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

Hi Christian, All,

At 23:16 4-6-2011, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> Hi Allen, *,
>
> On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Allen Pulsifer 
> <pulsifer@openoffice.org> wrote:
> > [...]
> > I don't know what vision IBM has for the project.  I don't know what code
> > contribution they are going to make--I'm certain they will make some, but I
> > don't know what they will be.  I don't know what contributions members of
> > the LibreOffice community will or will not want to make.
>
> Given that they had 35 people working on it according to their press
> releases, that was ended up in OOo was  basically nonexistent. As
> you've been with the OOo project for a couple of years you can
> probably understand that people that were part of OOo project before
> switching over to TDF/LibreOffice don't have much trust in IBM's lip
> service.
>
> The few times they did contribute, it was code-dumping, far from
> contributing in a collaborative manner. The accessibility stuff that
> Rob just mentioned on the apache list has been promised since 2007 and
> he correctly stated that is is still (considerable) amount of /work/
> needed to get it integrated. They dumped it instead of contributing
> it. To me that's still a difference. The code is against an obsolete
> branch (OOo 1.1.5 codeline (!))
> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Accessibility/IAccessible2_support

I am surprised nobody has responded to this (since there is/was at least one
IBM employee on this list...).
The accessibility contribution that Rob Weir referred to was probably not the
"code dump" for OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 but a contribution to OpenOffice.org 3.1
(if I remember correctly).
See my comment at
<http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/apache-openoffice.html#comment-20026>.
(Note: OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 was released in September 2005; IAccessible2
was released in December 2006
<http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20773.wss>.)

At this moment I know no one at Oracle who can or wants to say how much of
the IAccessible2 implementation will end up in OpenOffice.org 3.4.

Best regards,

Christophe Strobbe



> > I do know this however.  There is currently an open invitation 
> for us to get
> > involved.  If we get involved, we can have a say in with direction of the
> > project.
>
> Not really, as you first have to "surrender" to the Apache's licence
> terms. And that alone is reason for me not to join the effort.
>
> > We can ensure that direction of the project provides the maximum
> > benefit for LibreOffice, which includes any contributions from IBM.
> > Basically, we can get IBM working for us.
>
> I really doubt it. What would change for them now, with the permissive
> licence, that did prevent them in the last 5 years from contributing?
> They (according to their press release) had massive manpower working
> on it (35 people), but what ended up in OOo is two code dumps to
> ancient codeline, one of which being lotuswordprofilter, the other the
> abovementioned accessibility dump.
>
> (...)
>
> ciao
> Christian


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
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