4 ms·

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 f

by 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.

4 ms·

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 f

by saurik 3y ago

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.