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Posted to general@incubator.apache.org by Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> on 2011/06/07 17:13:45 UTC
A little OOo history
Some of you know I was closely involved in the original open-sourcing of StarDivision code as OpenOffice.org. I'm also an Apache Member. Thought some of the current discussions could benefit from a tiny bit of (no axe to grind) history.
This information is offered in the spirit of trying to get it "right" as we go forward. I've offered to mentor the podling (should it be accepted, which I think is likely) because I'd really like to see the best outcome to a tough situation here. PLEASE only actual questions relating to the content of this message in this thread.
1) Why the .org?
Well...the original owner of the code, Marco Boerries, was really fond of the name OpenOffice. No other name would do. However, Sun's lawyers were not willing to endorse a name that they couldn't secure worldwide trademarks on. There was an existing proprietary software package sold in the South Korean market that was using the name OpenOffice. Although the software in question was *not* a productivity package, it was felt by Sun Legal that field of use was too close and so they advised we add something to make the trademark more unique. Since Sun was trying to transmit the meme that the new project was going to really be open source, they decided (for better or worse) to register OpenOffice.org (which was also the project URL).
I'd imagine that the trademark grant Oracle has transferred to us should read "OpenOffice.org" and not "OpenOffice". We should seek to clarify in any documents where this is ambiguous. Apache should use OOo rather than OO wherever possible.
2) Why the LGPL?
The original intention was to attract the cooperation of the then-burgeoning Desktop Linux community. OpenOffice.org was announced at the same time (literally at the same press conference) as the formation of GNOME.org (with Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman supporting both announcements). GNOME.org was adamantly GPL and thus OOo was offered under a compatible license. I and others spent many man-hours explaining this to Sun execs and lawyers to clear the way for LGPL licensing (which BSD-inspired Sun had previously said they would "never" employ).
Honestly it wasn't an ideological choice on Sun's part, it was expedient. They were looking to make best (disruptive) use of a sunk-cost asset. That said, folks like Michael Meeks were absolutely the target audience.
Coincidentally, I ran into Nat and Miguel at a party last night and they both said they thought ALv2 licensing and an Apache home for OOo is a good idea now...
3) LOTS of people download OOo
Like maybe 10% of the human population of the planet. And its a big file.
Initially we engaged Akamai, but it quickly became too expensive. Serving up downloads of OOo was pretty intense. I know Apache has all that web server download traffic and all...but I'm telling you Sun.com quailed at the throughput, and we shouldn't assume our mileage will vary. There will be extraordinary infrastructure costs, because it is end-user software (and there are a LOT of users worldwide). Sun mitigated this problem with mirrors, but of course that screwed download stats.
It's a lot of code as well. When we launched it took a day (as in 24 hours) to build. I'd imagine that situation will have improved somewhat, but rolling a public release of end-user code is a much different prospect to releasing another version of the web server.
4) most customers use OOo on Windows
Last time I checked, the percentage of Windows users was still in the high 90s percentile. But it builds on the various Linux distros, as well as MacOSX and a bunch of other platforms, each with their own lovely and unique quirks. This complexity is one of the reasons it might be a good idea to behave like kernel.org and let OOo "distros" handle end-user packaging and distribution. Another reason would be that consumers are relatively unsophisticated and ask a lot of silly questions...
There are more things to know, but that's a start.
Danese
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Mathias Bauer <Ma...@gmx.net>.
On 07.06.2011 17:13, Danese Cooper wrote:
> It's a lot of code as well. When we launched it took a day (as in 24
> hours) to build. I'd imagine that situation will have improved
> somewhat
Indeed, fortunately. And before the "24 hours build" is quoted out of
the context that these number originates from builds back in 1999 with a
somewhat strange build system, let met assure that with modern hardware
a complete build will take not more than 2 hours, depending on the
platform and the tools used.
Regards,
Mathias
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by David Illsley <da...@gmail.com>.
Hmmm. I'd have thought it a bit difficult to build a developer community for an end user product if theres effectively no way for an end user to get it from that community (or to get direct feedback from users)... while you want downstream distributors as well, I'd expect the podling to want to present it's own wares to end users.
David
On 7 Jun 2011, at 19:00, Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> IMHO we would have to roll vanilla builds just to make sure it still builds when we declare a version. It used to take some iterations and tweaks per version to get a valid build (imagine that's still true). ASF should at least validate "buildability" as part of servicing the codebase, but I would assume effectively zero consumer end-users would get their software from us...
>
> D
>
> On Jun 7, 2011, at 8:23 AM, Phillip Rhodes <mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> 4) most customers use OOo on Windows
>>>
>>> Last time I checked, the percentage of Windows users was still in the high
>>> 90s percentile. But it builds on the various Linux distros, as well as
>>> MacOSX and a bunch of other platforms, each with their own lovely and unique
>>> quirks. This complexity is one of the reasons it might be a good idea to
>>> behave like kernel.org and let OOo "distros" handle end-user packaging and
>>> distribution. Another reason would be that consumers are relatively
>>> unsophisticated and ask a lot of silly questions...
>>>
>>>
>> Thanks, Danese, that does clarify things a bit for those of us who haven't
>> been involved since the beginning.
>>
>> One question about the comment above though: Are you advocating that Apache
>> OOo stick to source-only releases, and avoid
>> building and delivering binaries altogether? Or is your idea that Apache
>> OOo would deliver builds, but that they be "Vanilla OOo" , ala the "vanilla
>> kernel" from kernel.org, with a presumption that (some|most|all) end-users
>> will choose to use a distribution provided by somebody else... where
>> somebody else could be IBM, Novell, LibreOffice, Red Hat, etc.?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>> Phil
>
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com>.
Hi Phil,
IMHO we would have to roll vanilla builds just to make sure it still builds when we declare a version. It used to take some iterations and tweaks per version to get a valid build (imagine that's still true). ASF should at least validate "buildability" as part of servicing the codebase, but I would assume effectively zero consumer end-users would get their software from us...
