I agree, I think this should be commented upon a new post at the AOO blog. Specially because nevertheless you dont spoke on AOO behalf, is also important efforts are being put into interoperability and others.
On 11/4/13, Kay Schenk <kay.sch...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 7:53 AM, Jürgen Schmidt > <jogischm...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I would like to inform you about my attendance of a workshop from the >> OSBA [1] to discuss a potential future project to improve the >> interoperability of OpenOffice/LibreOffice with the also standardized >> file format OOXML. But also with focus on an improved and a standardized >> change tracking proposal. >> >> I attended as individual AOO member and IBM representative. I made clear >> that I am no official spoke person for AOO and explained once more that >> we don't really have a hierarchy or formal leaders. >> >> One part of the workshop was to review the first project [2] which was a >> success for open source but not directly for OpenOffice. We know all >> that the patches are not yet integrated in AOO. I reported that I have >> informed the AOO project/community about the availability [3] of the >> related patches but that nobody has worked on it so far. And that it is >> not easy without having access to the test documents. >> >> Svante Schubert gave a good overview presentation about the change >> tracking proposal that is currently discussed and proposed in the >> related OASIS sub committee. All attendees agreed more or less that it >> is important to have it more formalized and be part of the ODF standard. >> Funding to work on the ODF specification is one aspect ... >> >> During the workshop new problems were reported and feature requests >> communicated. This will be me worked out in detail and new use-case >> specifications will be prepared similar to the first project. When they >> are available I will share them with the community. Interested >> developers and companies can give an offer to work on the implementation >> later, similar to the first project. >> >> A further important point was the potential collaboration between >> OpenOffice and LibreOffice at least on source code level. Some of the >> sponsors of the first project were not 100% satisfied because they can't >> benefit from the work they have paid for which I can understand. The >> availability of patches under ALv2 is not enough to have them >> integrated. The integration work have to be done and ideally from the >> people who were paid for. Or at least in time and in collaboration with >> other volunteers. Anyway something that will be probably improved in the >> future. >> >> Jan Holosevsky from Collabora and a developer on LO and me as a >> developer from AOO were asked about a proposal/idea how such a >> collaboration can happen. We all know that it is not so easy to answer >> and that it comes quite fast to an ideological and political discussion. >> >> I simply tried to explain the situation we already have today. In detail >> I showed the code flow from AOO to LO and the dependency of LO to AOO >> since their rebase. They mirror our svn repos and merge fixes and >> features on a regular basis into their code. And most of their source >> code is under the ALV2 because you can't remove the license. You can >> only add additional licenses for significant changes you made in a >> source file. As one possible way for collaboration I proposed to work >> more directly on the same code base. And that the TDF could continue to >> provide binaries and could continue with their community work they are >> doing today (I like of course many things they doing). The only >> requirement would be to work together on the same code and contribute >> the changes upstream. I believe this would make most sense and the >> resources in both project would be used more efficient. And the most >> important point from my point of view it would reflect the main idea of >> open source and would benefit the open source spirit. >> >> Jan Holesovsky with backing from Simon Phipps proposed that we could use >> LO code which is under MPLv2. As a reminder the additional MPLv2 is the >> result of their rebasing work against the AOO code base after our first >> official release AOO 3.4.1. Well I found not very much information about >> the exact licensing on their webpage, mainly LGPLv3. And no reference >> that at least major parts of their code is under ALv2 today. At least to >> me it looks quite confusing and I am happy that we have it much clearer >> today. >> >> But back to the proposal I have to confess that I don't really >> understand how this should work in detail. MPL is category-b and we can >> link against it but we can't host any MPL code in our repo. And it would >> work on completely new code only that is quite well encapsulated and >> modularized. It can be potentially an option for some of their new >> filters but that have to be checked in detail and is only one aspect. We >> talk about million lines of code mainly. >> >> It was also mentioned that mixing of ALv2 and MPL code is possible in >> general and that it is more a problem of the ASF and the processes >> applied to projects here at Aapche. I was thinking what it should mean, >> confuse people even more or an indirect recommendation that OpenOffice >> should be hosted somewhere else? I stopped thinking about it because >> it's out of scope I think. >> >> If people think I misunderstood things or summarized it incorrect, >> please feel free to correct me or add missing information. >> >> I shared this with you because AOO is a community project and such >> discussion have to be discussed with the community in the end anyway. I >> found it interesting to learn from their experience of the first project >> and to learn what the problems of real users are. It was interesting to >> see that people from more the outside of the projects are interested to >> force or seek ways for collaboration on the same common goal, that is >> the best free office productivity suite. Well they belong to the project >> as users and are very important because without users we wouldn't have >> neither AOO nor LO. >> >> More information will be shared when it becomes available. And hopefully >> some volunteers are interested to start working on the OSBA patches to >> get as much as possible out of them. >> >> >> Juergen >> >> >> [1] http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/wg-office-interoperability/ >> >> [2] http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/ooxml-filter/ >> >> [3] >> >> http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/ooxml-filter/projektergebnisse-ooxml-filter/ >> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org >> > > Thank you for this very important post. > > The world of open source licenses is indeed difficult to understand at > times, and I know you have had many exchanges with ASF legal on this one. > > I hope the licensing issues can be resolved. > > For what's it worth, a link to the MPLv2 licensing page: > > https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/ > > > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > MzK > > “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, > Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” > -- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax > -- Alexandro Colorado Apache OpenOffice Contributor http://www.openoffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
