I don't see the point really. LibreOffice already has working infrastructure, did loads of cleanup and has a working community. I don't see the point of the Apache Foundation, nor rewriting stuff just so it can have a different license.
A real application of this is using a GPL piece of software in a much larger project (like a library). This would mean you would have to release the entire project as GPL, even if you don't want to release other parts as GPL. This is where things like LGPL and dual-licensing can come in, allowing you the 'freedom' to release your code with the license you want.
So you can, if you want, sell the binary to select people (and ask them nicely not to give it to anyone else), and you only have to give the source to those select people, but not to anyone else.
The GPL does not require public source, only that the source follows the binary.
You cannot modify the source of Microsoft Office. Comparing office suites is an entirely different topic.
I don't see a divided community. One project is really active and alive, then a year later OOorg tries to start something else.
It seems inefficient to have this split. But that is the same for everything. Why have different languages, multiple OSes, multiple distributions, desktop environments, etc. Might be inefficient, but unless you take away peoples freedom to do what they want, I don't see this changing.
Trying to compete with Microsoft Office seems futile anyway. I'd rather have a focus on making a good office suite. It doesn't really matter if it can do everything that Microsoft Office can.
OpenOffice.org - Apache License
LibreOffice - LGPLv3I just don't think it'll work. Most distribution companies prefer GPL because in that case everybody benefits. You cannot take the work of all companies, then do your on thing on top and don't give back.
Believe it would be easier to not have Lotus Symphony open source. That, or change strategy and rely on brandname. I don't think it matters much that something is fully open sourced and can be reused by another company.
Marketing, trademark and strong brand (meaning: trusted, supported, reliable) goes a long way. Can still ask money for it, and if someone wants to give it away for free they'll have to use a different name for it (similar to the Firefox name in Debian).
e.g. project a is developed. Design is wrong according to another group, they develop project b, then maybe you get project c. Messy on the short term. Long term, seems only the high quality projects survive.
For example, Nautilus (the file manager, in it's original design). ReiserFS. Omega (the unicode alternative TeX implementation). The Fresco windowing system. Enlightenment E17. The Parrot VM. ...
Perpetual flux and incohesiveness is too management speak for me. Loads of people who scratch an itch working out in the open.
Look inside a big company, pretty much the same thing going on.
Actually it was. Current day Nautilus has little to do with the original scope and functionality of the project as envisioned (and promoted) by Eazel. It's like saying Hurd still exists. Yeah, but hardly anybody uses it and it failed to fulfill what it promised for 25 years.
> IIRC E17 is used on various phones
Yeah, which all of 5 people use, and one of them is Rasterman.
> Reiser killed someone
Isn't an often repeated premise of OSS that a project can keep on despite being abandoned by its' leaders?
> Parrot is still under development
Still in perpetual flux.
> Perpetual flux and incohesiveness is too management speak for me.
It's also something felt everyday by common people and expert hard core users alike.
> Look inside a big company, pretty much the same thing going on.
Companies tend not to fuck too much with the flagship programs, revenue streams, and seldom just for the "fun of it".
How many times, for example, has the KDE multimedia infrastructure been replaced with something entirely different only for this to happen again?
LibreOffice's staying power depends on how much of their effort was simply "sticking it to Oracle", if they get bored and fade away then so will LibreOffice.
Apart from nerds there is no loyalty to the product just to getting the job done, if the word processor opens their documents then users simply don't care. Similarly most users don't use Office because it is Office, they use it because it is there.