D
On Jun 7, 2011, at 8:23 AM, Phillip Rhodes <mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> 4) most customers use OOo on Windows
>>
>> Last time I checked, the percentage of Windows users was still in the high
>> 90s percentile. But it builds on the various Linux distros, as well as
>> MacOSX and a bunch of other platforms, each with their own lovely and unique
>> quirks. This complexity is one of the reasons it might be a good idea to
>> behave like kernel.org and let OOo "distros" handle end-user packaging and
>> distribution. Another reason would be that consumers are relatively
>> unsophisticated and ask a lot of silly questions...
>>
>>
> Thanks, Danese, that does clarify things a bit for those of us who haven't
> been involved since the beginning.
>
> One question about the comment above though: Are you advocating that Apache
> OOo stick to source-only releases, and avoid
> building and delivering binaries altogether? Or is your idea that Apache
> OOo would deliver builds, but that they be "Vanilla OOo" , ala the "vanilla
> kernel" from kernel.org, with a presumption that (some|most|all) end-users
> will choose to use a distribution provided by somebody else... where
> somebody else could be IBM, Novell, LibreOffice, Red Hat, etc.?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Phil
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Greg Stein <gs...@gmail.com>.
On Jun 7, 2011 3:01 PM, "Simon Brouwer" <si...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> Op 7-6-2011 22:37, William A. Rowe Jr. schreef:
>
>> On 6/7/2011 3:17 PM, Simon Brouwer wrote:
>>>
>>> The OpenOffice.org installation packages contain code from a
considerable number of
>>> "external" libraries (i.e. third party ones that are developed in their
own projects, not
>>> copyright Oracle and have mostly LGPL license). So this would not be
allowed for releases
>>> by the podling?
>>
>> Binaries under category A or B license would be permitted, compiled from
>> releases under their original project. We like to avoid forks (and don't
>> fork category B licenses such as MPL). Category X licensed components
>> cannot be shipped by the ASF, which includes LGPL.
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a
>> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b
>> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
>>
>> I entirely expect that LO today could not be shipped by the ASF. There
>> is, as we have hinted, room to take LO further than OOo can be allowed,
>> given our licensing guidelines. There is also the concept of optional
>> dependencies, where the ASF software is capable of interfacing to some
>> category x component, but the ASF does not complete that connection, and
>> allows the packager/distributor to elect to do so. Support in httpd
>> for mysql, oracle db, freetds, postgresql, gdbm and berkely db all fall
>> into this category (and the package supports sqlite and sdbm to name
>> two examples of this optional functionality implemented in AL compatible
>> licensing).
>
> Then I expect that, even if a working OOo product could be shipped by the
ASF in the near future under these conditions, it will be a big step back
from the OOo/LO available today because many functions will be missing.
Yup... that will be part of the challenge! We gotta make things difficult
for ourselves, so that we feel awesome when we solve them :-) :-)
Cheers,
-g
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Simon Brouwer <si...@xs4all.nl>.
Op 7-6-2011 22:37, William A. Rowe Jr. schreef:
> On 6/7/2011 3:17 PM, Simon Brouwer wrote:
>> The OpenOffice.org installation packages contain code from a considerable number of
>> "external" libraries (i.e. third party ones that are developed in their own projects, not
>> copyright Oracle and have mostly LGPL license). So this would not be allowed for releases
>> by the podling?
> Binaries under category A or B license would be permitted, compiled from
> releases under their original project. We like to avoid forks (and don't
> fork category B licenses such as MPL). Category X licensed components
> cannot be shipped by the ASF, which includes LGPL.
>
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
>
> I entirely expect that LO today could not be shipped by the ASF. There
> is, as we have hinted, room to take LO further than OOo can be allowed,
> given our licensing guidelines. There is also the concept of optional
> dependencies, where the ASF software is capable of interfacing to some
> category x component, but the ASF does not complete that connection, and
> allows the packager/distributor to elect to do so. Support in httpd
> for mysql, oracle db, freetds, postgresql, gdbm and berkely db all fall
> into this category (and the package supports sqlite and sdbm to name
> two examples of this optional functionality implemented in AL compatible
> licensing).
Then I expect that, even if a working OOo product could be shipped by
the ASF in the near future under these conditions, it will be a big step
back from the OOo/LO available today because many functions will be
missing.
--
Vriendelijke groet,
Simon Brouwer.
| http://nl.openoffice.org | http://www.opentaal.org |
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Norbert Thiebaud <nt...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 3:37 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
> On 6/7/2011 3:17 PM, Simon Brouwer wrote:
>> The OpenOffice.org installation packages contain code from a considerable number of
>> "external" libraries (i.e. third party ones that are developed in their own projects, not
>> copyright Oracle and have mostly LGPL license). So this would not be allowed for releases
>> by the podling?
>
> Binaries under category A or B license would be permitted, compiled from
> releases under their original project. We like to avoid forks (and don't
> fork category B licenses such as MPL). Category X licensed components
> cannot be shipped by the ASF, which includes LGPL.
>
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b
> http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
you may also want to look at
http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#build-tools
it seems highly relevant here.
Norbert
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On 6/7/2011 3:17 PM, Simon Brouwer wrote:
> The OpenOffice.org installation packages contain code from a considerable number of
> "external" libraries (i.e. third party ones that are developed in their own projects, not
> copyright Oracle and have mostly LGPL license). So this would not be allowed for releases
> by the podling?
Binaries under category A or B license would be permitted, compiled from
releases under their original project. We like to avoid forks (and don't
fork category B licenses such as MPL). Category X licensed components
cannot be shipped by the ASF, which includes LGPL.
http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a
http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b
http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
I entirely expect that LO today could not be shipped by the ASF. There
is, as we have hinted, room to take LO further than OOo can be allowed,
given our licensing guidelines. There is also the concept of optional
dependencies, where the ASF software is capable of interfacing to some
category x component, but the ASF does not complete that connection, and
allows the packager/distributor to elect to do so. Support in httpd
for mysql, oracle db, freetds, postgresql, gdbm and berkely db all fall
into this category (and the package supports sqlite and sdbm to name
two examples of this optional functionality implemented in AL compatible
licensing).
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Simon Brouwer <si...@xs4all.nl>.
