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Is Apache OpenOffice Finally On the Way Out? (apache.org)

Reader JImbob0i0 writes: After almost another year without a release and another major CVE leaving users vulnerable for that year the Chairman of the Project Management Committee has started public discussions on what it will entail to retire the project, following the Apache Board showing concern at the poor showing.
It's been a long battle which would have been avoided if Oracle had not been so petty. Did this behaviour actually help get momentum in the community underway though? What ifs are always hard to properly answer. Hopefully this long drawn out death rattle will finally come to a close and the wounds with LibreOffice can heal with the last few contributors to AOO joining the rest of the community.

23 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Re:GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Source? That sounds like you made it up. Are these companies who don't retain attorneys?

  2. Re:GPL by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are multiple large companies that straight out ban LibreOffice on their premises because of the risk that macros and document data will have to be released as GPL.

    Then they deserve to have higher costs for retaining idiotic lawyers. I hope they keep it up, it'll make my company more competitive.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  3. Switched from Open to Libre... by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oracle's antics caused me to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, not from any "GPL Purity" reasons (which I care little about) but from a reasonable suspicion that Oracle, being Evil, would soon do something I did not like.

    When it was given to Apache, I'd basically consider it a toss-up between the two, but I was already on LibreOffice, and didn't have any particular reason to go back. Since then, Libre seems to be a more active project than Open, so I prefer it on that basis.

    I suspect that's a lot of the issue -- People left "because Oracle" (makes Signs against Evil) they're very close to the same software, one is getting more work done on it than the other, no particular reason to prefer OpenOffice.

    1. Re:Switched from Open to Libre... by El+Cubano · · Score: 2

      Oracle's antics caused me to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, not from any "GPL Purity" reasons (which I care little about) but from a reasonable suspicion that Oracle, being Evil, would soon do something I did not like.

      Same here. It makes me think that the Java community would be better served if Oracle turned over stewardship of Java to ASF or even a new organization. I use OpenJDK for *nix, but as far as I can tell, support for OpenJDK on Windows is sorely lacking.

      In fact, when I have to work on Windows, Oracle's ridiculousness with forcing the Java control panel to always turn on automatic checks for updates is maddening. I mean, I'm a programmer. I have to maintain control over the configuration of my development system. I can't have Java auto-updating itself because I forgot to turn off the stupid feature. I also recently had to set up a VM for Windows 10 testing and had a similar thought: if the system auto updates when it feels like, how do I know that my development configuration is stable? At least with a VM I can fire it up without a network adapter. But still, it shouldn't come to that.

      Come to think of it, this is a pretty solid argument for staying as far away from proprietary commercial software and closed ecosystems as possible (just because they drop a source tarball on a website somewhere doesn't make it free software the proper sense).

    2. Re:Switched from Open to Libre... by LWATCDR · · Score: 2

      The only reason that Abiword is not having any windows releases is the lack of windows developers. Learn to code and help out. It is Opensource.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. Re:GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hello! I am here. I am Johann, and I am recommend naming of LibreOffice at our conference of 2009.

    I wonder why you wish harm on me! Perhaps you are the ass hole.

  5. Dead, Just Didn't Know It by StormReaver · · Score: 2

    OpenOffice died the moment LibreOffice forked it. The ghost of OpenOffice.org just didn't know it was dead. When most of your major developers leave to carry on a competing project, the prior project dies.

    1. Re:Dead, Just Didn't Know It by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OpenOffice died the moment Oracle took it over, which caused the LibreOffice fork. It's another datapoint in the eventual death of things Oracle touches.

  6. Re:GPL by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Completely agree. If the management there is so under-educated and stupid to think that everything done in LibreOffice must be GPL released then they absolutely deserve it.

    It utterly amazes me how people that pass themselves off as leaders and higher educated are typically some of the stupidest people out there.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  7. Re:GPL by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What business exactly gives a damn about the licensing the product is under? Unless it's a development shop looking at making and distributing modifications, and wants to be able to control whether it has to make those changes available, no business just using the software gives a rat's ass whether it's an Apache license, GPL, BSD License, or proprietary closed license. They just want the software to work and be supported.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  8. Re:GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I didn't make it up. I was told that by my Microsoft rep, and so I listened to him. Have you heard of the company, ArseKicks Software? I bet you haven't. They had to release all of their macros and document data to the public as GPL, and now they are no longer around because of it. In fact, if you Google it, ever trace of them has been wiped off of history, due to the GPL viral license.

