Hi Mirek,
Mirek M. wrote (26-08-10 16:47)
2010/8/26 Cor Nouws<oo...@nouenoff.nl>
Mirek M. wrote (26-08-10 11:41)
2010/8/25 Varun Mittal<varunmitta...@gmail.com>
Oracle anywayz filed a suit only against Google.
it's attacking one of the most successful fruits of open-source because of
a ridiculous patent suit concerning, surprisingly, its open-source Java.
And that really makes me move away from Oracle...
I do not know details - those are not yet known public, let alone that they
are judged. So to me it sounds a bit premature to say that the patent suit
is ridiculous.
Actually, these details are known. Have a look at, for example,
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100813112425821,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/13/oracle_google_java_prosecution/, or
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100817/00061910645.shtml
And besides, many people, including me, believe that software patents are
counterproductive and "ridiculous".
Me too are an opponent of software patents.
That does not automatically imply, for me anyway, that in current
circumstances the patent suit is ridiculous. (Still, I did not read much
of the linked articles.)
Anyway, I really hope OOo is branched by some other company that will
really dedicate time and (donated or ad-gained) money to the suite,
really make it the best possible office suite ever, take over
its massive user base.
Did you ever think about time and money that Sun Microsystems did and now
Oracle does invest in OpenOffice.org, that you can just download for free,
several new versions a year, as much as you want?
Yes, I never said it didn't. What I meant was that another company should
take OOo and fix it up (kind of like what Go-oo does), make it even better,
take over the userbase. One thing that always bothered me was how messily
structured the OOo's community participation was, and how long it took to
actually get things done.
This critique is justified I think, though I am not sure if go-oo, which
you mention - 'cures all our diseases'.
(You may notice that I criticised quite some issues in mails, council
logs, ...)
However, we are not sure what another sponsor or additional sponsors
will bring for improvement here.
How much we may criticise things, fact is that Sun did a really lot for
OpenOffice.org.
As far as I know, there are about roughly a hundred people working at
the Hamburg office. That means more than 10 mlns salary every year.
Apparently they managed (eventually) to get that done...
(This all are common sense estimates: I do not know any business data
from Hamburg. And if I did know, obviously I would not write about it.)
We do not know if Oracle will put extra business goals on the team -
apart from say; 'a bit better than break even'.
Maybe they do. Maybe they will see OpenOffice.org as a special case,
because of technology, spin-offs, or better market possibilities in
other areas...
It is not at all said that another main sponsor would do just as good as
Hamburg does now, or do better.
What I do hope, that we find a way to better organize the mutual
interest of more big players within the OpenOffice.org-area. Say IBM,
Novell, RedOffice, Canonical, ...
Currently, the field of Hamburg and the 'volunteer' community is more or
less organised. However, possibilities to really profit from the mutual
interest from more big companies, look utilized very poorly, IMO.
In an open source project, there must be changes for a larger multiplier
effect, than we currently have.
I hope that we find ways to realise that. To me, that has much more
potential than 'just another' main sponsor. With better changes for
Hamburg too.
(Take the new colorless OOo icons, which a large
part of the OOo userbase wants color-coded again. It shouldn't be hard to
just replace the new icon files with the old icon files, or to put some
color into the new icons...)
Technical wise it would not, of course. Interesting example ;-)
Regards,
Cor
--
>> Your office 2010 software: the new OpenOffice.org <<
Cor Nouws
- ideas/remarks for the community council?
- http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council
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