Op 7-6-2011 18:31, William A. Rowe Jr. schreef:
> On 6/7/2011 11:11 AM, Niall Pemberton wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, William A. Rowe Jr.<wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
>>> Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
>> I don't believe this is true - we have to release the source, but
>> anything we distribute is considered released and needs to be
>> checked/approved - and the release FAQ seems to agree with that
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what
> Really? Where do you get that?
>
> "The Apache Software Foundation produces open source software. All releases are in the
> form of the source materials needed to make changes to the software being released. In
> some cases, binary/bytecode packages are also produced as a convenience to users that
> might not have the appropriate tools to build a compiled version of the source. In all
> such cases, the binary/bytecode package must have the same version number as the source
> release and may only add binary/bytecode files that are the result of compiling that
> version of the source code release."
The OpenOffice.org installation packages contain code from a
considerable number of "external" libraries (i.e. third party ones that
are developed in their own projects, not copyright Oracle and have
mostly LGPL license). So this would not be allowed for releases by the
podling?
--
Vriendelijke groet,
Simon Brouwer.
| http://nl.openoffice.org | http://www.opentaal.org |
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Niall Pemberton <ni...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 5:31 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
> On 6/7/2011 11:11 AM, Niall Pemberton wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
>>
>> I don't believe this is true - we have to release the source, but
>> anything we distribute is considered released and needs to be
>> checked/approved - and the release FAQ seems to agree with that
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what
>
> Really? Where do you get that?
>From "Releases are, by definition, anything that is published beyond
the group that owns it."
Niall
> "The Apache Software Foundation produces open source software. All releases are in the
> form of the source materials needed to make changes to the software being released. In
> some cases, binary/bytecode packages are also produced as a convenience to users that
> might not have the appropriate tools to build a compiled version of the source. In all
> such cases, the binary/bytecode package must have the same version number as the source
> release and may only add binary/bytecode files that are the result of compiling that
> version of the source code release."
>
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Richard S. Hall" <he...@ungoverned.org>.
On 6/7/11 12:31, William A. Rowe Jr. wrote:
> On 6/7/2011 11:11 AM, Niall Pemberton wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, William A. Rowe Jr.<wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
>>> Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
>> I don't believe this is true - we have to release the source, but
>> anything we distribute is considered released and needs to be
>> checked/approved - and the release FAQ seems to agree with that
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what
> Really? Where do you get that?
>
> "The Apache Software Foundation produces open source software. All releases are in the
> form of the source materials needed to make changes to the software being released. In
> some cases, binary/bytecode packages are also produced as a convenience to users that
> might not have the appropriate tools to build a compiled version of the source. In all
> such cases, the binary/bytecode package must have the same version number as the source
> release and may only add binary/bytecode files that are the result of compiling that
> version of the source code release."
Well, we do have to verify that the binaries (i.e., the JAR files for
Java) have the correct legal files, etc. Things may be different for
native languages...I don't know.
-> richard
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On 6/7/2011 11:11 AM, Niall Pemberton wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
>>
>> Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
>
> I don't believe this is true - we have to release the source, but
> anything we distribute is considered released and needs to be
> checked/approved - and the release FAQ seems to agree with that
>
> http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what
Really? Where do you get that?
"The Apache Software Foundation produces open source software. All releases are in the
form of the source materials needed to make changes to the software being released. In
some cases, binary/bytecode packages are also produced as a convenience to users that
might not have the appropriate tools to build a compiled version of the source. In all
such cases, the binary/bytecode package must have the same version number as the source
release and may only add binary/bytecode files that are the result of compiling that
version of the source code release."
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Niall Pemberton <ni...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:52 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
> On 6/7/2011 10:23 AM, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
>>
>> One question about the comment above though: Are you advocating that Apache
>> OOo stick to source-only releases, and avoid
>> building and delivering binaries altogether? Or is your idea that Apache
>> OOo would deliver builds, but that they be "Vanilla OOo" , ala the "vanilla
>> kernel" from kernel.org, with a presumption that (some|most|all) end-users
>> will choose to use a distribution provided by somebody else... where
>> somebody else could be IBM, Novell, LibreOffice, Red Hat, etc.?
>
> Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
I don't believe this is true - we have to release the source, but
anything we distribute is considered released and needs to be
checked/approved - and the release FAQ seems to agree with that
http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what
Niall
> be binary artifacts built on that code (esp in the case of .jars), and some
> of the reviewers may choose to verify available binaries, and some may also
> verify their own binary builds, before voting on the release.
>
> Some|most|all end-users (by which I mean administrators and even developers
> using tools such as eclipse) obtain most Apache software as you describe
> above, from another party. In fact, RedHat might pick up the entire
> LibreOffice stack which in turn is derived from much shared OOo code, while
> a BSD distribution might pick up only the AL OOo base, and an entirely
> unrelated office productivity suite might pick only document manipulation
> classes from an AL OOo code base.
>
> As an observer to the CoApp project at OuterCurve, I'm particularly
> excited by what that project could accomplish with a Windows package,
> starting from the AL base, including the LibreOffice work in GPL/CC that
> the ASF would be unwilling to host. As an .msi based distribution which
> shakes out at the library/component level, upgrades from release to release
> might consume far less bandwidth.
>
>
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On 6/7/2011 10:23 AM, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
>
> One question about the comment above though: Are you advocating that Apache
> OOo stick to source-only releases, and avoid
> building and delivering binaries altogether? Or is your idea that Apache
> OOo would deliver builds, but that they be "Vanilla OOo" , ala the "vanilla
> kernel" from kernel.org, with a presumption that (some|most|all) end-users
> will choose to use a distribution provided by somebody else... where
> somebody else could be IBM, Novell, LibreOffice, Red Hat, etc.?
Just to clarify, only source code is "released" by the ASF. Yes, there may
be binary artifacts built on that code (esp in the case of .jars), and some
of the reviewers may choose to verify available binaries, and some may also
verify their own binary builds, before voting on the release.
Some|most|all end-users (by which I mean administrators and even developers
using tools such as eclipse) obtain most Apache software as you describe
above, from another party. In fact, RedHat might pick up the entire
LibreOffice stack which in turn is derived from much shared OOo code, while
a BSD distribution might pick up only the AL OOo base, and an entirely
unrelated office productivity suite might pick only document manipulation
classes from an AL OOo code base.
