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Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice

By | June 10, 2011, 8:04am PDT

Summary: Some people in the open-source community are not at all pleased that Oracle has given OpenOffice to Apache and so they are throwing their support behind LibreOffice.

When Oracle, IBM, and the Apache Software Foundation jointly announced last week that OpenOffice.org would become an official Apache project, some open-source developers were not happy. The Document Foundation’s LibreOffice programmers were really not pleased. Now, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is coming out against the deal.

In a statement that will be released later today, June 10th, 2011, the FSF states that the “OpenOffice.org is an important piece of free software, and many of its supporters suggest that this change will give them more control over the project’s future direction. However, users and contributors should be aware that, as part of this transition, it will become easier for proprietary software developers to distribute OpenOffice.org as non-free software.”

The FSF continues:

All Apache projects are distributed under the terms of the Apache License. This is a non-copyleft free software license; anybody who receives the software can distribute it to others under non-free terms.

Such a licensing strategy represents a significant policy change for OpenOffice.org. Previously, the software was distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and Mozilla Public License (MPL).

Both of these licenses implement a weak copyleft; the original core software must be published under the same terms so every recipient can share and modify it, but developers who write new software on top of it may distribute that work under a non-free license. Free software developers are clearly comfortable with a partial copyleft when it’s appropriate; in numerous surveys of free software projects, the LGPL is commonly listed as the second-most popular license (after the GNU General Public License), or else follows close behind.

While we do recommend the Apache License in specific situations, we do not believe it is the best choice for software like OpenOffice.org. This situation calls for copyleft, because the gains free software stands to make from a non-copyleft license don’t justify giving a handout to proprietary software developers.

Fortunately, there’s a ready alternative for people who want to work with a productivity suite that does more to protect their freedom: LibreOffice. Anybody who’s comfortable with OpenOffice.org will find a familiar interface and feature set in LibreOffice, because it was originally based on the same source code. Since September 2010, numerous contributors have been working to improve the software, and the project’s legal steward, The Document Foundation, is committed to keeping it licensed under the LGPL and MPL.

In addition to the FSF’s licensing concerns, a former Microsoft developer and now free-software-advocate Keith Curtis described several practical programming issues for why LibreOffice is the better choice for would be open-source office suite devlopers in an open letter to an Apache mailing list.

Curtis lists numerous reasons for this. These include:

  • This s mostly a code dump, not the set of 50(?) full-time engineers who have created been maintaining this code.
  • This technology is massive. It is about the same size as the Linux kernel (10 million lines).
  • The Apache foundation has a lot of experience, but none with this codebase. Therefore, their help will be limited. It is like asking a surgeon to fix your car.
  • The code dump is missing a lot (filters, images, translations, etc.)
  • There is nothing to incubate. LibreOffice has just built everything you need.

Thus Curits and the FSF are in agreement when the FSF states that: “Anybody who plans to use or contribute to one of these productivity suites should understand how these policies affect them, and consider which better complement their own goals. While both pass the most important test of being free software, we recommend LibreOffice because its policies do significantly more to promote the cause of free software.”

They’re not the only ones. I confess that I also see a brighter future for LibreOffice than I do for OpenOffice. It’s not just that the LGPL is the better license, it’s that, as Curtis states, LibreOffice is where the developers are. Without top programmers, OpenOffice is little more than a brand and code destined to become obsolete.

Related Stories:

LibreOffice motors right along with a new release

Oracle gives OpenOffice to Apache

Novell will continue to support LibreOffice

First LibreOffice Release arrives

Oracle, LibreOffice: ideally a co-opetition, not competition

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Topics

Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, Document Foundation, Code Dump, OpenOffice, Drupal, Tools & Techniques, Open Source, Office Suites, Software, Management, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system

Disclosure

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a freelance writer. He does not own stocks or other investments in any technology company.

Biography

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system; 300bps was a fast Internet connection; WordStar was the state of the art word processor; and we liked it!

His work has been published in everything from highly technical publications (IEEE Computer, ACM NetWorker, Byte) to business publications (eWEEK, InformationWeek, ZDNet) to popular technology (Computer Shopper, PC Magazine, PC World) to the mainstream press (Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek).

