Why distrust M$, but trust Sun?

plenty560.RemoveThis@yahoo.com did eloquently scribble:

> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
> of the NSA? Are they an especially ethical company?

Open office is OPEN source, if they tried that someone would see it in
there. And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.

For the sun version you want the closed source open office derivative "Star
Office".

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------

plenty560 DeleteThis @yahoo.com wrote:

>
> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
> of the NSA?
Stupid, its Open Source, I you uncle Tom Cobbley and all can go look at the
code, Oh look those nice people at Sun have put some code here from the
very Very nice people at the NSA. If it happened it would be picked up. It
would be more realist to use the methods currently deployed to keep tabs on
the general population.

> Are they an especially ethical company?
> (Is any?) Astute observers of corporate America have
> seen in recent times a series of tech companies that proved
> willing to assist with current administration's agenda
> or the RIAA/MPAA agenda. And what better way to
> infiltrate an otherwise hard to enter area such as
> Linux users' personal PCs than to sneak some code
> into an OpenOffice binary? Even if users encrypt their
> drives, the baddies would still get access. And, as everyone
> knows, the more bloated the software, the less likely
> people are to download the sources and compile it for
> themselves. (Not all distros come with OO.)
There are plenty of packages that would make better trojans than Open
Office. But the baddies you talk about, thats you by the way (We the
people..), have no problem hacking your system. I always find it sad that
people see the institute of government as the enemy, they are there to
represent you. In case you missed the sarcasm, its the corporate and
military than run America and certainly not the people.

Jem..

____/ spike1.DeleteThis@freenet.co.uk on Thursday 26 July 2007 01:34 : \____

> plenty560.DeleteThis@yahoo.com did eloquently scribble:
>
>> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
>> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
>> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
>> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
>> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
>> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
>> of the NSA? Are they an especially ethical company?
>
> Open office is OPEN source, if they tried that someone would see it in
> there. And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
> it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.
>
> For the sun version you want the closed source open office derivative "Star
> Office".

Earlier today (elsewhere), someone else was trying to posion people's minds
against ODF, Sun, and StarOffice.

plenty560.DeleteThis@yahoo.com , who are you and who are you with?

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On 2007-07-26, spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk <spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk> wrote:
> And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
> it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.

It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
code.

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> ____/ spike1.TakeThisOut@freenet.co.uk on Thursday 26 July 2007 01:34 : \____
>
>> plenty560.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com did eloquently scribble:
>>
>>> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
>>> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
>>> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
>>> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
>>> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
>>> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
>>> of the NSA? Are they an especially ethical company?
>> Open office is OPEN source, if they tried that someone would see it in
>> there. And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
>> it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.
>>
>> For the sun version you want the closed source open office derivative "Star
>> Office".
>
> Earlier today (elsewhere), someone else was trying to posion people's minds
> against ODF, Sun, and StarOffice.
>
> plenty560.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com , who are you and who are you with?

Well, it could be merely Sun's "lost leader" to help kill M$'s
domination with Office. But who cares? As others have indicated it's
open source. But even more importantly, it's free as in free beer...

Tim Smith wrote:
>
> On 2007-07-26, spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk <spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk> wrote:
> > And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
> > it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.
>
> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
> code.

More to the point:

http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html

"How to submit code to OpenOffice.org

We ask that all code submitted to OpenOffice.org be submitted via Issue
Tracker. In your submission please list "Issue Type" as PATCH. Your code
will be sent to the committer for the appropriate project.

1. Submit a filled-out copy of the Joint Copyright Assignment form
(JCA); we have a PDF version you may print out. We explain our reasons
for requiring the JCA in the Licensing FAQ. The FAQ further explain the
use and advantages of using this license.

2. In order for your code to be committed to the source tree:

a. Your Joint Copyright Assignment form must have been received.
This Assignment covers all submissions of code."

http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/jca.pdf

"OpenOffice.org Open Source Project
Joint Copyright Assignment by Contributor
To Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun")

[...]

Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide
common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights,
copyright application, copyright registration and moral rights in the
Contribution to the extent allowable under applicable local laws and
copyright conventions. Contributor agrees that this assignment may be
submitted by Sun to register a copyright in the Contribution."

regards,
alexander.

--
"Mathematics is primarily a language for ensuring reliable results
in human social activity. "

-- Columbia Professor Eben Anarcho-Dot Communist Moglen

On 2007-07-27, Alexander Terekhov <terekhov RemoveThis @web.de> wrote:
>> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
>> code.
>
> More to the point:
>
> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html

Yup. It's interesting how many self-proclaimed open source advocates
don't seem to actually know anything about what they advocate, other
than that it isn't Microsoft and it isn't Apple.

