Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 14:14 UTC (Tue) by ingwa (guest, #71149)
Parent article: Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

So now they are three again: LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice and Calligra...

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 14:22 UTC (Tue) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link] (12 responses)

Not really. Libre has a huge headstart in terms of features and bug-fixing and creating maintainable code, and can pull in anything that Apache changes almost as soon as they change it. It also has many more developers and much more work done on it all the time.

It'll be a while before Apache's office catches up, and then it has to thrive and exceed the others. Which I don't really see happen.

You only have to load the two up side-by-side to see which one is actually a more "complete" and usable office suite, and just look at the code to see which has cleaner code. In one of the LibreOffice releases they deleted / translated some thousands of German comments and hundreds of unused functions, for instance. That suggests they had a much better understanding of the code and what it does and what is used before Apache OO even existed.

I think Libre has "won" and will probably continue to "win" for a while yet. Until then, the others are just free sources of patches.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 15:01 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (1 responses)

This is a case where choice is not a great thing to have, as there's no real diversity: both are "twin" code bases. I would prefer AOO developers helping start up a new code-base from scratch or helping Calligra instead.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 15:31 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

A computer history book I read (possibly "A Few Good Men From Univac") had an anecdote about "one point to the wedge" being necessary to make forward progress. And when even prominent non-programmers like Neil Gaiman are taking sides:

http://mobile.twitter.com/neilhimself/status/198880813520...

It's pretty obvious where that point is.

(The great thing about distributed source control is you can marshall patches in large groups with less merge friction, which means sucking everything of interest out of a branch is much less time consuming. But you still need everybody to agree on where "upstream" lives and what they're resyncing with. Apache OpenOffice really has no point, it exists because Oracle had an attack of ego and Apache inexplicably went along with it.)

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 15:53 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (3 responses)

I think Libre has "won" and will probably continue to "win" for a while yet. Until then, the others are just free sources of patches.

Calligra forked from KOffice, not OpenOffice. It has little or no common code with OpenOffice/LibreOffice, I believe.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 16:06 UTC (Tue) by sorpigal (guest, #36106) [Link] (2 responses)

No code, but it's a (somewhat) viable office suite. There just aren't many of those.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 8, 2012 17:26 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (1 responses)

Correct. It would be just great if Calligra could spawn the webkit of Office suites (OfficeKit?). With Harmattan Office in the Nokia N9, it looked like this was just about to happen, but Nokia is difficult to predict these days.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 9, 2012 14:56 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

My prediction: Nokia will become less and less of a handset maker, and more and more of a patent troll*. Sometime within the next few years, someone will buy the leftovers for the patents and/or to make them go away.

* Yeah, I know that it is not _real_ patent trolling as long as they make products themselves, but I guess you know what I mean.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 9, 2012 1:49 UTC (Wed) by leif81 (guest, #75132) [Link] (5 responses)

This battle likely won't be won on technical bullet points, but in marketing. And in that regard my money is on AOO.

It's got the name "Apache"
It's got the original name "Open Office"
And it doesn't have some funny french word "Libre" in the name.

*shrug*

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 10, 2012 23:26 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (4 responses)

Likely not. When one can throw away something because the cost of getting it was near zero, then marketing is not all that important. Features are.

And, btw, why do you feel this way about a word? Isn't Office english enough for you? Are you afraid of becoming less masculine or something?

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 10, 2012 23:28 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

And I know of at least 4 languages that can claim that "Libre" is a valid word in the dictionary, starting with spanish.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 14, 2012 12:44 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (2 responses)

While I have no semantic or cultural objection to the name, I do have an aesthetic one: /ə.ɒ/ (i.e. mid-central vowel followed by a short open back rounded vowel, with a syllable boundary between them), as found in the middle of "LibreOffice", seems phonologically misbegotten to this particular Anglophone's ear.

(From the software standpoint, I'm in favour of LO rather than AOO.)

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 14, 2012 13:41 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (1 responses)

The World is big and chock-full of people that do not speak English. Be a bit more open, it will make you Libre.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 released

Posted May 14, 2012 14:32 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

The first time I've seen libreoffice in my system during "apt-get upgrade" I was confused. After all, what "lib-reoffice" does?