I can't speak for Jim, but I can say that the spirit of "best wishes to
the TDF and LibreOffice" is honest and sincere from my point of view.
I also believe it's sincere from the point of view of the Apache
OpenOffice podling - there have been multiple offers to try to work
together and explicit notes on our public lists that LibreOffice is
always welcome to use our Apache Licensed code in any way that the
license allows.
I also believe it's sincere on behalf of the ASF on the larger sense.
The ASF is a non profit devoted to the public good. The way we serve
the public is by providing high quality software freely, under our
permissive license. The way we do that is the Apache Way - our
collaborative, consensus-based, and diverse communities of individuals
who volunteer their work to our projects. We have no real beef
(argument) with anyone as long as they're honest in their statements
about us, and as long as they comply with our license and branding policies.
We are perfectly happy to have other open source groups be successful -
even ones with technology that might (in some eyes) be seen to be
competing with our projects. Heck, there are several Apache projects
that have apparently competing technologies as well - and we're happy to
host each of them. All we ask (for Apache projects) is that we have a
respectful and well run volunteer community behind it that is willing to
follow the Apache Way.
We're also perfectly happy to have other people take our code and re-use
it: that's the whole point of our license. We want people - the users
of our software - to have the maximum freedom to use our software
however they want, with the minimal restrictions as spelled out in our
license. So in that way, we will be happy if and when LibreOffice can
make use of some of the code we're now working on. Even if it may
appear to some folks that it's a competing product.
Open source communities aren't a zero sum game. There are plenty of
volunteers out there. It's up to the individuals to choose how and
where they want to volunteer their time. Much like you have a number of
passionate volunteers who actively work at TDF and on LibreOffice, we
have a number of passionate volunteers who actively work at the ASF and
on Apache OpenOffice.
So yes, we're certainly hoping to play together nicely!
- Shane
On 10/14/2011 2:32 PM, Simon Phipps wrote:
On Oct 14, 2011 7:28 PM, "Jim Jagielski"<j...@jagunet.com> wrote:
My only wish is that we had someone at the conference who
was supportive of the ASF and the AOOo podling in this
matter who was able to explain this in a positive light…
Well, Doug Heintzman and I are sitting together here and both willing to
pass on Apache's goodwill. All we really need is a statement saying "that PR
wasn't an attack, sorry if it seemed that way". Here's Doug to explain:
"Hi Jim this is Doug Heintzman here (IBM). We are actually having some very
good constructive conversations here. We did about a 3 hour dialogue with a
very large group on the OpenOffice project and its status, aspirations and
opportunities for cooperation, which the LibreOffice conference graciously
put on their agenda along with presentations from other AOOo participants.
It went very well and was well received. I am hopeful that we're making
good progress towards a construtive detente.
The question that Simon is asking is simple. Some have read the "best
wishes to TDF and LibreOffice" as being sarcastic and mean spirited. I
certainly didn't read it that way. The issue seems to be that the paragraph
expressing this wish was within the flow of a different story about people
not giving AOOo its due.
All that he was asking was for an official clarification that you were being
sincere and not sarcastic because of course sarcasm isn't going to help the
politics. I assume the blog was on the up and up and am representing it as
such. Hope you can clarify..."
Greetings from Paris from us both :-)
S.