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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
upinson 28th Sep
@Stan57
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
View in thread
0 Votes
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WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Stan57 10th Jun
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'm taking my ball home. And theses are the ones were Sposato trust??LOL. Linux and FOSS is bad news as you can see from whats happening here andddddd the Sony BS."You take our linux away ,we will destroy you". Nope Ya get what ya pay for and free has too high a cost
1 Vote
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I guess that is why ....
Economister 10th Jun
@Stan57

Linux, derivatives and other FOSS SW is slowly taking over the world. Keep on panicking.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
timspublic1@... 10th Jun
@Stan57 You should refrain from posting comments on things you don't know about.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
upinson 28th Sep
@Stan57
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
Deal Special dari KrisKros.com
0 Votes
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Thanks
Economister 10th Jun
I will stay away from OpenOffice, and choose LibreOffice when the time comes (soon).
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
Linux Geek 10th Jun
@Economister
Ditto here. GPL is superior to Apache License.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
smbarbour 10th Jun
@Linux Geek I'll be switching back to OpenOffice. The GPL is too restrictive.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
jgm@... 12th Jun
@Linux Geek It's not about licenses, it's about which will actually work better for you.
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
LoverockDavidson 10th Jun
And no one favors the Free Softwar Foundation. I'll be staying away from LibreOffice and OpenOffice just to be on the safe side.
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Really?
jessepollard 11th Jun
@LoverockDavidson

Red Hat does. So does IBM.

So to the majority of developers in the world.
And base on the past, your opinion is in the gutter.
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
The Boy Lard 18th Jun
@LoverockDavidson
you stay away from the free office packages pal. You obviously have far more money than sense. What about all the people who cannot afford the extortionate amounts that MS charges for it's software? Here in the UK we have something called minimum wage ( I hasten to add, that as a successful business owner I'm not on minimum wages) and as such many people can't afford MS Office. You keep throwing your money around fella, I for one can't afford to waste mine.
0 Votes
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LibreOffice sucks!
wackoae 10th Jun
I recently tried LibreOffice on a laptop that didn't have an office suite. The "brand" may be a little faster than OpenOffice, but the product output sucks.

- Buggy functionality. Doing something as simple as formatting a header did not work. The header kept changing format as I scrolled up and down the document.

- Office support is WORST than in OpenOffice. In fact, I would say it is completely unusable. Saved the document in MS Word 97 format .... got a document with all the text in a single line ... letters on top of letters. The document was nothing more than a basic letter with single level bullets.

Why the hell would anybody think that this "brand" is anything but garbage?
0 Votes
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because it is free and open
otaddy 10th Jun
@wackoae It's software with a "philosophy". It's not about making something that works well for users, it's about sticking it to the man (Oracle and MS)!

If your needs are light, go with GoogleDocs. If not, then pay for Office, it is worth the money.
0 Votes
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I would not suggest GoogleDocs to my worst enemy
wackoae 10th Jun
@otaddy Sorry but GoogleDocs is just as garbage as LibreOffice. In fact, in many ways it is WORST.
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
otaddy 10th Jun
@wackoae While you might not like GoogleDocs, I think it is going to be the only true competitor to MS Office. Google will invest the time and money to improve this product and they wont have to bother with pleasing the "community".

This FOSS in-fighting is getting old..stop arguing about stupidities and improve your products already!
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
jorjitop 10th Jun
@otaddy

GoogleDocs is not an office suite, it is just more Google spyware. Who wants Google reading all their docs on top of everything else they know about you?

I, and millions of other users, have used OpenOffice and will switch to LibreOffice quite successfully.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
kyleoster 12th Jun
@otaddy

Yes because creating something that doesn't work well for users is really sticking it to the companies that make things that work well for the user.

If you were being sarcastic I apologize but if not then I hope you understand why nobody other than 0.0001% of the population has heard of or knows what OpenOffice/LibreOffice and Linux are.
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
BGunnells 13th Jun
@kyleoster Assuming a world population of 7 billion, I'm pretty sure more than 7000 people have heard of OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice.

Of course, 90% of all statistics are completely fabricated anyway... X-)

-=B
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
daengbo 11th Jun
@wackoae
I suspect that there was something wrong with your installation. OO.o and LO use style-based word processors, meaning that simple formatting works extremely well, often significantly better than MS Word. The errors you describe shouldn't be happening in a healthy installation.
0 Votes
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Sure it must be ...
wackoae 11th Jun
@daengbo ... because I'm too stupid to figure out how to run an installer and I never have use OpenOffice before

I guess having used OpenOffice at home since it was just StarOffice makes me a complete ignorant of the platform.
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So let me get this straight
Will Pharaoh 10th Jun
but developers who write new software on top of it may distribute that work under a non-free license.

Free software developers are clearly comfortable with a partial copyleft when it?s appropriate

So for many, any company that is proprietary is wrong for being so, as software should be free, yet many of those same ones feel that they should be allowed to sell a license themselves (not-free) to the work they added?

Is the essentially correct?
0 Votes
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Yup
Joe_Raby 10th Jun
@Will Pharaoh

Such is the paradox of OSS.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. The Community will have your cake, but it's you who's going to eat it.

