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Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

Summary: The Apache Software Foundation issued a statement today officially naming the open source project Apache OpenOffice.org and emphasizing to naysayers that it will continue to develop the open source office suite and prevent fragmentation.

Paula Rooney

By for Linux and Open Source |

Citing its success with other donated projects, the Apache Software Foundation vowed to protect OpenOffice.org and prevent fragmentation.

In a lengthy statement issued to naysayers and concerned parties today, the ASF rejected claims that OpenOffice would be neglected and pointed to its success with other adopted open source projects such as SpamAssassin as proof that the "Apache Way" will grow and develop OpenOffice.

The ASF also noted that the project would be known under the name Apache OpenOffice.org and is officially in incubation status.

Oracle donated OpenOffice to the ASF in June. Enhancements and updates will be issued when they are ready, the statement said.

"As with many highly-visible products, there has been speculation and conjecture about the future of OpenOffice.org at Apache. More recently, destructive statements have been published by both members of the greater FOSS community and former contributors to the original OpenOffice.org product, suggesting that the project has failed during the 18 weeks since its acceptance into the Apache Incubator," the statement noted.

"Whilst the ASF operates in the open –our code and project mailing lists are publicly accessible– ASF governance permits for projects to make information and code freely available when the project deems them ready to be released. Apache OpenOffice.org is not at risk."

The ASF also noted that there's plenty of room for competition and pledged cooperation with LibreOffice, another OpenOffice,org project that spun off from the original OpenOffice.org after Oracle acquired it from Sun.

"At the ASF, the answer is openness, not further fragmentation. There is ample room for multiple solutions in the marketplace that are Powered by Apache. We welcome differences of opinion: a requirement at Apache is that a healthy project be supported by an open, diverse community comprising multiple organizations and individual contributors," the statement read.

"We congratulate the LibreOffice community on their success over their inaugural year and wish them luck in their future endeavors. We look forward to opening up the dialogue between Open Document Format-oriented communities to deepen understanding and cease the unwarranted spread of misinformation."

Topic: Open Source

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  • That's great

    "We congratulate the LibreOffice community on their success..."

    What success? We have two open source communities developing same, yet different projects. How about joining forces so that OpenOffice/Libre Office doesn't suck as much?
    statuskwo5
    Reply Vote

    • Agree 100%

      @statuskwo5 There are two things they need to do:<br><br>#1- Join forces<br>#2- Get rid of the stupid name LibreOffice and keep OpenOffice (without the .org)<br><br>I was a user of OpenOffice.org since 1.x all the way to 3.1 .... when it was of acceptable quality. Then Oracle took over and from 3.2 on the project became bloated, ridiculously sluggish (ie: slow) and unacceptably buggy.<br><br>When LibreOffice was release, I gave it a try .... and turned out to be WORST than OO.org. I would create a document, save it, come back the next day and find that all the formatting is screwed up. I could not create a document that would look the same on two machines or even the same machine that created it.<br><br>My company gave me a legal license of MS Office to use at home. So I kind of given up on Open/Libre. I may eventually give it another try ... but for now, at least I don't have to pay or resort to pirated software to get the job done.
      wackoae
      Reply Vote

      • Seems like people just want to hate Oracle

        @wackoae What exactly did they do to OO? It was buggy and slow before Oracle acquired it and they did nothing to fix it.

        What a joke it is that the devs cant collaborate...instead we get a lot of wasted effort..just cause some devs hate oracle.

        Avoid the childish bickering and buy Office...and then get your work done. Office is a much better product anyways.
        otaddy
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

      @statuskwo5, don't forget IBM's Lotus Symphony based on the same code
      d.marcu
      Reply Vote

      • Yeah ... because OpenOffice is built on top of Eclipse SWT

        @d.marcu Lotus Symphony is based on Eclipse SWT. There is a HUGE difference in the source code for Symphony and the source code use in OpenOffice.
        wackoae
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

        @d.marcu Ibm also announced they were giving the source from lotus symphony to apache, so hopefully a lot of those improvements are included.
        Atomic1fire
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

      @statuskwo5 Nothing Oracle touched will ever be put onto my PC. That's why.
      timspublic1@...
      Reply Vote

      • I hope you are checking closely, you may be surprised

        @timspublic1@... Seems like a childish attitude,but whatever.
        otaddy
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

      @statuskwo5 You are more than welcome to join in the effort, volunteer your time and fix the parts that "suck".
      BrentRBrian
      Reply Vote

    • Probably never happen.....

