Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell and OpenOffice.org -- Harming, Helping, or Just Exploiting?

Novell's promotion of Microsoft OOXML and bringing of Microsoft .NET (Mono) closer to OpenOffice.org hasn't escaped developers' attention. Moreover, their confrontation with Sun Microsystems over control of the project was quite nasty [1, 2, 3, 4]. Novell was seen as self-serving at the time.



Novell has a double commitment. On the one hand, it is a partner of Microsoft, so sales of Microsoft Office are important, even if they are defended through elevation of Microsoft formats. On the other hand, Novell works with Sun, which competes against Novell and Microsoft on several fronts while also collaborating. The question is: in which way would Novell lean?

According to recent communication among OpenOffice.org developers, Novell may slowly be alienating itself. Consider, for instance, what Michael Meeks writes.

Hmm, "they are in alpha, beta, whatever stage" :-) I beg to differ. Yes - some of the patches in ooo-build are experimental, but we [Novell] disable these by default on stable branches so they are not applied. Everything else that is applied to our product Novell offers L3 support for - if you find something broken, we will fix it (well, if you're a paying customer - but we're interested in bugs of course anyway).

Interestingly, when you look at our L3 work-load, only a tiny fraction of our bugs are specific to our changes - almost all are present in the "conservative" up-stream OO.o. Conversely, in many other cases the fix for a bug is not in the "conservative" up-stream OO.o - so up-stream users suffer it, but not ours :-)


That is of course just selfish, but it's part of a broader picture. The thread as a whole is worth seeing.

GNOME CalcThe basic premises of Michael Meeks are a lie. OpenOffice.org versions that are produced by the Novell build system are typically much buggier than the 'vanillas'.

More importantly, the thread above teaches us about that old admission that Novell is refusing to contribute to the codebase of OpenOffice.org. It then accuses Sun Microsystems of standing in its way (see the links at the very top again). Not nice.

Novell is not a team player. It did, after all, sell out the GNU/Linux ecosystem as well, did it not?

With 'friends' like these, who needs Microsoft?

Novellsoft

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025