The State of Apache OpenOffice As Of Early 2021

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The State of Apache OpenOffice As Of Early 2021

It's rare to hear of OpenOffice usage these days compared to LibreOffice, but the open-source office suite is still going ahead under its volunteer work at the Apache Software Foundation. This past weekend at FOSDEM 2021 was a status update on Apache OpenOffice...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apache-OpenOffice-2021-State

[chocolate]

tl;dr It's a bad stinky joke and its existence is detrimental to any FOSS ecosystem, those who still download it by mistake would rather want to download LibreOffice instead, but don't know about the offerings from the Document Foundation. I'm certain about this. I've had friends and family members fall victim of the malevolent Apache OpenOffice developers.
Hard fact that no amount of Apache Cemetery PR mumbo jumbo will ever erase.

Apache developers, you are on the wrong side of history. End of story.

[uid313]

It looks like Apache is dipping their in the sand, pretending that LibreOffice doesn't exist. It is obvious that nobody is interested in contributing to OpenOffice and the code base is rotting, putting any resources into it seems like a bad strategy since the project doesn't seem to progress and LibreOffice is the successor to OpenOffice whether they like it or not.

Apache Software Foundation (ASF should question themselves why nobody is contributing to OpenOffice, and why developers abandoned it and forked it it into LibreOffice. Maybe ASF is just too boring and stiff.

Maybe ASF should save themselves and everyone else some trouble and just kill off the OpenOffice project and hand over the OpenOffice.org trademark to the LibreOffice project.

[Slartifartblast]

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This Office Suite is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-OFFICE SUITE!!

[ALRBP]

Seriously, I support freedom of choice between different software when both have their advantages and limitations but can anyone give me good reason to choose AOO rather than LO?

It's not like one of those "softwars" I won't cite where each camp has its positions you may or may not agree with but still makes sense. In this case, you have most people working on a good office suite and a few people living in a bubble where this good office suit doesn't seem to exist!

[kpedersen]

Perhaps management will choose it for their internal site software image because they don't trust the "Community" edition of LibreOffice?
I wonder if this will add life back into OOo.

[vhaarr]

tl;dr It's a bad stinky joke and its existence is detrimental to any FOSS ecosystem, those who still download it by mistake would rather want to download LibreOffice instead, but don't know about the offerings from the Document Foundation. I'm certain about this. I've had friends and family members fall victim of the malevolent Apache OpenOffice developers.
Hard fact that no amount of Apache Cemetery PR mumbo jumbo will ever erase.

Apache developers, you are on the wrong side of history. End of story.

This needs to be said more often. Well said. Hear, hear!

I would have put it even more harshly, and I'd yell it from every rooftop if I knew someone using OOo would be listening.

EDIT: As an aside, "likes" on forum comments are not nearly visible enough. If an OOo developer reads this thread, I'm sure they'd miss the fact that the quoted reply by chocolate has 10+ "likes" at the time of this edit.

[loganj]

well i gave up OO by force of habit since it was remove from package manager.
but i have to say that i never regret moving to libreoffice.
i had OO installed at work last year (IT guys seems to be unaware of libreoffice) and i felt like i had stickers stuck on all my fingers. it felt so wrong. not to mention that on a huge spreadsheet it froze completely. i had no issue with libreoffice on that same spreadsheet. it had some formulas to count base on colors i think. i don't remember. it just froze in OO. thank got i had admin rights and installed LO

[sveld]

Maybe ASF is just too boring and stiff.

Probably this, AOO still measures it's relevancy by referencing the download stats and sadly not by measuring user happiness (unless you count their dev's in, but something tells me those are not that happy either with the situation and product). Pushing AOO relevancy makes the Apache brand more relevant. If Apache was to "loose" (donate, sell,.. if allowed) the OO brand, which in their opinion was "given" to them (of course that's true), that would be taken as a (personal) failure. Following some of the heated discussions, this IMO seems to be just a personal fight of some insiders.

[Duve]

Probably this, AOO still measures it's relevancy by referencing the download stats and sadly not by measuring user happiness

Even that isn't the proper metric at this point, because it seems clear to me that they have a user base that they can utilize but none of them have the expertise of contributing to the code base. A classic function of the freeloaders dilemma, and something that AOO will have to solve because it's ultimately killing the project. It doesn't matter how many downloads they get, or how many users use the product.... At the end of the day any open source project's survival is how many contributors it's getting and how many volunteers/full-time workers are committed to the code base.
And it really doesn't help that not only do they have to contend with that, LO happens to work in the same space and get a lot more contributors. So when it comes to volunteers there is definitely a competition for them.

I've heard the calls of AOO to transfer the trademark rights, but at this point it's too damaged to actually be useful for anything. Unless they stage revival of the project, which doesn't seem possible right now.