Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Sam Ruby <rubys@apache.org> wrote:
> I will be totally transparent as to what my preference however is.  It
> is my fond hope that all of the participants will identify subsections
> of the code that they are willing to share the burden of maintenance
> with the larger community.  Direct participation in the development of
> that pool ensures that you can harvest that code back quickly and
> easily as there is no need to merge it with other changes that you
> held back.  Furthermore the extension points you need for your value
> add will be in the base.

The problem is that IBM hasn't done this, even with a copyleft license
that is supposed to encourage this sort of thing.  They have
contributed the absolute minimum necessary to comply with the license
terms.  Now the license terms are even looser, people seem to think
that IBM will continue to contributed the absolute minimum necessary
to comply with the license terms.  But now the license doesn't require
that they contribute contribute anything, so people here seem to
expect that they won't contribute anything.

> Part of this vision is also that participants don't block one another.
>  If IBM, for example, has a proprietary value add they should not be
> able to block somebody else from contributing substantially similar
> functionality to the ASF under a more liberal license.  Similarly, if
> LO has some CopyLeft value add, they should not be able to block
> others from contributing substantially similar functionality to the
> ASF under a more liberal license.
>
> Again, fully symmetrical.

I don't think you mean the same thing when you say "symmetric" as the
people here mean.  As far as I can see, you are talking about the
ability to use the code being symmetrical, while the LibreOffice
people are talking about the contribution to the software being
symmetrical.  You seem to be saying that Apache is symmetric because
if you use the software, you have to let others use it too.  But what
the LibreOffice people here are expecting is that if you make
improvements to the project, you have to let others make use of those
improvements as well.

Your talk about the use being symmetric is not going to convince
people because that isn't what their complaint is about.

They are fundamentally different and contradictory philosophies.  Just
telling people that it fits well with your philosophy, which is
essentially what you are doing, doesn't help when they disagree with
your philosophy.  You need to either convince them that your
philosophy is better than theirs, or you need to convince them it fits
with their philosophy.

-Todd

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted