NeoOffice on Apple App Store

[Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com>]

Hi,
NeoOffice, based on LibreOffice and licensed GPL, is being sold on Apple's App Store for 9.99 USD. This is not a problem; the GPL permits that. The source is also freely available and can be compiled; support, too, is available.

I tried compiling it and discovered I'd done something wrong. Shrug. So I bought the binaries and tested it. It seemed pretty much like it had been before, quite nice and also stable. I have not discovered bugs yet, but I've also not tested it sufficiently.

I'd be curious to hear of others' opinions on it. NeoOffice has two very talented developers, one Ed Peterlin, was part of the great team that reinitiated the Mac OS X port for OOo, back in 2003-5, taking over from Sun's abandoned effort. (Sun then took it up, after some pressure.)

Anyway, I'd be interested to learn of others' reactions to the app. From my POV, I'm actually more interested in expanding the ODF market, as there is a desktop persistence that will clearly not be replaced any time soon but will, equally clearly, intersect and complement the mobile market.

To that latter end, I'm consulting, so far pro bono, with UX Write, which is a standalone native client for iOS (iPad) able to edit (fully) MSFT files, but not express, yet, as ODT. (If someone wants to help with that, please let me know.) The advantage of a native client for iPad is that it is not only faster than something like rollApp, which uses a remote server to do the work, but also can work offline, and quite well, too.

Cheers,

-louis
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Re: NeoOffice on Apple App Store

[Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com>]

On 2013-09-26, at 03:37 , Herbert Duerr <hd...@apache.org> wrote:

> I find it interesting that in this case Apple acts as the redistributor of GPL material as the GPL has some redistribution clauses that other companies with significant intellectual property portfolios would be much more cautious about.

Me, too. There are other instances where FOSS is on the store, but not many, and I think the others use non-GPL licenses. However, a crucial point is not per se the license, I think, though you are correct about the clauses issue (not sure how it's resolved here but I don't really want to pressure it), as copyright ownership or at least the guarantee (tacit or explicit) that the binaries posted are not actually stolen objects.

-louis
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Re: NeoOffice on Apple App Store

[Louis Suárez-Potts <lu...@gmail.com>]

On 2013-09-26, at 03:37 , Herbert Duerr <hd...@apache.org> wrote:

> On 25.09.2013 20:31, Louis Suárez-Potts wrote:
>> NeoOffice, based on LibreOffice and licensed GPL, is being sold on Apple's App Store for 9.99 USD. This is not a problem; the GPL permits that. The source is also freely available and can be compiled; support, too, is available.
> 
> I find it interesting that in this case Apple acts as the redistributor of GPL material as the GPL has some redistribution clauses that other companies with significant intellectual property portfolios would be much more cautious about.
> 
>> I tried compiling it and discovered I'd done something wrong. Shrug. So I bought the binaries and tested it. It seemed pretty much like it had been before, quite nice and also stable. I have not discovered bugs yet, but I've also not tested it sufficiently.
>> 
>> I'd be curious to hear of others' opinions on it. NeoOffice has two very talented developers, one Ed Peterlin, was part of the great team that reinitiated the Mac OS X port for OOo, back in 2003-5, taking over from Sun's abandoned effort. (Sun then took it up, after some pressure.)
> 
> They'd be very welcome to join the Apache OpenOffice project. As they currently can take all of AOO's and LO's stuff and then focus on the Mac aspects they can explore territory that the other projects haven't invested enough resources in yet.
> 
Agreed, they'd be welcome—but I honestly doubt that Ed or Patrick would be particularly interested. As far as I know, they like the kind of freedom that Planamesa (the company they formed to do NeoOffice) provides. Note, I've known them both a long time and used to be friends with Ed; Patrick, who is by all accounts a brilliant Java developer, was once with Sun, so I'd guess some in AOO's dev space know him or recall him from years past. I would rather not be the one to approach them.


> Herbert

Best,
louis



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Re: NeoOffice on Apple App Store

[Herbert Duerr <hd...@apache.org>]

On 25.09.2013 20:31, Louis Suárez-Potts wrote:
> NeoOffice, based on LibreOffice and licensed GPL, is being sold on Apple's App Store for 9.99 USD. This is not a problem; the GPL permits that. The source is also freely available and can be compiled; support, too, is available.

I find it interesting that in this case Apple acts as the redistributor 
of GPL material as the GPL has some redistribution clauses that other 
companies with significant intellectual property portfolios would be 
much more cautious about.

> I tried compiling it and discovered I'd done something wrong. Shrug. So I bought the binaries and tested it. It seemed pretty much like it had been before, quite nice and also stable. I have not discovered bugs yet, but I've also not tested it sufficiently.
>
> I'd be curious to hear of others' opinions on it. NeoOffice has two very talented developers, one Ed Peterlin, was part of the great team that reinitiated the Mac OS X port for OOo, back in 2003-5, taking over from Sun's abandoned effort. (Sun then took it up, after some pressure.)

They'd be very welcome to join the Apache OpenOffice project. As they 
currently can take all of AOO's and LO's stuff and then focus on the Mac 
aspects they can explore territory that the other projects haven't 
invested enough resources in yet.

Herbert

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