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Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

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Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#231

Post by [deleted] »

davidgerard wrote: post #201
mindcrime wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gerard, take your anti-AOO trolling somewhere else. I've had enough of it.

I think the problem there is that you are, literally, one of the AOO developers who spent his time commenting on blogs and forum sites, flaming people who were pointing out the Emperor's new security policy - while not lifting a finger to actually stop distributing security holes to your own users. It is possible you don't have the moral high ground here. Dab hand at flaming people, though, well done.

[deleted]

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#232

Post by nitrogen »

bbatha wrote: post #224
antisthenes wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the ribbon. It brought the most used functionality to the front where you don't have to navigate a text menu to find.

It also makes shortcuts discoverable! Just hit the alt-key and virtually every thing pops up with it hot key. Hitting alt in a standard windows app only tells me what menus are available, not which actions are available.

Ok, maybe shortcuts are discoverable, but actual actions no longer are. Not everyone finds the ribbon an improvement; I feel the need to point that out since so many comments appeared praising the awfully opaque ribbon.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#233

Post by Drdrdrq »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #222
the_duke wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I alone here in actually liking the ribbon? I almost never use any MS Office product (Latex for serious writing, R for statistics, ...) but when I have to because of a client or whatever, I find the Ribbon to be convenient for a non-power user.

The ribbon is probably the best example of "people are resistant to change". In retrospect, because I was grumpy about it too at the time. But once you get used to it, it's vastly superior in every conceivable way to the old UI.

Well, I am using it almost daily for years now and still hate it. So it probably depends on a person.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#234

Post by chris_wot »

xigency wrote: post #194
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This image would suggest it got some code from StarOffice and alter some releases: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/St...

Well, here it looks like Apache OpenOffice made a couple of releases.

Barely.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#235

Post by mindcrime »

davidgerard wrote: post #208
mindcrime wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I pointed out in the mailing list, there has been practically no development on OO this year though. And? I mean, yeah, it would be nice to have more cool new stuff coming out, but it's not like AOO owes the world anything. It's open source, it's volunteer driven. If people want more new features, more development, etc, then more people need to volunteer. If they don't, well... the world gets what it gets from the…

> it's not like AOO owes the world anything. It arguably owes its users not distributing security holes to them. Sitting on the vulnerability since October 2015, only revealing it in July because the reporter said they were going public with it ... there is no way that is responsible stewardship of end user software. In fact, I just checked - I went to www.openoffice.org, went all the way through to download, and it…

In the strictest sense, as a volunteer who gets paid nothing for participating in this, my responsibility is "nothing". In a sense related to my personal sense of commitment, I think it goes without saying that we want to ship secure software, all the time, every time and to fix security holes as soon they appear. But what we want and what we have the resources to do aren't always the same thing.

In terms of the various security issues that have cropped up, I'd say that if we reach a point where we simply cannot ship a fix AND it's a serious vulnerability, then we have an obligation to inform users of the situation so they can make up their own minds what level of risk they are comfortable with.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#236

Post by keithpeter »

chengiz wrote: post #74
ajdlinux wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in the case of the Windows/OS X environment, where brand awareness of LibreOffice is low, but in the Linux world... my distribution (Debian) doesn't even package OpenOffice, and I don't know any Linux user who uses OOo.

Here's one. Never thought it necessary to change. OO works just fine.

And another one to some extent: oOo uses its own font rendering, the LO team (I gather) moved over to using libraries (harfbuzz) available in host OS for font rendering. I seem to have better results on former under some circumstances.

I have not had any round-trip editing problems flitting between the two under Linuxen of various kinds.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#237

Post by the_duke »

okket wrote: post #178
antoineMoPa wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience would be the contrary. I felt Libre Office had better document compatibility and a better user experience, so I stopped using Open Office. Maybe it improved since then. I would also like to see something to back up the claim you are talking about.

Please ask the author on the OO-dev mailing list, I just quoted him http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282...

I misread your comment.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#238

Post by mindcrime »

davidgerard wrote: post #201
mindcrime wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gerard, take your anti-AOO trolling somewhere else. I've had enough of it.

I think the problem there is that you are, literally, one of the AOO developers who spent his time commenting on blogs and forum sites, flaming people who were pointing out the Emperor's new security policy - while not lifting a finger to actually stop distributing security holes to your own users. It is possible you don't have the moral high ground here. Dab hand at flaming people, though, well done.

Maybe so. At any rate, have a nice day, and a great weekend!

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#239

Post by the_duke »

DannyB2 wrote: post #131
rincebrain wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a gift from Oracle, so it should have been immediately obvious that it would turn into a gigantic pooch screw. It was clear developers were going to flee whether Oracle kept it, or whether Oracle gave it away. It was toxic coming from Oracle, just as if it had been a 'gift' from Microsoft. (PowerShell on Linux. Need .NET on Linux. Clippy on Linux: it looks like you're trying to get useful work done. Would you…

OT:

I think you're wrong there.

IMO MS realized that Windows Mobile is doomed, people (especially under 20) use tablets and phones more and more instead of their desktops (the exception is work, obviously), and in the server market, they have very harsh competition from Linux. They will be in trouble in the medium term.

So the sensible thing to do is to broaden their appeal to different platforms.

A smart and sensible move. To be commended.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#240

Post by rectang »

mindcrime wrote: post #235
davidgerard wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not like AOO owes the world anything. It arguably owes its users not distributing security holes to them. Sitting on the vulnerability since October 2015, only revealing it in July because the reporter said they were going public with it ... there is no way that is responsible stewardship of end user software. In fact, I just checked - I went to www.openoffice.org, went all the way through to download, and it…

In the strictest sense, as a volunteer who gets paid nothing for participating in this, my responsibility is "nothing". In a sense related to my personal sense of commitment, I think it goes without saying that we want to ship secure software, all the time, every time and to fix security holes as soon they appear. But what we want and what we have the resources to do aren't always the same thing. In terms of the vari…

Note that informing the user is not sufficient for an Apache project. If the project cannot respond effectively to security reports, it must retire.

This is part of the ongoing discussion on the dev lists. The OP quotes Dennis, the OpenOffice Chair to this effect.

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