A look in on Apache OpenOffice [LWN.net]

A look in on Apache OpenOffice

Posted Mar 17, 2012 13:43 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
Parent article: A look in on Apache OpenOffice

The elephant in the room is IMHO: "What does this huge exercise in replication bring us, OpenOffice.org users?" The answer is, by what I can read from this article: nothing at all.

Rewriting some code because some libraries are GPL is fine, but just furthers the goals of the Apache foundation. Inter-project hostility can be fun for developers, but again brings us nothing. New features and bug fixes are scarce and slow in the coming, which resembles too much the old OO.o development model. Lastly, graduation as an Apache project is fine for bureaucracy, but does no good for users.

Oracle may have got what they wanted: get rid of a cost center which was not bringing any sales. We Linux users will hopefully get our improved office suite shots from an independent provider, LibreOffice. The Apache foundation, I suppose, hopes to get broader exposure outside its current user base of developers -- anything they get in that area would be a gain for them. But I feel AOO it is a train wreck of xfree86 proportions.

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A look in on Apache OpenOffice

Posted Mar 17, 2012 17:19 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

The elephant in the room is IMHO: "What does this huge exercise in replication bring us, OpenOffice.org users?"

Maybe the reason that elephant isn't being talked about is that everyone knows why it's there. Asking what the replication brings to OpenOffice.org users is like asking what good the violence in Darfur brought to the civilians there.

Also, it's a pretty small elephant because nobody chose to have replication per se; i.e. it's not that some people have perpexingly neglected to take into account what replication brings to the users in deciding to have replication.

A look in on Apache OpenOffice

Posted Mar 17, 2012 21:39 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

From our side of things (Linux users, now mostly LibreOffice users), you are quite right. But this article centers on the Apache side of things, and it is over there that this kind of blunt questions should be asked.

For instance, it would have been hard, investigative journalism if our intrepid editor had interviewed someone from the Apache Foundation about it: what do you expect to give your users that LibreOffice doesn't bring to the table? Or, what goals did you have in mind when you accepted the code base in the first place? (Said editor should strive to keep a poker face and avoid the "what were you thinking" intonation.) We know (and have read here on LWN.net) the answers from the LibreOffice side, they are convincing, and furthermore their project is delivering.