
Oracle gives up on OpenOffice after community forks the project - creativityhurts
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/04/oracle-gives-up-on-ooo-after-community-forks-the-project.ars
======
gregschlom
It seems that Oracle doesn't understand that the main asset of an Open Source
project is it's community, not the code base. And this is not something that
you can control at will.

Also, let's not forget that it's not only Open Office. This exact same story
is happening to Hudson CI right now. The community has already switched to
Jenkins, and I bet it's a matter of time before Oracle announces they
discontinue Hudson, too.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I think that Oracle doesn't view Open Source projects as assets, full stop.
They're cost centers, not profit centers.

I don't think Open Office factored into Oracle's analysis of the Sun
acquisition at all, and I doubt they'd notice if it disappeared. They've got
other things on their minds.

~~~
bad_user
I think they care about Java, especially the standard -- since if you can
force compliance by means of patents, trademarks and nebulous copyright-
infringement FUD, then it doesn't matter if OpenJDK exists (on the contrary,
does wonders for marketing purposes; a supposed "standard" with a reference
implementation that's open-source? how can anyone not dig it?).

There is that alternative implementation, called Apache Harmony, that's like
this huge elephant in the room of every JCP vote they have, reminding
everybody that the Java standard is in fact a tightly controlled, proprietary
farce, having nothing to do with standards that are controlled by real
standard bodies (although regrettably, besides Google and Apache, nobody had
the balls to vote against the Java 7 roadmap; although the members did express
concerns, but for the JCP that's as natural as screaming when taking it in the
ass forcefully, without consequences for Oracle)

I do hope somebody will fork Java SE (the standard). If Google gets away with
Android, maybe Dalvik will evolve to be a drop-in replacement to Harmony's VM.

~~~
rbanffy
What's the big problem with OpenJDK?

------
flomo
This doesn't surprise me as OpenOffice / StarOffice never really made sense as
a business to begin with. Sun invested in it because it allowed them to "eat
their own dogfood" (not use Windows) and arguably out of McNealy's obsession
with taking down Microsoft.

It will be interesting if the community does anything with it. My guess is
that it will be mostly small feature enhancements and integration changes.
None of the corporate supporters seem to really want to be in the Office
business, so my guess is that any major new release is probably years away, if
at all.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So will/are Oracle using MS Office, OpenOffice.org or Libre Office?

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jrockway
Now we just need to take care of Solaris, VirualBox, MySQL, and Java, and we
can finally stop caring about Oracle.

~~~
omh
This only works for projects that Oracle can't see a profiy in. VirtualBox
should be fine, maybe even MySQL, but Solaris and Java might be a bit
tougher...

~~~
regularfry
VirtualBox is significantly less useful (to me, at least) without the guest
additions, and they're closed source. I don't know how much effort it would be
to clean-room them.

~~~
dspillett
I expect it wouldn't be difficult for the right people. There would be three
problems though:

1\. Getting enough "right" people _who have enough time on there hands and
care enough_ together to work on it

2\. Lots and lots and lots and lots of testing in many different environments
to make sure the replacement code is at least as stable and correct as the
closed stuff

3\. The possibility of patent and other IP related problems

3 may not be an issue (other virtualisation options like KVM and Xen have not
been attacked this way (yet)). 1 is an issue right now but would probably stop
being so if Oracle starting being a problem in this area (in which case the
right people would be affected and either _want_ to work on this for their own
needs or would just jump ship to another solution). 2 would be the biggie
though. Given how core the code is it would take quite some effort to prove to
its potential users (including the people working on it!) that it is at least
as safe as that which it replaces.

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ilikejam
Is this really a surprise to anyone? Oracle have been pretty clear that
they're only going for high-end infrastructure deployments, so they're
probably glad that OpenOffice has been taken off their hands. They're likely
waiting for someone to take MySQL off them in a convincing way as well to get
the EU off their back.

Oracle are only interested in turn-key hardware-OS-DB-middleware stacks, and
you better believe they don't give a flying toss about anything Sun owned that
doesn't fit in that vertical. It wouldn't surprise me if they end up refusing
to support anything that isn't mounted in an Sun/Oracle 19" rack (to be
honest, that might not be a bad thing - Sun/Oracle racks are pretty nice).

To be completely clear: Oracle really, genuinely, absolutely, does not care
about anything which doesn't fit into their model. I've been on the receiving
end of a number of Oracle support (re)negotiations, and it never works out
well for anyone that doesn't have a red O on their business card. Buy Oracle
shares if you have the cash, but stay the hell away from their products if at
all possible.

------
Vlasta
What bothers me is the trademark issue. Why should Oracle keep OpenOffice and
the fork has to use another name? Trademarks exist to protect the public.
Which of the projects is more true to the original one?