That said, the Community is full of cake-eaters.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
daengbo 11th Jun
@Will Pharaoh
This is the BSD vs. GPL argument, which has been beaten to death over years and years. I'll just summarize: the GPL favors the rights of users to do what they want; the BSD license favors developers.

Both have freedom, but the philosophies differ.
0 Votes
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I had to abandon LibreOffice
ron.cleaver@... Updated - 10th Jun
It's just been too buggy. And not compatible with MS Office in some cases, especially PowerPoint. After having to redo some presentations, I gave up on it and I'm back to Office, which all my clients use. Hey, I even like the new ribbons in Office apps.
0 Votes
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There are no alternatives to MS office
otaddy 10th Jun
@ron.cleaver@... MS has steadily improved office. Excel, OneNote and Visio are 3 tools I use daily and OO/Libre doesnt even come close.

I didnt like the Ribbon at first, but now I like it. I think it is a bit more productive and it definitely looks better.
0 Votes
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Not to disagree .. but
wackoae 10th Jun
@otaddy Visio is not an "improvement" ... it is an add-on after MS purchased the product from another company.

MS hasn't done anything to improve Visio. If anything it kind of screwed it up by mocking around with the UI too much and removing very useful functionality.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
crazydanr@... 10th Jun
@wackoae

What functionality did they remove, exactly? I've been using it for years and if anything they've added a whole lot of stuff - displaying real time data, creating org charts directly from AD, drawing processes that can be uploaded to a server, etc...
0 Votes
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Wake me when the product is useful and performs well
facebook@... 10th Jun
The last time that I even bothered with Open Office was when 3.1 first came out. It was dated and performed only modestly well after optimizing it. Whichever group can deliver a version that has the features I need and performs well will have my support.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
timspublic1@... 10th Jun
As soon as Oracle became involved, it was time to leave. LibreOffice is the REAL cross platform office suite. It's from the original team, and doesn't have the baggage associated with a creten organization like Oracle.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
Raid6 Updated - 10th Jun
@timspublic1@...

It is sad that companies like Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Dell, Intel, AMD, and so on. I mean each time they get a hold of a technology they ruin it for everyone else.

The consumer is always losing, is always being screwed, is always being ripped off.

Sometimes I think that they should be paying me to use their software, you know what I mean?

Who are these volunteers, these people donating their time, their expertise, their talents to give me a buggy program (even though it is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE)?
0 Votes
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It doesn't have functionality either
wackoae 10th Jun
@timspublic1@... The "original team" must had being the worst developers of the bunch .... because LibreOffice is not an improvement over OpenOffice.

It is substantially more buggy and less functional than the "baseline" code.
0 Votes
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So, in other words, Open Office is getting even more
fr_gough 10th Jun
free (as in speech) than it was before, meaning that I can now do pretty much ANYTHING I want with it, including selling it for money and making proprietary changes.
0 Votes
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No. Apple can get away with something like that, but you and I can't
Will Pharaoh 10th Jun
@fr_gough
We can't litigate around the GPL like Apple can afford to.
0 Votes
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That's why Apple doesn't use GPL
Joe_Raby 10th Jun
@Will Pharaoh

Viva La BSD! Viva La Monies! $$$
0 Votes
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@Joe_Raby
fr_gough 10th Jun
Exactly. If you want a quality product, allow people to make money off it. It really is that simple.
0 Votes
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Yup
Joe_Raby 10th Jun
@fr_gough:

Money is the ultimate motivater.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
Raid6 Updated - 11th Jun
@Will Pharaoh

Working for "the greater good" certainly has produced stellar results in the former USSR, former communist block nations in eastern Eurpose, Cuba, North Korea, China (yes, China before it embraced evil capitalism), numerous African Nations, and the list goes on, and on...certainly it is abundantly clear that working for the greater good, power to the people has just produced stellar results.

I cannot understand why people working for free, giving away their expertise, just why doing that doesn't yield better results and greater prosperity.

What really irritates me is all the whiners and complainers about how the FREEEEEEEEE software and OS they have isn't perfect! I mean really, if you are going to give it away for free it should be perfect, right?
0 Votes
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Stallman has always been an ideologist
rbethell 10th Jun
GNU licenses have been getting more viral with each passing iteration, to the point that its version of freedom isn't really free. And I do mean viral, in the worst sense: Affero GPL profoundly infects any web use you make of it, for instance, meaning code you may not have even devised for redistribution (i.e. middleware that connects to and pretty much describes your company database) must be handed out by you.

