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I used it back when OpenOffice was just too slow and bloated to use very well on most computers I owned ~10 years ago and earlier. But through a combination of

I used it back when OpenOffice was just too slow and bloated to use very well on most computers I owned ~10 years ago and earlier. But through a combination of improved OpenOffice/LibreOffice performance and faster computers, I finally drifted away from AbiWord. For one, I still had to install OpenOffice for PowerPoint type work, so it was there anyway and it usually kept up with MS format compatibility better than AbiWord. I think the last straw for for leaving AbiWord behind completely was the Novell(?) patches that made OpenOffice feel more at home on Linux and stop sticking out like a sore thumb(and I think those were the same patches that led to the LibreOffice fork when Sun/Oracle wouldn't accept them).

chris_wot 11y ago
They were, under the go-oo.org push.
frik 11y ago
StarOffice 5.1 run fine on a Pentium 133MHz on Win95. It come from a German company which got bought buy Novell and rebranded and open sourced as OpenOffice 1x. Comparing StarOffice 5.1 and LibreOffice 4, lottle has changed. Well, the same can be said between Office 97 and Office 2016. The office suits were already feature complete in the late nineties, and conceptional issues still plague us 20 year later, as those programs saw only increamental improvements. While StarOffice was in good shape, OpenOffice was always in more rough shape, but nowadays LibreOffice cares more to deliver a more polished UX.
- gtufano 11y ago
  Star Division was bought by Sun Microsystems (later bought by Oracle). I was there, then. That's the original reason we have Oracle OpenOffice: Open Office part derived from Sun's OpenOffice; the Oracle part the reason for the split between LibreOffice and OpenOffice. ;-)
  - frik 11y ago
    Oh, yes I mixed hat up. It was Sun Microsystems. SuSE/Novell had a license deal with Microsoft. MS sold SuSE Linux and Novell added improved Office format and VBA compatibility to their OpenOffice fork. IBM forked OpenOffice for their Lotus suite. IBM Lotus Symphony.
- takno 11y ago
  Star office 5.1 could run on pretty limited hardware, but honestly it's a stretch to describe it as feature complete. That was the bad old days when I had to boot into windows to get most non coding work done.
  - frik 11y ago
    Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice Read the section "Components" incl "Older discontinued components" and "Proprietary components"! StarOffice up to v5.2 was amazingly feature full and feature complete. Newer StarOffice and OpenOffice/LibreOffice forks lost some functionality and contain incremental improvements. StarOffice 5.1 come even with its own Windows shell for Win95, that showed the Windows desktop icons, etc. (similar to what IE4 did with Win95, it came with a free shell upgrade, then it looked like Win98)
    - takno 11y ago
      That's kind of the point though. They threw in lawnmower and a kitchen sink, but the word-processor and spreadsheet were lacking basic features

chris_wot 11y ago

They were, under the go-oo.org push.

frik 11y ago

StarOffice 5.1 run fine on a Pentium 133MHz on Win95. It come from a German company which got bought buy Novell and rebranded and open sourced as OpenOffice 1x. Comparing StarOffice 5.1 and LibreOffice 4, lottle has changed. Well, the same can be said between Office 97 and Office 2016. The office suits were already feature complete in the late nineties, and conceptional issues still plague us 20 year later, as those programs saw only increamental improvements. While StarOffice was in good shape, OpenOffice was always in more rough shape, but nowadays LibreOffice cares more to deliver a more polished UX.

gtufano 11y ago
Star Division was bought by Sun Microsystems (later bought by Oracle). I was there, then. That's the original reason we have Oracle OpenOffice: Open Office part derived from Sun's OpenOffice; the Oracle part the reason for the split between LibreOffice and OpenOffice. ;-)
- frik 11y ago
  Oh, yes I mixed hat up. It was Sun Microsystems. SuSE/Novell had a license deal with Microsoft. MS sold SuSE Linux and Novell added improved Office format and VBA compatibility to their OpenOffice fork. IBM forked OpenOffice for their Lotus suite. IBM Lotus Symphony.
takno 11y ago
Star office 5.1 could run on pretty limited hardware, but honestly it's a stretch to describe it as feature complete. That was the bad old days when I had to boot into windows to get most non coding work done.
- frik 11y ago
  Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice Read the section "Components" incl "Older discontinued components" and "Proprietary components"! StarOffice up to v5.2 was amazingly feature full and feature complete. Newer StarOffice and OpenOffice/LibreOffice forks lost some functionality and contain incremental improvements. StarOffice 5.1 come even with its own Windows shell for Win95, that showed the Windows desktop icons, etc. (similar to what IE4 did with Win95, it came with a free shell upgrade, then it looked like Win98)
  - takno 11y ago
    That's kind of the point though. They threw in lawnmower and a kitchen sink, but the word-processor and spreadsheet were lacking basic features