As an observer to the CoApp project at OuterCurve, I'm particularly
excited by what that project could accomplish with a Windows package,
starting from the AL base, including the LibreOffice work in GPL/CC that
the ASF would be unwilling to host. As an .msi based distribution which
shakes out at the library/component level, upgrades from release to release
might consume far less bandwidth.
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Phillip Rhodes <mo...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 4) most customers use OOo on Windows
>
> Last time I checked, the percentage of Windows users was still in the high
> 90s percentile. But it builds on the various Linux distros, as well as
> MacOSX and a bunch of other platforms, each with their own lovely and unique
> quirks. This complexity is one of the reasons it might be a good idea to
> behave like kernel.org and let OOo "distros" handle end-user packaging and
> distribution. Another reason would be that consumers are relatively
> unsophisticated and ask a lot of silly questions...
>
>
Thanks, Danese, that does clarify things a bit for those of us who haven't
been involved since the beginning.
One question about the comment above though: Are you advocating that Apache
OOo stick to source-only releases, and avoid
building and delivering binaries altogether? Or is your idea that Apache
OOo would deliver builds, but that they be "Vanilla OOo" , ala the "vanilla
kernel" from kernel.org, with a presumption that (some|most|all) end-users
will choose to use a distribution provided by somebody else... where
somebody else could be IBM, Novell, LibreOffice, Red Hat, etc.?
Thanks,
Phil
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Jomar Silva (Cuca)" <ho...@gmail.com>.
I just checked with my Brazilian friends involved with the BrOffice
project in the past years, and it seems that all problems that we've
had in the past with the OpenOffice.org trademark are now solved.
Best,
Jomar
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Cor Nouws <oo...@nouenoff.nl>.
Manfred A. Reiter wrote (07-06-11 17:51)
> 2011/6/7 Danese Cooper<da...@gmail.com>:
>> Well...the original owner of the code, Marco Boerries, was really
>> fond of the name OpenOffice. No other name would do. However,
>> Sun's lawyers were not willing to endorse a name that they couldn't
>> secure worldwide trademarks on. There was an existing proprietary
>> software package sold in the South Korean market that was using the
>> name OpenOffice.
>
> In Switzerland, there is the brand name "Open Office" as well. - So
> be careful. ;-)
And OpenOffice is a registered trademark in the BeNeLux (www.openoffice.nl)
But prolly Simon Brouwer already told (I did not check all maisl from
last days.)
--
- Cor
- http://nl.libreoffice.org
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com>.
Hi André, *,
Am 7. Juni 2011 19:32 schrieb André Schnabel <an...@gmx.net>:
> Hi,
>
> Am 07.06.2011 17:51, schrieb Manfred A. Reiter:
>>
>> In Switzerland, there is the brand name "Open Office" as well. - So be
>> careful. ;-)
>
> Last time I checked (~2 years ago) it was not registered anymore.
>
> The name itself is still in use. The current "BACHER EDV Beratung" (in
> Liechtenstein) took over the owner of the brand name in 2006 and is now
> using "OpenOffice" to describe the company's services (but it's not
> registered).
>
thank you for this additional information
cheers
M.
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by André Schnabel <an...@gmx.net>.
Hi,
Am 07.06.2011 17:51, schrieb Manfred A. Reiter:
>
> In Switzerland, there is the brand name "Open Office" as well. - So be
> careful. ;-)
Last time I checked (~2 years ago) it was not registered anymore.
The name itself is still in use. The current "BACHER EDV Beratung" (in
Liechtenstein) took over the owner of the brand name in 2006 and is now
using "OpenOffice" to describe the company's services (but it's not
registered).
regards,
André
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com>.
Hi all,
2011/6/7 Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com>:
> Some of you know I was closely involved in the original open-sourcing of StarDivision code as OpenOffice.org. I'm also an Apache Member. Thought some of the current discussions could benefit from a tiny bit of (no axe to grind) history.
>
> This information is offered in the spirit of trying to get it "right" as we go forward. I've offered to mentor the podling (should it be accepted, which I think is likely) because I'd really like to see the best outcome to a tough situation here. PLEASE only actual questions relating to the content of this message in this thread.
>
> 1) Why the .org?
>
> Well...the original owner of the code, Marco Boerries, was really fond of the name OpenOffice. No other name would do. However, Sun's lawyers were not willing to endorse a name that they couldn't secure worldwide trademarks on. There was an existing proprietary software package sold in the South Korean market that was using the name OpenOffice.
In Switzerland, there is the brand name "Open Office" as well. - So be
careful. ;-)
Manfred
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 11:13:45 AM:
>
> 3) LOTS of people download OOo
>
> Like maybe 10% of the human population of the planet. And its a big
file.
>
> Initially we engaged Akamai, but it quickly became too expensive.
> Serving up downloads of OOo was pretty intense. I know Apache has
> all that web server download traffic and all...but I'm telling you
> Sun.com quailed at the throughput, and we shouldn't assume our
> mileage will vary. There will be extraordinary infrastructure costs,
> because it is end-user software (and there are a LOT of users
> worldwide). Sun mitigated this problem with mirrors, but of course
> that screwed download stats.
>
> It's a lot of code as well. When we launched it took a day (as in 24
> hours) to build. I'd imagine that situation will have improved
> somewhat, but rolling a public release of end-user code is a much
> different prospect to releasing another version of the web server.
>
Are there any public stats on the Sun mirroring infrastructure that was
(or is currently) needed to support this? It would be interesting to
compare to what Apache has.
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Alexandro Colorado <jz...@openoffice.org>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Danese,
>
> > 3) LOTS of people download OOo
> > Like maybe 10% of the human population of the planet. And its a big
> file.
> > Initially we engaged Akamai, but it quickly became too expensive. Serving
> up downloads of OOo was pretty intense. I know Apache has all that web
> server download traffic and all...but I'm telling you Sun.com quailed at the
> throughput, and we shouldn't assume our mileage will vary. There will be
> extraordinary infrastructure costs, because it is end-user software (and
> there are a LOT of users worldwide). Sun mitigated this problem with
> mirrors, but of course that screwed download stats.
>
> do you have any numbers?
