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Apache OpenOffice Downloaded 50 Million Times In a Year
An anonymous reader writes with this quick bite from the H: "Just a few days after the one year anniversary of the release of the first version of OpenOffice from the Apache Foundation (Apache OpenOffice 3.4) on 8 May 2012, the project can now boast 50 million downloads of the Open Source office suite. 10 million of those downloads happened since the beginning of March. In contrast, LibreOffice claimed it had 15 million unique downloads of its office suite in all of 2012."
and LibreOffice gets everything else. LibreOffice is such a better piece of software after all the hard work done since the fork. But sometimes even when talking to my techy friends I have to elaborate when I say I created the doc in "LibreOffice".
If you're going to make the comparison between the two download counts they need to be the same as in unique vs unique or total vs total but not total vs unique.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
downloads of all the distributions that use it.
It serves the needs of most people.
^ So, so much this. Seems like only the geeks have figured out that LibreOffice exists, and these numbers only confirm my suspicions.
LibreOffice needs some kind of marketing push to get people to switch.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Meanwhile, LO comes with every Linux distro, so it's unlikely any of those will have been logged.
I've switched over to LO by default. Does anyone here have any kind of opinion on the matter? It seems that LO has been undergoing a massive codebase cleanup and they're beginning to capitalise on it in that they seem to be adding features at quite a pace now.
Then again I don't use it much.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Whoopdie doo. I honestly moved to LibreOffice as soon as it forked. True that OO.o has more mindshare, but LibreOffice is better. I simply tell people "they renamed it", lol.
I have nothing clever to put here...
LibreOffice comes pre-packed in most Linux distributions. If you want OpenOffice you have to download it from Apache.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
OpenOffice is now proper open source as it is under Apache Foundation. There is absolutely no reason to maintain two branches of it now. It only dilutes the effort and weakens the well-known OpenOffice brand. You should end the fork before it does even more harm.
They should have called it OfficeLibre and used a syilized picture of Che for their logo.
I get my odt-enabled office suite from:
Then we'll all get the facts (tm) or something like that.
Personally, I say "OpenOffice" anyway when I mean LibreOffice. It has more currency with less technical people and those who never update, and only occasionally does it prompt a concerned stare when someone actually knows the distinction. Maybe we could just go back to calling it StarOffice?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
LibreOffice is licensed under LGPL, like Sun OpenOffice.org was before it. Apache OpenOffice is licensed under the Apache license, which is more permissive than the LGPL. There is no problem using Apache licensed code with LGPL code, however the Apache Foundation refuses to use any license that is less permissive than Apache license in any of it's projects. It is one of the core tenants of the foundation. So OpenOffice can choose to merge into LibreOffice, but the opposite cannot happen short of getting every developer who has worked on LibreOffice/Go-OO over the past decade to agree to re-license their code.
The age-old "consolidate your efforts" argument rears its pointless head once again. Why is it pointless? Because the developers don't develop for you. They develop for themselves. It may be for money, or for experience, or to expand their resume, or just plain old-fashioned enjoyment. But one thing is clear: they do NOT do it for you.
With that understood, there is only one remaining question. If you were able to pull the carpet out from underneath these developers, forcing them to abandon their project, what in the world makes you think they would move over to your favorite project? After all, as we just learned, each one of them is contributing for their own personal reasons -- NOT yours.
The bottom line is that if the developers wanted to consolidate their efforts, then they certainly would. Nothing is stopping them. And if they don't consolidate, then what else can we possibly conclude but they don't want to. I guarantee you they have already considered your proposal, and apparently, rejected it.
Windows 8 has sold over 100 million copies in the last 6 months, but is regarded as a failure.
Just thought I'd throw cold a little splash of perspective on the back slappers.
fool me once, shame on you
fool me twice...
...and you can't get fooled again.
As LibreOffice comes preinstalled with major Linux distributions, there's no need to download it. Number of active users is worth comparing.
