This is just too apt to ignore......
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Oct 06, 2010 5:11 AM EDT |
The content of the first page of this article describes exactly the same feelings I had when I first started OO3.2.1 and saw the Oracle logo on my updated version of OpenOffice. I promptly removed OO3.2.1 from my computer to return to OO3.2.0 as fully developed by Sun when it was a separate company. My reaction to remove OO3.2.1 produced several negative comments on LXer, however I confess it is rather nice to know I am not alone in my dislike of what has happened to OO. My future wordprocessor will be LibreOffice. I have already joined their blogs and news updates and LibreOffice is moving fast. Marvellous. When the next version of LibreOffice supersedes OO3.2, I'll be updating very quickly and OO as such will vanish from my computing vicinity. Sad really, but that's the facts. I cannot help but wonder if OO may now slowly wither, but hey, I have no crystal ball so I am probably wrong. |
| jdixon Oct 06, 2010 7:12 AM EDT |
> I cannot help but wonder if OO may now slowly wither, but hey, I have no crystal ball so I am probably wrong. That depends on Oracle. I've argued here that we can expect exactly that, as Oracle won't make any money from Open Office; but like you, my crystal ball has been know to receive stray signals in the past. Now, the closed source fork formerly know as Star Office may see new light as the revamped Oracle Office, if they think they can turn it into a profit center. |
| bigg Oct 06, 2010 7:21 AM EDT |
What's wrong with software that's released under the LGPL? Just so you know, Oracle developers have made a fair number of contributions to the kernel and filesystems over the years. Thus you better change to BSD if you don't want an OS contaminated by Oracle. |
| Ridcully Oct 06, 2010 7:53 AM EDT |
For "bigg".......and the answer is: "there is nothing wrong whatsoever as far as I know, but I am not an expert on the fine print of either the GPL or LGPL, so I"ll hedge my bets to that extent." The problem is purely Oracle. As I implied in an earlier post, I have the luxury of being able to decide what I will or will not have on my computer without detriment. And that is exactly what I have done. My choice. But do think about the chronology of events. I fully accept that Oracle may have been a friend of FOSS in the past when it contributed as you say, but in the past 6 months or so, Oracle has reversed that position and there are three very clear items that show this reversal. If Oracle is allowed to change its attitude, I certainly have that right too ~ and have taken steps to do so. As for leaving Linux and moving to BSD......no, not going to happen, and for the above reasons. |
| bigg Oct 06, 2010 8:40 AM EDT |
@Ridcully There's not even the tiniest bit of consistency in your argument. It is the license, not the niceness of the developer, that matters for software. It doesn't make any difference if Oracle has changed its position in the last 6 months. Software under the LGPL is under the LGPL no matter how evil the developer might be. If you don't want OOo on your computer because Oracle touched it, then you don't want Linux on your computer. > I have the luxury of being able to decide what I will or will not have on my computer without detriment. And I have the luxury of being able to pour orange juice on my head, though it would take me a while to figure out why I'd want to repeatedly post about it. |
| tracyanne Oct 06, 2010 9:22 AM EDT |
@Ridcully. Look we know you like cutting off your noes to spite your face, we also get that it's your prerogative, but please do you you really have to keep telling us about it. And as bigg points out, to be consistent, you probably should change your operating system. |
| gus3 Oct 06, 2010 10:31 AM EDT |
Oracle can't put their logo on the Linux kernel. That's a huge difference. They do have their copyright on configfs, block integrity, btrfs, OCFS2, I/O hang checking, reliable datagram sockets, some wait primitives, some profiling, and some PID allocation, but they can't call it... Oh, wait, they can. Android and Ubuntu already do. |
| caitlyn Oct 06, 2010 3:10 PM EDT |
Like I said in the other thread, this is indeed cutting your nose to spite your face. Since the Sun logo on your older version of OOo is now an Oracle property perhaps you should get rid of that too. To me, it's all about functionality. If Oracle continues to develop OOo (which they say they will) and they retain the core OOo developers as employees (and so far they have) it is entirely possible that they will have the superior product. If document compatibility with MS Office suffers in LOo then it won't take long for users to abandon it. |
| ABCC Oct 06, 2010 8:21 PM EDT |
Why not just disable the splash screen? http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/G... |
