I know that is the reason for starting the OOorg on Apache, so the license stuff is easier for IBM.

I 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).