EARLIER on today we wrote about Microsoft's fanfare over the release of Microsoft Moonlight. The Microsoft-oriented Elizabeth Montalbano (at IDG) covered it promptly just like other reporters who pick the same theme. By contrast, Sean who is actually a GNU/Linux user talked about the problems which make Moonlight quite so controversial (and forbidden in Fedora's case).
Yes there is still a debate about the media codecs themselves which are still proprietary, even though Microsoft is making them freely available via Novell. Questions about Free Software purity aside, Moonlight is about enabling Linux users with the ability to view the same content as Windows users. With Moonlight in play, Microsoft can rightfully claim that Silverlight isn't just for Windows.
Another project with a cloudy future is OpenOffice.org, Sun's open source office suite. Sun's stewardship of OpenOffice.org has been mired in controversy. The company often clashed with other major contributors, especially Novell. Many critics of Sun's conduct have called for OpenOffice.org to be spun off into an independent foundation with vendor-neutral governance so that all interested parties can participate in enhancing the project on even footing. Such advocacy has been renewed in the wake of the acquisition.
The big question is: will Oracle let such a thing happen? If they don't, the only alternative may be to fork it and let IBM (via the Lotus Symphony project) or Novell (via Go-OO) pick up the pieces. The former brought a great sense of design and integration to the suite; the latter a tenacity to improve the whole in ways that were previously neglected. Maybe the two of them can join forces on this one; they'd both have everything to gain.
Everyone who has cheerfully been using OpenOffice for the past seven or eight years must face the prospect that the new owners will drop the project. As it's open source, this is easily accomplished by "releasing it into the community", which will make it reliant on Novell and IBM, the only other companies to put significant numbers of programmers into the work.
--LinuxToday Managing Editor
Comments
Will
2009-05-07 11:46:51
I've no idea how the Oracle-Sun thing will turn out for OO.org, and while it may turn out well in the end, I wonder what might have resulted if IBM had acquired Sun and subsequently fused OpenOffice 3.x with Lotus Symphony (which was forked from OO.org 1.x code) to perhaps create a new office suite better than either of them.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-05-07 13:50:37
souskel
2009-05-07 17:33:23
Your argument that Go-OO is a hostile fork because of Novell's association with Microsoft seems like a bit of a false dichotomy, Roy. Sun has a patent agreement with Microsoft that covers OpenOffice.org and it's pretty much the same as the deal that Novell has with Microsoft. To make matters even more sketchy, Sun says that patent indemnification is a major selling point of their commercial StarOffice program.
Why all the love for Sun? Wrt OOo, they are as much in bed with Microsoft as Novell is.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-05-07 17:44:24
David Gerard
2009-05-07 18:15:28
*cough*
Personally, I'm sure they were sorely tempted to laugh in the face of the people who were asking for Oracle on Windows, of all the platforms. But there's infinite sums of money in serving those who refuse to think.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-05-07 18:25:15
Oracle also releases software to GNU/Linux before it releases it to Windows.
David Gerard
2009-05-07 18:42:40
Roy Schestowitz
2009-05-07 18:45:25
"Oracle's market share on Linux was 82.6 percent in 2006, up from 80.6 percent in 2005"
The newer figures are even better.