ITVoice News: A tender from The Document Foundation, which was issued for the development of LibreOffice’s Android application, has been trapped with several questions. The questions include whether cash into open source can create codes successfully or now, and how the non-profit foundations’ pay-for-code will impact the open source community’s work ethics.
The tender document from the German non-profit organization was issued to extend the LibreOffice document viewer example into a basic document editor on Android. This tender covers all the components like Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Math. Experiments for the same have been done earlier too by the open source community. But the fact is that developers, who are interested in coding for the Android edition, will not be able to generate a handsome income from their work in future. The reason behind that is all the work will remain open for the community, as per the policy of the foundation.
So a substantial investment for the Android project is not very likely. If the licensing pattern is changed then a proprietary Android implementation of LibreOffice can be created. The license has been modified earlier by TDF and the newest Mozilla license has better compatibility with (L)GPLv3. There is no dearth of cash in TDF as donations keep puring in from around the world. So a significant amount of surplus is always created by the foundation. As explained by Simon Phipps at OSCON session, money is not an important factor for open source projects. So, as Phipps clarifies further, open source foundations usually don’t spend much money for code development. Phipps is also not in favour of doing the same. TDF has always made large investments in testing and for the same system admin and administrative staff is hired by them. All kinds of community activities are supported by the foundation. That’s the reason why TDF has been trying their hands on the Android port and they are also spending money for the project.
TDF is confident that there are definitely some developers who will be motivated by the tender.
