Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 327 posts

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#11

Post by hannob »

verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

Actually for many years we have told people "if you want a free alternative to MS Office use OpenOffice". And we told this to people who are not closely following tech news. It's an established brand and it's not easy to undo. Many people will still google for openoffice. It would be helpful if they'd just get a message "OpenOffice is outdated, you can still download old versions, but you really want to get Libreoffice instead".

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#12

Post by yoodenvranx »

verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

> libreoffice

I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"?

They should have selected an easier name for that project.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#13

Post by hasch »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #12
verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

FlossOffice? even stranger, and make sure to use it at least once a day :-)

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#14

Post by luibelgo »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #12
verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

Depends on the language, it's very easy to pronounce in Spanish

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#15

Post by okket »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #12
verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

It is just a name.

Really problematic was that after Oracle did not wanted to continue the OpenOffice(.org) project, Apache accepted to take it over. That kept the website people knew up and help spread the false image that OpenOffice is an active project with serious people and development effort behind it.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#16

Post by ekianjo »

luibelgo wrote: post #14
yoodenvranx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

Depends on the language, it's very easy to pronounce in Spanish

In French too.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#17

Post by bitwize »

hasch wrote: post #13
yoodenvranx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

FlossOffice? even stranger, and make sure to use it at least once a day :-)

Floffice!

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#18

Post by cstross »

okket wrote: post #3
verbify wrote: post #2

I thought everyone interested in a FOSS office suite was using libreoffice.

Everybody is using LibreOffice, except a poor few that get misguided by search services to the Apache OpenOffice website. IMHO there is no sane reason why Apache OpenOffice still exists. Edit: Looks like there are a lot more OpenOffice users out there than I thought, sorry. I really thought the world would have moved on, at least since 2013/14, see https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/St...

This is not actually true; I am aware of lots of non-technical users who know nothing about Sun, Oracle, or Apache and who haven't heard of LibreOffice but who continue to quietly use the free office package they were recommended at some time in the previous 15 years. (For example: I'm a member of an online community of working novelists and just last week someone was advocating OpenOffice to another irritated Microsoft Word customer -- the OO.o user had never heard of LibreOffice and was very taken aback when I gave them an update on the history of OO.o post-Sun.)

While I agree that Apache OOo is effectively dead in the water as an on-going project, its continued existence has caused huge confusion among millions of users and there's now an equally huge public education campaign required to get them moved onto a modern, secure, maintained codebase.

The optimum strategy would be to turn openoffice.org into a redirect to LibreOffice, or to reassign the OpenOffice name rights to the LibreOffice project ... but egos are gonna ego.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#19

Post by Swizec »

okket wrote: post #15
yoodenvranx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> libreoffice I hate that name. As a German I have no idea how to pronounce it and it's even harder for my non-techy friends. The name "Open office" has a very nice flow and everybody knows how to pronounce it, but "libre office"? They should have selected an easier name for that project.

It is just a name. Really problematic was that after Oracle did not wanted to continue the OpenOffice(.org) project, Apache accepted to take it over. That kept the website people knew up and help spread the false image that OpenOffice is an active project with serious people and development effort behind it.

As a technologist who follows tech news, I was never sure which one was the more active/appropriate prohect. Switching to Google Docs and various plain markdown editors has been a huge relief.

A few years ago I said fuck it and bought MS Office. I may only need it once a year when markdown or gDocs doesn't suffice, but the price is worth avoiding the OpenOffice vs LibreOffice fuckery. It also works better.

Post reply on HN