See this post about Mandriva. They retracted.

There are many apps that reach maturity level and continue to be used for a long time with minimal changes in the code.

Plus, today, OO.o is growing and is healthy. Tomorrow, if the need arises, someone else’s fork will catch on. Since it is open source, people will be able to extend OO.o or take a lead when the time comes.

Customers will always be able to use OO.o if they want since they have the source code (assuming some time after those “8 years” the noncommercial and commercial support sources dried up).

And let’s not forget about the other office suites. As ODF support matures, you will be able to move across applications without significantly (or at all) losing fidelity or functionality.

There is very little risk generally in adopting OO.o.

I don’t trust Novell today. I think it’s great that they make some contributions/improvements to OO.o that might be useful to others. Surely, if they borrow the majority of OO.o, others can borrow their pieces without feeling too guilty. Looking forward for Novell to stop supporting Microsoft. [I think Roy needs a vacation.]

Just to make it clear, I have no problem with Sun making tonnes of money out of OpenOffice.org, I just don’t have anything against Novell doing that either. One of the sad things about free software is so few people making money actually off the software, not ancilliary services….

I don’t fault Novell for making a business decision they felt was in the best interest of their stockholders…

The problem is that, being of a proprietary mindset, they failed to predict the market reaction. The second time they announced coupons they tried to ‘gag’ journalists and bloggers in order to police public perception. I documented this here, having been in touch with those involved.

I’m not in disagreement (abstractly/theoretically) over many things Novell has done in order to compete and contribute (contribute code, fork, add support, or even keep “some” closed source around). The problem is in how closely they have aligned themselves with Microsoft. Apparently Hovsepian seriously underestimated the reaction from many in the wider FOSS community.

Microsoft is very powerful and leveraged and seriously against losing any of that control. Linux is a huge threat to them. Novell is helping Microsoft tame FOSS and Linux. Microsoft has always accepted competing technologies and companies it has not been able to absorb or entirely eliminate, but in a way where these are marginalized. If Microsoft did not have so much domination, aggression, and a past history of success, and if Novell had not aligned themselves so closely to Microsoft, Novell would not be vilified nearly as much as they are. Novell really did help improve Sun’s and Red Hat’s image within the community. And, of course, these companies and others are naturally taking advantage or at least taking notes.

I don’t fault Novell for making a business decision they felt was in the best interest of their stockholders, but the reality remains that it’s not in my interest as an ordinary user and developer to support Novell or to have them be successful while they stick with their current plans.

So Novell’s problem is in the specifics and not abstractly.

Web page: wow, it sucks. While there are actually quite a few people who do want to know Sun will catch the bullet for them in the unlikely event anyone tries to fire one, I think that feature listing is disproportionate to the demand. And it doesn’t mention the support that’s available for OpenOffice.org. I’ll go get the page changed.

Sun also continue to tout the lack of indemnification as a reason to buy StarOffice over OpenOffice.org. I would imagine most of their revenue comes from a fork – StarOffice.

The conflict is over control (and, as far as the greater FOSS community is concerned) trust.

At this point in time, Sun is a much greater asset to Linux/FOSS than is Novell. The primary reason for this has to do with the checks and balances provided by Sun on Microsoft, who is without a doubt and by far the biggest threat and obstacle to FOSS, vs. the helping hand Novell gives Microsoft in helping Microsoft’s poison and tentacles to spread, eg, http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/07/18/analysis_how_ms_used/ . [FOSS is software that can run usefully independently of other closed software, something that is impossible with anything that gets ported to Windows, for example.]

I do not like Sun’s support in OO of OOXML, but I can live with it for the time being. At least they don’t appear to advocate use of OOXML and other MS controlled and dominated technologies.

Sun could be bought out in the future. In fact, them losing control over copyrights to the main development branch of OO.o is one way to move in that direction.

Alex, you mention Sun giving up control. At this point in time, that would probably really hurt Sun’s business and hence ability to continue contributing (that is my guess) and keeping the fire underneath Microsoft. I think that to ask Sun to give up something so valuable to them almost necessitates we too ask Novell to place all their Netware, Suse (and derivs), Go-oo, and MS-clone-gunk copyrights into the hands of a “neutral” third party such that we all have access to special licenses (beyond the GPL, etc) or else no one does.

So Alex, are you up to the task of hanging around Novell forums asking that they move their “IP” into “neutral” third party hands in order to resolve conflicts many of us have with them? I would be particularly tickled to see Netware be made open source with copyrights be placed into third party hands, soon, while that product might still be useful.

Novell should walk the FOSS talk, don’t you think? Their customers, whom they love so much, would really appreciate that. [Don't bother to ask same of Microsoft -- it's hopeless beyond hopelessness.]

Getting back to reality, if ISO was manipulated significantly by Microsoft (with help of Novell and others), I think it’s certainly possible a nonprofit could be usurped as well. I do prefer to contribute copyrights to nonprofits, but it’s a judgement call. Again, keep in mind the THREAT to FOSS.

Let me see if this helps clarify the meaning of “fork” (from wikipedia):
>> In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software.

I **love** the concept of forking, but implied by that is that you can dislike/distrust/etc some forks. We can like the concept of forking and then turn around and say that people should watch out for Novell’s fork or at least not contribute to it significantly if possible.

BTW, you can take any two bodies of source code and find a “diff” between them. So a set of “patches” does imply a fork if it is being applied by someone and not by someone else. Note, you *can* “patch” Linux to turn it into BSD. There is nothing magical about “patch”. As the definition states, a fork is implied by independent development. Many distros possibly use forks of “vanilla” OO.o, of “vanilla” Linux kernel, etc.

The fork concept is great. The go-ooo fork is not. [Just like Novell takes the vast majority of OO.o, certainly, anyone else can take from go-ooo/ooo-build, but I would not contribute copyrights to Novell if at all practical.]

Roy: if you could, can you just tag that post as having been edited? I don’t think it matters what you edited, just so that it’s clear that responses underneath aren’t referencing this new version.

Microsoft has amassed a chunk of history to deserve this criticism.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041228040645419
http://boycottnovell.com/microsoft-critique-resources/

And I won’t even delve into the ruthless personal attacks they directed at myself, as well as many others. These things are all documented.

Simon’s message has been silently edited in-situ to remove the character assassination and amp-up the anti-MS message.

If MS has originated a personal attack like that of the original text, they would have been crucified in the blogosphere, not least here.

- Alex (B).

My post here was a follow-up to Simon’s request that Roy delete the private e-mail that he wasn’t supposed to share.

Instead, Simon’s request has been deleted? Roy?

FWIW, if that is a private e-mail, I think Simon’s request should be respected.

Novell doesn’t criticise Microsoft

I guess you’ve never been at a Novell sponsored event then!