Personally, I say "OpenOffice" anyway when I mean LibreOffice.
*concerned stare* ...that's very interesting.
It has more currency with less technical people and those who never update, and only occasionally does it prompt a concerned stare when someone actually knows the distinction.
Speaking as a LibreOffice user and contributor, I am impressed that the OpenOffice name is so well known these days. I remember a number of years ago when *nobody* knew the name "OpenOffice" ("Is that some kind of template pack plugin thing for Word?"). It's very interesting to hear that now the name is well known enough that technically-minded users use the OpenOffice name to refer to both LO and AOO. Brand recognition is really quite strong!
Questions for you:
Maybe we could just go back to calling it StarOffice?
Well the binary is still called "soffice" :-)
coding is life
Rather convenient Slashvertising, comparing total downloads for AOO with unique downloads for LO.
AOO has been too busy removing functionality (my personal favorite: the wpd filter), having a license inquisition, and taking potshots at LO to get much done.
Here it's now almost 2.5 years since OO 3.3, the last Oracle version, and the latest AOO version has no significant advances over OO 3.3-- instead it's got reduced functionality. In the meantime LibreOffice 4 has come a long way.
Don't know why anybody bothers giving press to OO anymore.
Why would that be meaningful? With that method, downloads of ruby, python, perl, and ksh would all rival each other.
How many, 10? FAIL.
Well, *office would match both :)
And if it weren't for that binary name, I never would've known at all. :)
I'll switch to calling it LibreOffice exclusively just for you if it makes you feel better. I do have a few... vague suggestions for things that could be done to promote LO's image, but most of them depend on understanding why Apache has bothered holding onto its fork instead of giving it back to the LO community, which is something I'm not privy to. I'm pretty sure that most people (who are aware of the distinction) see the existence of AOO as senseless and confusing.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Uhh... Why wouldn't OpenOffice be called "OpenOffice"? It doesn't seem much of presumption to me, since it is actually OpenOffice.
One of the things I noticed about LibreOffice was that there was open need for better distribution/update methods. I remember at the time thinking that this would hold them back, I think that as this progresses so will the name. Focusing more on enterprise friendly methods may help as well.
You mean like "StarOffice"?
Merge!
With Oracle out of the picture, there is zero need for both.
Note to self: read the comments entirely before attempting to do a lame joke
... of the arguments over which FOSS office suite had got most users, people should recognise that there have been at least 65 million users of them not using Microsoft Office.
This is a good thing.
mind you, Microsoft says there are 750 million Office users worldwide, so we have a little way to go yet.
After not using OpenOffice for a year or so I tried the latest LibreOffice. Damn. That shit loads fast now.
Microsoft complains about Office being illegally downloaded a few hundred million times a year.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The only reason I'd want Apache Open Office to merge into / with / from LibreOffice is this: To get the overall better suite, LO, using some of the uniquely cool features in IBM's very different fork of OO.o into IBM Lotus Symphony. Which, for those who remember the end-of-CP/M-start-of-PC era, has nada to do with Lotus Symphony, Lotus Development's follow-on to Lotus 1-2-3, which never met with its predecessor's success. But, it was a very early attempt at an "office suite" (spreadsheet-centric, MS/PC-DOS-based). So IBM got the name/trademark when they bought Lotus.
Around 2010-ish, they released IBM Lotus Symphony, a Win32, Linux, and I think MacOS, office suite based on OO.o core code - but with a lot of differences. Differences in 3 big areas:
1) Only the 3 major apps - Word Processing, Spreadsheet, and Presentations. Nothing based on Draw, Math, Base.
2) Very different and non-standard menu structure, that hearkens back to Lotus Windows products. For example, no Windows (and IBM SAA, and just normal)-standard "Insert" menu - most of what you expect there is in its "Create" menu.
3) Everything is in a single window, tabbed interface, with multiple slide-out right sidebars: A wide, well-organized Properties panel, and some widget panels for add-ons. Based on the Lotus Expeditor framework for the devilspawn Lotus Notes. Yet sometimes the son of the devil can be a good guy (e.g. Hellboy).
