[Libreoffice] Hello! ... and lurking :-)

[Norbert Thiebaud]

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 7:15 PM, Greg Stein <gstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, then please feel
> free to direct them my way (on whatever list). I'm here to listen and
> understand, and to offer up answers where I can.

I have a question:
Why would Apache contemplate helping IBM pull a Jenkins/Hudson on us,
fragmenting the license of a project that has been with a uniform
licensing so far ?
(Oracle could merge our changes... they elected _not_ to do so because they
wanted a Copyright assignment on top of the code, but that was not
a licensing incompatibility)

You (Apache) are lending your good name to a nasty endeavor, for the
benefit of a company
that has an history of screwing you over (Harmony ?)

Ironically what seems to be happening at Apache is very reminiscent to
me to the ISO/MSXML debacle...
Some corporation exploiting the letter of your governance to better
abuse the spirit of it.
(that is _if_ I understand what Apache stand for... but maybe I'm misguided)

Norbert

PS: I strongly encourage you to read:
http://www.itworld.com/software/170521/big-winner-apache-openofficeorg#comment-9942111
That shed a very illuminating light on IBM's involvement in OOo, and
why it is hard to take seriously their grandiose promises... that
would by far not been the first time, and there is no reason to
believe that the outcome will be any different this time around...
except that both the OpenOffice brand and the Apache reputation will
be tarnished in the process...