| Ridcully Oct 06, 2010 9:25 PM EDT |
I almost regret having started this.....I merely wished to say that there was at least someone else writing on the web who felt the same way I did, after having been lambasted the first time around by the various "authorities" appearing here. On that occasion, traceyanne, I felt like the "lone warrior" surrounded by an ambush of a 1000......it was so nice to find an actual web article describing exactly how I had felt, that I decided to say: Hey look here, I am not alone. That's all. As an aside, I am sometimes startled by how people commenting on these items can read the most convoluted and hidden agenda aspects into comments that are made with no other idea other than what the text actually says. Perhaps I should in future "leap to the defence of Oracle" ? :-D |
| jdixon Oct 06, 2010 9:43 PM EDT |
> Oracle developers have made a fair number of contributions to the kernel and filesystems Yep. All aimed at making Oracle products run better on Linux. Amazing how that works, isn't it? And no, this is not an attempt to throw stones at Oracle. That's exactly what I would expect them to do, and it's is something they do well which also benefits other users. |
| jdixon Oct 06, 2010 10:11 PM EDT |
> l almost regret having started this. Understandable. But, as you noted, you're not just speaking for yourself. And only two people have strongly disagreed with you. The third is pointing out problems with your argument, not your action as such. Since I've never had Open Office installed on this Linux box, I don't have to worry about it one way or the other. My Ubuntu boxes at work are soon to go the way of the dodo, as my employer is scrapping our older machines, so it won't matter there either. And our work machines all come with Microsoft Office 2007 preinstalled. |
| Ridcully Oct 06, 2010 11:25 PM EDT |
For jdixon.........I confess I have never let logical argument stand in the way of a good emotion.........Or should it be the other way around ? LOL. But thanks for your comment anyway. I dearly love Linux and support it to the fullest extent I can in my local area here in Australia. Except for a recent university project in which I was forced to use WinXP for a defined period, I never have anything else except Linux on my computers, and that's the way it has been for the past 10 years. Just the thought of having to wholly depend on Microsoft and the expense and problems that entails makes me wince rather strongly, but that is a distasteful subject to me, so I shall "drop it off the tip of my pen" as Kipling once said. I have never tried Office 2007, or even seen it running. The latest I've had experience with is 2003 and that only as a "test bed" to ensure complex documents saved by OO in .doc format that are to be sent to Microsoft welded on "shops" can read them. |
| tuxchick Oct 06, 2010 11:55 PM EDT |
Don't let the grumps bother you, Ridcully, because you are right. The niceness of the copyright holder matters greatly. There are any number of ways to obstruct and gum up a FOSS project, which has been demonstrated many times. The poster child for this is Sun, who never could sort out their corporate feelings on FOSS. Erect barriers to outside contributions, release changes slowly, cut funding, play games with proprietary addons, make devs sign restrictive contributor agreements, play games with distributing sources-- there are many ways to corporately muck up important FOSS projects. Having a FOSS license is only the beginning. I totally support removing from your system anything that offends or annoys; that is our right, and if it pleases us who cares about grumpy mutterings? There is a practical value in replacing something noxious with a competitor, and helping to support it, which soon will be easy for LibreOffice as it finds its way into distro repos. There is also value in speaking out. |
| Ridcully Oct 07, 2010 12:15 AM EDT |
For tuxchick......Thankyou. :-) |
| tracyanne Oct 07, 2010 12:16 AM EDT |
When LibreOffice is a standard offering in my Distribution, I'll use it, I see no point in bending over backwards to 1 remove functionality by rolling back or 2/ installing a non standard package that probably at this moment does no more than the standard package, and arguably does less, given the Ewwww factor has been applied to some of the OOXML code that Microsoft contributed to. |
| Ridcully Oct 07, 2010 4:15 AM EDT |
May I, without any motive other than providing information, suggest that if all contributors to this particular thread are not keeping an eye on LibreOffice, then it wouldn't hurt if they threw an occasional glance in that direction. I have put myself onto the LibreOffice information and mailing lists and there is a positive storm of emails flying in all directions with bug reports, fixes, information etc. I am now quite startled at the activity and I would be game enough to go out on a limb and suggest that the first stable issue of LibreOffice won't be too far off. I have noted that volunteers are now being called in for language updates and I have already seen requests for Polish, Spanish and other versions. You couldn't get more activity if you poked a stick into a bull-ant's nest.. (PS: Sorry, for those who don't know, a bull ant is a particularly large and aggressive Australian ant which has a very painfull sting.) |
| bigg Oct 07, 2010 6:40 AM EDT |
> Having a FOSS license is only the beginning. If it has the right license, you can use the software without fear of anything happening to you. It's both the beginning and the end. As far as the projects are concerned, that's a different story. Support whichever project you like. But someone spreading FUD about OOo is a very bad thing. I know a lot of OOo users. To have them read nonsense about how the software is in some way dangerous because Oracle is involved is a bad thing, because it's a lie. It also confuses those who are new to FOSS to throw in this "mood of the developer" nonsense. Ridcully can remove the software if he wants. He is not free to go on a popular website, tell the world that we all have to fear OOo, and go unchallenged. That's pure BS. There's absolutely nothing wrong with OOo. It is LGPL software and you can trust LGPL software. Period. Take the anti-FOSS FUD to the Windows boards. |
| Ridcully Oct 07, 2010 7:16 AM EDT |
@"bigg" Quote: Ridcully can remove the software if he wants. He is not free to go on a popular website, tell the world that we all have to fear OOo, and go unchallenged. That's pure BS. There's absolutely nothing wrong with OOo. It is LGPL software and you can trust LGPL software. Period. Take the anti-FOSS FUD to the Windows boards. EndQuote I am sure tuxchick can speak for herself, however as far as I am concerned, I am now extremely angry. I have never stated or implied the extreme view you are now presenting. I have never stated in any post that I considered OO produced by Oracle to be "dangerous because Oracle was involved" and my posts always implied that it was the company not the software that was my problem. Indeed, my impression is that you are now doing precisely what you are railing against: spreading FUD. I simply indicated that I personally would not use a particular version of OO.....And I explained precisely why, just as this present web article explains why the writer reacted against Oracle. Of course the LGPL and GPL protects the user and I am the first to agree, but that is not what my posts have been about. It is whether or not I wish to use software produced under the logo of a particular company and has nothing to do with whether the software is good or bad. It's called freedom of choice 'bigg', and I hope you are familiar with the concept. It's what we do when we choose a product in the supermarket and selecting software is no different. Don't ever try to use the repugnant ruse of putting words in my mouth that were never there. |
| caitlyn Oct 07, 2010 8:35 AM EDT |
Sorry to get long-winded, but... Let me clarify my point a little. I fully agree that Ridcully has the absolute right to do whatever he wants with his system whenever he wants. If a change makes him feel good then more power to him. I would absolutely never want to even imply that anyone has the right to tell him what to do with his computing environment. Doing so would be the antitheses of the freedom we all treasure. I think tracyanne has been hitting the nail on the head over and over again in these threads. Neither she nor I nor anyone else here is defending all of Oracle's actions or holding them up as a model FOSS company. As tuxchick also pointed out Sun was no model of FOSS virtue either. Both Sun and Oracle have said and done things that really threw their commitment to FOSS into question. Both Sun and now Oracle have also made valid contributions to FOSS in general and Linux in particular. Neither is entirely black or white. Two things make Oracle different from Sun: the suit against Google and Larry Ellison's confrontational style and unhelpful statements. I should also mention that Sun laid the groundwork for the suit Oracle filed. They mostly but never fully opened Java. They always tried to retain some degree of proprietary control over what some have described as the Java "secret sauce". In other words, they wanted to make sure they always had a degree of control over Java. To first Sun and now Oracle, maintaining the "compile once, run anywhere" philosophy of Java development was always a paramount concern. Dalvik is an incompatible fork and breaks away from that philosophy. If Google has used OpenJDK or made Dalvik a fully compatible runtime environment the lawsuit would never have