Is the Apache OpenOffice Project Dying?
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The Apache Foundation's OpenOffice Project has been floundering for a while. Left with only IBM as a sponsor, somewhat notorious for sponsoring dead end and already worthless projects and pushing agendas that only matter to themselves, is it time for OpenOffice to shut down and merge with its successful child, LibreOffice? Where is OpenOffice going and where are there competing projects in this space?
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Probably best if it does just fade away or merge with LibreOffice. Is OpenOffice actually doing anything worthwhile anymore? It would seem that OpenOffice just makes it a little bit more challenging for LibreOffice to succeed. A house divided.
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Openoffice runs much worse than Libreoffice.. and much of it still relies on java. It needs to die.
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I stopped thinking about OpenOffice years ago. I wanted it to be okay and keep on surviving, but the reality is that I think that you are right and there is no point and all that it does is serve to make the LibreOffice project suffer for no good reason. They are basically the same project splitting effort. That is just insanely foolish.
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I really like the idea that there is a competing office suite that pushes new ideas and keeps everyone on their toes. But LO and OO do not do that with each other. They are the same project, just forked and pointless. I really like the Caligra Suite (previously KOffice) because it is not trying to compete on file formats but shares a file format with LO and OO but uses completely different tools and interfaces to work with the files. So you get a truly different product but not one that is really hurting the ecosystem.
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One thing I like about OpenSource projects is that if someone is doing the dodgy, the project can be forked.
One thing that annoys me about OpenSource projects is that if someone can't handle a new idea, the project can be forked.
There is a a lot of forking going on, and as such I think the OpenSource community could benefit from a bit more spooning. -
That is what needs to happen now. OO has died, LO took over long ago. OO needs to be folded back into the LO group and OO itself abandoned or made just a branding of LO.
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Another vote for merging.
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@nadnerB said:
I think the OpenSource community could benefit from a bit more spooning.
Quote of the day right here.
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If I remember correctly LibreOffice split off from OpenOffice because they wanted to focus on more features while OpenOffice wanted to work on stabilizing and feature compatibility.
I agree, OpenOffice should merge back with LibreOffice if they can.
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@coliver said:
If I remember correctly LibreOffice split off from OpenOffice because they wanted to focus on more features while OpenOffice wanted to work on stabilizing and feature compatibility.
I agree, OpenOffice should merge back with LibreOffice if they can.
Not quite. LO split off because of fears over the future of the management and the licensing of OO. Oracle bought them and was not treating the project well. There was real fear that the OO project was going to be shut down and the code removed from circulation. LO was formed to protect against that.
OO and LO then additionally had some different opinions on development direction but that was purely in addition to the major issues that caused them to split.
