Re: [libreoffice-users] Demise of Open Office

Hi :)
It wasn't that bad.  Also although OpenOffice seems to be fading away right now t6hat could be just 
a temporary phase.  

Oracle are in the process of giving OpenOffice to the Apache Foundation at the urging of IBM 
apparently.  When Apache take on a project they have a process to convert it to their style of 
working.  OOo is quite different from most of their projects so it's taking a lot to re-organise 
it.  Once they do get going they are likely to get code dumps from IBM to give them a bit of a 
boost.  

About a decade ago, when OpenOffice first forked from Star Office there was a plan to eventually 
move it into an independent Foundation.  Somehow a decade slipped by with OOo staying under Sun's 
management.  When Oracle took over Sun's assets it seemed a good time to implement the plan that 
had been developed during the decade.  Oracle didn't seem keen to develop OOo anyway, at least not 
until after The Document Foundation had been up-and-running for a while.  That was about when 
Oracle seemed to start getting a bit petulant and childish imo.  Then a few months later we had the 
race to get the 3.4.0 out and TDF won by miles purely because there is so much momentum behind LO 
and a great team of devs and more.  

LibreOffice continues to be a "drop-in replacement" for OpenOffice and OpenOffice is not dead.  
It's just "resting" (well actually working quite hard in a 'behind the scenes way').  So, it's ok 
to stick with OpenOffice for now and change over later if you want.  Both use the same formats as 
do quite a number of other programs.  

Just to completely contradict that i would recommend moving to LO but only because i think it's 
prettier and nicer and does more and has a vitality and excitement about it.  So, its a personal 
recommendation based on aesthetics more than practicalities really.  

It is possible to have both on a single system but they are too similar so it's not trivial.  This 
guide can help if you fancy trying that
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
It is really designed for multiple copies of LibreOffice but a bit of imagination can twist it 
around a bit :)

Again it's not really important to do that just as it's not important to change to LibreOffice just 
yet if you don't want to.  

Regards from
Tom :)



--- On Thu, 24/11/11, Spencer Graves <spencer.graves@prodsyse.com> wrote:

From: Spencer Graves <spencer.graves@prodsyse.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Demise of Open Office
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Cc: "John Gregson" <jfgregson@shaw.ca>
Date: Thursday, 24 November, 2011, 18:14

      In brief, over a year ago, most of the primary contributors to the Open Office project became 
so offended by what they perceived as inappropriate actions by Oracle that they forked the project. 
 Their fork became LibreOffice.  The original fork has apparently had very few contributions since. 
 For more, see Wikipedia, "LibreOffice"  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice).


      The divorce from Oracle was not amiable, but LibeOffice seems to be thriving while Open 
Office is not.  I started using LibreOffice early this year.  I noticed a few bugs that seemed not 
to be present in the then-current version of Open Office.  However, I think those bugs have been 
fixed with many others in subsequent releases of LibreOffice.


      Spencer Graves


On 11/24/2011 9:44 AM, John Gregson wrote:
> I am an older person, with limited computer knowledge, using Open Office 3.3; on Win 7.
> Would some Kind Soul please explain why Open Office seems to be fading away.
> In Open office, I use Writer and Calc; I assume that the OOo files are compatible
> with Libre Office.
> Should I start using Libre Office immediately?
> Please keep abbreviations to a minimum., or at least explain the abbreviation.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> John.
>
> John. jfgregson@shaw.ca


-- Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567
web:  www.structuremonitoring.com


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