It seems that Oracle doesn't understand that the main asset of an Open Source project is it's community, not the code base. And this is not something that you can control at will.
Also, let's not forget that it's not only Open Office. This exact same story is happening to Hudson CI right now. The community has already switched to Jenkins, and I bet it's a matter of time before Oracle announces they discontinue Hudson, too.
I think that Oracle doesn't view Open Source projects as assets, full stop. They're cost centers, not profit centers.
I don't think Open Office factored into Oracle's analysis of the Sun acquisition at all, and I doubt they'd notice if it disappeared. They've got other things on their minds.
This doesn't surprise me as OpenOffice / StarOffice never really made sense as a business to begin with. Sun invested in it because it allowed them to "eat their own dogfood" (not use Windows) and arguably out of McNealy's obsession with taking down Microsoft.
It will be interesting if the community does anything with it. My guess is that it will be mostly small feature enhancements and integration changes. None of the corporate supporters seem to really want to be in the Office business, so my guess is that any major new release is probably years away, if at all.
This only works for projects that Oracle can't see a profiy in. VirtualBox should be fine, maybe even MySQL, but Solaris and Java might be a bit tougher...
Is this really a surprise to anyone? Oracle have been pretty clear that they're only going for high-end infrastructure deployments, so they're probably glad that OpenOffice has been taken off their hands. They're likely waiting for someone to take MySQL off them in a convincing way as well to get the EU off their back.
Oracle are only interested in turn-key hardware-OS-DB-middleware stacks, and you better believe they don't give a flying toss about anything Sun owned that doesn't fit in that vertical. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up refusing to support anything that isn't mounted in an Sun/Oracle 19" rack (to be honest, that might not be a bad thing - Sun/Oracle racks are pretty nice).
To be completely clear: Oracle really, genuinely, absolutely, does not care about anything which doesn't fit into their model. I've been on the receiving end of a number of Oracle support (re)negotiations, and it never works out well for anyone that doesn't have a red O on their business card. Buy Oracle shares if you have the cash, but stay the hell away from their products if at all possible.
What bothers me is the trademark issue. Why should Oracle keep OpenOffice and the fork has to use another name? Trademarks exist to protect the public. Which of the projects is more true to the original one?
Trademarks are a legal thing - they are in effect "owned by someone". While the _code_ is open-source, that doesn't mean other people can come along and just use your trademark. Nor does it mean that a project originator should just have to "give up" the trademark to anyone who comes calling.
If you want the trademark to be owned by a neutral body, then by all means create a body to hold the trademark. That's a choice for the project originator (who usually holds the trademark). In this case there's no dispute that Oracle "owns" the trademark.
Leaving aside the legal implications of a trademark for the moment, your hypothesis is flawed at a social level. Who, after all, is "the community". Let's take an imaginary product - which was created by Fred and is now being developed by a "community" of 10 developers. There are say 200 users of the product.
Now 3 of Fred's developers decide to go and work on a fork. Does Fred give them rights to use his product name? What then does he call his product? How do customers differentiate between the two products with the same name? Since anyone can fork at any time, should we have 25 projects with the same name in the same product space?
Ok, 3 seems a little low - what about 6? What if 3 of those developers joined the project in the last month? Does their leaving count as more or less? What about if 9 developers leave?
How best then to determine which is best for the community of users? Who determines which project is "more true" to the original project? what criteria do we use to measure"trueness"? Does the language dictate trueness? Does the location of the original project lead?
In other words, your point is completely moot. Oracle gets to keep the name because they own it. period. (Although it seems they might now be prepared to give it up.) People have the right to fork the code at any time they like, but it's not in our interest to allow them to use the same name. The public is best served, and protected, by changing the name of forked projects. Anything else is just worse.
I'd say LibreOffice is a better name. 'Open' is one of the most overused and diluted terms in tech. 'OpenOffice' sounds like a floorplan or an error state when the last person leaves without locking the door.
And, for the average user, does it matter more that the software is 'open' (whatever that means), or that it is 'free'/'Free' (as hinted by Libre)?
I'd say Oracle did the fork a favor by zealously guarding the old trademark.
What's your suggestion? That they should have been more restrictive with the OOo community? Oracle screwed the pooch, not by "allowing" TDF to fork, but by driving them to do so in the first place.
If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you need to consider community management a top priority if you're planning on relying on open source for a core business product. Sun managed to annoy the OOo community, but it took Oracle to drive them away.
Their interactions with open source communities have been so hamfisted I would be surprised if they even realized the danger this creates for their other projects. They dropped a product with ballooning development costs. What this means for dynamic community efforts with competing interests is likely lost on the Oracle suits.
I think the comparison between the open source community and terrorism is a bit of a stretch, even ignoring the provocative implication that open source is somehow an act of violence against software development. Mainly, terrorists are necessarily adversarial, whereas the open source community doesn't have to be. I think a more apt comparison would be the police, or even government in general, and the community they serve. People tend to be happier, and more work gets done, when the government listens to and reacts to the concerns of its constituency, than when it doesn't. So it goes for open source.
[+] [-] gregschlom|15 years ago|reply
Also, let's not forget that it's not only Open Office. This exact same story is happening to Hudson CI right now. The community has already switched to Jenkins, and I bet it's a matter of time before Oracle announces they discontinue Hudson, too.
[+] [-] michael_dorfman|15 years ago|reply
I don't think Open Office factored into Oracle's analysis of the Sun acquisition at all, and I doubt they'd notice if it disappeared. They've got other things on their minds.
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flomo|15 years ago|reply
It will be interesting if the community does anything with it. My guess is that it will be mostly small feature enhancements and integration changes. None of the corporate supporters seem to really want to be in the Office business, so my guess is that any major new release is probably years away, if at all.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jrockway|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cultureulterior|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runningdogx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilikejam|15 years ago|reply
Oracle are only interested in turn-key hardware-OS-DB-middleware stacks, and you better believe they don't give a flying toss about anything Sun owned that doesn't fit in that vertical. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up refusing to support anything that isn't mounted in an Sun/Oracle 19" rack (to be honest, that might not be a bad thing - Sun/Oracle racks are pretty nice).
To be completely clear: Oracle really, genuinely, absolutely, does not care about anything which doesn't fit into their model. I've been on the receiving end of a number of Oracle support (re)negotiations, and it never works out well for anyone that doesn't have a red O on their business card. Buy Oracle shares if you have the cash, but stay the hell away from their products if at all possible.
[+] [-] Vlasta|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bruce511|15 years ago|reply
If you want the trademark to be owned by a neutral body, then by all means create a body to hold the trademark. That's a choice for the project originator (who usually holds the trademark). In this case there's no dispute that Oracle "owns" the trademark.
Leaving aside the legal implications of a trademark for the moment, your hypothesis is flawed at a social level. Who, after all, is "the community". Let's take an imaginary product - which was created by Fred and is now being developed by a "community" of 10 developers. There are say 200 users of the product.
Now 3 of Fred's developers decide to go and work on a fork. Does Fred give them rights to use his product name? What then does he call his product? How do customers differentiate between the two products with the same name? Since anyone can fork at any time, should we have 25 projects with the same name in the same product space?
Ok, 3 seems a little low - what about 6? What if 3 of those developers joined the project in the last month? Does their leaving count as more or less? What about if 9 developers leave?
How best then to determine which is best for the community of users? Who determines which project is "more true" to the original project? what criteria do we use to measure"trueness"? Does the language dictate trueness? Does the location of the original project lead?
In other words, your point is completely moot. Oracle gets to keep the name because they own it. period. (Although it seems they might now be prepared to give it up.) People have the right to fork the code at any time they like, but it's not in our interest to allow them to use the same name. The public is best served, and protected, by changing the name of forked projects. Anything else is just worse.
[+] [-] gojomo|15 years ago|reply
And, for the average user, does it matter more that the software is 'open' (whatever that means), or that it is 'free'/'Free' (as hinted by Libre)?
I'd say Oracle did the fork a favor by zealously guarding the old trademark.
[+] [-] ThePinion|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haberman|15 years ago|reply
You could fork before, you can fork now, right? How is ceasing of commercial development a net positive? It just seems neutral.
[+] [-] SriniK|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poundy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordan0day|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Derbasti|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andrex|15 years ago|reply
Wonder what's next...
[+] [-] 3dFlatLander|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmorrison|15 years ago|reply
Not that this comparison is 100% accurate, but they could learn from why the police don't give in to terrorist demands.
[+] [-] redthrowaway|15 years ago|reply
If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you need to consider community management a top priority if you're planning on relying on open source for a core business product. Sun managed to annoy the OOo community, but it took Oracle to drive them away.
[+] [-] ahi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angus77|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedanieru|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RexRollman|15 years ago|reply