content/editorial/SunsOpenDoor.html - openoffice-org - Git at Google

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 <h2>Editor's Column</h2>
 <p>-<a href="../lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a></p>

 <p>19 December 2000</p>
 <h4>Sun's Open Door</h4>
 <p>I begin this, my first column for OpenOffice.org, with a direct question: Can
   OpenOffice.org be called subversive? The question, of course, stems from <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric
   Raymond</a>'s famous assertion in<i> <i><a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/">The
   Cathedral & the Bazaar</a></i> </i>that "Linux is subversive." "Subversive,"
   in that Linux, and by extension the open-source movement, has created a collaborative,
   global network of hackers, developers, and idealists whose software is proving
   to be better--and certainly more efficiently produced--than anything that has
   come before. </p>
 <p>Sun's OpenOffice.org, however, differs from Linux, or for that matter, from
   open-source efforts such as Mozilla or Apple's Darwin, in the nature and character
   of the project's source code. And it is also much larger than Linux or Mozilla.
   For these reasons, it is seemingly hard to cast OpenOffice.org into the same
   role as Linux, which we can easily imagine as a kind of David fighting a lumbering
   Goliath. Bruce Perens, for instance, was initially quite <a href="http://www.perens.com/Articles/StarOffice.html">skeptical</a>
   of Sun's motives. But when he learned that Sun was releasing the nine million
   lines of source code for StarOffice[tm] under the <a href="../license.html">GNU
   General Public License</a> (Sun also uses the <a href="../license.html">Sun
   Industry Standards Source License</a>, or SISSL), Perens publicly retracted
   his objections. Sun, in short, is fully committed to the open-source movement.
   To answer the question I raised above then, Yes, OpenOffice.org can and should
   be thought of as subversive, at least in the sense that Eric Raymond meant.
 </p>
 <p>But the hugeness and importance of the OpenOffice.org software permanently
   alters the nature of that subversion. In fact, OpenOffice.org's size and Sun's
   entry into the open-source movement marks a sea change in software development.
   It demonstrates that open source has come of age, and is now a plausible (if
   not yet automatic) option for very large software projects. And if we succeed,
   as I'm sure we will, it would go a great distance to forcing any sponsoring
   body to consider open source.</p>
 <p>All the same, the move to open source is difficult for corporations to make.
   It's also fascinating to see in progress. In my next Editor's Column, I look
   at the problematic 613 build and trace the way the community addressed (and
   continues to address) those problems. </p>
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	<h2>Editor's Column</h2>
	<p>-<a href="../lspintro.html">Louis Suarez-Potts</a></p>

	<p>19 December 2000</p>
	<h4>Sun's Open Door</h4>
	<p>I begin this, my first column for OpenOffice.org, with a direct question: Can
	OpenOffice.org be called subversive? The question, of course, stems from <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric
	Raymond</a>'s famous assertion in<i> <i><a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/">The
	Cathedral & the Bazaar</a></i> </i>that "Linux is subversive." "Subversive,"
	in that Linux, and by extension the open-source movement, has created a collaborative,
	global network of hackers, developers, and idealists whose software is proving
	to be better--and certainly more efficiently produced--than anything that has
	come before. </p>
	<p>Sun's OpenOffice.org, however, differs from Linux, or for that matter, from
	open-source efforts such as Mozilla or Apple's Darwin, in the nature and character
	of the project's source code. And it is also much larger than Linux or Mozilla.
	For these reasons, it is seemingly hard to cast OpenOffice.org into the same
	role as Linux, which we can easily imagine as a kind of David fighting a lumbering
	Goliath. Bruce Perens, for instance, was initially quite <a href="http://www.perens.com/Articles/StarOffice.html">skeptical</a>
	of Sun's motives. But when he learned that Sun was releasing the nine million
	lines of source code for StarOffice[tm] under the <a href="../license.html">GNU
	General Public License</a> (Sun also uses the <a href="../license.html">Sun
	Industry Standards Source License</a>, or SISSL), Perens publicly retracted
	his objections. Sun, in short, is fully committed to the open-source movement.
	To answer the question I raised above then, Yes, OpenOffice.org can and should
	be thought of as subversive, at least in the sense that Eric Raymond meant.
	</p>
	<p>But the hugeness and importance of the OpenOffice.org software permanently
	alters the nature of that subversion. In fact, OpenOffice.org's size and Sun's
	entry into the open-source movement marks a sea change in software development.
	It demonstrates that open source has come of age, and is now a plausible (if
	not yet automatic) option for very large software projects. And if we succeed,
	as I'm sure we will, it would go a great distance to forcing any sponsoring
	body to consider open source.</p>
	<p>All the same, the move to open source is difficult for corporations to make.
	It's also fascinating to see in progress. In my next Editor's Column, I look
	at the problematic 613 build and trace the way the community addressed (and
	continues to address) those problems. </p>
	</body>
	</html>