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Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

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Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#161

Post by wjoe »

mindcrime wrote: post #159
wjoe wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reasons are there to prefer OpenOffice? From my perspective, I hear about LibreOffice updates often, and OpenOffice doesn't sound like it's being maintained as much. I don't know if this is actually correct, but I never understood what the need was for keeping them separate after Oracle gave up OO to Apache. LibreOffice seems to have 'won' popular attention if nothing else, and is the one included in distros now…

The two forks represent two different ideologies to a large extent - "permissive" licensing vs "copyleft". Some of us think it's important to have a full-featured, world-class office suite that's under a permissive license. Others think it's important to have a full-featured, world class office suite that's copyleft. Who's to say either is wrong? Feature wise, there may not be a lot of reasons to prefer AOO right now…

Yeah, to be honest I could just use OpenOffice.org from the pre-Oracle days and it'd still do everything I need for the occasional time I care about office documents.

I didn't realise it came down to licensing. Thanks for clearing that up. Perhaps both are important.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#163

Post by cesarb »

fdgdasfadsf wrote: post #146
NetStrikeForce wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSO is closed, proprietary, whatever, but it's actually a fine piece of software especially compared to OO and LO. Word, PowerPoint and Excel are so good that people end up overusing them for stuff they're not intended to. Others like OneNote or Visio are extremely useful, too. They might not be the best on each category, but together it's a very powerful suite. Plus, MSO is multiplatoform on Windows, Mac, iOS and An…

Is LO for Android not out yet? It feels like they have been talking about it for years...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.documentfo...

AFAIK, it also has an experimental editing mode. Yes, from what I've seen, development on it is slow.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#164

Post by hnal943 »

oliyoung wrote: post #123
okket wrote: 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.

“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and… ”

Naming things and off by one errors

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#165

Post by toyg »

brewdad wrote: post #144
jkot wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenOffice uses name 'office' for 30 years, 5 longer than MS does. Wiki: > OpenOffice.org originated as StarOffice, a proprietary office suite developed by German company StarDivision from 1985 on. > MS office 1.0 released : November 19, 1990[1] Office 1.0

Maybe that's the naming solution then. StarOffice* * The Open and Libre Office Suite Everyone could write it as *Office to save typing. Then users would simply say the full name. "AsteriskOffice" Nevermind....

StarOffice has never been fully free, and it even clashes with other trademarks in Japan and other Asian countries. It also had an image problem even before it was open sourced, to the point where it was literally given away for free (at a time when MS Office, Lotus etc were printing money).

It's a dead brand.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#166

Post by pbhjpbhj »

krylon wrote: post #60
Aardwolf wrote: post #30

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).

I'm not entirely sure of the current situation, but ...

If you look they call it "Apache OpenOffice". Previously what we term "OpenOffice" was only called "OpenOffice.org (OOo)", why? Well because there was already a product trademarked and marketed as Open Office and IIRC there was a legal challenge. So OOo was the open version of StarOffice.

Perhaps Sun/Oracle or Apache bought that trademark?

A brief search at USPTO's TESS suggests that the word mark "OpenOffice" is registered to Pathway IP SARL of Luxembourg, whilst Apache have "OpenOffice.org".

So the question is LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org.

I like LibreOffice but then I'm in Western Europe. Someone noted it's poor for India and China due to pronounceability.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#167

Post by mitchty »

pmontra wrote: post #101
esrauch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would register no recognition to the majority of American English speakers. It is a French loan word used essentially only in open source contexts because we don't have an equivilent ("free" is way more ambiguous is meaning). The only negative connotation I know of is the association with some overzealous nerdy kids who find out the difference between libre and gratis and loudly bring it up all the time.

Italy here. "Libre" sounds spanish to me. I realized only now that french has the same word (and I read it many times), but probably the final e is silent. I pronounce it, so it's spanish. Apparently it's the correct way: https://lwn.net/Articles/408141/

As an American I agree with your assessment.

When I first saw LibreOffice I first thought it was a take on the comedy movie Nacho Libre. And I studied French, so you'd think that would help but not really.

Though the French pronunciation differs as the IPA shows /libʀ/ which is rather different than spanish /ˈliβɾe/. So its one of those "final e is silent, with a french twist" words that were maddening to learn after German where that almost never happens.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#168

Post by reactor »

tener wrote: post #59
1ris wrote: 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.

I don't think so, I have talked to many of my friends about OpenOffice and LibreOffice, and no surprise, majority of them heard about OpenOffice but not LibreOffice.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#169

Post by quantumhobbit »

johnhattan wrote: post #99
Aardwolf wrote: post #30

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

If LO gets the trademark, maybe make the name "OpenOffice" refer to "the stable channel of LibreOffice". Corporate IT and training would likely prefer an office suite that only gets feature-updates every 1-2 years. So make OpenOffice a very stable version that just gets bugfix updates, but then a big feature update every couple of years, ala MS Office. And LibreOffice could remain for the rest of us who don't mind ge…

I love it this idea. Make OpenOffice the LTS release for liver office. (I'm going to leave this autocorrect as is because it shows the proble with libre)

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#170

Post by SyneRyder »

bsharitt wrote: post #79
SyneRyder wrote: post #4

Anyone know if this would impact on NeoOffice, the Mac native port? They seem to draw code from both LibreOffice and OpenOffice. [Side note: the way NeoOffice asks for yearly donations in order to access binary updates is very smart. Synergy also uses this method, and NeoOffice & Synergy are the first GPL projects I've regularly contributed to as a result.]

I used NeoOffice a long time ago when OpenOffice required X11 on OS X. Now that LibreOffice works natively on OS X, what does NeoOffice offer now? Is it like Camino was to Firefox?

While I've not tried LibreOffice (downloading now!), I think the Camino / Firefox comparison is a good one. My reason for choosing NeoOffice was because I wanted the most Mac-like experience and without a dependency on Java.

It looks like the main difference/advantage right now is integration with the native Mac font rendering & grammar/spellcheck engines, according to the front page of the NeoOffice website.

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