Re: [tdf-discuss] Explanation . . . ?

On 10/01/2010 12:30 PM, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Jon Hamkins schrieb:
> > On 10/01/2010 11:31 AM, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> > > Kürti László schrieb:
> >
> > > > I had some short chat with Oracle representatives they are stating
> > > > officially: "Oracle is investing substantial resources in
> > > > OpenOffice.org.  With more than one hundred million users, we
> > > > believe OpenOffice.org is the most advanced, most feature rich open
> > > > source implementation and will strongly encourage the Open Office
> > > > community to continue to contribute through www.openoffice.org.
> > > > However, the beauty of open source is that it can be forked by
> > > > anyone who chooses, as was done today.  Our sincerest goal for Open
> > > > Office is that it become more widely used so if this new foundation
> > > > will help advance Open Office and the Open Document Format we wish
> > > > them the best."

> > Their statement its pretty clear.  They are investing in
> > OpenOffice.org, they will continue to do so, and they invite
> > developers to continue contributing to OpenOffice.org (i.e., not to
> > the fork called LibreOffice).

> Where did you read this statement for the future?

I got it from the first and second sentences:

"Oracle is investing substantial resources in OpenOffice.org."

"[W]e ... strongly encourage the Open Office community to continue to
contribute through www.openoffice.org."

This literally says Oracle will continue to accept community
support for OpenOffice.org in the way that it has to the present, and
Oracle itself is investing in OpenOffice.org.  One can reasonably
conclude that Oracle itself will continue to work on OpenOffice.org in
the future -- otherwise why would they tout that Oracle "is investing"
in it now?

A natural consequence of Oracle continuing to invest in OpenOffice.org
is that is that LibreOffice will not get the OpenOffice.org trademark.
I agree, this is not literally stated, but this intrepretation is also
consistent with the facts that:

o There was no direct statement that they would be willing to work with
LibreOffice or the LO community

o What indirect indications there are point in the opposite direction.
The comment "we wish them the best" seems to imply in fact that Oracle
will not be involved -- it's meaning is "good bye"

o The lack of mentioning LO or the foundation by name is consistent with
standard commercial/political practice of not giving a competitor
recognition -- by contrast, most of the supporters on libreoffice.org
mention LO or DF by name.

o The use of the word "fork" -- if they planned to donate the trademark,
they wouldn't view the Document Foundation as a fork, but as a
continuation/evolution of OOo.

Together, these strongly hint that Oracle is not planning to donate the
OOo trademark.

> As you cut off the main part of my message, you don't comment on the 
> difference between "OpenOffice.org" and "Open Office".

Sorry, I just didn't have have anything to comment on that.  I suspect
Oracle probably uses OpenOffice.org and Open Office interchangeably.
That's natural, I suppose, if they want people to use Oracle Open
Office.  For example, they refer to the "Open Office community," which
as you point out doesn't make sense.  The community is the
OpenOffice.org community.

> They surely will continue investing in "Oracle Open Office", their 
> proprietary distribution of OpenOffice.org as they make money of it.
>
> It might be possible, that they plan to keep investing in 
> OpenOffice.org, but this has not been stated here.

I would be very surprised (and delighted) if they donated the trademark.
Based on what they said so far, I consider it unlikely.

> > > I am not part of the "Open Office Community", but of the "OpenOffice.org
> > > Community".
> > >
> > > Even if I still hope for the trademark to be given back to us, this
> > > message is at least a sign in a dedicated direction. :-(

> > The statement from Oracle implies they are keeping the trademark,[...]

> That's your assumption - and possibly that's what they want us to 
> believe and react.
>
> And afterwards they can say, that we didn't want the trademark back.

I think the organizers of DF have it right: plan to use the LibreOffice
name, and be very happy to abandon the name if Oracle donates the
OpenOffice.org trademark.  I think it would be a mistake to delay work
on LibreOffice artwork, etc., on the hope that Oracle will come around.
We all want them to, but we shouldn't count on it -- and based on what
they've said so far, I wouldn't expect it from them, either.

> If they are honest in supporting OpenOffice.org, they should show this 
> by giving it back to the community IMHO.

Agreed!

> >  We can no longer claim "XXX million downloads,"
>
> We still can - we just need to change the wording "further development 
> of the X00 million download suite" ....

Good point.

     ----Jon
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