8 ms·

I like name LibreOffice much better. Maybe because when I tried using OpenOffice while I was at university it sucked really bad. I tried LibreOffice like 5 ye

by ozim 4y ago

I like name LibreOffice much better. Maybe because when I tried using OpenOffice while I was at university it sucked really bad. I tried LibreOffice like 5 years ago and I am using it day to day and I donated money to them and consider donating again.

scarmig 4y ago
Speaking purely based on the name, not the actual software: What comes to mind when I hear the name LibreOffice is historically mediocre FOSS that you'd only choose for ideological reasons, which is why the libre part needs to be advertised up front. When I imagine what it looks like, I'm imagining some creaky UI that looks like GIMP from 1999. It's worse, even, than OpenOffice, because OpenOffice is the obvious name if you're going for the ideological angle, which suggests that LibreOffice is a shitty knockoff of a shitty knockoff. Honestly even StarOffice is more appealing to my ears. I'm positive that all of this is deeply unfair, but that's what comes to mind. Part of the negativity probably relates to conflating LibreOffice and OpenOffice in my head.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Now when I will hear libreoffice again, what will come to mind are clueless illiterate gringos ridiculing themselves on hacker news.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > because OpenOffice is the obvious name if you're going for the ideological angle I disagree. I associate "Open" with corporate-interest driven "open source", BSD licensing, and cynically misleading branding (OpenDNS). 'Open' is the word you use if specifically don't want to invoke GNUy left-adjacent ideologies.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    Open Server. But even with these damaging examples which I agree with you about, it's still better.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  > StarOffice is more appealing to my ears Now THAT's a name I haven't heard in a while. And it does sound vaguely attractive, certainly more than the two alternatives.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    My embarrassing mistake is that I don't accidentally call Libreoffice Openoffice as often as I accidentally call it Staroffice.
weberer 4y ago
Yeah, when I hear Libre Office, I think "That FOSS word processor" When I hear Open Office, I think "That dystopian floor plan corporations use when they decide cubicles aren't soul-crushing enough"
- ozim 4y ago
  It might be that - Libre seems to sound or feel more like "free". Where "Open" feels like corporate BS, maybe even worse like corporate BS that some crushed soul came up with.
kdmccormick 4y ago
Meh, I guess it's all subjective, but OpenOffice has a certain alliterative, authoritative-sounding ring to it. The name LibreOffice feels clunky & hokey in comparison. It's a bummer that the latter wasn't able to adopt the branding of the former.
- usrn 4y ago
  Yup. When I hear OpenOffice I think of something professional. When I hear "libreOffice" I think of the Adwattia icon set and gnome crashing because of some broken default.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    I don't know why you're downvoted. LibreOffice is the superior product and perfectly good, but this is a perfect expression of the mental image the two names evoke. The actual quality of the software is a seperate issue. I didn't interpret your comment as attacking the software. The office sofware anyway! :)
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  One of the problems with OpenOffice was/is that it's a trademark in Brazil and the Netherlands. I don't know much about the Brazilian case, but in the Dutch case it's a small IT consultancy focusing on Linux and other Open Source stuff. Especially given they operate in the same kind of space that OpenOffice.org (the office suite) it's led to some amount of confusion.
- flomo 4y ago
  Agreed, also "libre" is a gnu/jargon word which doesn't exist in most people's vocabulary, and probably seems meaningless or foreign.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    That part of the open source community literally prioritises linguistic whimsy over success.
mmmpop 4y ago
LibreOffice sounds like a co-working space founded by college libertarians.
- ozim 4y ago
  I am not really a hipster type - but still like that name :)
reaperducer 4y ago
I like name LibreOffice much better. "FreeOffice" would have been better, if available. If you want mass adoption, use a word the masses use. Apple doesn't spend billions on branding because it doesn't work.
- godot 4y ago
  There is indeed a product with the name FreeOffice, in the same category, by SoftMaker.
  - colejohnson66 4y ago
    Maybe call it something other than "X"Office? The names are too few and too generic to be a meaningful distinguisher, IMO. It's like how every hobby assembly is <letter>asm. Slapping "free/open/libre" in front of a generic word has limits.
- Macha 4y ago
  Freeoffice as a name is a bit reminiscent of the junkware you used to get on discs with magazines. I wonder what the modern equivalent is, probably the websites that show up in results if you google for US free tax software or video conversion tools that are just bad ad-filled guis around ffmpeg probably.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    Many of the people using it are not old enough to remember that.
    - Macha 4y ago
      And I would wager many of the people in that group of not being old enough to remember it are not in the market for any desktop office suite.
justin66 4y ago
> I like name LibreOffice much better. There's no accounting for taste, but if past threads on the topic are to be believed, there is not even a consensus on how it's pronounced. That alone makes it a highly questionable product name.
- richrichardsson 4y ago
  I can only imagine this is split between those who (correctly) think it's pronounced "Lee-bra"[1] (like Libra the star sign) or "Lie-bra"[1] (like fibre). I can't imagine how on earth it would be possible to be so unaware of other languages that one could even arrive at the second option. [1] In both cases the A is a "short" A.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    You've found a pronunciation that I've never heard a single person use (your confidently "correct" one.) The second one, "lee-burr", I've heard. "Lee-bray" is nearly correct if you think it's from Spanish, and "Lee-bruh" is nearly correct if you think it's from French, where the "a" is a schwa (ə), not a "short a."
    - richrichardsson 4y ago
      I had forgotten about Spanish pronunciation (more like "Lee-br-eh" than "Lee-br-ay" if memory serves correctly, but was about 35 years since doing a couple of years of Spanish in school so I won't be nearly as over-confident). I was thinking of French and meant "the "a" is a schwa (ə)" when erroneously calling it a "short a", I never know the correct names for the different vowel sounds. I'm really not sure how you arrived at "a pronunciation that I've never heard a single person use". I may have used wildly incorrect terminology, but given the star sign example I'm curious how you pronounce Libra that is so wildly different from "Lee-bruh" (being a reasonable approximation of French "libre")?
  - 4y ago

