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An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team

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  An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team True Satan <true_satan@fastmail.co.uk> - 2015-08-18 16:12 +0000
    Re: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-08-19 19:19 +0000
      Re: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team True Satan <true_satan@fastmail.co.uk> - 2015-08-19 20:18 +0000
        Re: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-08-20 05:28 +0000
          Re: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-08-20 07:26 +0000

#8379 — An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache Open Office Team

https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2015/08/17/an-open-letter-to-apache-
foundation-and-apache-openoffice-team/

Excerpt from above linked article:

So I realize that the Apache Foundation took a lot of pride in and has 
invested a lot of effort trying to create an Apache Licensed Office suite 
based on the old OpenOffice codebase, but I hope that now that it is 
clear that this effort has failed that you would be willing to re-direct 
people who go to the openoffice.org website to the LibreOffice website 
instead. Letting users believe that OpenOffice is still alive and 
evolving is only damaging the general reputation of open source Office 
software among non-technical users and thus I truly believe that it would 
be in everyones interest to help the remaining OpenOffice users over to 
LibreOffice.

And to be absolutely clear I am only suggesting this due to the stagnant 
state of the OpenOffice project, if OpenOffice had managed to build a 
large active community beyond the resources IBM used to provide then it 
would have been a very different story, but since that did not happen I 
don’t see any value to anyone involved to just let users keep downloading 
an aging releases of a stagnant codebase until the point where bit rot 
chases them away or they hear about LibreOffice true mainstream media or 
friends. And as we all know it is not about just needing a developer or 
two to volunteer here, maintaining and developing something as large as 
OpenOffice is a huge undertaking and needs a very sizeable and dedicated 
community to be able to succeed.

So dear Apache developers, for the sake of open source and free software, 
please recommend people to go and download LibreOffice, the free office 
suite that is being actively maintained and developed and which has the 
best chance of giving them a great experience using free software. 
OpenOffice is an important part of open source history, but that is also 
what it is at this point in time. 

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#8387

On 2015-08-18, True Satan <true_satan@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
> https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2015/08/17/an-open-letter-to-apache-
> foundation-and-apache-openoffice-team/
>
> Excerpt from above linked article:
>
> So I realize that the Apache Foundation took a lot of pride in and has
> invested a lot of effort trying to create an Apache Licensed Office
> suite 

Interesting letter.  Just saw this posted at the Register as well, where
they point out the Apache folks replied, somewhat indignantly, that they
in turn don't agree with some of the decisions the LibreOffice people
are making.

Guess these are destined to stay two separate projects.  I don't have a
problem with that, if the two projects were better differentiable.
Let's see OO.o do something radical if they're able.  I personally find
both a bit stale.

In fact, it might be nostalgia, that treacherous bitch, but my favorite
office suite of all time was Star Office 8.  I ran it in about 2003 on a
SUSE 8.2 32 bit distro.  That was about as good as Linux and its apps
ever got for me.  LibreOffice seems to be making investments in
important things under the surface, which impresses me, so I'll give
them some more time.  But I still see them simply aping Microsoft Office
in every way but the Ribbon.  Would love to see something new, and not
just for entertainment's sake (although, for that reason too).

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#8391

I see it more as their wish to fulfil the needs of enterprise (and nation 
state) backers who are footing the bills for a good number of developers 
and various infrastructure. These backers are, at minimum, highly welcome 
and perhaps vital to the project yet they come with baggage in that 
they've been inculcated into believing that they have need for a lot of 
the feature sets found in Microsoft Office and thus push hard for 
replication of these feature sets. I can't be hard on The Document 
Foundation for keeping such backers content...even if you regard it as a 
necessary evil that still implies an acceptance of its necessity.

 Looking to the future I feel optimistic...the LibreOffice teams are 
catching up to MS in feature set terms and though they may never get an 
exact parity as they get closer might then we see more unique features 
appear thanks to less resources being spent on feature replication?

 I have less than fond memories of downloading Star Office via a 
miserable metered dial-up connection and that it would not work with an 
interrupted, and later resumed, connection...the thought of having to go 
through that hell again to upgrade to a later version coloured my 
judgement somewhat though in use I had no great issues to report.

 As regards LO vs AOO...once IBM jumped ship from AOO I couldn't see how 
it was going to be able to do more than gasp for air. Maybe it can get 
the odd lungful but, long-term, things don't look good.

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#8408

On 2015-08-19, True Satan <true_satan@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>  I have less than fond memories of downloading Star Office via a
>  miserable metered dial-up connection and that it would not work with
>  an interrupted, and later resumed, connection...the thought of having
>  to go through that hell again to upgrade to a later version coloured
>  my judgement somewhat though in use I had no great issues to report.

Ha ha, that is my exact memory of downloading the (awesome) Ximian gnome
desktop for SuSE (either 7.1 or maybe 8.0).  Compared to other desktops,
Ximian's was really refined, and it came with the comparatively awesome
Evolution email client, which was the big draw for me.  But you
connected to your metered dial up, pumped a raw wget script into an
xterm, and went to bed, hoping for the best.  If memory serves, it took
me three tries before my dialup connection was able to swallow the large
download required to install the damned thing.  After so much time,
money, and anxiety, I was afraid to do anything at all that might screw
it up!

Interesting thought: replicating that desktop must now be impossible.
No old ISOs or repos would hold it, Ximian is long gone, dead, and
buried, and I can't think of any other way you could fire up a VM with
an old distro and reinstall Ximian.  Interesting note for posterity -
it's gone, thanks to its choice of distribution mechanism.

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#8411

On 2015-08-20, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

> But you
> connected to your metered dial up, pumped a raw wget script into an
> xterm, and went to bed, hoping for the best.  If memory serves, it took
> me three tries before my dialup connection was able to swallow the large
> download required to install the damned thing.  After so much time,
> money, and anxiety, I was afraid to do anything at all that might screw
> it up!
>

Sounds exactly like installing Mac OS/X down my "broad"band. That took
3 goes, too.

-- 
Today is Boomtime, the 13th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3181
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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