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:55:08 +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:

> Tim Smith wrote:
>>
>> On 2007-07-26, spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk <spike1 RemoveThis @freenet.co.uk> wrote:
>> > And besides, open office might've been initially released by sun but
>> > it is independent of them. Open.Office.org develop open office.
>>
>> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
>> code.
>
> More to the point:
>
> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html
>
> "How to submit code to OpenOffice.org
>
> We ask that all code submitted to OpenOffice.org be submitted via Issue
> Tracker. In your submission please list "Issue Type" as PATCH. Your code
> will be sent to the committer for the appropriate project.
>
> 1. Submit a filled-out copy of the Joint Copyright Assignment form
> (JCA); we have a PDF version you may print out. We explain our reasons
> for requiring the JCA in the Licensing FAQ. The FAQ further explain the
> use and advantages of using this license.
>
> 2. In order for your code to be committed to the source tree:
>
> a. Your Joint Copyright Assignment form must have been received.
> This Assignment covers all submissions of code."
>
> http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/jca.pdf
>
> "OpenOffice.org Open Source Project
> Joint Copyright Assignment by Contributor To Sun Microsystems, Inc.
> ("Sun")
>
> [...]
>
> Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide
> common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights,
> copyright application, copyright registration and moral rights in the
> Contribution to the extent allowable under applicable local laws and
> copyright conventions. Contributor agrees that this assignment may be
> submitted by Sun to register a copyright in the Contribution."
>
> regards,
> alexander.

Yes, copyrights are assigned to Sun, but OO.o and all submissions use the
LGPL.

--
Rick

In article <13amdf9ocjk03b DeleteThis @news.supernews.com>, Rick <none DeleteThis @nomail.com>
wrote:
> Yes, copyrights are assigned to Sun, but OO.o and all submissions use the
> LGPL.

Most of the contributions come from Sun employees. There aren't many
"outside" developers. Some who have tried have complained that it is
hard to get outside work accepted into OO.o. Thus, it's not really
accurate to say that OO.o is independent of StarOffice and Sun.


--
--Tim Smith

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:49:32 +0200, Hadron wrote:

> Tim Smith <reply_in_group.RemoveThis@mouse-potato.com> writes:
>
>> On 2007-07-27, Alexander Terekhov <terekhov.RemoveThis@web.de> wrote:
>>>> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of
>>>> the code.
>>>
>>> More to the point:
>>>
>>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html
>>
>> Yup. It's interesting how many self-proclaimed open source advocates
>> don't seem to actually know anything about what they advocate, other
>> than that it isn't Microsoft and it isn't Apple.
>
> Aint that the truth! Also most of them never contributed one second of
> time to any OSS products.

What have you contributed? And what actions do you consider contributing?

--
Rick

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:27:09 +0000, Tim Smith wrote:

> On 2007-07-27, Alexander Terekhov <terekhov RemoveThis @web.de> wrote:
>>> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
>>> code.
>>
>> More to the point:
>>
>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html
>
> Yup. It's interesting how many self-proclaimed open source advocates
> don't seem to actually know anything about what they advocate, other
> than that it isn't Microsoft and it isn't Apple.

Not new. Copyright transfers of GPL code have been around for a while,
eg to the FSF for the GNU/Hurd project (not the best example).

Tim Smith <reply_in_group.DeleteThis@mouse-potato.com> writes:

> On 2007-07-27, Alexander Terekhov <terekhov.DeleteThis@web.de> wrote:
>>> It's still managed by people from Sun, and they contribute most of the
>>> code.
>>
>> More to the point:
>>
>> http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html
>
> Yup. It's interesting how many self-proclaimed open source advocates
> don't seem to actually know anything about what they advocate, other
> than that it isn't Microsoft and it isn't Apple.

Aint that the truth! Also most of them never contributed one second of
time to any OSS products.

On Jul 25, 4:39 pm, plenty....TakeThisOut@yahoo.com wrote:
> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
> of the NSA? Are they an especially ethical company?
> (Is any?) Astute observers of corporate America have
> seen in recent times a series of tech companies that proved
> willing to assist with current administration's agenda
> or the RIAA/MPAA agenda. And what better way to
> infiltrate an otherwise hard to enter area such as
> Linux users' personal PCs than to sneak some code
> into an OpenOffice binary? Even if users encrypt their
> drives, the baddies would still get access. And, as everyone
> knows, the more bloated the software, the less likely
> people are to download the sources and compile it for
> themselves. (Not all distros come with OO.)

Open source means that everyone can see it so if you
compromise something everyone can see it. Open source
software is MORE secure, not less, than closed source.
Security through obscurity is a dangerous myth. Open
source allows people to see it and with more eyes looking
at it more bugs and flaws can be found, and hence
corrected, making the security even greater.