>
> I am really curious - people are always saying that but I cannot get
> out numbers. I believe all you said, I just would like to know how
> much it is actually
>
> Thanks for the interesting read
>
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>
>
OOo used brainstats, and you can get some numbers. There was 'some' number
crunching but that project wasn't updated as usual:
http://stats.openoffice.org/
We used bouncer also as a analytics type system here:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
The Mirrobrain-OOo FAQ is also encourage to read.
http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer_faq.html
--
*Alexandro Colorado*
*OpenOffice.org* Español
http://es.openoffice.org
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de>.
Am 07.06.2011 19:58, schrieb robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
> and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
> over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
No, you can not retire: I will only charge $0.49 or a part of a bitcoin ;-)
Cheers,
Andreas
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Simon Phipps <si...@webmink.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:58 PM, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it this
> way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for someone
> to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g., Amazon,
> and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
> over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
>
For clarity, are you proposing that Apache should charge $1/download for
OpenOffice.org, or are you proposing Apache should delegate downloads to an
external organisation that does this?
S.
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Ian Lynch <ia...@gmail.com>.
On 8 June 2011 15:40, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> "Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/08/2011 10:17:02 AM:
>
> It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for
> someone
> > > to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g.,
> Amazon,
> > > and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That
> is
> > > over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
> > >
> >
> > I only would like to know,
> >
> > whether this posting was really for the apache communtiy mailinglist
> > or an IBM internal mailinglist to evolve a businessplan?
> >
>
>
> This was just a back of the envelope calculation, based on public
> information, intended for the list. The 300,000 downloads/day listed on
> the OOo did not sound plausible to me initially, so I wanted to see if I
> could confirm or contradict this number independently.
>
> -Rob
I don't think it was the download figures, rather the uplift on the
financial side that was the issue ;-)
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
"Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/08/2011 10:17:02 AM:
>
> 2011/6/7 <ro...@us.ibm.com>:
>
> [...]
>
> > We should be able to check the math from another direction. Microsoft
> > claims something like 400 million Office users. Studies looking at
OOo
> > install share show approximately 10%. Pick some random number between
6
> > and 12 months. Call it "mean time to upgrade to a new OOo release".
In
> > my case the random number came out to be 10 months, fortunate for me
for
> > doing the math in my head. That gives 4 million users
downloading/month.
> > That gives 130,000 downloads/day. I know that is not the same number
> > quoted, but it is in the ball park.
> >
> > Since this is a large download, I wonder whether the quoted numbers
are
> > impacted at all by timeouts, abandoned downloads attempts, etc. In
other
> > words, is it counting the HTTP GET's? Or the successful downloads?
That
> > may influence the load by quite a bit. It may even make it worse.
> >
> > And let's not even get started on the burst traffic when a major new
> > release is announced.
> >
> > Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it
this
> > way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for
someone
> > to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g.,
Amazon,
> > and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That
is
> > over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
> >
>
> I only would like to know,
>
> whether this posting was really for the apache communtiy mailinglist
> or an IBM internal mailinglist to evolve a businessplan?
>
This was just a back of the envelope calculation, based on public
information, intended for the list. The 300,000 downloads/day listed on
the OOo did not sound plausible to me initially, so I wanted to see if I
could confirm or contradict this number independently.
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com>.
Dear -Rob, all,
2011/6/7 <ro...@us.ibm.com>:
[...]
> We should be able to check the math from another direction. Microsoft
> claims something like 400 million Office users. Studies looking at OOo
> install share show approximately 10%. Pick some random number between 6
> and 12 months. Call it "mean time to upgrade to a new OOo release". In
> my case the random number came out to be 10 months, fortunate for me for
> doing the math in my head. That gives 4 million users downloading/month.
> That gives 130,000 downloads/day. I know that is not the same number
> quoted, but it is in the ball park.
>
> Since this is a large download, I wonder whether the quoted numbers are
> impacted at all by timeouts, abandoned downloads attempts, etc. In other
> words, is it counting the HTTP GET's? Or the successful downloads? That
> may influence the load by quite a bit. It may even make it worse.
>
> And let's not even get started on the burst traffic when a major new
> release is announced.
>
> Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it this
> way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for someone
> to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g., Amazon,
> and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
> over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
>
I only would like to know,
whether this posting was really for the apache communtiy mailinglist
or an IBM internal mailinglist to evolve a businessplan?
cheers
Manfred
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Andy Brown <an...@the-martin-byrd.net>.
Leo Simons wrote:
>
> You know, there is this large and interesting community of maintainers
> of mirrors of open source software.
>
> A fair share of them are your typical beard stroking [1] uber
> experienced unix [2] system administrators who maintain a local mirror
> for their company / campus / ISP mostly so that their local users are
> served from their local infrastructure, saving on the bandwidth bill
> of their uplink and keeping their users happy.
>
> The art of software mirroring is mostly in making friends with these
> folks and then staying friendly to them and keeping them happy and
> well-fed and rsynced.
>
> Putting things in the "cloud" is probably a pretty decent way to piss
> these people off :-D
>
> Incidentally, apache has decent mirroring mostly because it has its
> own share of beard stroking [1] uber experienced unix [2]
> administrators. They are typically referred to as the infra team, and
> they must also be kept happy and well-fed at all times! [3]
The OOo community has a very large mirror base already. Even in the
last month it has added more mirrors. Has this been looked at?
Andy
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 02:40:01 PM:
>
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:58 PM, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > Since this is a large download, I wonder whether the quoted numbers
are
> > impacted at all by timeouts, abandoned downloads attempts, etc. In
other
> > words, is it counting the HTTP GET's? Or the successful downloads?
That
> > may influence the load by quite a bit. It may even make it worse.
>
> It is most likely the number of redirects that the MirrorBrain
> software makes to download servers. You should take a look at what
> MirrorBrain does, it's open source, err, free software :)
>
> > And let's not even get started on the burst traffic when a major new
> > release is announced.
> >
> > Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it
this
> > way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for
someone
> > to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g.,
Amazon,
> > and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That
is
> > over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
> >
> > In any case, you can see how this problem solves itself given the
Apache
> > 2.0 license.
>
> You know, there is this large and interesting community of maintainers
> of mirrors of open source software.
