3 ms·

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 reaso

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 of deal with LibreOffice?

saurik 3y ago
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.
- bogwog 3y ago
  That's a good point I haven't seen brought up before when this topic comes up. That really does make a lot of sense explaining why Open Office still exists, but not why Apache is not being transparent about the situation. The pointless commits combined with the lack of transparency feel a bit nefarious. I wonder if it's more about personal drama between the projects than anything else?
- purpleidea 3y ago
  You're completely right! The issue is, this mandate is being made by corporate donors and influencers which is why ASF should be a 501(c)(6) not a 501(c)(3) that it is. It's probably breaking the law, but at least unethical.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> 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. And here I thought they were just against OpenOffice, this interpretation pits them against Free Software more generally. I'm gonna run with that for a while and see how it fits.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  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.
rbowen 3y ago
The ASF does not tell projects what to do. It provides a process and a place, and gives projects autonomy. The project, not the foundation, decides to keep running the project. So to characterize the ASF as "kicking this can down the road" for some kind of inscrutable motivation is just not how things work. The members of the OO project want to keep running their project. They have a group of people who keep showing up to do user support, documentation, and produce a huge community around their templates. They just haven't pushed any new features for a while. But they still are there, keeping the lights on. The ASF is not a top-down organization. It's driven entirely by those projects. And if you look at the dev list - https://lists.apache.org/list.html?dev@openoffice.apache.org https://lists.apache.org/list.html?dev@openoffice.apache.org - you'll note that this issue gets raised on a VERY regular basis, and the project participants always say "no thanks." As to "making a deal with LibreOffice", I would encourage you to read the mailing list, where that, too, gets raised with great regularity. There, too, the community sentiment is "no thanks." On both sides.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  > So to characterize the ASF as "kicking this can down the road" for some kind of inscrutable motivation is just not how things work. AOO being moribund has come up at ASF board meetings, and they really did just kick this can down the road. like c'mon, you're literally an ASF guy, you should know this happened
  - davefisher-oo 3y ago
    Read what Rich wrote more carefully. It leterally does not come up often in that context. I got involved with OpenOffice once it came to the Incubator. I've put many many unpaid hours on the project. Mostly by supporting the websites and forum installations, but also by catherding on security. BTW - You can get help on LibreOffice on the OpenOffice Fora. Those people are there to help people. I've made $0 on twelve years of work. I am currently the VP, OpenOffice (we rotate because it's a governance role). If you interested in helping then the type of developer needed is someone who understands old C++ and has a passion to modernize that.

saurik 3y ago

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.

bogwog 3y ago
That's a good point I haven't seen brought up before when this topic comes up. That really does make a lot of sense explaining why Open Office still exists, but not why Apache is not being transparent about the situation. The pointless commits combined with the lack of transparency feel a bit nefarious. I wonder if it's more about personal drama between the projects than anything else?
purpleidea 3y ago
You're completely right! The issue is, this mandate is being made by corporate donors and influencers which is why ASF should be a 501(c)(6) not a 501(c)(3) that it is. It's probably breaking the law, but at least unethical.
phkahler 3y ago
>> 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. And here I thought they were just against OpenOffice, this interpretation pits them against Free Software more generally. I'm gonna run with that for a while and see how it fits.
yencabulator 3y ago
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.

rbowen 3y ago

The ASF does not tell projects what to do. It provides a process and a place, and gives projects autonomy. The project, not the foundation, decides to keep running the project. So to characterize the ASF as "kicking this can down the road" for some kind of inscrutable motivation is just not how things work. The members of the OO project want to keep running their project. They have a group of people who keep showing up to do user support, documentation, and produce a huge community around their templates. They just haven't pushed any new features for a while. But they still are there, keeping the lights on. The ASF is not a top-down organization. It's driven entirely by those projects. And if you look at the dev list - https://lists.apache.org/list.html?dev@openoffice.apache.org https://lists.apache.org/list.html?dev@openoffice.apache.org - you'll note that this issue gets raised on a VERY regular basis, and the project participants always say "no thanks." As to "making a deal with LibreOffice", I would encourage you to read the mailing list, where that, too, gets raised with great regularity. There, too, the community sentiment is "no thanks." On both sides.

davidgerard 3y ago
> So to characterize the ASF as "kicking this can down the road" for some kind of inscrutable motivation is just not how things work. AOO being moribund has come up at ASF board meetings, and they really did just kick this can down the road. like c'mon, you're literally an ASF guy, you should know this happened
- davefisher-oo 3y ago
  Read what Rich wrote more carefully. It leterally does not come up often in that context. I got involved with OpenOffice once it came to the Incubator. I've put many many unpaid hours on the project. Mostly by supporting the websites and forum installations, but also by catherding on security. BTW - You can get help on LibreOffice on the OpenOffice Fora. Those people are there to help people. I've made $0 on twelve years of work. I am currently the VP, OpenOffice (we rotate because it's a governance role). If you interested in helping then the type of developer needed is someone who understands old C++ and has a passion to modernize that.