is more popular right now.