Number 3 has made it my absolute favorite office suite. For the same reasons we all love tabbed browsers and trashed browsers back in the day that didn't have it. Everything is right there, in context, without too much window-hopping. The Properties panel exposes all the major properties without having to dig through menus and open different dialog boxes depending on if you're formatting colors, number types, custom cell formatting, etc., and without having to crap up a giant multiline toolbar or frakking ribbon to make functions discoverable.
I go back far enough to have been used to different word processors and different spreadsheet programs to have different interfaces and menu structures, even different keyboard shortcuts. Heck, I even remember some of the differences in that between WordStar (real WordStar, up through 3.3), its competitor NewWord that cloned it and then got HandSpringed into WordStar 4.0 (Yes, I still have WordStar 7.0 on my Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs). Then some time with Ami Pro, on both OS/2 and Windows 3.x, that later became Lotus WordPro (that one I didn't use), with a short sidetrip into WordPerfect for Windows, before being funneled into the Corporate Tool MS-Word world, and then slightly out to OO.o/LO. So I can make the mental shift between different menu structures pretty easily.
I love the property panel as well as the tabbed interface. Unfortunately, though IBM donated the entire codebase to Apache, they are not using the tabbed interface in AOO. They are starting to use, and announced they will fully implement, the Symphony-based property panels. That alone would make me likely go back to OpenOffice from LibreOffice, except that LibreOffice is so far ahead of AOO in functionality, stability, and killing off of Java.
For now, I still use Symphony, on both Windows and Linux. It continues to get the occasional FixPack (IBMese for service pack) and continues to Just Work. Especially on creative writing where I may have reference docs, character backgrounds, outlines all open, or similarly for technical writing, the tabbed interface really helps to keep everything accessible and surfaced. Also for projects involving a combo of word processing documents and spreadsheets, and [$DEITY] help me sometimes even presentations - it's a lot easier to work everything up if I have that clear context, rather than a cluster of windows.
I do keep LO installed, for when I want the other modules, and for dealing with editing documents in MS .docx, .xlsx, .pptx format. Symphony can open them, and
And what's meant my "libre"? I guess it's free, but is it open? Why the emphasis on free? Later on, are they going to shove ads on me and tell me I should be happy cos it's free?
That would be GratisOffice, not LibreOffice. The distinction is why they didn't just call it "FreeOffice".
You seriously consider the name to be more important than the software itself and its functionality. I think you need to get your priorities straight, because they seem to be fucked.
As Italian, "libre" makes me think instantly about Spanish, or French if I think about it a little more. LibreOffice would be OfficeLibero if it were an Italian word.
I would say the fact that e.g. IBM is making use of the code (and possibly/probably willing to contribute) and they probably don't like LibreOffice's license might be one of the main reasons for OO to still exist.
I also refer to LO as Open Office when speaking with other people as in "can I send you an Open Office document?". Actually most of the time I send and receive PDFs instead of .doc and .odt files. Exchanging live documents is pretty much dead because of wikis, Google Drive and infinite other specialized tools. I'm using a generalistic word processor only as a way of producing PDF offers to my customers and invoices when the job's done. I'm using calc a little more because there are little substitutes for a spreadsheet (Google's one is not good enough) but I hardly mail any of my .ods files to anybody.
Using LO instead of OO was not a choice but only a consequence of Ubuntu switching to the other software suite. I was a little concerned about it but from a user point of view it is the same software with the same interface with just a different name. Maybe if I had OO installed on another computer I could notice some difference now after a few version updates.
Maybe the way to get indipendent brand recognition would be to use a totally different interface and a totally different file format. No, I'm not serious, just joking :-) It's OK as it is and thank you for the time you spent on this project.
