33 Developers Leave OpenOffice.org

dkd903 writes "We all knew it would come to this, and it has finally happened — 33 developers have left OpenOffice.org to join The Document Foundation, with more expected to leave in the next few days. After Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org fell into the hands of Oracle, as did a lot of other products. So, last month a few very prominent members of the OpenOffice.org community decided to form The Document Foundation and fork OpenOffice.org as LibreOffice, possibly fearing that it could go the OpenSolaris way."

Comments

LibreOffice will join the ranks of Linux...

[MouseR]

...in no time, with 300+ variations. This is what I hate about OSS. The moment someone isn`t too happy, they get the fork off and duplicate the work and dilute any chance of completing the damn thing, rather than working things out.

Disclaimer: I work for Oracle but have no ties whatsoever to the OO group. I just want to use something that WORKs and that is NOT from MS.

Re:LibreOffice - please remove Java

[Blakey Rat]

If you removed the Java, then you would need to write the interface code for each platform you support. I gather that can actually create a fair bit of extra work, and make it harder to maintain.

If the UI code is in Java (BTW, it's not), then it's wrong anyway. Java doesn't have any entirely correct widget sets, they're all wrong in subtle (or obvious, in some cases) ways.

If you're writing a GUI app, and not using native widgets, you're just proclaiming to the world: "I hate my users!"

Re:LibreOffice is painful to pronounce.

[SirWinston]

This may seem shallow or even trollish, but it's true: It won't see much adoption by offices in the U.S because of the association of "Libre" with third-world revolutionaries like Che and their hippie American fanclubs. Think like a management suit for a minute: is a name derived from dirty Marxist anarchist scum a name you want your clients to see your office using? Nope. They'd rather pay the Microsoft tax or stick with an old version of OpenOffice or find a third solution, than risk dropping the jaws of conservative clients.