>
> A fair share of them are your typical beard stroking [1] uber
> experienced unix [2] system administrators who maintain a local mirror
> for their company / campus / ISP mostly so that their local users are
> served from their local infrastructure, saving on the bandwidth bill
> of their uplink and keeping their users happy.
>
> The art of software mirroring is mostly in making friends with these
> folks and then staying friendly to them and keeping them happy and
> well-fed and rsynced.
>
I appreciate this Leo. Let me clarify how I'm reasoning about these
questions when they arise regarding the proposal. I'm not necessarily
advocating for a particular solution to the problem. I'm just pointing out
that there is at least one plausible solution that does not seem to
violate any natural or manmade laws, one that conforms with the Apache
license, and that therefore the original issue as raised should not block
us from entering incubation. In other words, I disprove the assertion
that this is an issue by giving at least one plausible solution.
That said, I expect in all of these cases we can have a spirited
discussion in the project and often find an even better solution.
> Putting things in the "cloud" is probably a pretty decent way to piss
> these people off :-D
>
> Incidentally, apache has decent mirroring mostly because it has its
> own share of beard stroking [1] uber experienced unix [2]
> administrators. They are typically referred to as the infra team, and
> they must also be kept happy and well-fed at all times! [3]
>
Excellent. That sounds perfect.
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:58 PM, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> Since this is a large download, I wonder whether the quoted numbers are
> impacted at all by timeouts, abandoned downloads attempts, etc. In other
> words, is it counting the HTTP GET's? Or the successful downloads? That
> may influence the load by quite a bit. It may even make it worse.
It is most likely the number of redirects that the MirrorBrain
software makes to download servers. You should take a look at what
MirrorBrain does, it's open source, err, free software :)
> And let's not even get started on the burst traffic when a major new
> release is announced.
>
> Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it this
> way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for someone
> to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g., Amazon,
> and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
> over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
>
> In any case, you can see how this problem solves itself given the Apache
> 2.0 license.
You know, there is this large and interesting community of maintainers
of mirrors of open source software.
A fair share of them are your typical beard stroking [1] uber
experienced unix [2] system administrators who maintain a local mirror
for their company / campus / ISP mostly so that their local users are
served from their local infrastructure, saving on the bandwidth bill
of their uplink and keeping their users happy.
The art of software mirroring is mostly in making friends with these
folks and then staying friendly to them and keeping them happy and
well-fed and rsynced.
Putting things in the "cloud" is probably a pretty decent way to piss
these people off :-D
Incidentally, apache has decent mirroring mostly because it has its
own share of beard stroking [1] uber experienced unix [2]
administrators. They are typically referred to as the infra team, and
they must also be kept happy and well-fed at all times! [3]
cheerio,
Leo
[1] amount of beard on administrator may vary. Beard may contain traces of nuts.
[2] mistakenly referring to unix as linux often not advisable.
[3] I think it doesn't say this clearly enough in the incubator docs,
but, "feed infra team a selection of their favorite beverage at
apachecon" should probably be on the incubation checklist!
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On 6/7/2011 3:17 PM, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 03:43:56 PM:
>
>> Apache don't think that money is evil, but we also believe that
>> seeing our code in wide use is more important than money.
>> OpenOffice.org is important to the Developing World, some of whom
>> will pay for convenience. I would hate to see Apache enter that
>> business, however.
>
> "Apache" doesn't "think" or "believe". That is an illogical reification.
> If I've learned anything from participating in this list is that Apache
> members of of different minds on many things. That is fine.
On this, there is unity...
http://www.apache.org/foundation/records/certificate.html
3. The purpose of the Corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity
for which corporations which are organized not for profit may be organized
under the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, including the
creation and maintenance of "open source" software distributed by the
Corporation to the public at no charge".
The "no charge" bit is pretty explicit (and legally binding on our tax status).
Any party is welcome to charge 99c to obtain the software as long as that
fee is not misleading (suggesting that the money went to the authors or
project or foundation). Another party is just as welcome to host it as
a free app.
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by "Manfred A. Reiter" <ma...@gmail.com>.
Hi -Rob
2011/6/7 <ro...@us.ibm.com>:
> Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 03:43:56 PM:
>
>> robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
>>
>> Not surprisingly, you missed my point (or chose to ignore it). We at
>
> Honestly, your insult does surprise me.
>
>> Apache don't think that money is evil, but we also believe that
>> seeing our code in wide use is more important than money.
>> OpenOffice.org is important to the Developing World, some of whom
>> will pay for convenience. I would hate to see Apache enter that
>> business, however.
>
>
> "Apache" doesn't "think" or "believe".
Wise guy....
Do you think that is an attitude in a mailinglist of volunteers?
> That is an illogical reification.
once more wisenhimer or what?
> If I've learned anything from participating in this list is that Apache
> members of of different minds on many things. That is fine.
>
I have learned a lot in the OOo community, esp. that working with
volunteers differs a little bit from a tone in a big company like yours.
cheers
Manfred
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Jochen Wiedmann <jo...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote:
> The words "not surprisingly" were not necessary. Labeling these words
> as an "insult", while arguably technically accurate, increased rather
> than reduced tension.
Guys, aren't you married? This "not surprisingly" simply indicates
you're male... :-)
--
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men
will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of
everyone.
John Maynard Keynes (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Keynes)
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Ian Lynch <ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7 June 2011 21:17, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>> Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 03:43:56 PM:
>> >
>> > robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
>> >
>> > Not surprisingly, you missed my point (or chose to ignore it). We at
>>
>> Honestly, your insult does surprise me.
>
> Rob, why do you interpret that as an insult? If it is one, you have been
> insulting many people all up and down the lists ;-) What was it you said to
> Florian?
>
> It ain't what you say its the way that you say it....that's what gets
> results (needs the music <http://bit.ly/khXMvK> really :-) )
The words "not surprisingly" were not necessary. Labeling these words
as an "insult", while arguably technically accurate, increased rather
than reduced tension.
It would be helpful if we all tried a little harder to avoid such
terms, perhaps resolving differences off-list.
I've never met Rob, but I have met Danese. While I can understand
where she is coming from, those words surprised me too.
- Sam Ruby
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Ian Lynch <ia...@gmail.com>.
