Java Developer Says He Built, Launched Basic Open Source Office Suite In 30 Days 266
alphadogg writes "A freelance Java developer claims it took him only 30 days to build and launch a basic open source office suite that runs on multiple OSes. Called Joeffice, it works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux as well as in browsers, according to the developer, Anthony Goubard. It includes a very basic word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation program and database software, Goubard said. The office suite was built with NetBeans and uses many popular open source Java libraries. That allowed him to built the program in 30 days, he said, a process that he documented daily on YouTube (video). The suite was released as an alpha version, which means that not everything works yet. Goubard's Amsterdam company, Japplis, launched the suite, which is available under an Apache 2.0 license. This license allows companies to change and redistribute the code internally without having to share the new code publicly, he said."
Redistributing the code internally (Score:0, Informative)
Actually if he had bothered to read the GPL he would have notice that it too allows internal redistribution.
Re:Here's my office suit, written in 3 minutes in (Score:3, Informative)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
printf("Basic office suite\n");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
Thanks FSM for Free Software, otherwise I couldn't have fixed your bugs.
As you can see, it was possible to program this office suite so quickly because I used libraries. Note: this is an alpha release and some features aren't finished yet.
Can I join the developer team? Hopefully we can finish the program quicker, if we double the dev.-team.
Re:Redistributing the code internally (Score:5, Informative)
I assure you that not many companies allow you to touch anything GPL even with 10-foot pole. I work for big company (150k+ employees) and there is a blank ban on touching any GPL code ever for internal development.
Internal redistribution or not, there is always a chance that you may want to give some variation of the software to client/subsidiary company/whatever - and opening source at this moment (which might be linked to some in-house prioprietary libraries in meantime) is just not worth the effort.
Re:How does he mean it with the license? (Score:4, Informative)
No, its just usual to have even good developers licensing somtheing under a license without having read and understood these or other licenses.
The top misunderstanding is actually the one about the GPL mandatign you to publish the source code openly, which lies at the heart of the "Softwar as a service" problem.
To state that clearly: The only thing the GPL mandates is what you should give to the people to whom you give your software product. The GPL is designed for the freedom of the user (or customer), not the intellectual property protection of the programmer or as socialistic "software mus be open for everybody". If you distribute a product inside a company, the person you are distributing it to will have certain rights *as a part of the company*. However there is nothing wrong with a company rule which does not allow him to exercise these rights, like confidentiality agreements. Currently i am working for a company where the GPL is blacklisted due to that misunderstanding.
Re:Now do one in a language not riddled with explo (Score:4, Informative)
If you'd actually listen to those warnings, you'd realise they're against Java browser plugin, not JRE or Java itself.
Re:Built with Netbeans (Score:4, Informative)
Not true. We use NetBeans almost exclusively (I am one of them).
Re:GPL and Redistributing the code internally and (Score:4, Informative)
Also, enough lawyers have come to a consensus that using GPL3 would open a can of worms as far as company practices go, and hence the ban on GPL software in offices.
This is the key element in regards to the business decision. The Lawyers are advising against it due to potential legal issues. Hell I've asked a local lawyer about GPL and Open Source and was advised not to create any internal software using it due to the potential and from the SoHo/Small business owner perspective, it's simply not worth the potential legal issues. Stick with the BSD/Apache license and you're fine.
IAMNAL and this isn't legal advice. That's to see a lawyer and pay for his advice. Don't believe everything you see online.
99.9% of the work was done when he said 'NetBeans' (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously? When you start with NetBeans as your base platform, you've already got a word processor built in. You've already done most of the work, for the presentation and spreadsheet apps as well, controls built in for displaying database data.
Seriously, you're building word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation apps on ... a word processing, spreadsheet capable database app. It probably does presentations too.
Guess what I can do! In 20 minutes I can make a complete IDE. I'll just start off with NetBeans RCP! https://netbeans.org/features/platform/ [netbeans.org]
Re:He didn't write an office suite in 30 days (Score:4, Informative)
But it wouldn't be multi-platform, which one of the selling points of the experiment. Microsoft has worked hard to make Windows-centric development easier, but only for MS platforms.
(My spailchekker tried to put "mulch-platform" instead of multi-platform, which may be more fitting for MS.)