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

Hello Allen.

I'm just an end user with low money incomes that likes to know about
the project but here are my opinions.

I see LibreOffice a success, the community surpassed problems and is
getting very popular. Why starting to make a project with a very
similar codebase at the last time instead joining the effort? Who's
splitting the community now? ;)

The way is that Apache Foundation and Oracle/IBM are dictating the
conditions instead of a negotiating them with the successful and
community backed project (LibreOffice) is insulting to the project
itself. Why is their license and maintaining approach better than the
one from The Document Foundation? They want to rule the community, not
becoming part of it.

I'm not so happy with your all of your rhetoric in your words. You are
writing long statements full of marketing and political phrases. Maybe
it's just a matter of corporate culture? ;)

Java is a bad example and you should know that, because there are tons
of proprietary or forked third party run-times instead a proper one
and the language was governed in a very dictatorship way. That gave
many problems both in technological and community sides.

Anyway, I see *a lot* more successful GPL projects than BSD-like ones.
Linux is a good example of this, 20th anniversary this year ;)

I believe BSD-like licenses help the corporations to make their own
proprietary forks, it's OK if the way is to make those companies save
money and extending the ODF format. But that not benefits the FOSS
ecosystem at all, because Lotus Symphony or any future Oracle product
can only have the very good point of using ODF and not sure if that's
enough for selling the Free Software spirit (source code is finally
the best documentation at the end).

While maybe FSF can have their mistakes, GPL is the best contribution
to the history of Open Source.

But my opinions probably don't matter at all, because I'm just an
unknown person with broken English and not working on the big
business...

I just wanted to express my opinion here.

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:43 PM, Allen Pulsifer <pulsifer@openoffice.org> wrote:
> Allen Pulsifer wrote:
> > If most or almost all of the LO contributors joined the Apache
> > OpenOffice project, if only to lend moral support and help heal the
> > rift, that would only be good for LO and the TdF.
>
> > Thorsten Behrens wrote:
> > Allen, how can you, with a straight face, ask people here to come over to
> a different project,
> > that likely noone here is really happy with, that was setup as a fait
> acompli, marketed as the
> > "natural upstream", removes rights from people's contributions, and is
> effectively competing
> > (by how the proposal reads)?
>
> Hello Thorsten,
>
> I do not agree with your conclusion that the Apache OpenOffice project is a
> competing project.  You simply chose to view it that way.  There are others,
> such as myself, who view it as a potential upstream project, where all of
> the contributions at the upstream project can be used by LibreOffce.  In
> that respect, it is similar to python, java, boost, hsqldb, libjpeg, curl,
> lpsolve, or anyone of hundreds of other project.  Are those competing
> projects?
>
> Second, I can recommend that LibreOffice contributors join Apache OpenOffice
> because I am firmly convinced that would be in the best interests of the
> LibreOffice project.  Amazingly, your response does not even argue
> otherwise.  Instead, your response focuses on the fact even if it were in
> the best interests of the LibreOffice project, for personal reasons you
> would never consider reconciling with it.  That to me is just astounding,
> that you are open and brazen about putting your personal issues ahead of the
> project.
>
> Here's what could have been: The world could have woken up one morning to an
> announcement by the TdF congratulating the Apache Foundation for joining the
> OpenOffice community, and stating that it was looking forward to working
> with Apache, IBM and all other interested parties to create the best
> possible open document technologies, and that the TdF would be incorporating
> those technologies into LibreOffice in order to make it the best end-user
> office suite possible.  The world could have then read in the press and
> trade magazines that virtually all of the LibreOffice developers had joined
> the Apache OpenOffice project, that the community had been reunited and that
> the future was bright.  The end users (remember the end users, the ones I
> talked about in my last post that you seem intent on ignoring?), heartened
> by the optimistic message and comforted by the reunification of the
> community, would have come back off the sidelines looking to benefit from
> the project, and many of them would have discovered LibreOffice.  The
> LibreOffice project would when be boosted by thousands of new users, and
> possibly could over time have developed a reputation as the best OpenOffice
> package.
>
> Instead, due to your personal issues, the world has heard a much different
> story: that you were dissed or slighted; that there is possibly some problem
> with the TdF or LibreOffice that people keep talking about, and no matter
> how much it is denied, the nagging feeling persists that it might be true;
> and that the LibreOffice community refuses to work with IBM or the Apache
> Foundation for personal reasons.
>
> It seems that your story about being dissed or slighted in one of your
> favorite stories, and you are determined to keep telling it for a long time.
> I'm quite certain that the end users (remember the end users, the ones I
> talked about in my last post that you seem intent on ignoring?) aren't
> interested in that story.
>
> With just a few simple actions on your part, you could have accomplished in
> a few minutes what would have taken you at least a year to accomplish with
> just programming (if it can even be accomplished that way at all).  That's
> right, in this world, marketing matters.  User perception matters.  The best
> mouse trap does not always win.  A few positives stories in the press can
> make or break a fledgling project.  You can spend years developing software,
> and then sabotage it in a minute with a poor marketing decision.  Such is
> that nature of business.
>
> So my all means, continue forward with your decision that your personal
> story is what really matters.  That is your prerogative.  Meanwhile, the
> LibreOffice project will never be what it could have been.  The opportunity
> that has been lost will never come back again.  That is the tragedy.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Allen
>
>
>
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