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

----- Original Message ----

> From: plino <pedlino@gmail.com>
> Greg Stein wrote:
> >  how can you say that Apache
> >  "removes rights from people's contributions"? As a developer, you
> > still  own your code. You can do whatever you like with it. Apache
> > doesn't take  anything from You.
>
> Easy. Even a non-developer like myself can  see that :) 
>
> Compared to GPL (which is what Apache is asking developers  to give up on) it
> removes the right to be given back any improvement or fix  to the code you
> contributed.
> Since many people are doing this pro  bono, I think that it is fair that at
> least they retain the right to have  access to any fix or improvement to
> their code.

Even the GPL does not provide that right. If a company wanted it could take a 
GPL product, make whatever changes it wanted, and distribute it internally to 
itself without ever contributing back to the community as a whole.
Likewise, it could also distribute that same project to its customers, making 
the source available to them and them alone. The community will may never see 
any changes from them; yet that is perfectly valid under all Open Source 
licenses - even the GPL.

Nothing forces people to work with the community. No license can do that. So 
please do yourself a favor and put that notion - the myth - aside.

GPL, like all Open Source licenses, is about the end-user NOT the developer. 
Yes, there are a lot of developers that are also end-users, and developers are 
required to help make Open Source open source, but ultimately it is about 
providing a product to end-users with the same rights, etc that you had to start 
with.

Now, granted, the Apache License is more liberal in that it allows companies to 
not have to pass on those same rights; that is the difference - it doesn't 
require that they also make the source available to the end-user. So IBM is free 
to develop Symphony without having to provide source to the end-users. But there 
is nothing preventing them from having Symphony derived from LibreOffice under 
the LGPL and not providing any changes back to LibreOffice either; they only 
have to provide the source (in that case) to the end-users _upon request_ for up 
to 3 years for each version they release from the time they make the "sale". 
(See the GPL license.)
 
 
> Under the Apache  license any company can take your code, fix it and say:
> "Hey, this function  in the open source version doesn't work. I just spend a
> day fixing it  (instead of  months to write it from scratch). Why don't you
> buy mine  which works?"

They can do that under the GPL too.

Ben


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