Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Posted Sep 7, 2016 8:18 UTC (Wed) by Del- (guest, #72641)In reply to: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice by jimjag
Parent article: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Please, please, please. With lots of cream and sugar on top. For the sake of all of us. Transfer whatever IP/trademark/domains you can to TDF/LO as soon as possible. The whole AOO tragedy is arguable among the top three factors blocking an open source desktop from succeeding the last five years. That is why we are frustrated, and some of us boil over. It is the kind of schism none of us needs. I believe permissive licensing has it's place, but by now it should be obvious to everybody that office suites is not the place. Maybe ten or so years from now, but certainly not now.
Posted Sep 7, 2016 10:57 UTC (Wed)
by johannbg (guest, #65743)
[Link] (1 responses)
All the major Linux distribution have been shipping LO pretty much from the get go which has been better maintained and thus better choice for open source desktop.
Arguably at this point in time ( if it ever had an opportunity to do so ) open source desktop will never succeed since
a) They dont have the financial and marketing backing to compete with likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google
I would say open source desktop environments will never succeed beyond being anything more than like minded people creating desktop environment to satisfy their own need to create one and the open source community to run one for the sake of it being open source ( idealism ) but I'm happy to be proven wrong thou I think that's highly unlikely since the desktop environments have been doing this for close to twenty years now without any remote signs of success compared to the other desktop enviroments and their OS on the market.
Posted Sep 7, 2016 12:54 UTC (Wed)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
Then you cannot have spent much time on the front lines. Microsoft Office (together with specialized software and device drivers) has been the main barriers of entry for the desktop. For free software companies, the first natural target was replacing the office suite. Then (if successful) you could start looking into the full desktop. Problem is, everybody thinks of openoffice because of brand recognition, so their (those who are using alternative desktops) experience and perception is from AOO. That makes it very much an uphill battle, or more accurately a lost battle. Redirecting all those kicking the tires of open source office suites to up-to-date libreoffice would be a very important step forward for everybody who wants to see open source prevail.
Whether an open source desktop will succeed or not is another discussion, but it seems Google already has done it with Chromebooks. Of course, they needed a competitive office suite first, namely Google docs. I would even claim that was the hardest part of it.
Posted Sep 7, 2016 23:00 UTC (Wed)
by lenov (guest, #15428)
[Link]
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
b) Their UI is too unstable to be used by novice end users
c) The distributions that those desktop environment run on top of are too fragmented which makes it impossible to properly integrated it into the OS stack, support it and develop applications for it.
e) All the effort has been too little to late these 20 years or so they have had to properly develop one so since the world is evolving away from the traditional desktop as we grew up with and know it.
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice
Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice