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When it is in a proprietary codebase it can potentially be contributed back. Once it is in GPL it is tainted and while similarly to a corporate codebase the ori

When it is in a proprietary codebase it can potentially be contributed back. Once it is in GPL it is tainted and while similarly to a corporate codebase the original contributer could give a BSD licenced patch back to the BSD project, it diverts other open source contributors away from the original project. Look at OpenOffice compared to LibreOffice, for an example of this. If there wasn't a GPL version the community would have rallied around the Apache version.

bkor 10y ago
> Look at OpenOffice compared to LibreOffice, for an example of this. If there wasn't a GPL version the community would have rallied around the Apache version. OpenOffice not working at all is not due to the license, at all. OpenOffice didn't work for a long time. Distributions have always added a huge patch to make it work nicely for them. There's been calls for ages to change things and not much was done with it. Eventually they started LibreOffice and focussed on making it easy to contribute. In above, nothing is about the license!!
igk 10y ago
Sorry if I'm wrong, but wasn't libre office partially started because OpenOffice stagnated?
- josefx 10y ago
  The first release of Apache Open Office was 2012, almost a year after LibreOffice. Open Office itself stagnated while still dual licensed under Suns proprietary license and LGPL. I think one of the complaints was that they took too long to merge patches by contributors.
jordigh 10y ago
OpenOffice removed a bunch of GPLed code. As a result, it just does less than LibreOffice. Why work on a less functional codebase? I don't know if that's the reason why it didn't pick up, but generally I think of code that goes to the Apache Foundation as going there to die. The foundation seems to receive abandoned code that nobody wants to maintain.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Nursie 10y ago
OpenOffice was a dying project. Sun had been fairly unresponsive to the community and unwilling to fold in community changes. When Oracle bought them it got worse still. Projects like Go-OO started up, which wasn't so much a fork as a patch-set. OpenOffice was looking sad and it looked a lot like the best known FOSS suite was doomed to splinter and die. Then LibreOffice was started to sort this all out. A real fork, a new name, it folded in Go-OO and other community improvements and committed to proper governance, addressing technical debt etc. A year or so later, Oracle 'gifted' the stunted and now somewhat left behind OO.o to the Apache project. A few corporates got behind it, but it had no community traction, and any small improvements that did get rolled in were very quickly adopted by LO, where flow the other way was almost non-existant. This is not really a story of licensing as much as it is community mismanagement by Sun, and active hostility from Oracle.

bkor 10y ago

> Look at OpenOffice compared to LibreOffice, for an example of this. If there wasn't a GPL version the community would have rallied around the Apache version. OpenOffice not working at all is not due to the license, at all. OpenOffice didn't work for a long time. Distributions have always added a huge patch to make it work nicely for them. There's been calls for ages to change things and not much was done with it. Eventually they started LibreOffice and focussed on making it easy to contribute. In above, nothing is about the license!!

igk 10y ago

Sorry if I'm wrong, but wasn't libre office partially started because OpenOffice stagnated?

josefx 10y ago
The first release of Apache Open Office was 2012, almost a year after LibreOffice. Open Office itself stagnated while still dual licensed under Suns proprietary license and LGPL. I think one of the complaints was that they took too long to merge patches by contributors.

jordigh 10y ago

OpenOffice removed a bunch of GPLed code. As a result, it just does less than LibreOffice. Why work on a less functional codebase? I don't know if that's the reason why it didn't pick up, but generally I think of code that goes to the Apache Foundation as going there to die. The foundation seems to receive abandoned code that nobody wants to maintain.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Nursie 10y ago

OpenOffice was a dying project. Sun had been fairly unresponsive to the community and unwilling to fold in community changes. When Oracle bought them it got worse still. Projects like Go-OO started up, which wasn't so much a fork as a patch-set. OpenOffice was looking sad and it looked a lot like the best known FOSS suite was doomed to splinter and die. Then LibreOffice was started to sort this all out. A real fork, a new name, it folded in Go-OO and other community improvements and committed to proper governance, addressing technical debt etc. A year or so later, Oracle 'gifted' the stunted and now somewhat left behind OO.o to the Apache project. A few corporates got behind it, but it had no community traction, and any small improvements that did get rolled in were very quickly adopted by LO, where flow the other way was almost non-existant. This is not really a story of licensing as much as it is community mismanagement by Sun, and active hostility from Oracle.