Better collaboration

[Pierre Vacher]

Hi all,

LibreOffice have decided to no longer maintain the HsqlDB 1.8 embedded
database and replace it with an embedded database based on Firebird.

I have chosen to rewrite the entire com.sun.star.sdbc/sdbcx and sdb layer
in pure Java (i.e. jdbcDriverOOo).

I have chosen to port all databases, providing a JDBC driver with an
integrated engine and the ability to create a new database upon connection
if it doesn't exist, as an embedded database in LibreOffice. (ie:
HyperSQLOOo, SQLiteOOo, JaybirdOOo, H2dbOOo and DerbyOOo).
Since nothing was planned for this in LibreOffice I had to, with the
precious help of some of you, publish the bug tdf#
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156471>156471
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156471> then a
correction PR# <https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/154989>154989
<https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/154989> to support integrated
databases in a generic way.
Although this fix was released on 2023-07-28, it will not be available
until version 24.2, almost six months later.

Now I have overcome a problem that all LibreOffice UNO components written
in Java have, namely the inability to deploy Java SPI services. This was
overcome thanks to the use of Java instrumentation with tdf#
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165774>165774
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165774> and the
deprecated  PR# <https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/181159>181159
<https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/181159>  and then again and
finally PR# <https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/183280>183280
<https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/183280>.
Again, this new functionality will only be usable with version 25.8, which
is not even available yet, even though the latest version of jdbcDriverOOo
is capable of offering these new services. And unfortunately, no one really
helped me, but rather deliberately complicated things...
I would like to point out that it was very difficult and long to implement
from a human point of view, given the few lines of code it contains, and I
even thought at one point that you were going to refuse this PR... I had to
prepare two in order to achieve my goals.

In short, all this doesn't really correspond to collaboration but more to
an unhealthy competition that I can't explain.

This sounds very similar to your Open Letter from LibreOffice to Apache
OpenOffice
<https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ja0q8v/open_letter_from_libreoffice_to_apache_openoffice/>,
which I believe was requesting more space for LibreOffice.

I'm asking you for exactly the same thing: please give me a little space...
and give me a mentor...

Sincerely,

Pierre Vacher
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