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Pity it came to this. The FSF would have been perfectly happy with proper classification of the extensions on the OpenOffice.org site so that visitors could sort the listing to see which extensions were under which open source license. Setting up their own site is genuinely a last resort.
Filed under: Links, Open Source |
Wild Webmink 
Simon,
Actually, we tried to work with the FSF to negotiate a resolution that would satisfy their and also our interests, but the FSF did not agree to solutions we offered and insisted upon a radical separation between free and non-free extensions. Put another way, we, the OOo Community Council, which includes both employees of Sun/Oracle and also independents, tried quite seriously and over a period of months last year and earlier this to work with the FSF, and we continue to have quite friendly relations with them, or at least I do. But sometimes there are disagreements, even among friends and fellow travellers.
My concern is that the FSF’s new repository will detract from the overall effort, that it is, in fact, a version of be divided and be conquered. We tried to communicate this to the FSF, what was at risk, and they understood the argument, I am sure, but held to their beliefs. Okay, ours differ. Let’s hope that the users of OOo are not too confused by the choices and are not then put into the confusing position of having to go to a variety of sites for extensions. (The vast majority of users who download OpenOffice.org from the site are, fwiw, Windows and also Mac OS X users, as Linux users often get their copy with their distribution.)
The OpenOffice.org statement can be found here:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=417