  9. Re:GPL by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    God, I wish I could have met the guy who first suggested that name and kick him in the balls

    What if a chick suggested it?

    Stupid names are how open-source gains street-cred. It's why we have Gimp, PostreSql, Mozilla, and Ogg Vorbis. The more un-corporate it sounds, the better.

    It's gotta sound alien, commie, and/or like medical symptoms. Extra kudo points if you cover all three.

  10. What's The Difference? by ewhac · · Score: 2

    I haven't been keeping up with the details of the pie fight. Apart from the licensing issue (which, for your typical end-user, is not an issue at all), what features separate Apache OpenOffice from LibreOffice.org?

    1. Re:What's The Difference? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, LibreOffice was able to incorporate BROffice and other forks of OpenOffice.org. Even when Sun was around, OOo did not want to accept certain compatibility patches, so a bunch of forks came about. When Oracle bought Sun and the LibreOffice suite was created, they accepted most of the patches, causing everyone to converge on LibreOffice. A lot of the new features were licensed under GPL, which Sun, and then Oracle, did not want to accept.

      As of right now, LibreOffice is more compatible with MS Office documents than OpenOffice.org and has a lot more features, too.

    2. Re:What's The Difference? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      LibreOffice is much further ahead; This is partly because of the fork, but also because the licences are only compatible in one direction; LibreOffice can copy code from OpenOffice but OpenOffice can't copy code from LibreOffice, so LibreOffice effectively became a superset of OpenOffice.

      .

  11. Re:GPL by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

    There are multiple large companies that straight out ban LibreOffice on their premises because of the risk that macros and document data will have to be released as GPL.

    Then they deserve to have higher costs for retaining idiotic lawyers. I hope they keep it up, it'll make my company more competitive.

    I interviewed for a SysAdmin position at a government contractor way back in 1998 and asked about flexible working hours. The manager said their lawyers said it wasn't allowed. I said my current company, also a contractor at the same facility, had flexible hours. The manager said, "I don't know how they can do that." and I replied, "Perhaps we have better lawyers." They offered me a job, but I (obviously) didn't accept. Besides that stupidity, they only had 1 computer with Internet access, on a desk in a common area.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  12. Re:GPL by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They changed their name to "Whoooosh, Inc" soon after that incident.

  13. Re:RIP OpenOffice by Nunya666 · · Score: 2

    The MS-Office UI is a mess in my opinion, but once you get used to where everything is, you tend to want to stick with the same brand: the devil you know.

    MS doesn't give a damn about users being comfortable with their software.

    If they did, they wouldn't change the location of functions from one version to the next. Instead, they would just introduce new functions, and leave the old ones where they were previously.

    They have to revamp the UI regularly or users won't buy into the idea that the new version is any better than the old version, and therefore be willing to pay for the new version.

  14. MySQLs Next by snadrus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oracle (for whatever reason) has no community trust. MariaDB and other forks are getting common use and will likely see the same shift.

    --
    Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
  15. Re:Hooray! by bhcompy · · Score: 2

    It's not like there's much innovation going on in the word processing arena. AOO and LO can be abandoned today and no one would notice because, magically, they'll still work.

  16. Re:RIP OpenOffice by rossdee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "They have to revamp the UI regularly or users won't buy into the idea that the new version is any better than the old version, and therefore be willing to pay for the new version."

    Google (Android) and Mozilla (Firefox) have the same philosophy it seems.

  17. Re:GPL by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

    That would be akin to saying that every web page served from a server using GPLv2 licensed Linux kernel would automatically be licensed under the same license.

    Yeah screw that. I'm not sharing the source code of my website with anyone!

  18. Re:GPL by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    In my best Foghorn Leghorn impression: "That there Microsoft bit is what they call a joke, son!"