Correct. So that means that the OpenOffice numbers include only those who actually *wanted* OpenOffice and intentionally downloaded it. It doesn't include those who mere *got* software as part of a larger bundle without asking for it, or even knowing it is there. For all we know some Linux users consider LO to be so much bloatware that came bundled with their operating system.
I think it is fair to consider the quality of a user claimed as part of a metric. We make that distinction all the time. With Microsoft we count registrations over OEM installs, for example. So the number of users who actually downloaded OpenOffice is higher up the commitment scale and is more meaningful than claiming that all Linux users want and use LibreOffice. For all we know they are using the machine purely as a home media server or something else.
I'll keep this simple.
While geeks such as yourself have heard and understand what OO/ LO does, the rest of the regular world doesn't.
You're not the rest of the world.
Nor the majority.
Alternatives to MS Office are marginal in people's minds, and could be mistaken for crapware created by Zynga.
They both may be functionally the same, like Coca-Cola and GO2 Cola. But one brand sticks out, and the other doesn't.
Sorry to disappoint, but marketing matters.
...100 million times via bittorrent.
What do you think LibreOffice should do to make its brand more recognizable?
I've been using LibreOffice for a number of years, and love it (having written two, and typeset three, books with it), but the name is a hindrence. When I speak to my wife and use the term LibreOffice her eyes glaze over, whereas Open Office has a natural name people understand.
Free Office would have been better than LibreOffice, or any of a dozen other names I can think of (Community Office, OpenSource Office, New Office, World Office, even abbbreviating it to L-Office ...anything like that would lead to far better name recognition).
That said, LibreOffice is great, and I wouldn't necessarily spend too much energy trying to get agreement to change the name at this late date (well, maybe the abbreviated "L-Office"). You've all done fine work...now the word needs to get out.
I also find the stats suspicious...Gentoo folks like me are probably counted in the stat as downloads occur on an emerge, but how many copies of Fedora, Scientific, CentOS, RHEL, etc. have shipped with LibreOffice and aren't counted?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Speaking as a LibreOffice user and contributor, I am impressed that the OpenOffice name is so well known these days. I remember a number of years ago when *nobody* knew the name "OpenOffice" ("Is that some kind of template pack plugin thing for Word?"). It's very interesting to hear that now the name is well known enough that technically-minded users use the OpenOffice name to refer to both LO and AOO. Brand recognition is really quite strong!
Questions for you:
Honestly it is partially a problem with the word Libre. I understand the whole "Free as in Beer vs Free Speach" conversation. To a whole lot of people "Open Source" = "Free as in Beer". Most open source software leverages this as the main selling point. Open Office for example. So when I have to explain that
Libre (pron.: /libr/) is a loan word in English borrowed from French. As it does in that language, "libre" in English denotes "the state of being free", as in "having freedom" or "liberty".
(Wikipedia) ...How am I not supposed to sound confusing and pretentious?
Maybe we could just go back to calling it StarOffice?
^^^Can we do that???
LibreOffice is being developed in the hopes that it will be useful to people, not for profit. Hence not having room to grow would not be a problem, even if it were true. For some programs, the popularity itself is a large part of their usefulness. This is mostly the case for protocols and networking services, such as ipv6, www, freenet and facebook. But LibreOffice does not fall into this category. It uses standard formats that can be read by many other programs, and would be useful even if you were the only person using it.
Nothing... Everything.. -- Bonus points to the man (or sultan) who knows the reference --
Curious. What is IBM using it for that requires the code be kept under non-copyleft terms?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Libre (pron.: /libr/) is a loan word in English borrowed from French. As it does in that language, "libre" in English denotes "the state of being free", as in "having freedom" or "liberty".
Well that's your problem right there. Who wants to use a piece of software that might have been written by cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Now, call it Liberty Office and you've got an office suite that a red-blooded, patriotic Murikan can use to defeat the terrists.
No left turn unstoned.
Nothing says "Software Freedom" like a death squad-leading homophobe who has been lionized and is worshiped by morons who know nothing beyond what they see on their shirts and posters.