happened. I'm not a Java expert so I don't know if Google really, truly had no choice but to go the Dalvik route or not. I share the concerns about Larry Ellison and Oracle. I support their proprietary database products largely because they are so popular in the enterprise, not because I like Oracle. Unlike Microsoft the Oracle products are so popular because they really are, in many ways, superior products. Unlike Microsoft, Oracle actually built their place in the market in significant part through innovation and excellence. Unlike Microsoft's suit against Motorola, the Oracle suit is fairly narrow in its target and is not an assault on Linux or FOSS as a whole. So, yes, there is an "Eeew" factor to Oracle but it doesn't cause the same level of revulsion to me that Microsoft does, particularly now that Microsoft has launched into major patent trolling in a truly dangerous way. How to react to that "Eeew" factor is a personal thing and Ridcully has reacted in a much stronger way that some of us who have commented in response have. I've never said I won't support Libre Office. Neither has tracyanne or bigg or anyone else. What we have said is that we won't dive in feet first over a feeling nor will we sacrifice functionality over something as minimal as a logo change. My take is pretty much the same as tracyanne's. I'll wait for the distros I care about most (Red Hat, Slackware and their respective derivatives) to package LOo before I try it. If it does what I have come to expect from OOo or does better then of course I will support it. If OOo is the superior product for my needs and if it remains Free I'll stick with that. Why even challenge Ridcully's posts? bigg hit on it: he went to a public forum and started an anti-Oracle crusade. His posts read like a call to action. It is only natural that those who don't agree with that action would respond and challenge what he wrote. That is a far cry from dictating how Ridcully should act or feel. |
| bigg Oct 07, 2010 9:00 AM EDT |
@Ridcully In the first sentence of your first post of the previous thread, you wrote, "Ever since I saw Oracle's name written across OpenOffice, I have winced and felt very uneasy about exactly what Oracle's version of OpenOffice was doing on my computer." The term "uneasy" was problematic to me, so I clarified, explaining that it was released under the LGPL, so there is no reason for anyone else to worry if they are currently using OOo. Then in this thread I again pointed out that it is LGPL software, and that your argument made no sense, because you are still using Linux. You responded: "there is nothing wrong whatsoever as far as I know, but I am not an expert on the fine print of either the GPL or LGPL, so I"ll hedge my bets to that extent." Hedge your bets with respect to what? To those with limited understanding of FOSS, there is certainly an implication of risk. With 100% certainty, we can say for sure that "hedging your bets" doesn't have anything to do with your dislike of Oracle. Therefore let me state clearly one more time: It is safe to use OOo. Ridcully may not like Oracle, but he has no reason to believe there is any risk involved with the use of OOo. Caitlyn describes it in better language than I did: your posts are a call to action. |
| Ridcully Oct 07, 2010 9:53 AM EDT |
@Bigg..........hedge my bets to my understanding of what each of the LGPL and GPL licences do......If you are an expert on the fine print of both licences, fine, I am not, and that is the only extent of my intention with that statement. Of course it is safe (as far as I know) to use any version of OO as regards their licences, and this is where you are trying to make something out of nothing. Caitlyn, my posts are NOT a call to action over anything at all and least of all an anti-Oracle crusade, they are simply a statement that I personally do not wish to use a software supermarket brand called Oracle.....Got it.......GOOD !!!!!!! What others do is up to them.....I am not an authority in any way on OO nor should you try to set me up as one. This thread has become the most incredible "beat up" and it is now becoming utterly ridiculous with respect to the extreme positions taken and the extreme interpretations made. I think it is time that all participants took a deep breath, stood back and closed the doors, and dear heavens, until bigg poured fuel on the flames, I thought it had all been settled amicably and we could all go home. In any event, I do not intend to comment further since it will do nothing of any value. So there we are......enjoy assassinating my character if you will; my impressions are that there has certainly been a desire to destroy a viewpoint that differs from the norm. |
| tuxchick Oct 07, 2010 10:16 AM EDT |