by ozim 4y ago

scarmig 4y ago

Speaking purely based on the name, not the actual software: What comes to mind when I hear the name LibreOffice is historically mediocre FOSS that you'd only choose for ideological reasons, which is why the libre part needs to be advertised up front. When I imagine what it looks like, I'm imagining some creaky UI that looks like GIMP from 1999. It's worse, even, than OpenOffice, because OpenOffice is the obvious name if you're going for the ideological angle, which suggests that LibreOffice is a shitty knockoff of a shitty knockoff. Honestly even StarOffice is more appealing to my ears. I'm positive that all of this is deeply unfair, but that's what comes to mind. Part of the negativity probably relates to conflating LibreOffice and OpenOffice in my head.

prmoustache 4y ago
Now when I will hear libreoffice again, what will come to mind are clueless illiterate gringos ridiculing themselves on hacker news.
robonerd 4y ago
> because OpenOffice is the obvious name if you're going for the ideological angle I disagree. I associate "Open" with corporate-interest driven "open source", BSD licensing, and cynically misleading branding (OpenDNS). 'Open' is the word you use if specifically don't want to invoke GNUy left-adjacent ideologies.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  Open Server. But even with these damaging examples which I agree with you about, it's still better.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gattilorenz 4y ago
> StarOffice is more appealing to my ears Now THAT's a name I haven't heard in a while. And it does sound vaguely attractive, certainly more than the two alternatives.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  My embarrassing mistake is that I don't accidentally call Libreoffice Openoffice as often as I accidentally call it Staroffice.

weberer 4y ago

Yeah, when I hear Libre Office, I think "That FOSS word processor" When I hear Open Office, I think "That dystopian floor plan corporations use when they decide cubicles aren't soul-crushing enough"

ozim 4y ago
It might be that - Libre seems to sound or feel more like "free". Where "Open" feels like corporate BS, maybe even worse like corporate BS that some crushed soul came up with.

