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Apache OpenOffice: We're OK With Not Being Super Cool (theregister.co.uk)
The Register's Thomas Claburn, interviews Jim Jagielski, Apache Software Foundation President and Apache OpenOffice project mentor. From the story: Despite being the subject of a deathwatch -- perhaps mainly by fans of rival LibreOffice -- AOO appears to be rather popular, with the 4.1.4 update racking up at least 1.6 million downloads. [...] While AOO and the ASF formulate a formal statement of direction for the project, Jagielski said more or less that all's well. "AOO is not, and isn't designed to be, the 'super coolest open source office suite with all the latest bells and whistles,'" Jagielski continued. "Our research shows that a 'basic,' functional office suite, which is streamlined with a 'simple' and uncluttered, uncomplicated UI, serves an incredible under-represented community. "Other office suites are focusing on the 'power user' which is a valuable market, for sure, but the real power and range for an open-source office suite alternative is the vast majority which is the 'rest of us. Sometimes we all forget how empowering open source is to the entire world."
I'm also totally OK with not being a billionaire and dating supermodels.
This gives the impression that AOO is all about being small, simple, and stable, but it appears they're having a tough time even getting critical bugfixes deployed.
One of the strengths of open source is the diversity of choice. But that diversity can also be considered a weakness when it spreads valuable developers too thin, to the detriment of the entire community.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
... make it not suck.
But that also means a significant number of people – 77,000-plus, according to SourceForge stats – have downloaded the macOS version which contains a significant bug: if Apache OpenOffice is used to create a diagram in a Calc spreadsheet, the file becomes corrupted when saved.
I don't respond to AC's.
The UI is so 2003. Not doin' it.
As in, it works and is clear and discoverable?
I am of course being sarcastic, and while I'm not claiming that 2003 was the pinnacle of UI design, I do think a large number of heard learned lessons from the 80s and 90s have been forgotten and/or thrown under the bus in the name of newness.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
As a user when I found out Oracle was sponsoring OpenOffice I jumped ship to LibreOffice - like many people. The fork was a reaction to Oracle, much like Android. I don't see Libre aa traitors, if anything they're hereos. What we need now is a gradual merging from both parties.