I agree, this thread is a weird beat-up over nothing. Jumping all over Ridcully for what? The words that you put in his mouth. He agreed with the article, said that Oracle is creepy and not to be trusted, and wants to control what he installs on his computers. Hey yeah, totally radical and off the wall there, better jump on him! Sure, removing Oracle Office is largely a symbolic gesture at this point, so what? I like symbolic gestures. Symbolic gestures are good. Ridcully made no call to action, and none of this has anything to do with whatever the mythical masses might hypothetically do, which is a tired and useless argument that has nothing to do with personal choices. |
| bigg Oct 07, 2010 10:36 AM EDT |
> I think it is time that all participants took a deep breath, stood back and closed the doors, and dear heavens, until bigg poured fuel on the flames, I thought it had all been settled amicably and we could all go home. @Ridcully You started both threads. I pointed out both times that users of OOo have nothing to worry about, there's no trojan horse here. It's LGPL software. You're like a politician saying "We don't know that he didn't beat his wife. We just don't have any way to know for sure that her black eye didn't come from his fist." If you consider that to be either pouring fuel on the flames, or a beat up, then perhaps you ought to stop posting. There should be an expectation that others will challenge the accuracy of what you write (or imply). |
| azerthoth Oct 07, 2010 11:16 AM EDT |
Taking neither side, I would point out, if someone publicly comes out and takes a stance on a topic they should never be surprised or confused when people come along and question that stance. |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 07, 2010 11:41 AM EDT |
Quoting: [...] if someone publicly comes out and takes a stance [...] they should never be surprised [...] when people come along and question that stance.Certainly not me, I just sell gasoline to both sides. YBT |
| tuxchick Oct 07, 2010 11:49 AM EDT |
Az, I may dense and blind, but I don't see anyone questioning what Ridcully said-- they're responding to all kinds of things he didn't say. |
| hkwint Oct 07, 2010 12:14 PM EDT |
One can also take the "comply or explain" approach when it comes to Oracle, when one doesn't like Oracle: Don't use its products, unless it's a lot of effort / one loses functionality when migrating to an alternative. Put in other words, "use something else if it's easy". I think migrating from OOo to LO is an easy 'first step' one can take, and migrating from VirtualBox to KVM may be interesting to contemplate. Switching from Linux to BSD on the other hand, is hard. There's nothing wrong with not being consequent when using this approach, it's not "black or white". Companies don't migrate from a "100% Windows shop" to "being 100% Microsoft free" the next day. Lots of non-corporate end-users "phasing out Oracle software whenever possible" also sends a message to Oracle I think. That message would be "lots of folks in the community don't like you anymore". Probably, Oracle doesn't care, but if it makes people like me feel better, why not? Even if two projects may produce software under the same license, the degree of "openness" between the two projects may vary. For example, if Microsoft releases Windows as GPL-software tomorrow, the resulting project will not be as free as the Linux (kernel)-project: "The community can influence the Linux project, participate in it, it's history (how the code came into existence in the way it did) is known, communication is open, management listens to end users" and so on. If there are two projects with exactly the same GPL-code and one is more open than the other, I would preferably use the software of the more open project. So, even if LO and OOo were the same, I'd rather use LO. But if KVM doesn't work for me and VirtualBox (closed edition) does, it doesn't make me feel bad. Sure, Google tries to make us think otherwise. If Oracle sues Google, they try to make us think Oracle is against the software we depend on and like. But why not just assume Oracle isn't against anything but just trying to make money the easiest way? Why buy into the Google-propaganda? It's not like Google is our friend, because their behaviour is the result of the exact same reasons as Oracle's. Only the result is different. So, that's why I don't use Google if I don't have to (and it's easy to use something else) either. Not using it's search engine though, is not that feasible as there are no good alternatives, and the same (to a lesser degree) can be said for Maps. But not using Google Mail & Google Office is quite easy though. |
| jdixon Oct 07, 2010 12:50 PM EDT |