Questions for you:
Most people probably think this is irrelevent, but make icons that look like something or ANYTHING. The Libre Office Icons seriously look like the system "I have no icon for this file type" icon. I think a problem with Libre Office is that there is nothing BUT the name. At least Open Office I kind of assocate with the seagulls.
They need to lose that LibreOffice name. Seriously.
After the KOffice split, the name Calligra (from the Greek word for artistic drawing of texts) was chosen for the fork. That was an excellent choice and much better than what they had before. In contrast, "LibreOffice" is just terrible. The Document Foundation needs to invite their users to choose a new name.
Gentoo folks like me are probably counted in the stat as downloads occur on an emerge, but how many copies of Fedora, Scientific, CentOS, RHEL, etc. have shipped with LibreOffice and aren't counted?
Gentoo won't skew the stats in one way or the other. For one, Gentoo leaves the user the choice between OpenOffice and LibreOffice (hehe, what else would you expect?), and secondly downloads occur from Gentoo mirrors, which are not included in either statistic.
and LibreOffice gets everything else. LibreOffice is such a better piece of software after all the hard work done since the fork. But sometimes even when talking to my techy friends I have to elaborate when I say I created the doc in "LibreOffice".
===
The difference in downloads has to do with name popularity. OpenOffice implies free and unencumbered . LibreOffice, if it was called FreeOffice would probably have done better in terms of downloads. To non English speakers, LibreOffice means freedom. But most Americans don't think about libre as meaning free or free to use or unencumbered.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I totally agree. LibreOffice is a very solid piece of software over OpenOffice. Sorry Apache. Just my honest opinion.
I've been using LibreOffice for a number of years, and love it (having written two, and typeset three, books with it), but the name is a hindrence. When I speak to my wife and use the term LibreOffice her eyes glaze over, whereas Open Office has a natural name people understand.
Free Office would have been better than LibreOffice, or any of a dozen other names I can think of (Community Office, OpenSource Office, New Office, World Office, even abbbreviating it to L-Office ...anything like that would lead to far better name recognition).
I personally think the name LibreOffice is pretty good. Yes, the abbreviations aren't great ("LO"? "LibO"? "LibOff"? ...), but the name itself captures a bit more about the project and its purpose than some other names out there. When I tell people about the Free Software Foundation, I have to explain to them what "Free Software" means and how it's different from Open Source. Have you ever tried to google for "Free Software"? Now try "Libre Software" -- much better :-)
So basically you get the concept of "Free Software" + Office suite, wrapped up in a name that is much less ambiguous, at least in English. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it sets up all users/contributors to be in the position of explaining this to everyone they talk to. Tradeoffs, tradeoffs...
I wasn't involved in selecting the name, but I wonder if there was a strong preference for keeping the word "Office" in the title. I understand that the name might help people understand that the project is an Office suite in a similar fashion to Microsoft Office, Corel Office, etc..., but perhaps a distinct name like "Firefox" or "Inkscape" would make for a much more recognizable and powerful brand?
coding is life
Libre Office is distributed via Linux distribution repositories.
For us, non-English speaking critters it's all the same, though.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man
Which project is really the 'libre' one gets clear when you take a look at who is financially involved: https://www.suse.com/company/press/2011/7/microsoft-and-suse-renew-successful-interoperability-agreement.html
Lotus Symphony, IIRC.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Well GNU Office would be a bad name, though I really like GNU. Maybe FREEDOM OFFICE would be catchier and sound less technical than Libre Office.
...my poster reads "Who're you gonna call?"
Note: I am not the grand parent.
I would suggest differentiating the brand from just being an 'OpenOffice.org fork'. Give it a more unique name, points for:
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
nice try, fan boy. most people use the office suite that comes with their distro, the package tracking of Debian and Ubuntu prove it.
get this fixed asap
Simple. IBM gets to sell it for gazillions for those companies which demand IBM tech support under the Lotus Symphony brand. More or less like the relationship between Eclipse and Rational Application Developer.