The MIT license is a little more in the spirit of the Berkeley licenses, in that its permissive. So long as you don't try to remove any of the freedoms of the original application, you're free to build on it.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
martin23 10th Jun
How dumb. The people at LibreOffice should look back 20 years to a time when government across the world had agreed to adopt open standards. Then rather than moving forward with a credible product everyone sat round had a moan that their standard standard was better than other peoples standard so Microsoft came in produced a "better" product and government threw standards out of the window. Then openoffice had its chance and instead of everyone working to produce a better product everyone wants to moan. Our version if freer than yours becasue our licence has copyleft or no copyleft

All the while Office which is appalling in many ways continues as a massive cash cow becasue a couple of hundred coders can't put their ego's away and make a better product.
0 Votes
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It's probably more a matter of economic viability
WilErz 10th Jun
@ martin23

Developing and maintaining an office suite takes a lot of resources. The reason open source alternatives to MS Office have largely failed probably has more to do with the lack of a viable economic model to pay for the development costs than with developer egos.
0 Votes
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Thats why I think GoogleDocs is in a good position
otaddy 10th Jun
@WilErz They pay a full time development team and have an incentive to make something that people want to use.

I do think there are lots of ego issues too. The amount of in-fighting in the open source community is a pathetic waste of resources.
0 Votes
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The problem with Google Docs is that the code is
Will Pharaoh 10th Jun
@WilErz
For all intents an purposes, proprietary as no one will ever see it outside of Google.

Its not free, open source, or anything other then a program at the mercy of Google's developers.

It's far from MS Office, and will only get a good as Google wants it to get.
0 Votes
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I find both inferior to MS Office
WilErz 10th Jun
Nevertheless, if the FSF clerics are issuing fatwas against OpenOffice.org, then I'll make certain to choose it over LibreOffice if MS Office isn't available (e.g. on Linux).
0 Votes
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That made me LOL!
Joe_Raby 10th Jun
@WilErz

Yup. The FSF is the Taliban of the software world. @:)
0 Votes
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Zdnet has become/ was always ....
Return_of_the_jedi Updated - 10th Jun
a place for juveniles. Just check out the comments.

Hence non-professionals. Kids with a windows 7 pc.
0 Votes
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But most Macs are bought by non-professionals
Will Pharaoh 10th Jun
@Return_of_the_jedi
and Linux by geeks.

But I agree with you 100% on one thing - after reading you various posts these last few month, I agree- this is the place where juveniles post. happy
0 Votes
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Are you kidding or are you just plain ignorant?
wackoae 10th Jun
@Will Pharaoh Talk about juvenile posts ...... Most Macs purchased by non-professionals?

Walk into a music or video studio an tell us what they use.
Walk into a book publishing office and tell us what they use.

They many not be in job-blows office desktop, but they are definitely purchased by a large percentage by PROFESSIONALS and professional students. The average non-professional will prefer paying pennies for a netbook or cheap Celeron desktop than pay the price of a Mac.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
Raid6 11th Jun
@Will Pharaoh

It's a mix Willie, it's a mix.
0 Votes
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Infighting ensures MS will prevail in the Office arena
Raid6 Updated - 11th Jun
And as long as there is continued fracturing in the "Free" Office Suite arena, Microsoft's Office will dominate the landscape, continue to set the trends for UI, file format, and other standards.

OO has embraced the Open Document Format. While Office supports this format, it has maintained it's pre 2007 and post 2007 formats.

I work in a big giant cube farm in the healthcare sector. Users who have used the Office 2007/2010 versions of Office for more than a few months mostly prefer the new ribbon UI.

I recognize that this is not a scientific poll, I am in a great position so that when I lick my finger as to determine the wind's direction, I get a solid indicator.

I consider my piers and co-workers to be the typical demographic that MS is targeting. Assuming that I am correct then they did get it right with the new UI design.

Can you imagine that going forward, years from now, that OO, Libre, and gawd knows how many other forks of this free office suite are still going to be using the same UI?

Where is the innovation from OO and Libre?

Adding more filtering, embracing file formats that while good have never been adopted widely, and changing the colors and making button styles slightly different are NOT innovations.
0 Votes
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RE: Free Software Foundation favors LibreOffice over OpenOffice
kyleoster 12th Jun
@Raid6

No one has bothered to reply to your posts because they are informed, well written, state facts and funny.

This makes FOSS heads explode. I loved the "which way the wind is blowing" statement!

They spout on and on about how MS doesn't innovate or how Apple only exists because of fanboi's.

But ask them when was the last time something truly innovating came out of FOSS and they spew hatred and lies and ignore the question. Kind of like Liberals and Democrats.

Join the conversation!

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