Hi all. Pardon the top post, but for what I have to say, it's the best way to go.
As things stand, I cannot support this move. From where I sit there are several things that make me extremely wary. The first (and major) sticking point is the name of the putative foundation. "The Document Foundation"? This smacks of a hijacking by the Open Document Foundation (ODF). I mean, just look at the names - there is only one word different, and I've noticed that at least some of those backing this move are (or were) heavily involved with the ODF. Think about it, and you may realize why I'm so sceptical about the "foundation" and its credentials. So for that reason, I would have extreme difficulty promoting it, unless I am presented with very strong evidence that the two foundations have nothing to do with each other. Secondly, "Libre Office"!? Come on! For a Francophone (and probably speakers of the other Romance languages) the name might mean something. But to an Anglophone, who is not "into" OSS, it conveys no meaning at all. The same would apply to virtually all other non-Romance languages. The choice of "Libre" immediately gives me the impression that the whole thing has been engineered by a group from the "rat-bag" fringe elements of OSS "purists", those who want to see all proprietary software companies totally destroyed, and who refuse to concede that sometimes Open Source Software is *not* better (yes, maybe I am a heretic. So what?). It has been said that most of the OO.o community is backing this. I have trouble believing the figures put forward. Bear in mind that the Community Council is *not* the entire community. The Developers are *not* the entire community. They are *part* of the community, and *only* part of it. Couple that with the fact that no-one has publicly canvassed the views of the community prior to the announcement. Nothing has been said apart from the occasional rumblings of discontent from the same few people. To the vast majority of people who comprise the community, this announcement would have come as a complete shock. So, to recapitulate, until I am satisfied that this move is not in any way related to other non-OO.o groups, and until you can come up with a much better name (one which can be translated without loss of meaning, and which does not sound stupid to Joe Sixpack), Then I will not support the "foundation" in any way (of course, should Oracle come to the party, then there will be no problem). The idea of a foundation is one I support, but this does not come across as the right way to go about it. > Hi Simon, > > Simon Brouwer wrote (05-10-10 09:33) > > > Drew Jensen schreef: > >> And just to be clear - why is it that you equate what is happening with > >> "going down the drain", is it only viable, your contribution if their is > >> a corporate affiliation? > > > > I am not equating that, but I am concerned that a breakup of the > > cooperation that exists right now in OpenOffice.org between the Hamburg > > team of Oracle (which drives a substantial part of its development) and > > the community at large will seriously slow down the development and/or > > I had that concern too. And still to a certain, more and more limited, > extend. But that only is for the intermediate time, during the > transition. Look: > [snippage] -- Alex Fisher Co-Lead, CD-ROM Project OpenOffice.org Marketing Community Contact Australia/New Zealand http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org
