Re:Oracle 'donates' OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation
by rbanffy on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @04:52PM
(#2609279)
> That is really what needs to be done, both office suites are still almost identical.
Except for licensing. LGPL prevents proprietary forks. IIRC Apache allows them. I wonder why Oracle would want to change the license (or not donate OOo directly to the Document Foundation)
Re:Oracle 'donates' OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation
by jchrisa on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @11:10PM
(#2610492)
grant to Apache Software Foundation usually means a grant of any patents covering the code, so that is a reason to be happy they went Apache.
Re:Oracle 'donates' OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation
by rbanffy on Thursday June 02, 2011 @02:24PM
(#2613248)
Wouldn't moving to LGPLv3 be a more natural transition?
Re:Oracle 'donates' OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation
by stephen_g on Thursday June 02, 2011 @04:33AM
(#2611181)
Not really... As far as I can tell, the licences are compatible in a way that LibreOffice can use the Apache licensed code in their LGPL licenced project, so it will continue to be the stronger fork.
With distros having put their support behind LibreOffice, I don't think that there will be much competition. I think they will either continue to be very similar, or LibreOffice will steam ahead...
The Apache Software Foundation and The Document Foundation have to overcome their egos and do the right thing. Then we could credit TDF with 'liberating' OOO and ASF with closing the deal.
If they don't merge OOO and LO this 'donation' could create a new division in the Open Source community.