RE: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming)

Subject: RE: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming)
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
To: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- ga -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2014 10:19:22 -0500

No.

Not a license that they require of you, other than that you probably agreed to generally observe GPL or Lesser-GPL, or some flavor of the BSD license, or the Apache licenses, or any of several other widely used source licensing schemes for the "open" source code that was used in the product. During installation, you likely saw some legalese go by, and probably had to click to acknowledge.


Part of the schism that resulted in LibreOffice splitting off from OpenOffice.org was due to perceived control by the company taking over the original project. One area of disagreement was over what kinds of add-ons and third-party inclusions should be permissible in their respective distributions. Much of that is probably on the history page of the LO site, or in the archives of the LO user-to-user forums and mailing lists.

Any big project like that usually has to enter into a license agreement with somebody when they include the ability to open/import, to display, and especially to export proprietary formats.

Some big productivity projects approach that by seeking those agreements and including the functionality in the product. Others do it by letting you acquire and insert your own add-ins/add-ons from third parties, so no liability or entanglement accrues to the core project or its participants.

Maybe Larry E. didn't want any open-source project that lives under the wing of his corporation to be beholden to Microsoft. :-)

I switched to LibreOffice for a few years, when their offering seemed more practical than the more purist OpenOffice that I'd used for many years prior.
These days, I don't happen to use either one anymore. I still have LibreOffice on my MacBook at home, but I haven't opened it in nearly two years. I didn't even remember to install when I got my replacement laptop at the office, and haven't had a need. If a need/use arises, I'll likely opt for LibreOffice.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Lauriston
Sent: March-04-14 6:12 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; Janoff, Steven
Subject: Re: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming)

The latest release of LibreOffice Draw can import Visio .vsd files, the latest release of OpenOffice Draw can't. I don't recall either asking me for a license.

On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 2:13 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> LibreOffice and OpenOffice are essentially the same under the hood (the base, open-source code), but one is a bit more picky about add-ins and licensing.
> I'll leave you to decide which is which.

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Follow-Ups:

References:
Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming): From: Janoff, Steven
Re: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming): From: Robert Lauriston
RE: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming): From: Janoff, Steven
RE: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming): From: McLauchlan, Kevin
Re: Open source alternate to Visio on Win7 (for diagramming): From: Robert Lauriston

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