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Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

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Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#111

Post by jnbiche »

david-given wrote: post #54
jnbiche wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> It's always been too buggy, by which I mean, obvious visible UI bugs immediately after installation.

Really? I've installed Mate on ~10 computers, and have never run into UI bugs. I run Mate, my two kids run it on their computer, and I'm sometimes on that one helping them with school related stuff. Never run into UI bugs. I don't doubt that there are such bugs, but in my experience they're pretty rare (unless the project has taken a recent nosedive, always possible in open source).

I've run into some UI bugs using Mint Cinnamon, are you sure you were using Mate and not Cinnamon?

Do you remember what the bugs were? If it's something you can remember, I'll see if I can fix them so that future users don't run into them.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#112

Post by jimjag »

okket wrote: post #89

Parallel universe: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282... If we look at LibreOffice and compare: LibreOffice, that is *good* (not more) software and *excellent* public relations. OpenOffice, that is *excellent* software and *pretty bad* public relations. Proof: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282... Secondly, as alluded to above, we should prepare ourselves for the FU…

"End users play no role any more? Good luck with that."

In what parallel universe do you get that conclusion from that thread?

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#114

Post by fluidcruft »

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…

This is probably the best workable solution if the projects were to merge somehow as it preserves the attempted marketing niche of each "name".

I haven't followed this in a long time but I thought Sun/Oracle management of OpenOffice was crux of the problem? I've probably been out of the loop for too long.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#115

Post by cs702 »

OpenOffice's website design, marketing efforts, and documentation are less friendly to non-technical people that those of LibreOffice, the most prominent fork of OpenOffice. Subtle "superficial" details matter a lot to non-technical people -- for example, LibreOffice's web page has a "Get Help" link, instead of a "Support" page.

In addition, LibreOffice has been the default office suite in key GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu for many years.

As a result, the LibreOffice fork has been more widely adopted than OpenOffice, leading to the present situation.

One possible path for the OpenOffice folks would be to copy the Linux kernel and become an "upstream project" that others use to create a range of office-suite distributions like LibreOffice. In other words, stop packaging and marketing OpenOffice to end-users. Stop competing for end-users with downstream projects.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#116

Post by bluejekyll »

erelde wrote: post #56
justin66 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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")

Thomas Paine always comes to mind, but I can't find any direct quotes where he used Libre. (American)

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#117

Post by fosco »

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.

ditto

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#118

Post by ergl »

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's spanish, so 'lee-breh'

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#119

Post by jimjag »

cs702 wrote: post #115

OpenOffice's website design, marketing efforts, and documentation are less friendly to non-technical people that those of LibreOffice, the most prominent fork of OpenOffice. Subtle "superficial" details matter a lot to non-technical people -- for example, LibreOffice's web page has a "Get Help" link, instead of a "Support" page. In addition, LibreOffice has been the default office suite in key GNU/Linux distributions…

"One possible solution would be for the OpenOffice folks to copy the Linux kernel and become an "upstream project" that others use to create a range of office-suite distributions like LibreOffice."

... which were exactly the thoughts and reasons behind Apache accepting OO in the 1st place. For various reasons this obviously never happened. But it WAS the idea from the start.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#120

Post by okket »

jimjag wrote: post #112
okket wrote: post #89

Parallel universe: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282... If we look at LibreOffice and compare: LibreOffice, that is *good* (not more) software and *excellent* public relations. OpenOffice, that is *excellent* software and *pretty bad* public relations. Proof: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282... Secondly, as alluded to above, we should prepare ourselves for the FU…

"End users play no role any more? Good luck with that." In what parallel universe do you get that conclusion from that thread?

My last remark was too snarky and out of context, I am sorry. You want both projects to merge again with OO being the 'core' and LO the 'user interface'? Sounds intriguing, but are both code bases still compatible enough for that? Would this not be more effort than gain?

  What is obvious is that the AOO project cannot support, at
  the present time, being an end-user focused effort. I would
  suggest we focus on not being one, but instead being a
  framework or library that can be consumed by actual
  end-user implementations.
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