OpenOffice goes V3!
Big news today, starting with the April release of OpenOffice, it will be licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License, Version 3, (LGPLv3). This license upgrade was decided based on input from the community and is an evolution from OpenOffice's current license: LGPLv2. While Sun previously chose v3 for xVM Ops Center, OpenOffice represents a much bigger ball of code and, as far as I know is the largest project yet to go v3.
Talkin' 'Bout an Evolution
Yesterday I was able to grab a few folks to talk about this change and what it means for OpenOffice and Free Software. On the line I had Michael Bemmer who, among other things, runs StarOffice, OpenOffice for Sun, Jim Parkinson VP of Developers tools and Michael's boss and Peter Brown, executive director of the Free Software Foundation.
My Interview with Jim, Michael and Peter (9:47) Listen mp3 Listen ogg
Some of the topics we tackle:
- The other piece of news, moving to the Sun Contributor agreement and what that means.
- Why L rather than regular GPL?
- What about a foundation?
- The GPLv3 drafting process, whats been added since V2?
- Whats the reaction been?
Extra Credit Reading/Listening:
- David Marr, Sun's legal rep who participated in GPLv3 drafting process, talks about the "sojourn to 3" and selling it inside of Sun.
- My interview with Dave (10:39) Listen (Mp3) Listen (ogg)
- Simon's take on all this
- The FSF's Open Document Campaign and what you can do
- A chat I had with Peter last year about his background and what the FSF is all about.
- Talking with Solveig Haugland at last years Linux World about the wacky world of OpenOffice training.
Pau for now....