> Ridcully can remove the software if he wants. He is not free to go on a popular website, tell the world that we all have to fear OOo, and go unchallenged... Which would be fine if he had actually said that. > bigg hit on it: he went to a public forum and started an anti-Oracle crusade. That's not what bigg said, as you can see from the quote above. But yes, that's what Ridcully did, though he may not have intended to. Does anyone really have a problem with that? > ...your posts are a call to action. Yes, they are, though again he may not have intended such. But such a call to action seems quite reasonable given Oracle's recent actions. > ..there's no trojan horse here... The mere fact that you feel the need to say that tells you all you need to know about Oracle. |
| bigg Oct 07, 2010 1:30 PM EDT |
> Which would be fine if he had actually said that. Then why did he start talking about hedging his bets and how Oracle's attitude matters? I had hoped he would say "nothing is wrong with LGPL software, I just don't like Oracle." Instead he came along with some story about how he doesn't know that he can trust LGPL software. That's a load of FUD no different from what you'd hear out of Ballmer, and I called him on it. And for everyone else who wants to attack me: note that I made two pretty tame posts before I was attacked and some started throwing a fit over my clarifications about the LGPL. |
| azerthoth Oct 07, 2010 3:20 PM EDT |
TC, I read it differently then, I see: Statement Comment Interrogative for clarification utterly baffling response observation on logic and consistency observation on logic and consistency blah blah attempt to redirect followed by the bandwagon |
| jdixon Oct 07, 2010 3:26 PM EDT |
> Then why did he start talking about hedging his bets and how Oracle's attitude matters? Because it matters to him? Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one. > Instead he came along with some story about how he doesn't know that he can trust LGPL software. If you can't trust the author, you can't trust the software, regardless of the license. The LPGL gives you the ability to audit the software, but that takes time and expertise most people don't have. Has the Open Office code has been audited by a trusted agent? > And for everyone else who wants to attack me I'm not attacking you, though I will admit to defending Ridcully. He's stated an opinion regarding a company and taken an action based upon it. He readily admits that it's an emotional reaction, not a carefully thought out one. If that's reason to attack someone, then most of the human population is fair game. |
| bigg Oct 07, 2010 3:36 PM EDT |
> If you can't trust the author, you can't trust the software, regardless of the license. The only thing that would be relevant here, as in specific to OOo, is Oracle suing for patent violations, copyright violations, preventing you from sharing, etc. The LGPL prevents any of that. Anything else would be a concern with or without the LGPL. > Because it matters to him? Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one. He was responding to my question about what is wrong with software released under LGPL. Maybe he was just throwing extra thoughts in, but I sure didn't see it. |
| gus3 Oct 07, 2010 3:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:The LPGL gives you the ability to audit the softwareIncorrect. The LGPL does not vouch for the executable (via the source), only for the LGPL components in it (via their sources). It is only a side-effect that the entire software is auditable, if all components fall under the LGPL. And there is something wrong with LGPL itself, in that the FSF, its original promulgators, make allowances for it, but only grudgingly, discouraging its use. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html Why should I insist on freedom for my code, while allowing someone to use that code in a program that restricts other users' freedom? Sun Microsystems may have been two-faced about their software licensing, but they permitted (nearly-)open re-implementation of the SPARC CPU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC#Open_source_implementatio... and encouraged, or at least tolerated, FOSS work on SPARC and Solaris. Since acquiring Sun, Oracle's treatment of the community that had built up around Sun products has ranged from cold apathy (Open Solaris) to outright hostility with intent to do damage (Dalvik). Do Oracle's lawyers think they are also marketing people? I wonder, because it looks a lot like their marketing department is on vacation. |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 07, 2010 6:07 PM EDT |
Whether or not the closed-source Google Apps is any more palatable, I pretty much use it wherever I can, and for files I create that must be done in a word processor (this rarely happens), AbiWord is better than ever - really! Then there's Gnumeric if I need it. But Google Docs is just too easy. Sure Google is spying on me, but I'm not putting anything on there that's so sensitive. |
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