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A perfect time for Apache Foundation to admit OpenOffice demise, and endorse LibreOffice instead. They recently were removed from Gentoo Linux, hopefully other

by xvilka 6y ago

A perfect time for Apache Foundation to admit OpenOffice demise, and endorse LibreOffice instead. They recently were removed from Gentoo Linux, hopefully other distributions soon.

deepstack 6y ago
why do you say that? I truly want to know why I should pick LibreOffice over OpenOffice, or on Mac NeoOffice
- toweringgoat 6y ago
  Because OpenOffice is hugely outdated and gets barely any updates. That's a problem for various reasons: - MS Office compatibility, which Libreoffice invests heavily in. - Security: from what I remember OpenOffice struggled to ship fixes to various security issues in the past years. Meanwhile LibreOffice invest quite a bit: they're able to ship security fixes fast, and have spent time fuzzing and otherwise hardening code. - Support: if you want commercial support, LibreOffice has that (not relevant for consumers, but important for enterprise). OpenOffice hasn't even had a major release since 2014, only very rare point upgrades. That kind of cadence speaks for itself.
selfhoster11 6y ago
I find myself agreeing with this. LibreOffice is de-facto a superset of everything that OpenOffice provides. There is no benefit to keeping these two brands alive and diluting mindshare among non-technical users who now have to be told "OpenOffice shouldn't be used, go with LibreOffice instead", which confuses them. I think it's far better that the two projects merge and go the way of the GCC fork reunification [0] - one should remain standing as the brand, the other be folded into the main codebase. A few years ago I would have said that the remaining name should be OpenOffice, since it's more familiar and less awkward to pronounce for some English-speakers. On the other hand, Libre seems to be gaining some recognition of its own these past few years, so it's less clear-cut now. [0] https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History#Reunification https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History#Reunification

by xvilka 6y ago

A perfect time for Apache Foundation to admit OpenOffice demise, and endorse LibreOffice instead. They recently were removed from Gentoo Linux, hopefully other distributions soon.

deepstack 6y ago

why do you say that? I truly want to know why I should pick LibreOffice over OpenOffice, or on Mac NeoOffice

toweringgoat 6y ago
Because OpenOffice is hugely outdated and gets barely any updates. That's a problem for various reasons: - MS Office compatibility, which Libreoffice invests heavily in. - Security: from what I remember OpenOffice struggled to ship fixes to various security issues in the past years. Meanwhile LibreOffice invest quite a bit: they're able to ship security fixes fast, and have spent time fuzzing and otherwise hardening code. - Support: if you want commercial support, LibreOffice has that (not relevant for consumers, but important for enterprise). OpenOffice hasn't even had a major release since 2014, only very rare point upgrades. That kind of cadence speaks for itself.

selfhoster11 6y ago

I find myself agreeing with this. LibreOffice is de-facto a superset of everything that OpenOffice provides. There is no benefit to keeping these two brands alive and diluting mindshare among non-technical users who now have to be told "OpenOffice shouldn't be used, go with LibreOffice instead", which confuses them. I think it's far better that the two projects merge and go the way of the GCC fork reunification [0] - one should remain standing as the brand, the other be folded into the main codebase. A few years ago I would have said that the remaining name should be OpenOffice, since it's more familiar and less awkward to pronounce for some English-speakers. On the other hand, Libre seems to be gaining some recognition of its own these past few years, so it's less clear-cut now. [0] https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History#Reunification https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History#Reunification