~~~
bruce511
Trademarks are a legal thing - they are in effect "owned by someone". While
the _code_ is open-source, that doesn't mean other people can come along and
just use your trademark. Nor does it mean that a project originator should
just have to "give up" the trademark to anyone who comes calling.

If you want the trademark to be owned by a neutral body, then by all means
create a body to hold the trademark. That's a choice for the project
originator (who usually holds the trademark). In this case there's no dispute
that Oracle "owns" the trademark.

Leaving aside the legal implications of a trademark for the moment, your
hypothesis is flawed at a social level. Who, after all, is "the community".
Let's take an imaginary product - which was created by Fred and is now being
developed by a "community" of 10 developers. There are say 200 users of the
product.

Now 3 of Fred's developers decide to go and work on a fork. Does Fred give
them rights to use his product name? What then does he call his product? How
do customers differentiate between the two products with the same name? Since
anyone can fork at any time, should we have 25 projects with the same name in
the same product space?

Ok, 3 seems a little low - what about 6? What if 3 of those developers joined
the project in the last month? Does their leaving count as more or less? What
about if 9 developers leave?

How best then to determine which is best for the community of users? Who
determines which project is "more true" to the original project? what criteria
do we use to measure"trueness"? Does the language dictate trueness? Does the
location of the original project lead?

In other words, your point is completely moot. Oracle gets to keep the name
because they own it. period. (Although it seems they might now be prepared to
give it up.) People have the right to fork the code at any time they like, but
it's not in our interest to allow them to use the same name. The public is
best served, and protected, by changing the name of forked projects. Anything
else is just worse.

~~~
Vlasta
It is not that easy - that's why I added the comment - to start the discussion
about open source and trademarks.

From wikipedia (sorry): "Trademark law is designed to fulfill the public
policy objective of consumer protection, by preventing the public from being
misled as to the origin or quality of a product or service. By identifying the
commercial source of products and services, trademarks facilitate
identification of products and services which meet the expectations of
consumers as to quality and other characteristics."

Trademarks exist to protect consumers, not the "owning" companies. In case of
open source projects, this does not work so well and there are problems you
have mentioned in your reply.

~~~
bruce511
The "protection" you speak of is that consumers can associate a producer with
a product. In this case the producer of the original product was Sun which is
now part of Oracle. Thus someone who gets an update for "Open Office" is
getting it from the one true source for Open Office.

The freedoms provided by the Open-Source license allow someone to fork that
code to create a "new improved product" - but that product can't be called
"Open Office". In this way consumers can't think they're getting x and end up
with y.

If the consumers are concerned about Open Office, then it's their choice to go
to Libre Office. They are in effect opting-in to a change. Changes of this
nature have to be opt-in, there's no way around that.

Allowing multiple people to use a trademark, or worse encouraging court
battles over who is the "one true heir" to a trademark would not be in the
consumers interest.

Clearly a fork can not have any claim on a product name because if it did
there exists the possibility for infinite forks, and infinite products with
the same name. This in no way serves the consumer, and specifically it does
not facilitate the identification of the product, not does it serve to
identify quality or other characteristics.

~~~
Vlasta
In some countries, when trademarks are transferred, there must be a continuity
in the underlying product or the trademark is lost. (You cannot just buy a
famous trademark and ship something completely different with a sticker placed
on it.)

Anyway, as you stated in the last paragraph, there may be an infinite number
of forks, and that is the core of the problem with trademarks and open source.
At the moment of forking, the source codes is identical. Then they start to
differ. Which one is truer to the original one? Software is not a shoe. I see
the continuity of a software project in the philosophy behind it.

Who is the true producer (the one that guarantees the "quality" for the
consumer) in this case? The organization or the community? Which part of the
community?

In my opinion, this is a big problem that needs to be solved in the future.
Maybe using a trademark are not a good idea for an open source project...

~~~
bruce511
"In some countries, when trademarks are transferred, there must be a
continuity in the underlying product or the trademark is lost."

If you say so, but it's certainly not the case in the US, or most other
countries. Ford for example regularly resurrects names like Mustang, or GT40,
and there is seldom any continuity in the underlying product. BMW bought Mini
from British Leyland, and developed a completely new car, which pays homage to
the Mini shape, but there is no continuity between the two products.

In software there are endless accounts of "complete rewrites" which ship under
the same name as an earlier product.

I think trademarks work perfectly well in the Open Source space. The project
originator (usually) owns the trademark - others are free to get their own
name. In this case it's pretty cut & dried. Oracle owns the product Open
Office. Anyone can fork it, but the one true "Open Office" is the one from
Oracle.

Now you may argue the merits of the fork surpassing the leader, and if
customers buy into the argument they can "opt in" to the new fork. That's
their choice. I don't think this hurts consumers, and I don't think it hurts
Open Source.

