Re: What is GNOME office?

[Mike Kestner <mkestner ameritech net>]

Dick Porter wrote:
 
> Surely "what is GNOME Office" should be "all GNOME applications that do
> officey things". If we have more than one candidate for a particular role,
> then include them all. Choice is good (particularly when they all interoperate)!

Unfortunately, this thought process doesn't work well in the current
GNOME corporate expansion.  Corporations that are considering investment
into GNOME will want to know which application is the "official"
component of GO, when two or more exist.  Companies need to assure that
their payroll dollars are being invested in the most productive manner
possible, and this means a single sanctioned suite in most cases. 

The only deviation from this that I consider likely would be if
companies have plans that make licensing an issue.  For example, it is
unlikely that Sun would directly fund gnumeric as they have plans for
the office suite which evidently include proprietary extensions, based
on the dual licensing they've applied to OpenOffice.  A purely GPLd
package like gnumeric is unlikely to receive many Sun dollars even if
adopted by the foundation board.  This type of duplication, where
corporate interests are served is still quite possible, if the board
doesn't choose to just adopt OpenOffice in its entirety. 

While it is arguable that duplication of effort is even more harmful in
a resource constrained environment, reasons like education, choice, and
simple enjoyment can make it acceptable to have duplication when money
isn't involved.  The survival of alternatives will be based on whether
individual hackers determine there is personal payback in extending and
supporting a non-sanctioned app.

Mike