Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Novell forking OpenOffice? No way

December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Novell forking OpenOffice? No way

TAGS: Open Source

OK, I know I've been guilty of bashing Novell lately (well deserved and self-inflicted), but I can't help but feel that it's starting to go a wee bit too far. I read today that Novell had added Microsoft Office Open XML support to its version of OpenOffice. Good news, and good work, I thought.

I was therefore surprised to read Pamela's comments over on Groklaw, with a headline proclaiming that "Novell 'Forking' OpenOffice.org." I suppose that's one way to say "improving," but it's not a very polite way to say it, and not at all accurate, in Novell's case. (Miguel de Icaza then provides more flavor as to Novell's long-term commitment to and history with OpenOffice, in case you want to hear it from the Novellian horse's mouth.)

I highly respect Pamela's perspective, but I think she's off on this. Novell has had its own version of OpenOffice for some time, just as Sun has its own (StarOffice), and others probably ship their own versions, as well. To me, it's similar to how Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu, etc. ship different distributions of Linux. In like manner, Novell is simply shipping its own distribution of OpenOffice.

A fork? Nah. Only by the wildest stretch of the imagination. A boon to users? Absolutely. If you've never used Novell's OpenOffice, you really should - it's fantastic. I used to use it when I worked for Novell, and was always surprised by the added functionality and improved performance, much of which gets contributed back to OpenOffice.org.

So, let's call a spade a spade: Novell + Microsoft on patents = bad idea. Novell + improvements to OpenOffice = very good idea. Just because Novell screwed up on one thing doesn't mean everything they do is wrong. Much of what the company does is great. OpenOffice just happens to be one of them.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 5, 2006 11:02 AM

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