------
ThePinion
Amazing! Now let's get MySQL back!

~~~
poundy
Are there any forks yet? Is it harder or easier to fork a project like MySQL?

~~~
gaius
Heh, the thing is, MySQL was always open source, and Monty et al have all
quit, so Sun really payed $1Bn of their shareholder's money that they couldn't
really afford and the only actual asset they got was the domain name
mysql.com. And people wonder why they were bought by Oracle...

~~~
bruce511
"...only actual asset they got was the domain name mysql.com"

Not true. Apart from the domain, they also got the MySql brand name. More
importantly though than that they got the ability to sell MySql licenses.

But wait you say, MySql is free... Well, yes and no. It's free for a limited
subset of cases, for the rest you need a license. Now the code can be forked
forever, but only Sun (now Oracle) can sell commercial licenses.

MySql is a big deal for Oracle because they are effectively the only ones that
can change the licensing conditions for MySql. All MySql forks have to be
licensed under the GPL.

------
jordan0day
On a related-to-the-article-but-not-the-content note, did anyone else think
the image choice was absolutely _perfect_?

~~~
sp332
The creative director, "aurich", has been completely spoiling Ars readers.
He's been around for a while, but I swear he keeps getting better. e.g.
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/major-
online...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/major-online-poker-
sites-seized-charged-with-money-laundering.ars) and
[http://arstechnica.com/business/guides/2011/04/physical-
to-v...](http://arstechnica.com/business/guides/2011/04/physical-to-virtual-
conversion-in-the-enterprise.ars) and
[http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2011/04/npd-physical-
media...](http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2011/04/npd-physical-media-may-be-
declining-but-consumers-still-prefer-it.ars) and those are just from the front
page right now.

------
Derbasti
Oracle just _gets_ this 'open' stuff!

------
Andrex
The writing was on the wall.

Wonder what's next...

~~~
3dFlatLander
My fear (hope?) would be VirtualBox. Aside from Java, I use that the most.

~~~
ay
If you are using only the open source edition of VirtualBox, kvm can do a
reasonable job. I run Windows 7 on it in headless mode with VNC - primarily I
need it for the presentations, everything else I do from Linux.

My perception was that it is a bit lighter than VirtualBox, and it worked very
well so far for me. VBox had a couple of glitches when I was using it before.

~~~
ebiester
...and if your host system is mac or windows? :)

~~~
ay
...Then you install Linux and the problem becomes identical to the one we have
just solved ;-)

I am saying this semi-seriously: have been using Linux as my primary OS on the
desktop for the past 9 years, with half-year deflections to MacOS X and,
lately, to Windows 7. But the fluxbox with 0-pixel borders and "focus follows
mouse" had always dragged me back. Also in my latest experience, the
perception was that Win7 on bare metal ran somewhat slower than Win7 under
kvm.

With Windows, I used coLinux (<http://colinux.org/>). The MacOS X that I used
was PPC-based, it was circa 2005, so no reasonable experience there - so if
you're for freebies, I suppose VirtualBox is the only option (I just found
this: <http://www.kju-app.org/> \- but since I don't have Mac, no way to see
what it does).

~~~
ebiester
_laughs_ \-- As for myself, my (new) laptop dual boots currently, but linux
has been a real drain on battery life as the current crop of sandy bridge
laptops include two video cards, and I haven't figured out how to turn off the
unused one yet.

~~~
jwingy
Should be an option in the bios to turn off switchable graphics (like
optimus). If you're lucky, your laptop also has a chip to switch to discrete
or integrated only.

------
rmorrison
This seems like a dangerous precedent for Oracle to set for itself, especially
when it's sitting on many other popular open source projects.

Not that this comparison is 100% accurate, but they could learn from why the
police don't give in to terrorist demands.

~~~
redthrowaway
What's your suggestion? That they should have been _more_ restrictive with the
OOo community? Oracle screwed the pooch, not by "allowing" TDF to fork, but by
driving them to do so in the first place.

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you need to consider
community management a top priority if you're planning on relying on open
source for a core business product. Sun managed to annoy the OOo community,
but it took Oracle to drive them away.

~~~
ahi
I think the suggestion was that if you're going to be restrictive with the OOo
community, you better be ready to pick up the slack when they fork. By waving
the white flag, Oracle demonstrated that their demands of the open source
community are likely bluffs. Oracle needs the community more than the
community needs them.

~~~
redthrowaway
I think that's a fair reading of their post, and I agree with the sentiment.
The "don't negotiate with terrorists" line is a pretty inflammatory one to use
in this context, however.

------
RexRollman
I have to admit to detesting Oracle but I am glad to see they have seen the
light of day regarding OO.