kdmccormick 4y ago

Meh, I guess it's all subjective, but OpenOffice has a certain alliterative, authoritative-sounding ring to it. The name LibreOffice feels clunky & hokey in comparison. It's a bummer that the latter wasn't able to adopt the branding of the former.

usrn 4y ago
Yup. When I hear OpenOffice I think of something professional. When I hear "libreOffice" I think of the Adwattia icon set and gnome crashing because of some broken default.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  I don't know why you're downvoted. LibreOffice is the superior product and perfectly good, but this is a perfect expression of the mental image the two names evoke. The actual quality of the software is a seperate issue. I didn't interpret your comment as attacking the software. The office sofware anyway! :)
Beltalowda 4y ago
One of the problems with OpenOffice was/is that it's a trademark in Brazil and the Netherlands. I don't know much about the Brazilian case, but in the Dutch case it's a small IT consultancy focusing on Linux and other Open Source stuff. Especially given they operate in the same kind of space that OpenOffice.org (the office suite) it's led to some amount of confusion.
flomo 4y ago
Agreed, also "libre" is a gnu/jargon word which doesn't exist in most people's vocabulary, and probably seems meaningless or foreign.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  That part of the open source community literally prioritises linguistic whimsy over success.

mmmpop 4y ago

LibreOffice sounds like a co-working space founded by college libertarians.

ozim 4y ago
I am not really a hipster type - but still like that name :)

reaperducer 4y ago

I like name LibreOffice much better. "FreeOffice" would have been better, if available. If you want mass adoption, use a word the masses use. Apple doesn't spend billions on branding because it doesn't work.

godot 4y ago
There is indeed a product with the name FreeOffice, in the same category, by SoftMaker.
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  Maybe call it something other than "X"Office? The names are too few and too generic to be a meaningful distinguisher, IMO. It's like how every hobby assembly is <letter>asm. Slapping "free/open/libre" in front of a generic word has limits.
Macha 4y ago
Freeoffice as a name is a bit reminiscent of the junkware you used to get on discs with magazines. I wonder what the modern equivalent is, probably the websites that show up in results if you google for US free tax software or video conversion tools that are just bad ad-filled guis around ffmpeg probably.
- Aloha 4y ago
  Many of the people using it are not old enough to remember that.
  - Macha 4y ago
    And I would wager many of the people in that group of not being old enough to remember it are not in the market for any desktop office suite.

justin66 4y ago

> I like name LibreOffice much better. There's no accounting for taste, but if past threads on the topic are to be believed, there is not even a consensus on how it's pronounced. That alone makes it a highly questionable product name.

richrichardsson 4y ago
I can only imagine this is split between those who (correctly) think it's pronounced "Lee-bra"[1] (like Libra the star sign) or "Lie-bra"[1] (like fibre). I can't imagine how on earth it would be possible to be so unaware of other languages that one could even arrive at the second option. [1] In both cases the A is a "short" A.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  You've found a pronunciation that I've never heard a single person use (your confidently "correct" one.) The second one, "lee-burr", I've heard. "Lee-bray" is nearly correct if you think it's from Spanish, and "Lee-bruh" is nearly correct if you think it's from French, where the "a" is a schwa (ə), not a "short a."
  - richrichardsson 4y ago
    I had forgotten about Spanish pronunciation (more like "Lee-br-eh" than "Lee-br-ay" if memory serves correctly, but was about 35 years since doing a couple of years of Spanish in school so I won't be nearly as over-confident). I was thinking of French and meant "the "a" is a schwa (ə)" when erroneously calling it a "short a", I never know the correct names for the different vowel sounds. I'm really not sure how you arrived at "a pronunciation that I've never heard a single person use". I may have used wildly incorrect terminology, but given the star sign example I'm curious how you pronounce Libra that is so wildly different from "Lee-bruh" (being a reasonable approximation of French "libre")?
- 4y ago