There is no scarcity but scarcity in vision.Īpache OpenOffice, with its permissive license, is an excellent basis now for open source as well as mixed source business models, business models that drive investment back into the ecosystem. And this can happen at the same time that mixed-source applications based upon OpenOffice also grow and gain users. OpenOffice and LibreOffice and Calligra Suite and AbiWord and Gnumeric can all gain users at the same time. This need not be a zero-sum, I-Win/You-Lose situation. So rather than fighting over the remaining 5%, I think we should set our sights on a more transformative engagement with the market. Open source, of all varieties, including LibreOffice, is rather small. The other proprietary applications, like Corel WordPerfect and Google Docs and Apple iWork, combined with Microsoft Office represent well over 90% of the market. So overall, OpenOffice has greater market share than LibreOffice has today.Īnd in the real world, outside of FOSS blogs, the world runs predominately Microsoft Office, a proprietary set of applications. For example, the market share of LibreOffice, although strong on Linux, is actually quite low in the much larger Windows platform, where OpenOffice is still the leading open source office suite. Of course, this is inaccurate in many ways. In this view (which I believe to be false), as illustrated below, LibreOffice supporters see Apache OpenOffice as a mortal threat to their project, since its gain comes only at their expense. The assumption was that we’re playing a zero-sum game, and like junk yard dogs we’re fighting to the death over scraps. I believe that one unstated assumption in their reasoning was that there is a scarcity of developers and a scarcity of users in the personal productivity application area, and that the success of a new project can only come at the expense of another project, in this case at the expense of LibreOffice. The day closed minded open source advocates decide to smother a new project in its crib, because they personally favor a different project, is the day that FOSS dies. So it was disappointing to witness a small but vocal minority of non-Apache members who disagreed with the proposal and who attempted to derail it. However, in order to have a plurality of views, and to give users a plurality of applications to choose from, we also need plurality of projects in the open source world. It is good that we don’t all think the same. I would be negligent if, in mentioning the successful approval of the Apache OpenOffice proposal, I did not acknowledge that there were other, dissenting, opinions expressed. Anyone interested in participating needs to get onto this list, including those who already earlier expressed interest as “proposed committers” as well as new volunteers. For example, an email to will get you onto the project’s main dev mailing list. You should now sign up to the project’s mailing lists directly. However, now that the proposal has advanced and an Apache “Podling” (a probationary project) has been created, the way to sign up has changed. What I wrote about in my previous notes, about the Apache meritocracy remains true. In some sense it marks only the beginning. Of course, this is not the end of our recruitment effort.
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