Sun screwed nobody.
Sun:
1) Paid a LOT of money for a flaky office suite called "Star Division". If
you had ever used Star Division, you would agree that it was flakey. It was a
good idea looking for some TLC ... but it was NOT an MS-Office killer.
Sun:
2) Released the body of that code to the open source community ... even
funding the creation of "OpenOffice.org" as a legal entity, legally separate
from Sun, so as to protect the code under the GPL. If they had not donated
it, they would have had to charge for it in order to distribute it. Simply
put, there would have NEVER been a free Star Office / Open Office if they
hadn't taken this expensive legal step. Think back ... Microsoft has bought
up a product a number of times and neither used its code nor released it for
others to use. It simply swallowed a competitor to narrow the field. Sun
could have done this ... but did not.
Sun:
3) Released a parrallel product from a separate development tree for beta
testing. Because it included proprietary code licensed from others, Sun could
not expose the source for inspection / donated code.
Sun:
4) Because the full package had these licensing restrictions, Sun had to pay
for the beta revisions itself ... but it then donated THAT code, too, to
OpenOffice.org. Sun is the single largest contributor to the Open Office
package and it would NOT exist without the code Sun has DONATED.
Sun:
5) Announced at the initial release of Star Office 5.2 that the code was beta
and that the beta program would eventually end. Kept that notice page on
their website continuously from that day forward. It's there still.
Sun:
6) Announced MANY months ago that it would end the beta on Dec 31 of 2001.
Sun:
7) Kept its word by taking SO-6 out of beta and into production.
Sun:
8) Kept its word by continuing to fund and contribute to OpenOffice.org down
to this day.
----------
I, personally, reminded the SLUG list in mid December that the beta program
would end on Dec. 31 and that anyone wanting copies would need to stir
themselves.
I, personally, made pirated copies of the SO-6 binaries available from
January 1 through mid-February of this year and announced this fact on the
list. This announcement generated a number of responses both on-list and off
and several actual downloads and installations AFTER the beta program had
expired.
Anybody who has been asleep at the wheel since the initial release of SO-5 is
cordially invited to wake up and smell the coffee. And quit whining that the
train you have been standing in the middle of the tracks looking at for the
past 3 years has finally arrived ... right on time according to its publicly
available schedule.
Try googling for Sun, sometime, before slamming it.
---------------
I hope a copy of this email finds its way to Scott McNealy. I want him to
know that not all OSS'ers are whiney mooches too lazy to download a free
lunch and too stupid to show up for the free lunch on time. Some of us showed
up on time, left with our plates full and are grateful for the banquet set
before us. In fact, some, like myself, carried extra helpings away to share
with the late-comers. We wish our patron well in his commercial endeavors and
will be stopping by to see what the commercial package looks like with an eye
to paying for the free meals if it is within our means to do so.
Bill
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