4 ms·

In Oracle's fight with open source, the good guys won -- this time

34 points by hanszeir 15y ago

kolektiv 15y ago
It's an interesting take on it, but there's a lot of assumption here - not least of which is that Oracle somehow did this because it was the "right thing" or a "good" thing to do. Indeed that's founded on the assumption that Open Office is/was, to quote "a very viable and free alternative to Microsoft's bloated, way-too-expensive Microsoft Office". I'm not sure I buy that, for various reasons it hasn't been shown to be viable in the market. Even before Oracle pulled the plug-in stunt (which was shoddy, certainly) I don't think Open Office was gaining huge traction outside of occasional companies and people driven by ideology. To me it seems more likely that Oracle couldn't figure out a way to make money out of it and got shot of it in such a way that caused least backlash and left the least possible blame attached or Oracle in future - now the community is solely to blame for any future failings. Just my take of course, but I don't personally feel like "Open Source" has won any fight here - I don't think Oracle would even acknowledge there was a fight.
- abrahamsen 15y ago
  I agree. It seems that all that happened was that OpenOffice.org lost its largest contributor, which should normally not be a source of celebration. It can still become a "win" if the remaining contributors are able to manage the project more efficiently than Sun or Oracle did, and attract enough new contributors to compensate for the loss. But that is far from given.
- fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  Where does he make the assumption that Oracle was trying to do the "right thing"? As I'm reading it, he says that Oracle did it because they were unable to monetize OO and he adds "After all, I seriously doubt that Ellison had an attack of conscience."
iwwr 15y ago
The lesson is: don't let your open source name and trademark get captured and held hostage by a third party organization. If a company open sources a project and it gains significant outside developer interest, the courteous thing to do would be to pledge the name as well to a community organization. The actual code of the open source projects Oracle took over is almost unimportant. They acquired powerful brand names, then discarded the communities. In case of Open Office at least, the community value was greater than the brand name.
- Luyt 15y ago
  You're right, the code is unimportant. Oracle also acquired Sun's patents, which is IMHO the main reason they bought Sun.
kapilkaisare 15y ago
> a triumph of creativity over greed. While I do support open source and think it's an excellent medium for exchanging new ideas/software, I am unable to see LibreOffice as anything beyond a facsimile of Microsoft's commercial offering.
- jrockway 15y ago
  What's your point? The hard part is writing the code, not saying, "I'd like a spreadsheet and word processor."
erikb 15y ago
Isn't it a little illusionary to think in this good guy, bad guy fashion? It's all about money. It was the same for Sun. It's the same for Oracle. And if the "good guys" can't pay the bills for the Open Office Servers anymore, they will see, it's the same for them. That Oracle gave up that project so fast, actually makes me think, that they just found another way to make money out of the situation.

34 points by hanszeir 15y ago

It's an interesting take on it, but there's a lot of assumption here - not least of which is that Oracle somehow did this because it was the "right thing" or a "good" thing to do. Indeed that's founded on the assumption that Open Office is/was, to quote "a very viable and free alternative to Microsoft's bloated, way-too-expensive Microsoft Office". I'm not sure I buy that, for various reasons it hasn't been shown to be viable in the market. Even before Oracle pulled the plug-in stunt (which was shoddy, certainly) I don't think Open Office was gaining huge traction outside of occasional companies and people driven by ideology. To me it seems more likely that Oracle couldn't figure out a way to make money out of it and got shot of it in such a way that caused least backlash and left the least possible blame attached or Oracle in future - now the community is solely to blame for any future failings. Just my take of course, but I don't personally feel like "Open Source" has won any fight here - I don't think Oracle would even acknowledge there was a fight.

abrahamsen 15y ago
I agree. It seems that all that happened was that OpenOffice.org lost its largest contributor, which should normally not be a source of celebration. It can still become a "win" if the remaining contributors are able to manage the project more efficiently than Sun or Oracle did, and attract enough new contributors to compensate for the loss. But that is far from given.
fauigerzigerk 15y ago
Where does he make the assumption that Oracle was trying to do the "right thing"? As I'm reading it, he says that Oracle did it because they were unable to monetize OO and he adds "After all, I seriously doubt that Ellison had an attack of conscience."

iwwr 15y ago

The lesson is: don't let your open source name and trademark get captured and held hostage by a third party organization. If a company open sources a project and it gains significant outside developer interest, the courteous thing to do would be to pledge the name as well to a community organization. The actual code of the open source projects Oracle took over is almost unimportant. They acquired powerful brand names, then discarded the communities. In case of Open Office at least, the community value was greater than the brand name.

Luyt 15y ago
You're right, the code is unimportant. Oracle also acquired Sun's patents, which is IMHO the main reason they bought Sun.

kapilkaisare 15y ago

> a triumph of creativity over greed. While I do support open source and think it's an excellent medium for exchanging new ideas/software, I am unable to see LibreOffice as anything beyond a facsimile of Microsoft's commercial offering.

jrockway 15y ago
What's your point? The hard part is writing the code, not saying, "I'd like a spreadsheet and word processor."

erikb 15y ago

Isn't it a little illusionary to think in this good guy, bad guy fashion? It's all about money. It was the same for Sun. It's the same for Oracle. And if the "good guys" can't pay the bills for the Open Office Servers anymore, they will see, it's the same for them. That Oracle gave up that project so fast, actually makes me think, that they just found another way to make money out of the situation.