On Aug 27, 2013, at 9:45 PM, Keith Curtis wrote: > One of the points I would like some clarification on is in the article > defending ASF by Andrew C. Oliver: http://www.infoworld.com/print/225555
Andrew C Oliver is a former member of the Apache Software Foundation who did quite well with Apache POI. That said, he is not quite correct in his statements about the project he founded being taken over by Microsoft. Instead he left because he was against the consensus of the project to handle the modern OOXML forms of Microsoft documents and trust in their OSP. He objected autocratically and the rest of POI project rejected his concerns. Those that continued to do the work work for entities other than Microsoft. (There was some indirect payment, but it was a token amount.) I know this because I am on that PMC as well as this one. Since that time POI has become an important component in other projects like Apache Tika and Apache Solr. Much of what he says applies to his personal life. As someone older than him I can say that the ASF is a great place for people of all ages. > > In it, he wrote: "Nearly all of the very active Apache OpenOffice > developers work for IBM directly or indirectly." I would suggest you ask Andrew how he knows this. Ask for him to define "very active", "directly", and "indirectly". You can then decide if his statement has merit. You can take it from this non-IBMer that more and more non-IBM individual participate. In general the AOO PMC is taking the tact that we are working on this code base and we are not engaging in measuring whose is "longer". There is so much to do without engaging in an endless debate. (This my understanding of our loose consensus.) Does this make sense? Regards, Dave > > Can someone explain more about this? For example, is there a table showing > who everyone works for? From that, one could make a chart showing how many > of the code changes in AOO were made by various companies. LibreOffice > publishes such charts: > http://documentfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/developers6.jpg From > my research, I'd guess AOO 4 was at least 80% IBM, but I've not been able > to find out information on several people so it is an estimate. > > In addition to regularly posting information about the number of user > downloads, it would be great to regularly post a chart that shows the > diversity of the code contributors. Everyone who is a volunteer is allowed > to choose which community they'd like to join and this would give them > important information. I know there are IBM employees all over the place > working on release management, QA, and other areas, but just knowing > diversity about code changes would be useful. > > If it were 90+% IBM, they could end the fork very quickly. The remaining > 10% would probably move, but even if they didn't, it would still be much > better. Ending this fork is one of the best things that could happen to > free software today. As a former Microsoft Office programmer, I can state > that this fork benefits them immensely, helping both Office and Windows. I > realize that no one here wants to help Microsoft, but it is an "unintended > consequence." If I still rooted for Microsoft, I would be laughing at the > incompetence because it indirectly gives them billions of dollars. As I > root for Linux now, I find it sad because it is a lot more work to build > two communities and brands: http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?p=3163 > > -Keith --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
