One of the points I would like some clarification on is in the article defending ASF by Andrew C. Oliver: http://www.infoworld.com/print/225555
In it, he wrote: "Nearly all of the very active Apache OpenOffice developers work for IBM directly or indirectly." Can someone explain more about this? For example, is there a table showing who everyone works for? From that, one could make a chart showing how many of the code changes in AOO were made by various companies. LibreOffice publishes such charts: http://documentfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/developers6.jpg From my research, I'd guess AOO 4 was at least 80% IBM, but I've not been able to find out information on several people so it is an estimate. In addition to regularly posting information about the number of user downloads, it would be great to regularly post a chart that shows the diversity of the code contributors. Everyone who is a volunteer is allowed to choose which community they'd like to join and this would give them important information. I know there are IBM employees all over the place working on release management, QA, and other areas, but just knowing diversity about code changes would be useful. If it were 90+% IBM, they could end the fork very quickly. The remaining 10% would probably move, but even if they didn't, it would still be much better. Ending this fork is one of the best things that could happen to free software today. As a former Microsoft Office programmer, I can state that this fork benefits them immensely, helping both Office and Windows. I realize that no one here wants to help Microsoft, but it is an "unintended consequence." If I still rooted for Microsoft, I would be laughing at the incompetence because it indirectly gives them billions of dollars. As I root for Linux now, I find it sad because it is a lot more work to build two communities and brands: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=3163 -Keith