      @statuskwo5

      The LibreOffice has all the coders from the original OpenOffice project and have been updating the LibreOffice suite already. The Apache coders will need to learn the OpenOffice code, plus the IBM code, before than can attempt to make any updates to the OpenOffice suite.

      My guess is that it will be one to two years before any significant updates are done to OpenOffice. In the meantime, LibreOffice will be two to three years ahead.

      Oracle should have spin off OpenOffice much sooner to have prevented the fork of a project that they were not interested in.
      linux for me
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

        @linux for me

        Me thinks it was no accident to cause, or pray for, a fork.
        Raid6
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

      @statuskwo5
      What success? Your avatar speaks volumes.
      businessandpolitics
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

    But nobody will care. We all know that the real application is now called LibreOffice. OpenOffice will die because Oracle tainted it and now nobody wants it. Nice.
    timspublic1@...
    Reply Vote

    • If Oracle transferred the copyrights...

      @timspublic1@...
      ...then I think the taint is gone. Hopefully, Apache will quickly mend fences with the Document Foundation, allowing full cooperation between the two projects.

      I typically avoid generalizations that use the words "nobody" or "everybody", as they are almost always false.
      John L. Ries
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

        @John L. Ries
        In general, everybody understands so nobody feels slighted.
        Agnostic_OS
        Reply Vote

    • Quite right, no one will care

      @timspublic1@...
      Of course, I mean about both OO and Libre. The code is hopelessly behind the commercial products. They can't even get the fundamentals right.

      Both will go down in history as late, missing basic features, and generally kludgy.
      Cynical99
      Reply Vote

      • And yet...

        @Cynical99 <br>...Hundreds of thousands of people use OOO/LibreOffice every day. My wife (a longtime spreadsheet jockey) swears that OOOCalc is the best spreadsheet on the market.

        See my previous post on the use of the words "nobody" and "everybody".
        John L. Ries
        Reply Vote

      • No one?

        @Cynical99 wrote:<br>"OO and Libre. The code is hopelessly behind the commercial products.<br><br>Here's a link to one of the few surveys on office suite usage:<br><br><a href="http://www.webmasterpro.de/portal/news/2010/02/05/international-openoffice-market-shares.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.webmasterpro.de/portal/news/2010/02/05/international-openoffice-market-shares.html</a><br><br>Microsoft Office is the clear winner (surprise!). Followed, in decreasing order, by OpenOffice (including StarOffice and Ooo derivatives), Apple iWork, Corel WordPerfect and SoftMaker Office. Even if one cuts OpenOffice market share values by a factor of 2 to account for dual installs with Microsoft Office. The survey is pretty recent too, February, 2010. However, it predates the OpenOffice and LibreOffice split in late 2010.<br><br>That's right. OpenOffice beat out Apple iWork, Corel WordPerfect and SoftMaker Office, which are commercial products. At least, the last time I checked Apple, Corel and SoftMaker were commercial enterprises.<br><br>Might want to reconsider "no one" and "hopelessly behind the commercial products".
        Rabid Howler Monkey
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

        John L Ries
        Funny the spreadsheet jockys where I work would kill me if I even suggested OO or Libre - In fact, we could save several million (very large company) a year if we switched form the infamous MS Office to OO or Libre. To that end, some folks did a major study, and by the way, they had an agenda to get OO into the company at any cost.

        Even they couldn't prove any financial gain to moving to OO. The accountants hated it and wouldn't give them the time of day.

        Considering the accountants work for a rather large global concern (lets say profit in one small business unit was over $1 billion last year), they know their stuff.

        Open Office lost hands down because they hated it.

        Don't know who your spreadsheet jockys are, but your company might want to look for some new jockeys as yours are unqualified at best.
        Cynical99
        Reply Vote

      • Best spread sheet on the market?

        John L. Ries:
        No, not anywhere near the best. I work with some pretty good, full time spread sheet types, and they wouldn't touch OO with a 10 foot pole (maybe 20). Second rate and just doesn't work as advertised in the hard core usage.

        Rabid Howler, remember Germany is the same mentality that lead Munich to choose OO and their disaster encouraged Berlin to drop their proposed migration.

        Even though the Germans have an ax to grind to support Open Source, they couldn't even make it work.

        Nope, no one cares.
        Cynical99
        Reply Vote
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