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Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

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Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#51
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.

Even in an American business context, "Libre" sounds stupid. Having it in the name hurts their popularity more than they know.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#52
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English I just say Lieber-Office, as in Beiber-Office. I have had zero people confused at this pronunciation in the last six years. (edited to clarify)

so, neither? Edit to reflect parent: I do think that's probably easier to pronounce for English-speaking people than both French and Spanish

? Libre is a french word in the first place. How is that hard to pronounce ?

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#53
post #19
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wikipedia is usually pretty good at giving an overview of the situation.

> In September 2010, the majority of outside OpenOffice.org developers left the project, due to concerns over Sun and then Oracle's management of the project

> […]

> In April 2011, Oracle stopped development of OpenOffice.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#History

But the OpenOffice brand was already built, so obviously a lot of people still think it is the most active project.

Presumably, Oracle did not know what to do with this asset they bought, but they thought they might be able to squeeze value out of it. They believed the only way to do so was to have total control over it, which removed all value from it (except for the brand). Then they put it in an Apache-shaped trash, along with the brand.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#54
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father's been a happy Ubuntu user for years (and a fairly resentful one for a few more years --- he still misses the old GNOME user interface and loathes Unity). He mainly uses it for Gimp and LibreOffice. When he had to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice he was pretty close to packing it all in and using something else; his argument was: why should he trust a package produced by an organisation that can't keep…

> and a fairly resentful one for a few more years --- he still misses the old GNOME user interface and loathes Unity Why doesn't he use Mate? Ubuntu Mate is readily available on the Ubuntu website. Is he aware that it's a continuation of the old Gnome (Gnome 2)? And well-maintained to boot.

I've tried him on it a few times (I maintain his machine for him). It's always been too buggy, by which I mean, obvious visible UI bugs immediately after installation. Unity may be horrible, but it has much more robust QA testing.

Entertainingly, when I let him play with a bunch of different Linux desktop environments, the one he liked best was actually Haiku, which I threw in as a joke.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not the same way! I've never known whether the Spanish or French version is the canonical pronunciation for LibreOffice.

In English I just say Lieber-Office, as in Beiber-Office. I have had zero people confused at this pronunciation in the last six years. (edited to clarify)

That would be easy to pronounce in German, but from the spelling it would never occur to a German that this is the correct pronunciation.

Fun sidenote: Since "Lieber" is German for "Dear" (as in "Dear Office, I am writing this letter to you ...") it would be quite confusing. (Also it would sound grammatically wrong, since "Lieber" is masculine, but Office is not.)

Alternatively "lieber" also means "preferably", so with that interpretation you would sound like saying "preferably Office". Oops.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#56

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.

Even in an American business context, "Libre" sounds stupid. Having it in the name hurts their popularity more than they know.

What connotation does "Libre" have in American English? (I'm French, to my ears it sounds perfectly reasonnable, if a bit "legalese")

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#57

Apache should never have accepted this hot potato from Oracle in the first place.

Why do you think so? It's not clear that they could have known this would not be sustainable at the time, and I don't see how the hot potato staying with Oracle would have been a better option.

It was immediately obvious at the time, I remember it as such. The devs jumped ship to LibreOffice. All Oracle was left with was a brand and a moribund codebase, and for some reason Apache accepted it. Why didn't Oracle give it to LibreOffice? Because they were sore at being bypassed, it looked like. The correct thing for Apache to do would have been to say, nope mate, we don't want to be part of your childish feud, keep it, trash it, or give it to the people who are actually doing the work.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#58

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.

Even in an American business context, "Libre" sounds stupid. Having it in the name hurts their popularity more than they know.

[deleted]

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#59
post #32

I think the document foundation should get the brand, instant of Apache squatting. It's still far better known that libreoffice.

It made a sense few years ago, now Libre Office has a brand of its own. I don't think having the ownership would be useful now.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#60

Could they drop openoffice, then rename libreoffice to openoffice? That would be fantastic

I think OpenOffice is a better name than LibreOffice. It rolls of the tongue more smoothly, and it is easier to explain to people. On the other hand LibreOffice has the lion's share of the developers (and probably of the users by now). So a "takeover" of OpenOffice by the LibreOffice project would probably be the best solution at this point (at least as far as I can tell).
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