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Apache foundation should donate the "OpenOffice" brand to LibreOffice!! The OpenOffice brand is still very well know, and unfortunately the current situation m

by frik 9y ago

Apache foundation should donate the "OpenOffice" brand to LibreOffice!! The OpenOffice brand is still very well know, and unfortunately the current situation might trick average joes to download and outdated unsupported build, while the very active LibreOffice is around the corner.

milankragujevic 9y ago
Agreed, my friend who installs software and OS' on companies' computers as a job, usually installs OpenOffice. He never heard of LibreOffice and was shocked when I told him that nobody uses OpenOffice anymore.
- cbhl 9y ago
  Frankly, the only reason I heard about LibreOffice is because I upgraded Ubuntu that one time
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I had a disagreement last year where someone was arguing for OpenOffice because it was the project they'd used for years, and I was arguing for LibreOffice because that's where all of the new development is. I was able to point to multiple major LO releases in the same period that one or two minor OO releases happened. I don't remember if I ever convinced them, but it became even clearer to me that OO's development is the dried husk of its former self.
mwfunk 9y ago
This would be the best possible outcome. The whole LibreOffice naming thing was very unfortunate.
Jedd 9y ago
No one should do anything ... but IMO the best outcome here would be for AOO to a) highlight the availability of LibreOffice on their landing page (with perhaps a header on their other web), and b) release a final OpenOffice version with some similar pop-up or notification that directs users towards LibreOffice.
- newscracker 9y ago
  At the moment of this reply, your comment was downvoted, and I don't understand why. People, or at least techies, when talking about free/libre open source projects, see them as double edged swords - on one side, a diversity in solutions provides choice (and better chance of it being upheld over time) along with freedom to users, and on the other side, the complaints are usually about a lack of focus, with energy and time being split across projects rather than uniting against locked-in commercial interests. From the latter point of view, I personally would prefer AOO doing exactly what you stated in the interest of "greater good".
  - Jedd 9y ago
    Thank you. I possibly should have augmented with a comment around how I think trying to re-re-name LibreOffice back to OpenOffice would be a bad idea. Even though I'm one of the minority that understands the nature of the fork, and the current status of both projects, as some LO developers have noted here it would not be palatable to some of them to try to flip back to 'OpenOffice' as a project name. I don't believe educating users of OpenOffice about the name change is an intractable problem, but, again as some LO contributors have noted here, it's not necessarily LO's role to do this, nor is it something they necessarily could do. But it is something the AOO team could do, and, as per TFA, it's probably now the right thing to do.
- derekp7 9y ago
  AOO could also fork LO, and call it AOO version 5. Then LO becomes to AOO what Debian is to Ubuntu.
newscracker 9y ago
As fattire proposed in another comment > How would the Lo people feel about a simple redirect from Oo.o-> Lo.org w/some kind of banner welcoming users, and some kind of upgrade path from Oo->Lo? That would be a better option, IMO. LibreOffice not being well known would be helped if such a move were done. Changing the name of LibreOffice to something else would be a longer marketing exercise, and if LibreOffice does want such a change, I'd rather have it become something entirely new with "Office" as a prefix or suffix than using the name OpenOffice (I personally don't like it because of the history associated with it).
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
I've not looked at this in years but as I remember it Apache took over the OpenOffice.org brand and that OOo could not be "Open Office" (or a direct variation) as that was already a [text] trademark for an office suite [or something in class 9] from some other source. Isn't that why it's "Apache OpenOffice" because they can't call it just "OpenOffice", similarly Siemens have a mark "HiPath OpenOffice". Eg https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00001421077 https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00... a dead application for "openoffice" from Oracle, expired in 1997 on non-payment of renewal. [A modicum of research ensues ...] Seems, https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/bookmark?s=ju0uijpgg5uupublble76hu20p https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/bookmark?s=ju0uijpgg5uupublble76..., there's a valid mark in Canada, Switzerland, and Russia owned variously by Sun, Oracle, Apache. It's very generic IMO; a poor mark even if it could be secured.

by frik 9y ago

milankragujevic 9y ago

Agreed, my friend who installs software and OS' on companies' computers as a job, usually installs OpenOffice. He never heard of LibreOffice and was shocked when I told him that nobody uses OpenOffice anymore.

cbhl 9y ago
Frankly, the only reason I heard about LibreOffice is because I upgraded Ubuntu that one time
khedoros1 9y ago
I had a disagreement last year where someone was arguing for OpenOffice because it was the project they'd used for years, and I was arguing for LibreOffice because that's where all of the new development is. I was able to point to multiple major LO releases in the same period that one or two minor OO releases happened. I don't remember if I ever convinced them, but it became even clearer to me that OO's development is the dried husk of its former self.

mwfunk 9y ago

This would be the best possible outcome. The whole LibreOffice naming thing was very unfortunate.

Jedd 9y ago

No one should do anything ... but IMO the best outcome here would be for AOO to a) highlight the availability of LibreOffice on their landing page (with perhaps a header on their other web), and b) release a final OpenOffice version with some similar pop-up or notification that directs users towards LibreOffice.

newscracker 9y ago
At the moment of this reply, your comment was downvoted, and I don't understand why. People, or at least techies, when talking about free/libre open source projects, see them as double edged swords - on one side, a diversity in solutions provides choice (and better chance of it being upheld over time) along with freedom to users, and on the other side, the complaints are usually about a lack of focus, with energy and time being split across projects rather than uniting against locked-in commercial interests. From the latter point of view, I personally would prefer AOO doing exactly what you stated in the interest of "greater good".
- Jedd 9y ago
  Thank you. I possibly should have augmented with a comment around how I think trying to re-re-name LibreOffice back to OpenOffice would be a bad idea. Even though I'm one of the minority that understands the nature of the fork, and the current status of both projects, as some LO developers have noted here it would not be palatable to some of them to try to flip back to 'OpenOffice' as a project name. I don't believe educating users of OpenOffice about the name change is an intractable problem, but, again as some LO contributors have noted here, it's not necessarily LO's role to do this, nor is it something they necessarily could do. But it is something the AOO team could do, and, as per TFA, it's probably now the right thing to do.
derekp7 9y ago
AOO could also fork LO, and call it AOO version 5. Then LO becomes to AOO what Debian is to Ubuntu.

newscracker 9y ago

As fattire proposed in another comment > How would the Lo people feel about a simple redirect from Oo.o-> Lo.org w/some kind of banner welcoming users, and some kind of upgrade path from Oo->Lo? That would be a better option, IMO. LibreOffice not being well known would be helped if such a move were done. Changing the name of LibreOffice to something else would be a longer marketing exercise, and if LibreOffice does want such a change, I'd rather have it become something entirely new with "Office" as a prefix or suffix than using the name OpenOffice (I personally don't like it because of the history associated with it).

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

I've not looked at this in years but as I remember it Apache took over the OpenOffice.org brand and that OOo could not be "Open Office" (or a direct variation) as that was already a [text] trademark for an office suite [or something in class 9] from some other source. Isn't that why it's "Apache OpenOffice" because they can't call it just "OpenOffice", similarly Siemens have a mark "HiPath OpenOffice". Eg https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00001421077 https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00... a dead application for "openoffice" from Oracle, expired in 1997 on non-payment of renewal. [A modicum of research ensues ...] Seems, https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/bookmark?s=ju0uijpgg5uupublble76hu20p https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/bookmark?s=ju0uijpgg5uupublble76..., there's a valid mark in Canada, Switzerland, and Russia owned variously by Sun, Oracle, Apache. It's very generic IMO; a poor mark even if it could be secured.