On 7 June 2011 21:17, <ro...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 03:43:56 PM:
> >
> > robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
> >
> > Not surprisingly, you missed my point (or chose to ignore it). We at
>
> Honestly, your insult does surprise me.
>
Rob, why do you interpret that as an insult? If it is one, you have been
insulting many people all up and down the lists ;-) What was it you said to
Florian?
It ain't what you say its the way that you say it....that's what gets
results (needs the music <http://bit.ly/khXMvK> really :-) )
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 03:43:56 PM:
>
> robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
>
> Not surprisingly, you missed my point (or chose to ignore it). We at
Honestly, your insult does surprise me.
> Apache don't think that money is evil, but we also believe that
> seeing our code in wide use is more important than money.
> OpenOffice.org is important to the Developing World, some of whom
> will pay for convenience. I would hate to see Apache enter that
> business, however.
"Apache" doesn't "think" or "believe". That is an illogical reification.
If I've learned anything from participating in this list is that Apache
members of of different minds on many things. That is fine.
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Robert Burrell Donkin <ro...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 8:43 PM, Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We at Apache don't think that money is evil, but we also believe that seeing our code in wide use is more important than money. OpenOffice.org is important to the Developing World, some of whom will pay for convenience. I would hate to see Apache enter that business, however.
+1
Robert
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com>.
robert_weir@us.ibm.com:
Not surprisingly, you missed my point (or chose to ignore it). We at Apache don't think that money is evil, but we also believe that seeing our code in wide use is more important than money. OpenOffice.org is important to the Developing World, some of whom will pay for convenience. I would hate to see Apache enter that business, however.
Danese
On Jun 7, 2011, at 11:41 AM, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> It seems Apache will have a destination of value in OpenOffice.org. There
> should be a way to monetize this, similar to how Mozilla monetized their
> default search engine choice with Google
Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>.
robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 02:19:38 PM:
>
...snip...
> It seems Apache will have a destination of value in OpenOffice.org. There
> should be a way to monetize this, similar to how Mozilla monetized their
> default search engine choice with Google. For example, ASF could take
> bids and award a contracts to providers who want to serve up OOo code. The
> money from this could be used to fund mirrors in under-served markets. Or
> the contract could require that the downloads be free to certain ranges of
> IP addresses, or something like that. Similar things could be done with
> respect to advertising. (With the obvious caveat that I have absolutely
> no idea whether any of this is permitted by ASF bylaws.)
I just want to reiterate one very important point: the ASF gives away
our software for free to all, period.
It's in our charter [1] as Bill Rowe pointed out. The bylaws [2] don't
specifically address this point, which is fine. They don't need to;
while the members of the ASF indeed sometimes have quite different
viewpoints, as a whole the organization has been consistent and clear on
ensuring that our software is freely available to all.
When and if mirroring infrastructure becomes an issue, we can work with
our infrastructure team to see what's needed. If there is significant
expense to ensure we can serve the public that will want to access our
software, well, then that's why we have a Sponsorship program [3]. Note
that all sponsorships are non-directed; i.e. funds are donated to the
ASF as a whole, and the ASF chooses how to use them for the benefit of
all our projects.
I think the biggest lesson is that there are a lot of important
questions here we need to work on - as soon as we have a podling to ask
them. Oooh, and thanks Leo for thinking about it ahead of time!
- Shane
[1] http://www.apache.org/foundation/records/certificate.html
[2] http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html
[3] http://apache.org/foundation/sponsorship.html
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RE: A little OOo history
Posted by "Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>.
> It seems Apache will have a destination of value in OpenOffice.org. There
> should be a way to monetize this, similar to how Mozilla monetized their
> default search engine choice with Google.
That'll spawn a whole other set of debates.
> For example, ASF could take bids and award a contracts to providers who
want
> to serve up OOo code.
No, I do not believe that we can, given both our fundemental beliefs in Open
Source and our tax status. ANYONE can take the code for ANY PURPOSE,
including distribution. But at least part of that question can be run by
the lawyers.
--- Noel
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 02:19:38 PM:
>
> Just have to say...I have often been quoted saying the advent of
> OpenOffice.org was a rare case of "corporate greed aligning with
> human need". Safe to assume a high percentage of downloaders don't
> have $.99. I know we're all excited by the commercial potential of
> an unencumbered codebase, but let's not forget that this software
> has been localized by the community into *many* languages (65 last I
> checked, but probably more now) just so local people would have a
> chance to learn to use computers without also having to learn one of
> the 13 languages MSFT supports.
>
An example, I was in South Africa at an ODF workshop a few years ago. They
had a vending-machine like device called "Freedom Toaster" where you
could stick in a CD ROM, pick from a list of open source applications, and
have them burned onto your disc. All the software was stored locally. A
great way to get around bandwidth limitations in that situation. (and
yes, it had OOo)
http://www.freedomtoaster.org/
It seems Apache will have a destination of value in OpenOffice.org. There
should be a way to monetize this, similar to how Mozilla monetized their
default search engine choice with Google. For example, ASF could take
bids and award a contracts to providers who want to serve up OOo code. The
money from this could be used to fund mirrors in under-served markets. Or
the contract could require that the downloads be free to certain ranges of
IP addresses, or something like that. Similar things could be done with
respect to advertising. (With the obvious caveat that I have absolutely
no idea whether any of this is permitted by ASF bylaws.)
And remeber, let's not lock ourselves into something that "just works" for
current OOo market share of 10% or so. We need to set our sights on what
will work for twice or three times that number, at least. We need
something that will scale both technically as well as financially. It is
a challenge, I admit that. But I also cannot think of any open source
foundation more up to this challenge than Apache.
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com>.
Just have to say...I have often been quoted saying the advent of OpenOffice.org was a rare case of "corporate greed aligning with human need". Safe to assume a high percentage of downloaders don't have $.99. I know we're all excited by the commercial potential of an unencumbered codebase, but let's not forget that this software has been localized by the community into *many* languages (65 last I checked, but probably more now) just so local people would have a chance to learn to use computers without also having to learn one of the 13 languages MSFT supports.
Peace,
Danese
On Jun 7, 2011, at 10:58 AM, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> Amazon,
> and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
> over $30 million/year.
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by ro...@us.ibm.com.
Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/07/2011 01:35:17 PM:
>
> > 300000 downloads per day or per month?
> >
> > 52TB per month is still a lot...
>
> per day.
> Look at this chart:
> http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
>
> And please correct me if i am wrong. :-)
> Cheers
>
We should be able to check the math from another direction. Microsoft
claims something like 400 million Office users. Studies looking at OOo
install share show approximately 10%. Pick some random number between 6
and 12 months. Call it "mean time to upgrade to a new OOo release". In
my case the random number came out to be 10 months, fortunate for me for
doing the math in my head. That gives 4 million users downloading/month.
That gives 130,000 downloads/day. I know that is not the same number
quoted, but it is in the ball park.
Since this is a large download, I wonder whether the quoted numbers are
impacted at all by timeouts, abandoned downloads attempts, etc. In other
words, is it counting the HTTP GET's? Or the successful downloads? That
may influence the load by quite a bit. It may even make it worse.
And let's not even get started on the burst traffic when a major new
release is announced.
Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for Apache. Think of it this
way. It would be perfectly possible, and actually quite easy for someone
to host the files with a scalable cloud storage provider, e.g., Amazon,
and charge $0.99 for the download, the cost of an iPhone app. That is
over $30 million/year. Heck, I might just do that myself and retire!
In any case, you can see how this problem solves itself given the Apache
2.0 license.
Regards,
-Rob
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>.
> 300000 downloads per day or per month?
>
> 52TB per month is still a lot...
per day.
Look at this chart:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
And please correct me if i am wrong. :-)
Cheers
>
> LieGrue,
> strub
>
> --- On Tue, 6/7/11, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: A little OOo history
>> To: general@incubator.apache.org
>> Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 5:03 PM
>> > just to check the . there for
>> i18n issues, you mean about 52TB? That
>> > translates to about 1.5PB/month, which is equivalent
>> to the CERN LHC data
>> > rate once it's ramped up to full luminosity and event
>> rate.
>> >
>> > Yes, I can imagine people's concerns.
>>
>> Its 300000 downloads with 180 MB each (rounded). This is
>> 54000000 MB
>> which should be 52 TB
>>
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>>
>
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>
--
http://www.grobmeier.de
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Mark Struberg <st...@yahoo.de>.
300000 downloads per day or per month?
52TB per month is still a lot...
LieGrue,
strub
--- On Tue, 6/7/11, Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: A little OOo history
> To: general@incubator.apache.org
> Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 5:03 PM
> > just to check the . there for
> i18n issues, you mean about 52TB? That
> > translates to about 1.5PB/month, which is equivalent
> to the CERN LHC data
> > rate once it's ramped up to full luminosity and event
> rate.
> >
> > Yes, I can imagine people's concerns.
>
> Its 300000 downloads with 180 MB each (rounded). This is
> 54000000 MB
> which should be 52 TB
>
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>
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>.
> just to check the . there for i18n issues, you mean about 52TB? That
> translates to about 1.5PB/month, which is equivalent to the CERN LHC data
> rate once it's ramped up to full luminosity and event rate.
>
> Yes, I can imagine people's concerns.
Its 300000 downloads with 180 MB each (rounded). This is 54000000 MB
which should be 52 TB
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Steve Loughran <st...@apache.org>.
On 06/07/2011 05:00 PM, Christian Grobmeier wrote:
>> Have a look at http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
>> Maybe a bit outdated and actually there is no release date in the
>> displayed time. The old load balancer (bouncer) usually failed totally
>> when a new version was announced, therefore OOo switched to Suse's
>> Mirrorbrain.
>
> Thanks Volker, this gives me an impression.
>
> Now I have learned that each day round about 52.000 gigs of data are served.
>
just to check the . there for i18n issues, you mean about 52TB? That
translates to about 1.5PB/month, which is equivalent to the CERN LHC
data rate once it's ramped up to full luminosity and event rate.
Yes, I can imagine people's concerns.
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>.
> Have a look at http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
> Maybe a bit outdated and actually there is no release date in the
> displayed time. The old load balancer (bouncer) usually failed totally
> when a new version was announced, therefore OOo switched to Suse's
> Mirrorbrain.
Thanks Volker, this gives me an impression.
Now I have learned that each day round about 52.000 gigs of data are served.
This is pretty impressive actually
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Volker Merschmann <me...@gmail.com>.
Hi,
2011/6/7 Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>:
>> 3) LOTS of people download OOo
>> Like maybe 10% of the human population of the planet. And its a big file.
>> Initially we engaged Akamai, but it quickly became too expensive. Serving up downloads of OOo was pretty intense. I know Apache has all that web server download traffic and all...but I'm telling you Sun.com quailed at the throughput, and we shouldn't assume our mileage will vary. There will be extraordinary infrastructure costs, because it is end-user software (and there are a LOT of users worldwide). Sun mitigated this problem with mirrors, but of course that screwed download stats.
>
> do you have any numbers?
>
> I am really curious - people are always saying that but I cannot get
> out numbers. I believe all you said, I just would like to know how
> much it is actually
>
Have a look at http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
Maybe a bit outdated and actually there is no release date in the
displayed time. The old load balancer (bouncer) usually failed totally
when a new version was announced, therefore OOo switched to Suse's
Mirrorbrain.
Volker
--
Volker Merschmann
Member of The Document Foundation
http://www.documentfoundation.org
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Re: A little OOo history
Posted by Christian Grobmeier <gr...@gmail.com>.
Danese,
> 3) LOTS of people download OOo
> Like maybe 10% of the human population of the planet. And its a big file.
> Initially we engaged Akamai, but it quickly became too expensive. Serving up downloads of OOo was pretty intense. I know Apache has all that web server download traffic and all...but I'm telling you Sun.com quailed at the throughput, and we shouldn't assume our mileage will vary. There will be extraordinary infrastructure costs, because it is end-user software (and there are a LOT of users worldwide). Sun mitigated this problem with mirrors, but of course that screwed download stats.
do you have any numbers?
I am really curious - people are always saying that but I cannot get
out numbers. I believe all you said, I just would like to know how
much it is actually
Thanks for the interesting read
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